Pre-Hokkaido Business

Early August 2009

From Friday August 7th until Saturday August 15, I will be on vacation in Northern Japan. My first stop is Hokkaido, which is the second largest and northernmost of Japan’s four main islands. In the old days, it was a rough and wild land, and even now, Hokkaido is known chiefly for its agriculture and delicious food. I will spend one day in the main city of Sapporo (famous for beer and ramen), and then move down to Hakodate, which was the site of a famous battle, for two days.

After that, I will move to the Tohoku region, which is the northern area of the main island of Honshu. My first stop will be Sendai, which is one of the larger cities in the region. Then I will move down to Aizu-Wakamatsu, the site of a famous rebellion and suicide tragedy, for two nights. Finally, I will end in Tokyo, where I will do some research at one of the museums for a short story I’d like to get published.

So, that will be my summer trip. Naturally, I will give you more details once I actually do my traveling.

But in the days before my vacation, I find myself unexpectedly busy. On paper, it looks like I should be winding down with the arrival of summer. Not so. Classes ended at the third week of July, and I found myself just getting busier. Technically, these days are filled with “office days” which usually means going to the Board of Education, sitting in an air conditioned room, and doing whatever they can find for us to do. Usually that’s nothing. Usually.

Except, that with the end of July comes a change in ALTs. The old Assistant Language Teachers go home and the new ones arrive. And this year, the two other ALTs in my office, Rachelle and Vickie, were both leaving. And, in fact, I was changing schools so I had my share of goodbyes.

Someone decided that rather than having us waste time going to the office, it would be better for each of us ALTs to report to a “base” school, which could relay information to us. These base schools would be Kanoya High, Kanoya Kogyo (Technical), and Kanoya Nogyo (Agricultural)—in short the three Kanoya schools. All well and logical—except two of those schools were mine. To make a long story short, I had to switch Kanoya Kogyo (technical) for Koyama High, a smaller school further from my house.

So, in the last few weeks, I cleaned out my desk, wrote instructions for my successor, and prepared a goodbye speech (in Japanese). Every time I went to Kogyo (admittedly only three times in July), I was struck with a heavy emotion, a mix of sadness and stress. I really hadn’t expected to leave any of my schools, and I had a special affection for Kogyo, my nearly all-boys school. I had started off having almost no classes and ended up averaging four classes a day and actually preparing lessons. Kogyo was the only school where I felt like a real teacher. And that was the school I had to leave.

So, after I said goodbye to Kogyo, I had about a week and a half to say goodbye to Rachelle and Vickie. The two of them were even busier than I was. They had to clean, pack, and say goodbye to everyone. Still, we found some time to spend together. We went to see Harry Potter and I took them out to dinner. The Kanoya girls met one last time for Shirokuma: shaved ice with condensed milk and fruit. Of the six girls present, I was the only one staying.

Yesterday (was it really only yesterday?), Rachelle and Vickie left Japan. I woke up early that day, not only because I had to be at the office before 8:00, but I was also a little restless. July 29th had been wedged in my mind like a splinter. The day my friends were leaving. The day the new ALTs were arriving.

Rachelle brought some friends with her to the airport, including Noriko, a teacher from her school, and Masako, a friend who was a volunteer English guide. They reminisced while we waited in the airport. Before long, Rachelle and Vickie were waiting in line to go through security. All this time, I had been with my two friends, wondering why I didn’t feel sadder… or really anything at all. It didn’t really hit me, until I saw Noriko with tears streaming down her face and Masako wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. And then I just felt heavy.

But this tender moment was broken by a bit of comedy—well, to me it seemed as such. Jinnouchi-sensei—a teacher Kushira Shogyo, my school, and her daughter Yuana were coming to say goodbye to Rachelle. But they hadn’t told anyone until Rachelle and Vickie had given everyone hugs and were about to pass through security.

What made this event funny to me was that Jinnouchi-sensei had only spent time with Rachelle maybe four or five times—she was more my friend than Rachelle’s. But if you knew Jinnouchi-sensei at all, you would know she’s a hyper-social butterfly and she really loves making friends with people. Plus, she’d had Yuana call me and ask me about Rachelle’s departure time a few days earlier, and so I suspected something like this would happen.

Anyway, this had a happy ending, because Jinnouchi-sensei and Yuana got there just in time. They appeared right before Rachelle was about to disappear through the metal detector and had about three seconds to say goodbye. For this they had driven two hours to the airport and would drive two hours back.

Rachelle and Vickie passed through security. We all—in true Japanese fashion—stood by the glass window, waving, until we could no longer see them at all.

By now it was about 11:30. Everyone but Noriko decided to go to lunch. Now, the silent figure in all of this drama—the person I haven’t even mentioned yet—was our supervisor, Shibahara-sensei. As the only male and the person with the least English, that really wasn’t surprising. But this is how much of a social butterfly Jinnouchi-sensei is. She had never met Shibahara-sensei before, so she immediately set about getting acquainted. We went out to lunch, and the restaurant was busy, so we had to break into two groups. Jinnouchi-sensei volunteered to sit with Shibahara-sensei.

Volunteered nothing. More like, she told us how it was going to be. They sat chatting, while Yuana, Masako, and I talked about castles in Saga prefecture. Of course, Jinnouchi-sensei paid for our lunch. This did not surprise me in the least; whenever we go out, she pounces on the bill. I don’t even try to stop her anymore; just make a note in my head and try to get her a treat later on.

After lunch, Jinnouchi-sensei, Yuana, and Masako left, but Shibahara-sensei and I stayed at the airport. The new ALTs arrived at 1:30. I had the laminated signs Rachelle and Vickie had made. I was anxious. I was waiting for people I had never seen before who I would hopefully make friends with. It wasn’t just me either. Half of all ALTs coming to Kanoya were on this same flight, so the people from the Boards of Educations from all over the prefecture were gathered together with signs of their own.

The flight emptied out, and out came all the foreigners. Matt, Vickie’s replacement, was the first one we saw. He was tall, with reddish brown hair and glasses. Since he was getting Kogyo, I had emailed him a couple times before. I knew he was a year older than Vickie, from New Jersey, and liked taking photographs and sports.

Andie, Rachelle’s replacement, took a lot longer to come out. Andie was short, petite, and black. I can’t say African American, because she’s from Jamaica. All I knew about her at the time was where she was from and her age (one year older than Rachelle).

So, there we were. As soon as I saw them, most of my anxiety left. I don’t know why, but knowing what they looked like was a big relief. They were both nice and polite and wanted to know a lot about Japan. So I told them. Whatever I could think of. About halfway through the car ride, we stopped at a convenience store for drinks. I remembered how my boss had bought us ice cream the first day, so I decided to do the same.

We went to the office and the ALTs made their self-introduction speeches in Japanese. Both Matt and Andie had, oh I’d say maybe a year’s worth of Japanese, and so they could manage that just fine. But when the boss made the speech in Japanese, I was the one to translate it into English. In my two years I’ve risen into the position as the unofficial translator, a post I hold with some pride.

I offered to take the new ALTs grocery shopping after work. Then we went out to dinner and I showed them around Rina City, a shopping center near our house. By the time I got home it was 8:00. For all intents and purposes, it was a 12-hour day. And by no means was I finished.

Today, in the afternoon, we went to the bank and city hall, while I explained the two hundred ways Japan makes us sort garbage (I’m only slightly exaggerating), helped fill out forms, and did more translation in general. I don’t begrudge the extra work or the enormous amount of information that must be passed down. I actually like feeling helpful, like an older sister. At the same time, I know these are adults (both of whom are older than me) who want to be independent as soon as possible. I feel like in a few weeks I’ll be obsolete and they’ll know more about Kanoya than I will. There are already so many things I don’t know, questions I can’t answer.

They both seem nice, but I haven’t had much of a chance to get to know each other. We’re still on polite, information gathering mode. I’ve been talking and talking, but all of it practical: how to tell soy milk from normal milk, where the coin laundry is, the way ATM cards work in Japan….

Besides all this saying goodbye and saying hello, I’ve been keeping busy with other tasks, which include studying Japanese (from 1-4 hours a day), finishing a chapter (and trying to write another one), taking a medical exam (but first translating the questionnaire into English), making dinner (hoping the food doesn’t spoil too quickly in this heat), fighting insects (they’re winning), reading reviews from fans of my fanfiction (some are threatening to kill me if I don’t write another chapter), and viewing a rare once in a lifetime eclipse (which I couldn’t see at all because it was cloudy). I might go see fireworks on Saturday. I definitely have to clean my house by Sunday.

To put it succinctly, lately I’ve been just a little stressed.

So, I’m looking forward to this vacation. A break from studying Japanese. Long train rides to read in. Beautiful scenery and good food with no cooking and no washing dishes.