An American in Japan

2006-04-12T20:24:00.000+09:00

Amanohashidate: The Bridge to Heaven

“Kavitha, WHAT are you doing? Are you sick, cuz girl you look crazy!?!” I shouted to my friend as we were on top of a mountain on the Sea of Japan. After stepping on a bench to see the view of the sea from the summit, my friend had immediately bent over as though she were going to be sick…until I realized that everyone else was doing the same thing. I knew Japanese people were a little crazy what with their dressing up as anime characters and drunk salarymen on the trains…but honestly, folks.

What I didn’t realize was that for millenia, visitors at the Bridge to Heaven have been doing this very same thing. Supposedly, it gives one the ultimate view of the tree-covered sandbar as it sweeps up toward the heavens. Amanohashidate (say that ten times fast), as it is known in Japanese, is one of the Nihon Sankei, or three most beautiful sights in Japan that have been worshipped for centuries. My buddy and I had used our Spring Break to join in on the affordable train fairs that are offered for young travelers, such as the “youthful 18” ticket that allowed us to travel for 5 very long hours to the northern end of Kansai, on the Sea of Japan.

What we didn’t realize, was that even after soaking in the amazing sights, walking for miles on the tranquil sandbar, visiting omiyage (local traditional souvenir/gift) shops and seeing temples was that the island literally shut down at 5:30. On the dot. We couldn’t even find a convenience store, which are as prominent in Japan as Starbucks in the states (it’s true, if Starbucks made “across the street from one another” stores popular, Japan perfected it)!

So hungry and tired, Kavitha did the only thing possible: stowed away on an express train, pretended to be asleep and made it back to Osaka in a quarter of the time it took us to get to the Bridge to Heaven. Seriously…why hadn’t I thought of it before? We’ve both paid an arm and a leg (and probably a spleen and kidney) in transportation costs in this country and the trains have an explicit “no waking foreigners up because they might curse at you in words you don’t understand” policy, so fortunately it worked to our advantage. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) for Kavitha and I, we have consciouses that work overtime, so we’re going to put our illegitimate train-hopping ways on the back-burner…

…at least until there’s another adventure to tackle!

2006-04-12T20:01:00.000+09:00

February 6-8^th: A Flurry of Fun at the Sapporo Snow Festival

I am your typical Midwestern girl, just like my profile states. I rode my bike to the local pool and roasted marshmallows regularly during our numerous camping adventures in the summer. In the winter months I would nurse my cold hands back to life by drinking gallons of hot chocolate after endless hours of vigorous sledding and creating snowmen. It was, if you will, the most quaint and vivid Americana experience a young, wide-eyed girl could wish for.
Decades later, transport me to an industrial, concrete city of 8 million, with no grass or snow to think of, and the word “claustrophobic” comes to mind. So when I heard of a literal winter wonderland that existed far North in Sapporo, the thought of frolicking amongst snowflakes immediately leapt me out of my winter blues!

Hokkaido is known for its vast natural elegance, complete with volcanic national parks, lavender fields spanning hundreds of miles and the Sapporo Snow Festival, claiming the world’s largest ice sculpture festival.

Kavitha and Yeon Wha, two of my fellow Fulbright gals, joined me in this adventure as we flew to this remote island (Japan’s largesse train system doesn’t even attempt to transcend this remote respite.

Unfortunately, even after living in a part of the nation where 10 below is warm for the winter, Osaka’s warm weather quickly acclimatized me to being used to 50 degree temperatures. Translation: Sapporo was friggin freezing! Even after immediately traversing the negative wind chill to buy long-underwear and extra mittens, I still had to wear two coats just to survive.

But Hokkaido’s meibutsu, or specialty, is boiling hot butter corn ramen. This particular fare is so infamous that Sapporo boasts a Ramen Alley, a street filled with just these kinds of vendors, all competing against one another for your business. Amidst the steam pouring from each store’s stoves, the brilliant neon lights and the screaming women clamoring on how their ramen is the best in Hokkaido. Needless to say, it was a difficult decision, but the three of us descended upon an old ojiisan’s (grandpa’s) stand and the smell was decadent. Whether it was the hours of travel, bitter cold or simply being among friends, it was most definitely the best ramen I have ever slurped up!

After wiping the soup from our faces and prodigiously thanking our new friend for the wonderful meal, we trotted off to the Susukino Ice Festival and the 56^th Annual Sapporo Snow Festival. With flashing lights, rock stars, hot chocolate and cameras, we tackled the hundreds of ice castles and snow statues that covered the streets. It was a beautiful sight but I still have to give my allegiance to the St. Paul Winter Carnival Ice Palace (gotta give props to my fellow Minnesotans!).

After drinking green tea to warm ourselves and getting a good night’s sleep, the three of us ventured out the next day to take in all the sights of Sapporo. With our faithful and handy Lonely Planet guide in tow, we checked out the Sapporo sights: the Old Government Building with its beautiful baroque architecture and official archives; the Sapporo Beer Factory, complete with taste tests of the barley and hops used in the production of the nation’s first brewery; the Clock Tower and its centuries old clock that withstands earthquakes and the University of Hokkaido. Whew!

After an exhausting day of sight-seeing, girls just wanna have fun. So we treated ourselves to a big bag of popcorn and a movie: “Pride and Prejudice.” Needless to say, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl in possession of a few yen must be in want of a good chic flick! Ya gotta love Jane!

The following day, after getting up early, we once again braved the cold to traverse up Mount Moiwa, which boasts a lovely view of Sapporo. Once we finally found the ropeway entrance that takes visitors to the summit, we were greeted with a zamboni-like machine that pulled an authentic sleigh to the observation deck. I felt like I was in some sort of bizarre science fiction and was waiting for someone to jump out and say, “You’re on candid camera.” Luckily, the trip was short, and the girls and I warmed ourselves up with coffee at the top of the mountain before once again braving the storm and taking in the amazing scenic views from 532 meters above sea level.

After that journey, we were wiped out and ready to head back home. With enough frostbite, pink noses and snowballs to satisfy me, I was happy to embrace Osaka as my home!

2006-04-12T18:34:00.000+09:00

Saturday, February 4^th: From China to

America

and back again!

After a wonderfully long and exhausting day of catching up with the other fellows and dining with the entertaining executive director of the program, we were all up for a day of exploring Saturday. Our thirsts pointed us in the direction of Yokohama, the metropolis adjacent to Tokyo, filled with towering brand new business parks right on the bay and boasted the nation’s largest Chinatown nestled in the middle of its 8 million residents.

So our little gaijin group of myself, Kavitha, David (our Nagasaki dude), Takara and Takaaki (our T’s from Sendai) are gathered together to handle our way through the fumbling Tokyo metro system to get to Yokohama. Unfortunately, of our pseudo-intelligentsia groupies, none of us had actually taken notice to figure out what to do and where to go when we arrived at Yokohama Station. Three subway stops, two confused station attendants, one information booth and plenty of random pedestrians later,
we found ourselves on our way to Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Japan standing at 972 feet tall and hosting the world’s fastest elevator, speeding up to the observation deck in less than 40 seconds.

Our little group was astounded at the beautiful views of Tokyo Bay and Mount Fuji and it made me anticipate climbing the mountain when my friends and relatives begin to visit me in Japan!

But before getting ahead of ourselves, our local guide Takaaki was adamant that we check out Yokohama’s Chinatown. This city within a city spans many a city block and is complete with hundreds of restaurants and even an authentic Chinese dragon that goes from storefront to storefront followed by fireworks. It was incredible to inhale the smell of Chinese sweets such as roasted almonds and take our time searching through the millions of tchochkes like sequined shoes and beanies. This place held everything you one could possibly conceived of when thinking of China!

David and Kavitha and I were dead set on finding a fantastic Chinese restaurant and after hours of searching and looking for just the right spot we’d found our heaven: all you can eat for an hour and a half. It was one of those restaurants where the food revolves in front of you, half teasing you to pick up every tasty-looking morsel just to see what those around you would say. Societal norms be damned because the three of us ate more than we had ever tried in our lives, more or less in Japan. We ate everything from rice pudding tapioca to spring rolls to beef and broccoli and egg drop soup. All of it was certainly delicious and lived up to its high expectations!

So the only way to top a phantasmagorically scrumptious trip to the Far East? Why to return to America, of course! At least in the form of Roppongi, the notoriously gaijin part of Tokyo where all the young clubbers and hip-hop goers retreat to. It is a land where English is spoken incessantly, bouncers hussle you in front of every door and dancing sensually to the music is passport to fun and fantasy...the perfect end to any Tokyo adventure!

2006-02-16T18:24:00.000+09:00

Wednesday, February 2^nd-Thursday, February 3^rd: Come, gentle night bus, come, loving, black-brow'd night bus…

In efforts to reach Tokyo in an economic fashion for my Fulbright mid-year conference, my wonderful gal pal Kavitha and I chose the infamous “night bus” in all its regalia to take us to our destination. Little did we realize that with the upcoming akiyasumi, or the two-month long spring break most colleges had sprung on its students, we were surrounded in Kyoto Station by hopped-up teens sporting the latest 4 inch boots, gelled hair with snowboards and Louis Vuitton purses in tow.

The night bus is something of a rather eponymous variable in Japanese culture. Akin to a Greyhound in the states, we must remember that the Japanese people are much shorter than their American counterparts, meaning that two lovely 5 foot 9 inch women can barely squeeze into seats that barely accommodate the thousands of 4 foot 10 inch ladies that frequently use these buses. With my heels on, I literally am double the size of many Japanese woman, creating a sort of albino Bigfoot anomaly that has more than once been cause for havoc and impromptu photo shoots. Oh yes, the words, “mite” or “look!” are emphatically shouted when I walk by just so avid onlookers can take in the frightening giantess that happens to grace the presence of many Kansai inhabitants. Thank God we were headed to Tokyo, where 1 in 10 residents marries a foreigner, and therefore is used to this strange spectacle!

Unfortunately, Kavitha and I were so ecstatic at the end of classes and kanji quizzes that we did not realize how early our bus would land in the phantasmagorical land of Tokyo. At 6:17 A.M. we were shortly shoved off our night bus and forced to reckon with the fact that we were in the middle of Tokyo for almost an entire day before we could check in to our hostel. But fear not, Starbucks was to the rescue! As your prototypical gaijin, we headed to the nearest over-priced coffee joint and relished in the free, heated environment of mass globalization for over three (yes, count ‘em three) hours until the stores in the glamorous Ginza opened for our perusal. Just imagine seeing two foreigners, hopped up on caffeine with no sleep and no showers for twenty-four hours gossiping over the latest news and excitedly pouring over the vast expanse of consumerism that is Ginza, and you’ll realize why few Japanese patrons actually chose to sit next to us at the crowded Starbucks….folks, this was a desperate situation!

Finally we decided to lug our luggage to the historic Asakasa where our hostel had been arranged. After a forty minute train ride, half an hour of searching, ten minutes of phone calls, and two minutes of Kristin throwing down her gargantuan suitcase in the middle of the street and crying for desperate help did we find the “luxurious” Khaosan Hostel. Imagine a prison cell…now imagine sharing a prison cell, one shower an sinks with no running water with 25 other people….that was the loveliness of our hostel. Despite its low price of $20 a night and free drink tickets to the nearby (20 minutes) bar, the place had no walls, little heat and foreigners that had been living there for months. If this was hell, we were certainly in its 9^th ring!

But, other Fulbrighters were quick to rescue our despair. After a quick shower and cat nap, we met up with friends and found a lovely restaurant in the nearby shopping district of Ueno, where we shared our tales of research and adventure for the past five months. With fabulous $3 glasses of wine, spectacular Italian-Japanese cuisine, and enough laughs to last us years over, we realized the close ties that we had formed with one another as we wined and dined one another. After all, when in Japan, do as the Japanese do, which means you must simply embrace your surroundings and let your friends melt away your fatigue and hunger with laughter and kinship!

2006-02-01T17:17:00.000+09:00

February 1st, 2006: Get your parkas: truthiness is the new black!

As I prepare for my trip to Tokyo, in great anticipation of joining my fellow Fulbrighters for our mid-year conference a melange of feelings has washed over me. Jumping on my suitcase, cramming in warm sweaters for our trip up to Hokkaido, the Northernmost island of Japan, to partake in the winter festival celebrations, sending off the last of letters and packages, I realize that in the midst of my life in Japan, something extremely significant has happened, and it almost slipped me by...

Hell, folks, has frozen over.

What? When did it happen? It started when truthiness, that word that defines, as the thoughful Stephen Colbert poignantly put it, the feeling in your gut rather than anything that can be claimed as fact, took precedence over anything concrete. Sure, James Frey fell to a million little pieces, Oprah supported, flip-flopped and then yelled. The Senate droned on and on and on about Alito, Bush wiretapped us all to figure out who's dating who and why....and now, W has seen the light...

The U.S.? Addicted to oil? Gosh, where have I been for the past 23 years...I must have been living under a rock in the Arctic Refuge...or hiding in my ginormous pimped out H2.

Or maybe, just maybe I was protesting for the freedom that all women want: the right to have men butt out of my reproductive private life and leave the abortion debate to my own choosing, rather than Sammy becoming the deciding factor.

Gosh, I'm gone for five months, and the country goes to pot (actually, it would of, but the Supreme Court ruled that we can't do that medically any more without fear of retribution).

So, I'll just put on my parka and ice skate over to Tokyo, where I am amicably joined by optimists, bright-eyed brilliant minds who still believe that the world can be saved. And we are going to do it, through medicine, education, human rights, economics, literature...and never give up, no matter how low our approval numbers drop, how often we are called traitors for questioning fundamental beliefs and no longer will we sit idly by and let our nation be destroyed by pundits.

I left America to study human rights....I never thought that the best place to do so would be right where I started.

Love,
An [extremely frustrated] American in Japan!

2006-01-28T14:58:00.000+09:00

January 28, 2006: In a post-modern feminist’s world

I am known for being loud, over-the-top, animated…and the words “Kristin” and “drama queen” are often used in the same sentence. In America, this makes me a wild child, in Japan, I am a rambunctious “seikyo” foreigner. Seikyo means forward in Japanese, which brings a very interesting topic to light. Back in the good old U.S. of A., a woman who grabs life by the horns and obtains what she wants is admirably ambitious. In Japan, this makes you exhibit male qualities that leave the opposite sex running for the yama (hills).

So why, in a nation as democratic and advanced as Japan, am I labeled “seikyo,” or forward? Why is this negative? Just because I don’t sit back, shut up and listen to my male elders, does that make me so outside of the pre-existing box that I’m a rude, overbearing enigma?

In America, of course, I understand that not anytime soon will the Republican rebel-rowsers be knocking at my door asking for contributions. I bilk marriage for law school, women’s rights rule over men’s egos, and antiquity and decorum be dammed when it comes to wearing high heels while vacuuming my living room…as Maureen Dowd (my heroine, about whom Salon.com’s Rebecca Traister writes, “You can love her or hate her, but you can't dismiss her”) says, “our Hoovers are turning on us.” Well I’d rather have the fat sucked out of me instead of my female charismatic values, also known as my God-given rights (take that Falwell and Alito).

Campus Progress critiques Dowd as criticizing the patriarchal boundaries but while living within them. Am I doing the same thing? In America, if I wanted something, I went for it! I wanted a man…I tagged and bagged him (kudos to you sweetie). I wanted to go to a fantastic college that was financially out of my league. I made sacrifices. I wanted to work for the Democratic presidential candidate, the leading female senator in Minnesota and the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner: I campaigned, I convinced and I conceded.

Unfortunately, us modern fem-Nazis (as my girlfriends in high school used to call ourselves) are nastily chided from all sides. The right call us lesbians at best and “anti-Christian immoral” women who ignore God’s place for us in the world [gag me]. The left, even the progressives, pettily accuse us of accepting the “gender games.” Others, like Katha Pollitt, a woman I respect greatly, of The Nation wrote, “The young women I know--most of whom, contrary to stereotype, have no problem calling themselves feminists--are so far ahead of where I was at their age, so much more confident and multicompetent and worldly-wise, I only wish I could hire one to renegotiate my girl-money salary for me.” While Pollitt claims that Dowd believes the age of Aquarius to be dead, alongside it’s “Feminism is Dead polemic.” Harsh words. But do they ring true in the new millennium for women in America and the world?

It seems that in an age where Germany’s Angela Merkel, even Chile and Liberia where Michelle Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf rule respectively and respectfully, that the only country that is steeped in a male patriarchy is the land of Starbucks, Botox and boob jobs. I’m not professing that feminism led nowhere, after all, my mom is still a tried and true hippie to this day still questioning my affinity for dresses and Dior, but are we really where we wanted to be? That is the question I believe Dowd to be asking, and we still ponder why? Why are we amazed at the Indira Gandhis, Margaret Thatchers and leaders with two X chromosomes that can be counted on one hand?

The answer was poignantly discussed in a recent New York Times column: “Women's successes in Liberia, Chile and Germany are being celebrated in part because this kind of achievement is still rare. In most countries, women have yet to achieve the critical mass at the lower levels of government that will be necessary if their ascension is to be seen as part of the normal course of politics.

In Japan, my joie de vivre trumps my femininity, unfettered by Asian, or even American convention. I refuse to uphold values that still continue, regardless of geographical location or boundary, to bind my values and dreams. I want to be the next Merkel, Bachelet and Johnson Sirleaf…whose poetic largesse and strong intellectual charisma led them to the top spots in their own countries. If that makes me seikyo, so be it. At least I’ll do it with dignity, and a little feminine finesse to boot!

2006-01-26T02:31:00.000+09:00

January 25, 2006: Foreigners, assimilation and the basic of all rights

“I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”-Robert Frost

Immigration versus assimilation. This topic transcends borders, from France and America to the far sea of Japan. What makes someone indigenous? Native? Why do some countries welcome foreigners and others create concrete walls of precaution to protect themselves from these “threats” (as Bush, Rove, Cheney and the rest of the White House cronies would have us believe them to be)?

Living in Japan as a five foot eight inch Caucasian woman, I obviously stick out in the massive Osaka crowds. I politely ignore the stares on the trains, laugh off the jibes in subways and calmly rebuke the negative jingoist comments I can often understand in Japanese. I never in my life thought that I would experience discrimination that I had read that existed in America or heard first-hand from my friends who experienced outright bigotry. Fortunately, the Midwest somewhat sheltered me from this harsh existence that many others experience, so my first-hand knowledge at being an outsider was the moment I entered the geographic borders of Japan as a “resident alien.”

The conversation is a fluid and timely one in our lives. We are still learning lessons from Paris’s riots, groping at understanding the subtle differences between Shi’ites and Sunnis, and commemorating Martin Luther King’s dreams of a day when the content of our character pushes aside color and creed. For now, however, we live in a time where the pugnacious nature of racism is truculently inevitable.

In Japan recently, one of the Diet (parliament) members proclaimed that Japan is a “homogenous” nation. Furor erupted from the Brazilian, Korean and Chinese communities (to name a few) who celebrate their ethnic diversity while embracing their inherent “Japanese-ness.” So why do some nations value the idea of a melting pot and what provokes others to forego this diversity?

The Economist from last November explained that “hyphenating beats segregating” in America, a nation whose stars and stripes better assimilate Arabs than France or other European nations. The article describes “assimilation” as the ability for minorities in America to have equal opportunities for education, income and advancement, i.e. social, educational, commercial, political equality. While I virulently inveigh that we as Americans have a long ways to go, I remember a conversation I had with an Arab-American friend of mine, Razi, several summers ago.

We met at a conference for young leaders concerned with American’s image in the world, and Razi was a representative from Dearborn, Michigan; the location of the nation’s largest Arab population. Being a deftly and embarrassingly ignorant Midwesterner, where the only diversity I ever experienced was the variety of cowboy hats I saw each day, Razi patiently described his reactions after 9/11, his Muslim faith and how he appreciated every opportunity to explain his views to an ignorant person (i.e. me). He truly believed that Arab-Americans had an opportunity those in other nations did not, even if he did get hassled by the FBI and frequently pulled aside at airports.

So why do nations like France and Japan not possess mechanisms that allow this same kind of understanding? I am not about to proclaim from a soapbox that American is the epitome of equality and understanding, but at least our nation was founded upon the shoulders of men and women who knew these borders were transient; a melting pot, an Ellis Island of good will toward all man and womankind, with a few bumps along the road of course (like Bush’s immigration plan).

My brilliant and insightful tomodachi Takara (Sista in Sendai) has highlighted the fact that in Japan, a place where thousands of years of culture meets tomorrow’s trends in technological and scientific advances, still has vast difficulties using archetypal images for minorities, from African-Americans to Korean-Japanese. And according to the Economist’s pre-requisites for assimilation, Japan certainly exudes arenas where fairness in social, educational and some political equality, at least for a modern, capitalist nation-state.

So what must be done? I too, am in a lover’s quarrel with the world, as Frost so poetically had inscribed on his epitaph. Therefore, I do not feel that we can simply envisage walls and borders. Rather than America alienating Vincente Fox and our Mexican neighbors, rather than Japan eliminating educational rights to foreign children, instead of ignoring the poverty of Arabs in Parisienne tenements, we need to inclusively create political equality for our increasingly globalize world. David Ardo, a human rights researcher colleague, highlighted in a recent Japan Times article how Japan must exhort lawmakers to support legislation that promotes the rights of gaikokujin, or foreigners and extend basic human rights to all peoples living within the borders of Japan. We must cede this bombastic idea that foreigners are a threat, and instead embrace the diverse qualities that they bring to our lives.

Only then can we truly embrace the ai, or love, that Frost, spoke of…the whole world over.

2006-01-25T00:09:00.000+09:00

January 24, 2006: A Room with a view...and so much more!

After a month long absence, I admit it is high time I get my writing into full swing and once again return to blogging. My holiday season was filled with warm wishes and wonderful family reunions as I traversed the world over to meet friends and family back in Rapid City, South Dakota. The season is never complete without passing away the hours with my mother cooking sugar cookies and cheesecakes, going to the quaint church my grandparents founded, checking out the latest happy hour specials in local, po-dunk bars with high school friends and simply remembering how blessed we all are for the opportunities we are given.

I sit here reminiscing over these warm tithes, of memories filled with beautiful, blinking Christmas lights, mugs of hot chocolate, and the brilliant white snows that graced the Black Hills while I was home. Rapid City will always be my home, and my mother said to me once I returned to Osaka, “Kristin, I am slowly learning that I need to let my children grow their wings. I can’t be your mother forever.” What an honest realization. For so long, I have thought that my life would be found within the memories encapsulated in South Dakota. I used to feel like Romeo, desperately proclaiming, “there is no world without Verona walls” when I thought of leaving my nest. Now, however, I have found the world to be flat, just as Thomas Friedman claims. Japan is really not so far from America is from France is from India, etc, etc, etc.

Of course, this bold realization also came with the arrival of my LSAT score, several days before Christmas. Sometimes, one wishes that Santa really would forget addresses, or not visit homes without chimneys, because the big guy upstairs was obviously not concerned for my Christmas wishes when I opened up my inbox and was filled with mixed reactions to my disappointing LSAT score.

Alas, my friends and family were right by my side to alleviate my woes with their support and I have now decided, much like Lucy Honeychurch, in E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View, that I have my whole life ahead of me to determine my course. I have now signed up for the Foreign Service exam should I want to pursue diplomacy as my friends at the American Consulate in Osaka have suggested. The GRE is another item on my To-Do list, considering I always wanted to obtain my Master’s in Public Policy. I might even spend next year teaching in China or writing in France. Who knows? The wonderful thing about life is that it is glorious and difficult all at the same time, as Forster wrote. We learn the instruments as we go along, and this is one heroine who has many things to check off her life’s To-Do list.

Ciao!

2006-01-13T23:44:00.000+09:00

Sunday, December 19^th

After a fitful night of fabulous taiko, I once again had the opportunity to have my Osaka gents escort me to yet another concert, this time to hear the wonderful group Ikari play. First things first, however. I was on a mission to get my cell phone to work again, regardless of me having not paid the bill for month (how long does the gaijin excuse work…one, two months?).

So I marched to Yodobashi Camera in downtown Osaka, had my list of vocabulary all prepared and the longer I stood waiting in line watching hundreds of consumers purchasing new ketai’s, my confidence shrank lower and lower. My friends warned me that I might be SOL, but I thought I could try right?

Luckily a kind gentleman came to my assistance, and as soon I rattled off my problem in Japanese, he ran off to help me, leaving me anxiously awaiting the outcome. Unfortunately he came back with a car charger and a grin a mile wide, proud that he could understand my awful Japanese. I felt like Paul Newman in “Cool Hand Luke;” “what we have here is a failure to communicate.”

An hour and a half later, my cell phone back to normal, I met my buddy Alex and we ran the 12 blocks to Liberty Osaka, a museum recently re-opened to support local human rights movements, which happened to be the host of the concert. Just before the concert started, we were seated (I always love to make an entrance) and the proud, anthem-like drum beats filled our ears. It was so powerful to see groups of otherwise disenfranchised minority ethnic groups coming together to celebrate something so primal, so Japanese. It was moving.

An afternoon of taiko cannot end without wining and dining with the taiko greats. Or so my friends convinced me as we traveled to Nara to dine at the home of the leader of Wudaiko Hiryu, Minehide-san. This is a gigantic man, bubbling with crude jokes and a personality that could fill the Parthenon. I was so honored at simply being invited, but was even more astounded as Shingo, another member of the group, joked with us that his house was called Minehide-jo, or Minehide’s castle. I understood immediately what he meant. With Jeep Cherokees sitting in the garage and a three story home complete with 60-inch flat screen HDTV, it wasn’t a castle but a palace!

With open arms and plenty of sake to go around Minehide warmly greeted us and we immediately settled around the kotatsu, a Japanese table with a heater underneath, to warm our hands from the cold and begin the fabulous meal of nabe. Nabe (literally meaning “pan”) is a traditional Japanese treat, where a large bowl with a soup base is placed on the dining table and everyone partakes in adding ingredients like mushrooms, cabbage, beef and onions. Each one taking his or her turn to stir the pot and serve one another. It is the ultimate communal dining experience, and for a nation that prides itself on integrity and social discretion, it is wonderful to simply sit, drink sake and share a meal with friends where no one cares who has “double-dipped” (George Costanza from Seinfeld would LOVE this culture!).

Amongst many cups of sake, red wine and cold beers, we somehow got through the language barrier and erupted with plenty to talk about, from food to sports. It was so wonderful to be in a home environment, complete with dogs in Santa suits and children running rampant. Unfortunately, the scene got a little too comfortable when my friend blurted to Minehide-san that I had a small crush on one of his group members, a young man named Makoto. Well, when a loud, gruff, practical jokester is armed with information like this, the only thing he can do is call Makoto on his cell phone, tell him there’s a foreigner who’s in love with him, and to get over here ASAP. Literally.

So an hour later, as I was trying to convince everyone that I was supposed to be making my way to Kyoto to meet friends, Makoto shows up, joins us, and is egged on by Minehide-san. The class clown even proceeded to put in a video of one of the group’s concerts and every time Makoto’s image graced the screen Minehide would cry, “Kristin-san, you see Makoto…eh?” with a grin a mile wide on his face. I couldn’t tell if it was the sake or the nabe, but things were definitely getting warm in the home, so I decided to graciously thank them for the meal and leave for Kyoto.

Or so I thought. Minehide took Makoto aside and asked him to drive me to the train station. With Makoto chain smoking during the inappropriately long drive to the station, I began to realize that I had no idea where I was. This feeling hit me hard as the car stopped in a covered garage and Makoto got out of the van. “Well this is the nicest train station I’ve ever seen,” I thought to myself, and no sooner had the thought entered my head did I realize where we were. Makoto had taken me to a love hotel, Japan’s equivalent of a seedy place where couples get it on. Before I could demand he take me back, he had a receipt for a room payment in his hand and was holding the elevator with a look like, “c’mon Kristin, what are you waiting for?”

So I did what any rational, confident twenty-something feminist would do. I screamed at him to leave immediately and drop me off at the next stop or I would hurt him severely. Oh, and who did he think he is? As his smile turned into a look of pure fear, he ran to the van and I quickly got out my cell phone, yelling into the microphone what had just happened as my friends laughed on the other end and Makoto tried to find the nearest station.

Very long story short, I made it to the station, but decided to go home after the eventful night. As it turned out, Minehide had dared Makoto to take me to the hotel and the poor kid fell for it…hook, line and sinker. It’s certainly a night I’ll laugh about for a long, long while.

2006-01-13T22:51:00.000+09:00

December 17^th, Saturday: A funny thing happened on the way to the taiko…

…when my local taiko gurus, Alex and Joe, graciously invited me to a fantastic Kodo concert before I left for Japan. I anxiously anticipated the event with bated breath. Since my time here in Japan began, my affinity for taiko, Japanese drumming, has skyrocketed, particularly since Kodo is one of the most world-renown groups in this genre, and they have a couple buff cuties showing off their muscles of steel of which I have developed an unhealthy crush. So, off to Southern Osaka I traversed to meet my boys and a few of their friends.

Or so I thought. As I tried to call them to ask where on earth I was going (you know Kristin and directions; my geography genes must have come from the paternal side of my family with my continued lack of public transportation know-how), my cell phone made a funny noise and died. But not before I received a dry e-mail from my cell phone provider stating I hadn’t paid my bill in several months. Uh-oh!

Not that I’m a delinquent or anything of the sort, but hey, things come up right? Now my friends and family will constantly laugh and tell you that when it comes to numbers and myself, we’ve never gotten along. More of a love-hate relationship. Heck, I barely passed math in college, what with my “Gateways of Mathematics” class where Professor “Paco” let us discuss our feelings on math. Yes, really.

But this time I had an excuse. Since moving from my friends’ place into my new apartment, my provider still hadn’t figured out the change of address. So on that fateful Saturday, they simply got fed up with me and cut off my service. It’s actually quite embarrassing and reminded me of those cliché TV episodes where you see the struggling artist return to his/her apartment only to find out the electricity has been shut off. (That reminds me, I must pay my electric bill.)

So after asking plenty of random strangers and almost missing another Kodo concert, I arrived at the hall just in time to meet my friends and rush inside. Of course, Kodo never disappoints, particularly since after the concert they came out and mingled with the audience. Merry Christmas to me!

2005-12-15T00:57:00.000+09:00

Wednesday, December 14^th: All You Need is Ai

“All you need is love.” That was a mantra touted in the 60s after the legendary Beatles crooned to their teenage fans. Not only did the mop top boys transform the definitions for pop cultural icons and establish themselves as music heavyweights, but their messages ring true today, particularly in times of rampant war and political divisiveness.

Therefore it seems most appropriate that Japan’s national kanji for 2005 is 愛, ai, or “love.” Since the great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, a new kanji is voted for annually to represent events and feelings amongst Japanese. Many polled claimed that they chose ai because of the Royal Princesse’s marriage to a commoner, losing her imperial title and privileges for none other than love.

But I think the idea transcends the literal meaning, as was displayed to me beautifully tonight at a Fulbright reception I attended in Osaka.

With the holiday cheer wantonly festooned throughout Osaka, complete with elaborate department store displays, jolly Santas in red suits, and “Happy Christmas” signs displaying the seasonal pride, I skipped through downtown Umeda to attend a lecture on “Postwar US-Japan Cultural Relations : John D. Rockfeller III and the ‘Dulles Peace Mission’ of 1951" by the fascinating Matsuda Takeshi.

Surrounded by professors, salary men, retirees, current students, Europeans, Japanese and Americans I realized how truly blessed I am to be in an environment where free cultural exchange runs wild. After the brilliantly engaging lecture, the 2005 grantees and the American Consul General were honored at a fabulous reception where we were able to discuss our projects and introduce ourselves, in complete Japanese of course.

I met several Osaka University colleagues who were excited to hear about my human rights research, one woman so much so that she invited me to speak at her lecture tomorrow on “Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: Facial Expressions.” If there is one thing I have learned in Japan, it is that the Japanese often use monotones and straight faces when they speak. Compare this with my overly animated feelings that I emote and my buoyant voice, it is no wonder that I am usually stared at as though placed in display in a museum. While I usually laugh it off as, “oh don’t worry about the silly gaijin (foreigner),” I am quite excited to be in an intellectual environment and hear how other foreigners and natives view the dichotomies between the very different ways in which we engage one another.

Another example of “ai” was when the Consul General himself, who I admit I have a bit of a crush on, asked me to join the consulate in the future to “debrief” them on the local human rights environment in Osaka. You certainly don’t have to pull my arm for that one! Trying not to swoon, I happily accepted, and also agreed to begin to organize video-conference lectures with some of my colleagues back in the states who would be interested in providing their opinions on a miscellany of Japanese subjects. How exciting! The idea of asking my former professors and friends to represent present their views to a rapt audience of interested foreigners!?! That is exactly what Senator Fulbright envisaged when he wrote about being a “cultural ambassador!”

Before I could jet home with a smile a mile wide, I was once again given the effulgent gift of sake. At the last Fulbright reception one of the kind alumni overheard I enjoyed this Japanese rice wine and ran to a nearby convenience store to purchase a bottle for me since this was the one item the bar was lacking. To my avid surprise he presented me with the bottle and we kanpaid (said cheers) together. My friend remembered my love for this delicate drink and once again we opened a bottle together.

The evening concluded brilliantly. My three months in Osaka have literally flown by, like the brisk winds that have brought winter to my home in Kansai. As I sit in my cozy apartment, surrounded by my makeshift decorations of Christmas lights and two foot tree, I am so thankful that in Japan, there is plenty of ai to go around.

2005-12-15T00:53:00.000+09:00

December 13, 2005: Popping the Bush Bubble

For those of you who also happen to live in a bubble (or possibly under a rock or in an Iraqi cave) the title of the blog is referring to the now infamous Newsweek article depicting W. as bubble boy, intimating that the president is so isolated that he is completely cut off from the rest of America. And the world. And reality.

We knew that the president was comfortable disassociating himself with his critics, but when he doesn’t even read the newspapers or magazines, as he admitted this week to NBC’s, Brian Williams, he is just as dislocated and illiterate as the half of the nation that doesn’t even open up a book each year. From battle ships to naval academies, Bush seems to surround himself with a cadre of safe, unassuming supporters, enough so that even Condy has warned others not to upset Dubya with bad news. Bush makes those of us who are open to new ideas and ready for verbal combat seem like warriors, when in reality, this is precisely the reason why democracy exists. A democracy with grandiose public forums where ideas are traded, problems are discussed and issues are resolved daily.

It is engagingly piquant (and downright timely) that historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has published a historical multiple biography of the genius behind Abraham Lincoln’s political savvy that allowed him to create a Team of Rivals. Rather than protect himself behind yes-men like ours truly, Lincoln’s cabinet encompassed a fathom of diverse and head-butting gentleman whose combined knowledge created one of the strongest cabinets in history. You can guarantee that Secretary of War Edward Stanton did not claim that we go forth into war with “the army we have and not the army we want.” And no one every heard Secretary of State William Seward claim that torture is an effective interrogation tool.

If only more vocal critics like Maureen Dowd and Newsweek’s own Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe would transcend the media and go straight to the public, forcing us to demand the truth. The facts. After all, the president answers to us, even if he won’t listen to us. I constantly find myself having to justify America’s presidential choice to inquisitive Japanese who wonder whether I, too, live in a bubble alongside W. I always jest by saying that I left the states precisely because of his lack of connection to the American people (well that, and he mistook Africa for a nation), but unfortunately that does not solve the problems inherent in the status quo. If we continue to demand transparency in our government, maybe, just maybe, W. won’t seem so washed up. After all, bubbles are fun to poke and prod, but with a little pressure, they can pop easily!

2005-12-06T02:20:00.000+09:00

December 6th: We Meet Again

Returning from Tokyo today after a long weekend of LSAT testing, bithday celebrating, and story-telling has left me tired but thrilled to have a large hurtle in my law school applications process completed. The test went well and it was wonderful to meet up with friends in Tokyo, which is one of my favorite cities in Japan, a place that emits electricity that one cannot help but seize and run with.

So now I embark a petite adventure: attempting to blaze my way through the last few weeks' adventures including Thanksgiving and ponder my latest thoughts and experiences through the written word. As the holiday season has arrived head-on, my sentimentality has taken me by storm as I am so thankful to have the opportunity to be in Japan and celebrate the Christmas spirit.

Thursday, November 24^th: A Very Thankful Thanksgiving

There are certain moments in space and time, where we have the rare clarity, a split-second moment, where we can lucidly sit back amidst the fantastical banter and joy that comes with enjoying the pleasures of life, and think to oneself, “life cannot get better than this.”

I was truly blessed with a wonderful Fulbright extended family once I arrived on the island of Honshu Japan, and on Thanksgiving day, most of the Fulbright Fellows gathered in my quaint Osaka apartment to share our adventures, trials, tribulations, and antics that we encountered the past three months.

Early in the day, I met the fabulous Takara as she arrived from Sendai, which is an 8-hour bus ride away. As we giggled about everything from Japanese men to female couture, we girl-talked our way back to my apartment to start cooking food to accompany the thaumaturgical masterpiece of the 12-pound turkey we had found in nearby Kobe. Joined by my fellow Kansai chica, Kavitha, we opened up a fabulous bottle of California red wine, and created scintillating dishes like bruschetta, gingered fruit salad, Takara’s family macaroni recipe and the time flew by as slowly and surely the other fellows joined in the merriment.

The months that we had not seen our fellows immediately melted away as we laughed about Luke and Katrina’s Hiroshima adventures, and David’s exploits in Nagasaki. Alex and Joe, our resident taiko drumming experts, arrived with their near-professional cooking skills and culinary creations of Kahlua-flavored stuffing, yams and sour cream mashed potatoes. It was as though an explosion of fantastical food had burst in my kitchen, complete with loud peals of laughter and wide-eyes at the fact that we had managed to procure a traditional, American-style meal.

After the turkey was carved and our plates were loaded with ample food, we sat down together and took a moment to go around the table and say what each of us was thankful for. With classical music in the background, the intoxicating smell of turkey and pumpkin pie filling our nostrils and candle-light flickering off each others’ faces, it was a perfect moment in time, amongst all the clamors the world places in our path, to carve out a fleeting glimpse of utopia; our own petit microcosm of friendship and caritas.

Bing Crosby had it right: there is not place like home for the holidays, but when you are surrounded by beautiful, compassionate people, experiencing adventures together, Japan can be my home away from home any day of the year.

2005-12-03T07:47:00.000+09:00

December 3rd: T-1 Day Until the LSAT....

If you've noticed an apparent lack of attention to my blog, this time I have a better excuse than, "my dog ate my blog." When in doubt, blame the LSATs! I leave in a few minutes time to Tokyo, via the shinkansen, where I will be taking the exam at Temple University. If I weren't so nervous about a test that could possibly determine the rest of my life, I would chuckle at the ludic analogy of naming a university "temple" of all things in the land of shrines and toriis, but for now, I think I'll let the butterflies in my stomach do the talking and just jam out to the now all-famous pink iPod!

Keep me in your thoughts and prayers. This is going to be one interesting experience and I anticipate plentiful blogging of this experience and my fabulous fellows Thanksgiving when I return.

As they say in Japanese, ganbatte, or good luck!

2005-11-16T00:03:00.000+09:00

Saturday, November 12: “We’re turning purple!”

Saturday morning was a combination of trying to ignore the Yebisu beer headache from the night before and a failed attempt to make it to the first Peace as a Global Language conference seminar of the day. Luckily Kavitha and I inundated ourselves enough with makeup and sugar before we left so that when we entered our classroom just before the door closed in our faces we were ready and rarin’ to go. Or so we thought.

Instead of learning how to research across language barriers, “Bridging Cultural Bridges Through Interviews” was an excuse for an impudent American to harangue us about his “fabulous” method of coercing timid ESL students to audaciously lambaste themselves toward perfect strangers and ask for their personal opinions on race and politics. Hmmm, I think I’ll be leaving that one out of my research methodology.

Kavitha and I left our self-appointed cultural guru and his attacks on French culture (and his glib apology for it) and headed toward the mecca of Japanese hamburgers, otherwise known as Mos Burger. Being the Starbucks of hamburgers in Japan, I was prepared to pay a little more, but when I started to ask Kavitha for train money for the ride back to Osaka, I realized that my trips to Mos Burger might be few and far between.

Heading back to the conference we were both hesitant at what to expect, particularly since our morning introduction to Peace as a Global Language as a whole was pretty sketchy. I was just proud we had stuck it out as long as we had.

But with fortitude and a lot of Diet Coke to tide us over, we headed toward a seminar called “The Media and NGOs” sponsored by the Asahi Shimbun and the Japan Times, two of Japan’s most highly regarded newspapers.

The hour and a half that transpired was filled with piquant discussion on how non-governmental organizations are portrayed in the media and how human rights campaigns trope through the drudge that is sometimes required when demanding a captive public audience. It was absolutely fascinating to listen to reporters that actually sit on the front lines of these debates and demand a modicum of integrity and dignity to their stories. From people dressing up as seals to demand foreign citizens rights (I would refrain from suggesting this tactic to anyone reading) to assuaging the courts’ ineptitude to recognize the status of refugees, the panel had a galvanic affect on me. Afterwards I immediately thrust myself into the panelists faces and thanked them profusely for their time, opinions and willingness to share their ideas with people like me. Luckily, I found a receptive audience myself in a lovely staff writer for the Japan Times who thought my research project and work at Nishiakashi prison was fascinating, so we are in a dialogue currently about future groups to study and possibly doing a piece in the paper itself. How thrilling!

The day ended perfectly after this fantastic experience, when Kavitha and I left a fascinating lecture on lexica gender differences in Malaysian newspapers. (Did you know that 70% of the time men are portrayed as the aggressors and women are subsequently perceived as victims due to the media’s choice of verbs? Pick up your local newspaper and underline each verb and see who it refers back to.)

A hop, skip and a jump later we found ourselves in another room, right in the middle of a blazing discussion on democratization in Southeast Asia with the iconoclast Paul Scott of the Steering Committee of the Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia (ARDA). If you think the name of his organization is gargantuanly long, just wait until you hear what they have on their plates. ARDA is adamant about their goal to, “advance democracy, human rights, good governance and the rule of law across Asia and throughout the world.” So from Bhutan to Vietnam you will find grassroots organizations distributing the Asian Democracy Indexes (ADI) on behalf of ARDA to determine how each country ranks as far as free and fair elections and every other trait under the sun that even alludes to a nation being democratic. He exclaimed excitedly that while American is turned purple with all the blue states becoming red and vice versa that we’re not even noticing the rest of the world’s fuchsia hues.

The stories Mr. Allen told were fascinating, from regimes legitimizing torture to Burma honestly believing it is the most democratic nation in the world. But what drove me remain passionately engaged throughout the hours was not only his razor sharp wit or his ability to forthrightly say anything that was on his mind was the demure opposite disposition sitting next to him, Mr. Sarwar Bari.

Bari is the director of Pattan, a Pakistani NGO that aids grassroots recovery efforts and women’s rights movements. Bari attended this conference amidst millions of Pakistani’s in turmoil after October’s earthquake and quietly expressed his disappointment at the world’s lack of peace. He didn’t criticize, except for the aptly-directed ill-will toward Washington, but rather educated those of us sitting in his captivated audience about the truth of Pakistani, and all Arab politics. His atheism did not cloud his views, but rather wiped the cobwebs away from our vision so that we too could understand that in Pakistan, there is no animosity between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims at the community level, but rather in international misunderstanding about secular politics. His passion made his grey hear fall into his face and the thick veins in his forehead pump with vehemence. The room lay quiet after he finished pleading with us to pay more attention to this part of the world. With 87,000 dead and a country in shambles, what else was there to do for him but to seek for assistance, the only way he knew how, by the humble act of quietly breathing, “we need your help.” Never in my life have such small words meant so much.

My train ride home was filled with ideas on what to do next year. Do I continue in my plan to go to law school? Should I wait one year and volunteer with Pattan? Or maybe even dedicate my life to the grassroots efforts of noble causes? My time here in Japan has left me with many more questions swirling in my head than the answers I have come to seek, but I am certainly grateful for the rare opportunities that I have already had in my time here.

2005-11-14T01:31:00.000+09:00

Friday, November 11^th: "Salsa…….OK!"

I had been looking forward to the weekend the entire work week, not simply because of the time off, but because I was anticipating Peace as a Global Language, a conference at my friends university that was right up my alley as far as research goes.

I sleuthed through Osaka’s and Kyoto’s monorail, train, subway and bus systems to finally arrive at Kyoto Sangyo University in the pouring rain on the drab beginning to the weekend. My friend Kavitha and I met and we headed off to the first speech of the conference, a panel on grassroots non-governmental organizations, which is exactly what I am researching for my Fulbright project.

With sponsors like the Japan Times and other major newspapers and businesses in Japan, we expected an elite group of panelists challenging each others’ core values and an intriguing discussion in front of hundreds of rapt audience members. In reality, what the 40 conference-goers received was four small-scale older activists spouting their resumes out loud, like verbal detritus. As though temporizing the event was going to make the small audience any more interested in why an 87-year-old man was obsessed with motorcycles and radio antennas and how that had anything to do with peace.

Kavitha and I raced to the bus and just laughed the terrible plenary panel off as we tried to catch up with each other over the growls of our hungry stomachs. Two hours later, soaked by the rain and chilled to the bone with the night air, we resorted to something so low that I am embarrassed to even include it in my blog. Yes, my friends, we stopped at a McDonald’s and I scarfed down a double-cheeseburger. My first, and unfortunately not my last. I’m not sure if it was the fact I hadn’t eaten all day, or the terrible three-hour long panel discussion, but McDonald’s Japan has me convinced that they know hamburgers.

Food aside, Kavitha and I were on a mission to find A Bar. Not just any bar, but “A Bar,” an establishment on the Kyoto night scene that everyone seems to know but no one has directions for. After calling friends, asking seedy bar owners, accidentally walking into a brothel and then getting propositioned to be prostitutes (several times) we wound our way through the streets of downtown Kyoto. Three staircases and a whole in the wall later I (literally) we had found the infamous bar and were happy to simply be out from the rain and in a warm room. The bar consisted of a 30 foot by 30 foot room with four wooden tables filled to the brim with drunk locals and a few foreigners. As we walked in, Kavitha and I were ushered to the only two open “seats” in the bar, which meant we were saddled up at a table with a group of 12 rowdy Japanese drinking Yebisu beer. Rather than insult our host who wore a black Megadeath t-shirt and vibrant tie-dye boxers, we sat down, ordered a Yebisu beer for ourselves and were instantly barraged with multiple “what is your name?” questions from our table-mates.

We instantly realized the brilliance of A Bar. Over kanpai’s (Japan’s tradition of “cheers”) and introductions, we met people from all over Japan, from all walks of life and laughed at the language barriers that seem to disappear after a couple beers. Of particular help were the only guys our age in the bar, Rudy, a perfectly fluent English-speaking Kyoto-ite who let us speak to him with our terrible Japanese, and Phillipe, a Quebec native who had met his friend Rudy when he was bartending in Cancun year earlier. A Bar was most definitely a random assortment of strangers and friends.

No sooner had we sat down, however, when an older Spanish gentleman sat next to us and asked us if we spoke Spanish. With the only words in the language I knew, I said “no habla espagnol,” and whether the fella was just drunk or misunderstood he thought that was a signal to start peppering the conversation with Spanish, primarily asking if we liked to dance. My friend and I unfortunately admitted that yes, we love to go clubbing, and so for the next three consecutive hours he would saunter to our end of the table, throw his hands up into the air and scream out, “salsa…OK!” We could only fathom from his drunken yammering that he was attempting to salsa in the tiny bar itself but simply didn’t have the coordination in his state to do so, so we just laughed hysterically at this 40-year old’s antics.

Several hours, many beer bottles, and a cheap taxi later, we strode up to Kavitha’s dorm, thankful for a warm place to sleep and for our new-found friends who we had departed through sad good-byes and trading cell-phone numbers. It will never cease to amaze me how easy it is to make friends in Japan, particularly when a quaint bar, ample drink, and good conversation is involved.

2005-11-14T01:29:00.000+09:00

Wednesday, November 9^th

Wednesday was full of firsts for me, which seems odd considering I have been in Japan almost two whole months.

I was amped to begin my official Japanese language classes, almost a month after regular classes resumed for the second semester at Osaka University. I had planned on playing undergrad for the semester, but when the college’s language program found out I was indeed a kenkusei (researcher), they gasped in astonishment and immediately directed toward me to the classes specifically for researchers.

So after getting all the paperwork filed and paying the tuition fee, Wednesday was my first official class. Once again the nervousness of my back-to-school days resumed as I marched amidst the changing leaves on the grandiose Suita campus of Osaka University. Realizing that I had misread my schedule and was two hours early, I took the opportunity for a nice mid-afternoon jaunt and a chance to do a little research for my project.

I headed to JICA, the Japan International Cooperation Agency. This is a Ministry of Foreign Affairs funded agency that operates in multiple countries abroad with the goal to empower local non-profits and NGOs with volunteers and assistance in developing countries. I was hoping to research the way in which JICA interacts with NPOs and NGOs and was expecting the quaint non-profit atmosphere of mildly eroding facades and overworked volunteers that one usually greets when walking foot on grassroots organizations.

Instead, an imposing granite building faced me as I turned the corner onto JICA’s headquarters. With I.M. Pei-inspired architecture, strict guards, and a modernist vapid lobby that could have housed my apartment hundreds of times over I wondered if I had walked into the wrong building. I kindly walked up to the receptionist, handed out my meishi and explained in Japanese that I was a researcher who was hoping to learn more about the organization. After receiving my day-glow yellow “visitor” tag, I sat nervously awaiting whatever awaited me behind the steel elevator doors.

Out came a young gentleman in his early thirties abounding with exuberance to have someone interested in JICA and, in my opinion, to be away from his desk for an hour or two. He immediately welcomed me to JICA’s library and we discussed the many things that JICA accomplishes. From South Africa to Cambodia, this organization uses Japanese government funds to distribute trained volunteers to local organizations for a variety of goals, such as creating sustainable farms to building schools. It was all so fascinating, particularly the way that this government organization had mobilized the use of NGOs and NPOs in an incredibly organized and successful fashion. JICA was my Mecca, as far as my project was concerned because it gave me an outline of how successful non-governmental organizations work with governments to achieve their goals.

As we were leaving, my new-found JICA friend explained to me that the Osaka office was actually a 7-story dormitory for international volunteers and then invited me to the nightly dinners at 6 p.m. to interview trainees and alumni of the program that come to share their experiences. He was excited that this could be a part of my research and I wanted to leap with joy at someone, particularly a government official, opening up the doors for me and my project. It really doesn’t get better than this!

So with a smile as big as Tom Cruise’s idiotic guffaws on Oprah (I had to throw in a cultural reference, its been ages since I’ve dumbed myself down by reading People) I skipped to my first language class in Japan, anxiously anticipating what awaited me.

As I walked in the room I immediately knew I was out of my league as the other students were troping through lively conversations in Japanese at garishly high speeds. My automatic response to any Japanese conversation I don’t understand is to simply nod my head and say “hai” in order to somewhat belie my nescience and avoid betraying that I’m a Japanese novice.

I knew, however, that intermediate Japanese was not the place to do this. As our professor, an exuberant young woman who believed that immersion was the key to all language barriers demanded that we get in groups and introduce ourselves with the all-too-familiar jikoshokai, or self-introduction.

As luck would have it though, I sat next to two wonderful Korean engineering P.h.D. candidates, Park and Ryu, who teased me over my love for karaoke and became instantly enamored when they learned that I was a Fulbright fellow. Since flattery always makes me squeamish I retorted with my typical comeback of, “well I actually had to pay the commission to let me be a fellow, otherwise I think I’d be flipping burgers back in the Midwest.” So immediately the three of us had a rapport and we clung to each other like Japanese school children on the subway, with my Korean friends translating the advanced Japanese for me in a filial manner. To be honest, it was just so adorable I grinned from ear to ear.

As we exchanged tables and discussed recent trends and topics in Japanese culture, I met another Korean woman and a beautiful Sri Lankan princess. When these young women heard from Park and Ryu that I like to sing, their inquisitive natures peppered me with questions about Japanese songs that I like and where do I sing? So with my rough Japanese, I told them that in America, our walls are much better insulated so I actually belt it out in my bedroom, dorm room, and often as I’m wailing down the interstate. This amazed them, particularly that singing in the shower is so prevalent. But I mean really, don’t we all sound great in a tile shower belting out, “Respect” or “Natural Woman?”

I was delighted at the day’s successes, even when I had to fend off winks from an extremely forward American researcher in the class who thought that just because I was a foreigner, I was going to be swept away at his “sly” winks every 30 seconds. Not so fast Bob. I’m a lady.

As I walked off into the sunset with my new Korean friends, we all laughed about our new Japanese language class and anticipated getting together again. I was reading in my “Life in Japan” book that Osakans are some of the funniest and easiest people to get along with in the world. Generalizations aside, I believe that this quality transcends to the foreigners who choose to spend their years here, and I’m so grateful that I can be one of them!

2005-11-13T21:13:00.000+09:00

Tuesday, November 8^th: Off to Prison

Tuesday was spent frantically planning for my English lesson for Nishiakashi Prison. I use any excuse or opportunity to interject that I “have to go to prison,” simply for the hilarious looks of disbelief and crazed wonder similar to the likes of, “what has Kristin gotten herself into this time?”

Unfortunately, I was not accompanied to the prison on this occasion, so after missing a train, platform hopping, getting on the right train, and then having the dreaded announcement that someone had jumped on to the tracks, I eventually landed in Nishiakashi, an half hour late for my lesson and only with Kit-Kat bar to tide over my growling stomach.

As I approached the prison, the atmosphere was much different the second time around. With sunset creeping up earlier and earlier, it was pitch black and no street lights exist for miles, so I walked humbly up to the front of the prison gates. Unfortunately, since I was late, the last guard shift had ended and rather than be greeted by my front gate buddies, I was instead barraged by the search lights reaching toward the sky as though some lawless prisoner had taken flight in the literal sense.

Had that been the only change from my last venture to the prison, I would have been happy. But amidst the brilliant sheets of light the searchlights shed on the area, my ears quickly attuned to the high pitched screams coming from male voices inside the prison.

In life, there are moments, split-seconds where the hairs on our arms stand up straight and that inner voice tells us to turn around and run. But considering I was a half-hour late and this was the most incredible research opportunity I had in a lifetime, I had only one choice. One foot in front of the other, I slowly made my way toward the side entrance of the prison, trying with all my might to avoid the screams, and I almost ran into one of my students who had finally given up on me and was about to leave.

My last remaining student is a wonderfully kind man, short and stout, who’s admiration for my class is partly because he really wants to learn English and partly because he thinks I have “pretty eyes.” Pick-up lines aside, I led him back to the room and for an hour we sat and learned phrases like, “I do laundry two times a month” and other such attempts at normalcy as I tried to ignore the men’s voices wailing on the other side of the wall.

As we discussed, “I go to work,” my student immediately stopped reciting his English, turned to me and said, “I don’t like my work. I don’t like it here.” I knew that the atmosphere in the room had changed and so I slowly closed my book, and turned to look him straight in the eyes. I asked him, “why do you not like it here?” And with the only words he could utter he said in a short, quiet burst of courage, “I don’t like what they make me do here.”

Never in my life have I experienced the millions of emotions that ran through my body that instant. I came to Japan to research human rights, and amidst papers, classes, informative interviews and newspaper headlines, I never thought that I would come so close to the debate as I had that instant. Fear rung through every bone in my body like a bell, yet I almost felt a maternal compassion toward my student, as if giving him a hug would wash away all our fright and insecurity.

As our lesson ended, he walked me out and thanked me once again in formal Japanese, which I still do not feel that I deserve, teacher or not. As we walked down the stairs and was about to leave the compound, he turned to me and whispered the word, “jisatsu.” Suicide. As I walked down the long, dark corridor, gleaning the only light that shined from the outside world, that word echoed through my mind. It still haunts me. I now know that this opportunity has transformed from that of “something to pass the time until I begin my real research” into a life-changing experience rife with harsh realizations.

2005-11-13T21:06:00.000+09:00

Wednesday, November 2^nd

After a full day of recovery from the trip to Tokyo (don’t vacations always deserve some kind of limbo period where one rests from resting?) I was once again in the mood to hob-knob as Mrs. Fulbright made her way West to Osaka to meet with the Kansai group of Fulbright alumni.

Heading toward the north end of downtown Osaka truly makes you feel as if you are entering the presence of greatness. A vast government center where consulates of nations you did not even know existed proudly show their colors, I knew that I was simply lucky to be invited to an event held in the shadow of these diplomatic buildings.

Realizing that the four Kansai Fulbrighters were the only foreign researchers present at the event made it an even more fantastic opportunity as I was able to meet numerous Japanese men and women who had traveled to the states. I met the architect of the Akashi bridge, which compares right next to the Golden Gate in its aesthetic beauty and grandeur, and after geteing an earful of my awe, he offered to take my friends up into the bridge sometime. How fantastic. I also met some lovely Japanese businessmen who were having an intellectual discussion about sake and beer, and when asked about my preferences I had to tell them about my Kyoto experience where I had the best $260 bottle of sake that yen could buy. One man found this so hilarious, and unfortuante that sake wasn't being served at the event, that half an hour later, as I was discussing the recent election with two political scientists, I was interrupted with a hand in my face, holding a glass of sake. My new-found friend had left the party to find a convenience store to buy sake for yours truly. Now that is what I call being a cultural ambassador!

As well as meeting lovely Japanese professionals, I had the pleasure of holding an intimate conversation with Mrs. Fulbright herself and the General Consul of Osaka, a wonderful, humble man, who regardless of diplomatic status, immediately wanted to meet all my colleagues and invited us out for lunch.

Just as surprising and equally impressive was the fact that I met one of this General Consul’s colleagues at the consulate who just so happened to need people who were interested in local non-profits and NGOs so as to help maintain relations with the consulate and the community. Well you certainly don’t have to pull my leg considering this is exactly what I came to Japan to do, but I almost jumped with excitement as the General Consul heard word of my work at the prison in Kobe. Inquisitively he asked me about my experience with wide eyes and asked if I would be interesting in working with his office further in this area. But of course, my dear sir, you certainly don't have to pull my arm to convince me to work with the American Consulate!

Literally jumping and hopping with excitement, my friends embarrassingly tried to keep me in toe after the event ended and I had finally found the connections I needed to truly begin my research the way I had hoped. How ironic it took an American consulate, but one need not bite the hand that feeds it, and I am in a country where I am constantly thankful at every opportunity that is given to me!

2005-11-07T00:39:00.000+09:00

Sunday, November 6^th

Today Osaka battled taifun-like showers as the red and yellow leaves fought one another to stay on the trees only to tumble down to kiss the cold, wet pavement. Osaka University celebrated its 46th annual Machikane Festival, a tradition that brings our clubs, performers and cooks out into the elements to celebrate the mountain that shadows over our college. As I sat in the dank library composing my thoughts amidst its aging, musty books I could hear the shouts of my friends outside cheering on bands and performers almost as if the sound of their shrill voices would warm the air.

Reflecting over the past eight days bring a vivid smile to my face as I embrace the memories that are already life-long and the friendships that seem as though they will last a lifetime.

Tuesday, October 25^th: Kristin goes to prison!

My adventures began last Tuesday when I ventured to Eastern Kobe to start my work as an English teacher to the staff at Nishiakashi Prison. With my complete lack of knowledge in teaching English and the butterflies that pitter-pattered in my stomach I felt as though I might faint as I walked up to the high-security prison only after an hour and a half train and bus ride to the compound. Luckily the prison was nothing as I had imagined with its Spanish-style architecture and brick road. I felt like Don Quixote riding up to meet imaginary evils as the prison staff greeted me with, “I speak English Ms. Teacher,” and smiles from ear to ear. Of course in a white-collar prison the atmosphere is somewhat-less execrable than I had imagined, but when you look in to a room and immediately the door is slammed in your face with grim eyes, one knows they have entered an entirely new world.

Of course, I was also taken aback as I learned that I was neither the first English teacher, nor in an all-female environment as I had been led to believe. Sitting in a room full of men with muscles so large they could be mistaken for karate masters and admitting that this was my first time teaching English was more intimidating than taking on a 400-pound sumo wrestler in a crowded arena. All eyes watching Kristin sensei, we began to realize that rather than a class full of beginners, as my piebald students ranged from near-fluent English speakers to those who couldn’t introduce themselves. I realized I was pedogically-impaired when my lesson on introductions and Halloween was thwarted to try and catch each mosquito in the room with a loud, “smack” of the prison guards’ hands. Hands so large that they could crush a man in one fell swoop, so who was I to argue…at least they learned the word “mosquito” in English?

In the least, I now know the ins and outs of the prison in case a riot breaks out or I need to flee for my immediate sanity. While this opportunity left me completely bereft of hope and energy on the train ride back to Osaka, I now know that this is going to be a wonderful learning experience for me and in the least a rare opportunity to see the inside of a system so often kept out of the public eye.

Friday-Saturday, October 28th-29th

Thankfully, after recovering from my trip to prison (how fun is it to be able to say that?), two of my fellow Fulbright Kansai colleagues accompanied me on a weekend trip to the metropolis of Tokyo for a reception to honor the late Senator William J. Fulbright. Without him and his wonderful wife, I would not be here today, so the three of us knew it was a wonderful opportunity to graciously say thank you, meet other alumni and see all the sights that make up this fantastic city.

Rather than spend hundreds of dollars on a shinkanesen (bullet train) ticket, the three of us took the adventurous rout and began our journey with the yako bus, which departs at 11 pm from Kyoto and lands in Tokyo’s happening Shinjuku at 5:30 in the morning. Sadly, it sounded better in theory because with cramped quarters, sauna-like heat and not nearly enough time to catch up with one another before we departed, we were actually threatened to be kicked off the bus. We of course did not know this at the time until our nearly fluent friend Kenny informed Kavitha and I that our hysterics were not nearly as funny to the rest of the bus as they were to ourselves, but hey, it’s all a state of mind right?

Luckily, for a few hundred yen, we scored tickets to an indoor onsen, where one is able to luxuriously bask in saunas, steam rooms, cold baths and hot tubs…the perfect end to a night of fitful rest. Feeling refreshed Kavitha and I headed to view the Diet, Japan’s national law-making body, the Imperial Palace, Imperial Gardens, Tokyo Fountain Plaza and what is a trip to the center of Tokyo without a stop at Ginza where my cohort in crime and I gave in to our Tiffany & Co. desires and had fun oohing and aahing at the shiny items protected from us behind the glass.

As Kavitha and I dolled up for the reception that night in our shoebox of a room, we realized that our room peered directly in to the 7^th floor of an office building, complete with cute young salary-men. Considering it was a Saturday night and there were two lovely ladies next door several of these white-shirted gentleman thought it would be hilarious to sit at their desks and oogle at the foreign women putting on make-up. Likewise, we found it just as funny and laughed and waved at each other through the thick-paned glass that separated our all-too alternate universes.

Hair curled and nails painted, we all left for the reception with a nervous anticipation that accompanies a gathering that can make or break one’s research opportunities. With our meishi (business cards) in tow we listened to Mrs. Fulbright, a fabulous, beautiful woman describe the life of her late husband who founded the program which brought us to the country and hob-knobbed until the wee hours of the night and the lights were turned off on us. Aside from balancing wine and trading meishi, the three fellows and I were surprised to hear our names as all of the 2005 grantees were called to the stage to give an introduction which every single other researcher had known about. But of course, with flare and guile reminiscent of Elizabeth Taylor, we proudly spoke about our projects and I in my night of no sleep and one drink of wine with no dinner somehow yammered on about how lucky I was to be here…and how lucky I felt to be in the presence of such fine people…and finally how lucky I was to be here. Oh yes, beget the gorgeous outfit I’d poured over, I’d just made a fool out of myself in front of the bi-national commission and diplomats.

All is well that ends well I realized as I met a nice young researcher who happened to be researching a similar form of human rights. Michael informed me of his interest in foreign workers and my ears immediately perked up because my wonderful mentor and advisor at my alma mater, St. Olaf, had studied just that years earlier. When I asked if he knew of my professor he not only knew of her, but had met her and loved her work. What a small world, when you can travel 7,000 miles away from home only to discuss those you left!

To celebrate our evening of successful schmoozing we decided to celebrate Halloween in Roppongi, a popular hot spot where all young people gather in the wee hours of the night. Sadly, after our yako bus traversing the day before, these foreigners did not make it the whole night and wound up out our hotel thankful for a bed and happy to have friends by our side.

Sunday, October 30^th

When you are twenty-three years old and the first thought that enters your mind when you wake-up in the morning is what part of you aches the most, you realize that yes, you really are old. When you have to put an entire tube of concealer under your eyes to not look like Frankenstein’s wife…that’s when you look old, however. And Sunday I did so without regret as my friends and I ventured around Tokyo.

After a 2 hour lecture in Japanese that nearly killed me due to the fact that a) it was in Japanese and b) it was in Japanese, I ravaged the streets of Ginza to find a fantastic Indian restaurant with my accompanying friends. Feeling refreshed and up for adventure we embarked on a journey to the famed Harajuku, where teenagers dress in make-up and gothic-inspired gear that would even make Elvira cringe. Amongst J-Crew stores and Gap look-alikes these teens proudly wore their anti-establishment colors, and Kenny and Kavitha and I were excited that we could take part in a crowd of thousands of Japan’s teenagers and the only place in Tokyo where they feel free to be themselves.

Next stop: Shinjuku, where the lights rival Times Square and the pedestrians often win fights over cars. At each stop-light, thousands of people migrate in a multi-directional nightmare that could leave one dizzy if not for the hundreds of television screens pitching new movies, the latest music and hilarious animation that we have come to know from Japan.

We ended our night once again in Ginza at an Irish pub and were once again thankful to be able to share liquor and stories. Even though I had only slept several hours over the past few days, being able to experience new sights and sounds with friends is something that will always make me feel young, whether 23 or 83, and I cherished every moment of our night together.

Monday, October 31: All Saints and Sinners

As thousands of children donned costumes and masks in America to celebrate All Saints Day, or Halloween as we know it, miles away I found myself in the middle of one of the most fantastic shrines in all of Japan: Meiji Jingu. While most torii, or gates that majestically herald the entrances of Japanese shrines with bright orange lacquer, Meiji Jingu’s bare wood and mild ornamentation made my experience at this shrine all the more significant. With chrysanthemums the size of our heads lining our the gravel path and the fall colors changing almost before our eyes, I realized I had found my most treasured place in Japan. It is one of the moments in time where you simply stop, close your eyes, breathe in the quiet, forgetting all your indiscretions as the air thick with the pungent smell of bamboo and cypress seeps in and makes way for the faint sound of the stream trickle over your body until you are at complete relaxation with the world.

The only place in Japan that could be the mirror opposite would have to be the national Diet, where Japan’s laws are consecrated and which buzzes with bureaucrats and red tape to boot. After trying and failing several attempts, my fellow future law school colleague and I snagged our way on a tour on the grand building. Ironically, the Diet is not even a century old due to fires and the fact that this fine nation’s power was restored to the emperor as late as 1868, so to leave a place where millennia of spiritual follower had trespassed to a building that was so new and obviously foreign in design (Prussian-inspired) was quite a shock.

Luckily however, my friend Kavitha and I were in good company, as we were led on a bilingual tour at the behest of a dozen American state and local legislators who just so happened to desire a tour of the Diet at the same time. In the middle of learning how the emperor is the only one who may enter the grand staircase and that the building was painted black during World War II, were met San Jose lawyers and Kentucky senators who were pleased as punch to see two fine young ladies studying politics in Japan. We all giggled at what a coincidence it was and I was sad to part ways with our fraternizing friends as our insightful tour ended, complete with iconic photo in front of the building.

2005-10-28T15:51:00.000+09:00

Sunday, October 23rd

We all have our blonde moments in life. Unfortunately for this brunette however, mine always happen to be in front of large groups of people and extremely noticeable. This past week I had an audio/visual epiphany so grandiose that it is beginning to make me question my efforts to get into law school.

It all began last Tuesday, when a suited NHK (Japan’s public television) salesman came around to my apartment demanding money for the free TV service his company provides. I tried to insist I did not have to pay because my TV was not working for some reason. I plugged it into the wall socket, but all I saw was white noise. He of course did not believe that I was a college student who did not watch TV (I had trouble even saying it out loud myself) and thought I was a foreigner trying to pull one over on him. Eventually, between the language barrier and my ridiculous notion of my TV not working, he gave up and slammed the door in my face.

Several days later life came full circle when I was complaining to a friend about how my TV wasn't working. Patiently listening to my technical woes, my friend asked me, "well have you got the antenna cord?" I think my look of blind disregard for what he was talking about was what made him laugh, or the fact that I am so completely stupid that I didn't even realize that just plugging in my $50 used TV wasn't enough...I needed to be hooked up to an antenna. I literally felt like crawling into a nearby cave and just living like a pariah under a rock, but instead laughed it off and headed to the holy grail of electronics: Yodabashi Camera.

In this 9-floor megastore of technical gadgets I found my antenna cord and remote control which now allow me to enjoy plenty of Japanese variety shows and soap operas...which are much funnier than in America. Even if you can't understand Japanese, the melodrama and terrible acting is actually worse than “Days of Our Lives” and “Passions” back in the States. And I didn’t even think that was even humanly possible to beat. Fortunately for me, however, it is possible and provides for endless hours of entertainment.

2005-10-28T15:47:00.000+09:00

Saturday, October 22nd: Jidai Matsuri

October 22nd is an extremely important and festive date for Japan, particularly Kyoto. Each year on this day, the Jidai Matsuri is held, which is the Festival of the Ages. This is a glamorous city-wide parade that proudly presents Japan’s rich heritage of millennia old history and traditional couture. From white-faced geishas to ornamented horses, regal shoguns and katana, or sword, exhibitions, the parade holds everything you think of when it comes to Japan and concludes at the massive Heian shrine which towers over Kyoto proper.

Amidst the havoc of thousands of people, I met my friend Kavitha, and two of my now favorite people in Japan. Yotei, a tall, skinny, economics major led us throughout the city complete with official tour guide map and a running commentary on local folklore. Wataru, a history major, gave us all the dirty details on each part of the parade with his keen wit and laid-back attitude. He could have fit in America any day of the week with his mechanic shirt, ski-cap and baggy pants, except for the fact that he was a perfect gentleman, holding doors and umbrellas for us ladies. They also happen to be Japanese tutors, which makes them patient when we ask, “so what’s that mean” every two minues and have the greatest senses of humor in the world (i.e. they laugh at my ridiculous jokes and think I'm hilarious).

Before watching the end of this illustrious celebration, however, Wataru and Yohei insisted that the group head to one of Kyoto’s most fantastic temples, Kyou Mizudera. We booked it across town sharing stories of our time here in Japan with two other students that were with us, Koe, a Taiwanese citizen who just so happens to be the most adorable 5 foot person in the world, and Heather, a New Yorker who absorbs Japanese culture like a sponge. The six of us were huffing and puffing as we climbed the hill to the summit of the temple, which has a dramatically breathtaking panorama of Kyoto. It is so difficult to describe the feeling that such a beautiful thing imparts with its visitors, but when viewing something so profound on a sunlit, clear day with new friends, laughing and enjoying oneself, I have to say it was some of the most fun I have had in Japan yet!

After viewing the parade, Yohei and Wataru escorted us ladies to a traditional soba restaurant, where the noodles are made are extremely thick and very fun to slurp, which is what one does to signify the dish is delicious. Of course, watching four foreigners learn how to slurp with the assistance of two very patient Japanese men providing us with the instructions is one thing that I would personally laugh at if I were to see it, but luckily the shopkeeper and his adorable son who had just finished baseball practice enjoyed serving us.

As we parted ways for the day, I told Yohei and Wataru in choppy Japanese that they are in fact my favorite Japanese guys, and they laughed at the silly foreigner exclaiming that we must get together soon! Every day in Japan is a fresh adventure and meeting new people is only just around the corner!

2005-10-24T15:41:00.000+09:00

Thursday, October 20th: The Prodigal Daughter

I am a self-proclaimed spend-a-holic. My family, friends, professors and local neighborhood kids will admit to it. I Kristin White cannot budget. Its simply not in my genes (actually it is, my father has a Ph.D. in mathematics but I can barely count to 10). So when my grant organization gave me a chunk of change the first week I landed on Honshu island, my eyes immediately opened as wide as saucers and I had to hold my hands over my eyelids to keep them from popping out of my head.

This of course comes from a girl who loves to clothes shop, treat her friends out and this leads to bizarre circumstances. I am on a first-name basis with all my banks (note the plural), am often on congenial terms with the shopping stores I frequent, and have even sunk to the level when I got my first delinquency notice from Dominos pizza. And I don’t eve like Dominos.

So when you tempt a fashion-savvy foreigner with the shopoholic culture of Osaka, where clothing is just as, if not more important than food, it creates I tad of a problem.Of course having an inkling to spend in a nation where banks are frequented every day and the average citizen carries around $1,000 with them is not easy for me to take. Surmount that with the fact that key money, or non-refundable housing deposits, reach up into the thousands, clothing in shockingly expensive (and small) and food can cost you an arm and a leg….you begin to feel as though you could drown in a sea of financial sorrows.

Throughout the past month I watched my bank account dwindle further and further down until zeros were being left off bank statements and I needed to carry around a paper bag to breathe properly. Particularly discouraging is the fact that my bank has an ATM on campus, right next to the co-op I frequent every day. If God is testing me, he is doing an excellent job.

So how do I save money? Why go to my favorite bar with friends where we can all talk about how poor researchers are! The Humming Bird is a quaint reggae bar right next to campus, complete with black lights, Bob Marley memorabilia and great people. The bar owner is a former New Yorker who, after living in Japan for several years, tried to make a semblance of a life back in the US’s largest city, and found he missed Japan so much he moved right back to Osaka. Even without the free drinks, food, and lively banter he provides, I have found it so enjoyable to sit with friends and hear stories about their home countries.

From Italian stories about Matteo’s German-speaking, Italian-born grandmother to rants on Gorbechev and the fall of communism by the Russian-Orthodox Dmitri, I have spent countless hours at “my bar” trying to solve the world’s problems with friends and drowning our own with good drink. The most wonderful thing about it is that I am living in more of a melting pot of Japanese, Italian, Chinese, French, Russian and so many more cultures here than I ever had in my small hometown or quaint liberal arts college. And the only way all of us can communicate? Why Japanese of course! Of course I am always missing jokes and my default word is “nani,” or “what?” Over kanpais (the equivalent to "cheers" in the States and the clinking of the glasse) our language bobbles only makes us laugh all the more and realize how truly lucky we are to have the opportunity to research in Japan!

2005-10-24T15:32:00.000+09:00

Wednesday, October 19th: I am legal!

I am legal! I am legal! I am legal! Oh god, it’s never going to get old! As of today, I now have in my possession a beautiful, shiny, holographic piece of plastic that proves I am no longer stowing away in Japan. I am now, in fact, a legally registered resident. To say I am excited that this bureaucratic mess is behind me is the understatement of the century!

But oh the poor fool bereft of language and will. At least, that seemed to be the circumstance for the sorry Englishman in front of me in Toyonaka’s city hall. Whoever would look to me for Japanese language help, obviously hasn’t heard me speak. But when the gentleman in front of me heard the national health insurance officer explain that because he hadn’t paid his insurance premium in 8 months he was ineligible for services, he simply stared back with a blank expression and turned to me as if I could cosmically alter the universe to help him. Luckily he had a Japanese friend with him to serve as his language life preserver and it made me so pleased to know that even if I do not understand half the things that are being said to me, I am still confident enough to take these adventures into my own hands and independently conquer whatever hardships cross my path.

I officially became a resident in the city of Toyonaka as I trekked over to the town’s foreigner registration center for them to write in my beautiful shiny new address on my equally pristine, alien registration card I had obtained earlier in the morning across town. What joys a simple piece of plastic can give a person, I had now known until today, unless you count the numerous times you’ve misused your fathers credit card (sorry dad if you’re reading this…I love you!).
Then again, speaking of fools, I certainly caved in to my foolish desires when I bought my $5 hanko, or Japanese name stamp, in Ginza my first week in Japan. Since most Japanese citizens have names written in kanji, the beautiful, calligraphy-like symbols that represent words and ideas, each hanko is usually the symbol of each person’s name. I, of course am not Japanese (with a last name like White, you rarely would think otherwise), and therefore thought it would be fun to purchase a stamp for the symbol white, or shiro. It’s poetically simple, with only a few strokes of the brush (白) and found in some of my favorite haikus, so I thought it would be easy to ask a store to etch the kanji for white into the ivory hanko.

Of course I never thought of the repercussions of creating such a simple kanji, when most foreigners simply write their name in katakana, the alphabet that is used to describe foreign words. In katakana my name is simply, Kurisuten Howaito and looks like クリステン・ホワイト...easy, right? Well my clever shenanigan has cost me a chuckle or two at many of the institutions that require bureaucratic paperwork to be inked in your red hanko. The bank and I had a laugh together as I explained that in America, my last name actually is the color.

Today, however, the Toyonaka city official, who was barely any older than I was, did not find it so cute. Between going back to his desk for drinks of water and leisurely phone calls to his girlfriend, or at least some sort of significant other that required the phone to be glued to his ear, he did happen to notice my hanko as I stamped the mountain of health insurance papers I had to sign. As I walked back to my seat to await his ever-so-needed approval, I saw maneuver over to his colleague, point to the red ink, and they both laughed out loud hysterically. I of course think it is funny as well, I mean we must have a sense of humor about life, right?

My sense of humor found me walking myself up to the counter, saying thank you, and coyly responding, “watashino hankoha tanoshii desuyo!” Which translates to, “so you think my hanko is fun, huh?” At first he was absolutely shocked that I had heard what he and his “I-haven’t-quite-hit-puberty-yet” friend had said. As the look of disbelief subsided, however, his dropped jaw turned in to a smile, recognizing that he had found a sparring partner fit for another round of laughs. It was a wonderful sense of accomplishment and pleasure as I continued to hear his guffaws echo down the halls as he laughed to himself, scratching his head at how this foreigner had pulled one over on him! I think I’m going to like Toyonaka city!

Feeling a renewed self of accomplishment I decided that tonight was the night to break in my new kitchen. Of course it helped that my stove and toaster had been dropped of, but details are details. I headed to the local food coop and was in awe of the adventures in food that await me throughout the year! I picked up as much dairy as my little basket could handle, including the ingredients to make rolled eggs, a particular favorite recipe of mine that uses mirin, a clear sweetener, sugar and soy sauce. Luscious. Not so luscious was the fact that immediately when I put the pan full of eggs on the burner I began to question my chef’s skills as the smell of burning something or other immediately filled the apartment.

Since I am particularly proud of my cooking talents thanks to the wonderful women in my family who have instilled this love in me, my heart sank as my first meal was about to become a disaster. But as luck would have it, it was the $1 pan that was the culprit and not I, as I had to quickly make do with scrambled eggs and toast. Who knew that $1 store jam would be so good? Obviously not the person who thought that a 100 yen pan would suffice. Of course this is only the beginning in my Japanese culinary adventures and regardless of the burning metal and dropped eggs, it was the best meal of eggs and toast I have ever had!

2005-10-24T15:27:00.000+09:00

Tuesday, October 18th

When staying in a new place for the first night, it is often difficult to fall asleep with the thousands of thoughts running through your mind all the while attempting to acclimate yourself to the sounds of the new environment. Luckily I had fallen in to a deep sleep just as I was woken by a loud blaring noise coming from my kitchen. Falling out of bed (literally) and feeling my way through my apartment I realized that it was not 11:30 PM when I had gone to bed, but somehow 7:30 in the morning and a man in a suit was at my door. I immediately knew that the gods of luggage had found me when the Kuroneko delivery man said he had my gigantic piece of luggage, and would I come out and get it because it is too large. Oh yes, my suitcase was too large for this gargantuan of a man to handle.

Not even minutes after I happily trotted back to my bedroom with my delivery prize I heard another screaming buzzer noise, this time knowing that it was my apartment’s phone. Moments later I had two kind Yukawa delivery men assembling Ikea-style furniture in my building’s hallway. It was certainly a sight to see before 8 AM! I screamed with delight as my apartment turned from a vacant lot where bugs came to die in to a posh, metropolitan’s dream. Leather couch, glass coffee table and art-nouveau shelving units later I was in fact an apartment owner…with furniture! I was so excited to tell my girlfriends of the news as I hurriedly sped off to class, not realizing me it had taken 4 hours to organize all my doodads and dollar store finds to make my apartment feel like home.

Now I am a self-proclaimed political science geek. Obsessed, passionate, whatever you want to call it, politics and finding a way to improve the society that surrounds us is the name of the game for me. That is why when my beloved disheveled Technical Japanese professor came to class today raring to talk about Japan’s recent election, he looked as though he was going to burst through his flannel button down shirt.

Unfortunately at 1 in the afternoon, when a class is more interested in what they ate for lunch than who won the election, it’s a beautiful day outside with birds chirping amidst the shining sun, and for some of us it is the only time we see our friends, it makes things a little more difficult. Even more so when our professor started his powerpoint presentation with a picture of Koizumi and one of the students asked, “who’s that dude?”

Yes folks, politics 101 is an introductory class in any college, but when you’re working with a bunch of foreign students who are only taking your class because it’s in English, you’re job is much more difficult. Combine this with the fact that Yamada-san tries so desperately to come across as an expert, or at least one that would know more than we do about the subject, it makes his tireless efforts that much more adorable. While attempting to ignore the chitty chat banter of the girls behind me and the sighs of boredom from students staring out the window, Yamada sensei immediately drew the class’s attention when we heard a loud slap! I wasn’t sure if I was the only one that had noticed at first, considering I was quite possibly the only student standing at attention, but our teacher had physically left a red-mark the size of a peach on his head. Trying to say “privatization” with a thick Nara accent, which makes these Eastern Kansai residents say “l” instead of “r,” and combine that with the fact that even the most highly verbose person stumbles on the five-syllable “privatization,” it was a recipe for disaster.

“Plilatisation” was what most of us heard, and amidst stifled howls of laughter, my now favorite professor trooped on with the discussion like a sergeant leading his troops into battle. With his hand towel he constantly dabbed at the beads of sweat running down his face, and he proceeded to inflict self-wrought pain with his palm every time he incorrectly pronounced “privatization.” Considering our entire discussion was surrounding Prime Minister Koizumi’s policy to privatize the post office in Japan, this made for an extremely long and dangerous class period that left me thankful for national health insurance and for the fact that Yamada-san was my professor.