Setsubun

February 3, 2010

Happy Setsubun!

It's February 3rd here in Japan and that means it's the day of the bean throwing festival. I consider Setsubun the equivalent of St. Patrick's Day, given that you don't get a day off from school or work and I almost always forget about the holiday until it's literally the day of. Today, I was reminded just after fourth period when my teacher commented to a student that she was being strict with him, "like an oni," and the student responded by pretending to throw beans at her.

Supposedly families, especially ones with young children, celebrate Setsubun by throwing beans and saying, "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi," which translates into "Demons begone! Happiness arise!" if you're being poetic, or, more plainly, "Bad luck outside, good luck inside." I have no idea who sweeps up the beans when all is said and done, because I've never seen that part celebrated. The most I've seen are a lot of teasing about who's an oni. Oh, and I got some peanuts today, which apparently qualify as beans. Heck, for all I know, they might technically be beans. Does anyone know the classification of peanuts? I know, thanks to an insanely old trivia robot, that a peanut is neither a pea nor a nut.

Setsubun is also celebrated by eating gia-normous rolls of sushi. I usually skip this part along with the beans, but today I didn't feel like cooking, so I picked up a log of deep-fried shrimp sushi. There's some sort of lucky direction you're supposed to eat it in, but I didn't bother to find out which one.

I am happy about Setsubun for two reasons. The first has to do with what the word Setsubun means. "Setsu" comes from the word "kisestu" and means season. "Bun" means split. The splitting of the seaons, which means, that winter is sort of unofficially at an end and spring is on it's way. Granted the first time I "celebrated" Setsubun (by receiving beans) I was in Nagoya and it snowed the next day. But I can feel signs of spring coming. The ume (plum) blossoms are starting to bloom, little and white and sweetly scented. I love ume, what I consider the first sign of spring. There are other little signs, too. My energy has been going up, and I've been more efficient and motivated. It's still cold, and yet the cold isn't really bothering me anymore. Once I've adapted to one season, it's a sure sign the next one is on its way. I'm happy, because I love spring. I love the weather, the flowers, and how inexplicitly genki I become.

The second reason I'm happy has nothing whatsoever to do with Setsubun. I just got the results from my JLPT, that ridiculously difficult test I've been studying for for the last two years. And guess what? I PASSED! I squeaked by with a 63%. (Passing is 60%) I got 76% on kanji and vocab, 61% on listening, and 58% on the doubly weighted reading and grammer. Level 2 means, and I quote, "The examinee has mastered grammar to a relatively high level, knows around 1,000 kanji and 6,000 words, and has the ability to converse, read, and write about matters of a general nature." Come to think of it, that sounds rather bland. A more concrete example: today I listened to a Japanese teacher (that is a teacher of Japanese) explain the meaning of an old, obscure Japanese quote in Japanese and I understood it, without asking an English teacher for translation or cracking open a single dictionary.

Sorry to brag so much, but I'm just in such a good mood. I think I'll celebrate by eating strawberry-flavored mochi ice cream.

Have a nice Setsubun!

Ash from Sakurajima

January 2010

It’s been a really long time since I’ve written. You’d think I’d be bursting with new information, but no. As of now, I have nothing in particular happening in my life.

Our volcano, Sakurajima, has been spewing more ash than usual into the air for a while now. It turns the streets grey. Today it rained and as I walked to school, my laces splashed in the puddles of ashy water and got the hem of my khaki-colored pants stained an awful drippy black. The weird thing was that once my pants dried off the ash just fell away, restoring the color, as if nothing was wrong in the first place. Weird, no?

The ash falls onto my balcony. I’ve been sweeping it weekly lately. Even so, by next Saturday a layer of grey soot has formed. I sweep it up and it completely fills my dustpan. Sometimes I can taste it at the edge of my teeth or feel it like grit in my eye.

With so much ash in the air, it’s no wonder I kept getting sick this fall. I still get a little bit hacking/ gagging in the mornings, but not nearly so bad as in October, November, December. I think it’s gotten better since I finished my test. I took the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), 2nd level, this December. I’d been studying like crazy for it. Now that it’s over, and now that the holidays are over as well, I’m a little more relaxed. I’ve been studying Japanese by translating museum signs into English.

I spent my holidays cleaning my house and trying to ignore the germ of loneliness growing in me. The holidays are the worst: everyone is away or busy and the whole community turns into a ghost town. For my 25th birthday, I wanted to have a party, but in the end, only one person could come. We had fun talking, but it isn’t quite a party. It’s not just that. It’s coming home and having no one to talk to, no one to cook for, no one to take care of or take care of me. When I first got my own place, I was so excited about having my own space and my own rules. But I kind of miss having people around.

That’s how I know I have to come home. The papers are signed; I’ll leave in August. There’s a conference for “Returning JETs” in Yokohama to help us deal with adjusting to life outside of Japan and write resumes and things like that. I want to go. I do want to attend this conference, but I also want to visit Yokohama (a city near Tokyo, one of the 5 largest in Japan) and, more importantly, Kamakura. Kamakura is near Yokohama. It was the capital of the really, really old Japanese Shogunate. It has one of the two famous “Big Buddha” statues in Japan .

School is going fine. I’m teaching the kids about rhyming. I’m getting better at preparing lessons. Not perfect, but better. The odd thing is that the more I understand what it means to be a teacher, the less appealing it becomes to me. I love to teach students who love to learn. But I hate trying to control noisy classes, motivate students who don’t want to learn, and grade papers. And that seems to be most of what being a teacher is. Honestly, I’d rather be a student; or better yet, just give me my own work and I’ll do it happily.

Shogatsu

January 11, 2008

Happy New Year!

I still get to say Happy New Year, because in Japan the holiday goes on until the 15th, although the festivities aren’t exactly non-stop. And we certainly don’t get any free vacation days past the 3rd of January. Still, Happy New Year everyone, or as we say in Japan, Shinnen Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu. Yeah, the English version is shorter.

And now onto business.

Shogatsu is the Japanese name for New Year, but check the phrase, you’ll notice the term doesn’t come up. That’s because Shogatsu refers to specifically the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of January. Yeah, it’s kind of confusing, but look at it this way: Shogatsu refers to the days I actually got off. Because, rest assured, I had to get up bright and early on January 4th (a Friday) and go to the office, even though I had nothing to do once I got there.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll begin with New Year’s Eve.

All I know about traditional Japanese New Year’s Eve is that you’re supposed to eat long soba, or buckwheat noodles, for long life. Of course, they know how we celebrate New Year’s in America and call it a “countdown party.” But I, for my part, celebrated in neither the Western nor Japanese way. In fact, I’m loath to say I celebrated. I watched Letters from Iwo Jima. When the movie ended, it was 12:30. The moment was over and I was too depressed from the movie to even open the bottle of Martinelli’s apple cider I had bought from Kagoshima City the day before. So I said “Happy New Year” to myself and went to bed.

Nor was January 1, 2008 very interesting. I studied Japanese and wrote my story. Around mid-afternoon, I got cabin fever, so, despite it being rainy and cold, I took a long walk around the city. My thinly veiled excuse was to see which stores were open and which were closed. As it turned out, only convenient stores and drug stores seemed to be open. I think the gas stations may have been opened as well, and the buses were running. But most every store, restaurant, and café seemed to be closed. Once I passed a bank, and the automatic doors were moving open and shut without reason. (I wasn’t the reason; I was on the other side of the street.) I bought a can of some steaming red bean milk from one of the vending machines. And that was the most exciting thing that happened to me.

January 2nd was my birthday. I really didn’t have any plans for celebrating, having spent all my good ideas on Christmas Eve. In the morning, I spoke to my family, and that was nice. But around mid-afternoon, which is really a dull time, I began to feel very lonely. I wanted someone to acknowledge my birthday, someone to celebrate with. I went to a coffee shop, but that didn’t help much, though the atmosphere was warm and the people were friendly. I felt more acutely alone with people around.

Finally, on January 3rd, I got to do something.



I had been invited to go bird-watching by Shinkoda-sensei and Kubo-sensei (both older women from Kushira Shogyou) and I accepted. So, early that Thursday morning, I dressed myself warmly in layers and, at the last moment, brought my bottle of Martinelli’s so that I’d have something to contribute. (And something exotic at that.) They picked me up near my office and we drove to Lake Oosumi, near the KAPIC Center (where I made gingerbread houses).

There was a large crowd of birdwatchers and they had set up a picnic area by the lake. A few dogs were roaming around. Later we’d have nabe, but for now we strolled around the lake, bundled warm in our coats, and looked for birds. Winter might seem an odd time for bird-watching, but we were as far south as you can get in Japan without crossing major chunks of ocean and all the birds had migrated to us. So really it made perfect sense.

I walked with Shinkoda-sensei. She told me the names of birds we saw and I checked this against my Japanese-English dictionary. Sagi. Heron. Kamo. Duck. There was also a little bird with a yellow breast called a kisekirei. And the same bird with a white chest called hakusekirei.



After watching birds, we all sat down for lunch. We had nabe, which just means pot in Japan, usually referring to a clay pot filled with soup, vegetables, meat, and whatever else you wished to throw in. They had heated a big pot of this under an open fire. Kubo-sensei and Shinkoda-sensei brought out onigiri (riceballs) and apples and various goodies. I was glad I brought my novelty cider. We toasted my birthday and drank down the cider.

Later, we went to KAPIC, where they had an Asian Cultural museum. I had been there before, but I played with the musical instruments, with the costumes, with the poles for a bamboo dance (reminiscent of a game of jump rope). And after that, Shinkoda-sensei showed me to Tasaki Shrine, where she instructed me to ring a bell and throw a coin for good luck. She was also proud of the 900 year old tree the shrine boasted. Then she bought me cotton candy from a vendor at the shrine.

A Weather Report

December 14, 2007

As it is now halfway through December, some of the ginko trees have decided to act like its fall and shed their leaves in a golden rush. These trees, brimming with yellow leaves only last Friday, are now mostly bare. Other trees, however, have not followed suit. Besides palms, which are always green, a number of trees have retained their leaves. The leaves are turning a shade darker than in the summer, as though switching a lime sweater for an olive sweater. The grass is brown and the morning glories are dying, but on the whole the vegetation still shows color. I’m glad. Maybe the trade-off of a less-than-spectacular autumn is a less-than-gloomy winter.

Lately, or I should say this week, the weather has been odd. Odd in that it’s actually been warm. Tuesday, it became cloudy and a light rain fell; despite that, it was actually warm that day and the next. Perhaps the very thing I hated about rain in the summer (ie, the humidity) is now a boon in the winter. Thursday, midway through the day, the clouds departed, and it was much colder in the afternoon than in the morning.

Today, Friday, has been cold and windy, as per usual in the winter, but I mind it less lately. The reason: the schools have brought out their kerosene stoves. Now, between the cold stone walls of the office and the bare stone floors, small metal heaters, maybe three feet high, are lit and glow a rosy red. I’ve gotten so warm and comfortable that I take off my jacket to reveal a short-sleeved shirt. To which, inevitablely someone asks, “Samukunai?” (Aren’t you cold?)