迷失的老美

Well, where did I leave off, so much time has passed since then, my fault entirely due to both laziness and being busy.
After the Kyoto post, I discovered that a few of the people in the other program were fellow goons and made amends with them. They were not the ones I disliked, so, it was all good I guess. We got together for a farewell dinner that was, well, not bad, but not exactly good either. It was like an entire meal of appetizers. I have no idea how much they paid for this crap, but it wasn’t the best use of funds I think. IES Nagoya seems to like to waste money on stuff like this to give us an “authentic” experience or something. They did it in Kyoto with the hotel, and they did it pretty much whenever they got the chance. We got together again to see a Kyudo performance which is a traditional drum concert. It was pretty damn cool. Great rhythms and I have no idea how they could keep up the intensity for so long. Nanzan stole our seats again, but it was ok because we grabbed up other seats that were better anyways.

December 1st, oh day of days came and passed without deserving the fear that I had for it. A while back, I was summoned to a meeting with a Chinese teacher that I knew and had Japanese thrown at me that I was unsure of. All I got from it was that there was a speech involved and something about a school. I had no idea what was going on and was content to sleep through it as if nothing happened. Ron had to do it too, and I decided that I might as well just get it over with. Turns out that we had to go to a school and talk about American culture and stuff. This was along with some Chinese, Indians (dot not feather), Koreans, and a few others. We were subjected to a hero’s welcome and for some odd reason everyone in the school knew our names, it was just, well, odd. But it was cool as well. We played some games like Red Light/Green Light, but they had a different name for it, which has long since been forgotten (anyone want to enlighten me as to what it is?). And answered questions about America. Being entirely unprepared, we talked about Pizza, Football, and the American school system. It was an elementary school, so it was pretty fun and we were not attacked, which was good. We got paid a total of 2000 yen for the experience, but not in cash, rather in Toshoken cards, which are a form of gift certificate that can be used at any bookstore in Japan. We even got some cool gifts from the students for our trouble. We all got lei’d at the beginning after being forced through a tunnel of students. They were all incredibly enthusiastic about it, and that made it more comfortable somewhat. At the end, we got Kimono’d and got a headband thanking us and some stuff written by the students we were grouped with. Word of advice to anyone who gets hooked into this. When you have to choose a game to play and you are American, all the fun stuff will be taken up by the Chinese. They got pingpong, we did duck duck goose and cheated because they liked to harrass us poor gaijin who had to run around on a slick floor with non-traction slippers which were too small. Faster reflexes and longer arms resulted in not having to stand up and run.

The next big thing for me to on my list was to get myself a Chinese visa. Osaka was close and they have a consulate, so, I went down there when we had a few days off. I was dead tired and took the last Shinkansen. I wanted to get there late at night, grab a cheap hotel and be at the consulate first thing in the morning so I wouldn’t have to deal with lines. This plan had a few problems. I slept on the train and woke up in Osaka without knowing I was in Osaka, which scared me. I also happened to only have 2000 yen on me in cash and the post office had long since closed for the day. The post office is the only place that has ATMs that take my card. There was also a surprising lack of hotels that were both cheap and close to my destination. There were also other funny things that happened on my way to the consulate. As soon as I realized that I had arrived, I ran off to find directions to the consulate and took the subway before it shut down for the night. I wasnted to at least find it before it opened to eliminate weird shit that likes to happen to me. I got off at the stop near the Utsubo section of Osaka, and turned right, yes, right. I wandered around for hours trying to find the damned thing, and finally broke down and bought a map. The station I got off at was 2 blocks away from the consulate and I had managed to wander about 5 kilometers in the opposite direction. It was around 1am when I found it. It was easy to spot too, lots of flashing red lights and guards due to the Japanese Nationalists repeated attempts to attack it. I settled down on the steps of a building next to the giver of Chinese visas and was soon approached by a guard who wanted to know what I was doing. The consulate wouldn’t be open for another 9 hours and he didn’t want me to sleep next to it. He told me to get a hotel, to which I replied that I had no money on me because I was stupid. Fuck, now what?

Well, there was a park (Utsubohonen) about 2 blocks away that the homeless people live in. He said I could sleep there because it was safe, but it would look really weird because I am a foreigner. Me? Weird? You bet! So yes, I slept that cold night in the park on a bench, well, for 2 hours or so till I woke up freezing and feeling ill. Before I got to sleep, I yapped with a homeless guy and we watched some Daily Show episodes that I had with me, I got to translate it all and explain the humor, fun. I stumbled into a Yoshinoya to warm up after the park experience and get something to eat (and sleep). This section containing the consulate for China, consequently had a lot of Chinese as well. The server at the Yoshinoya noticed my hat and we stuck up a conversation and he kept giving me hot tea. I ordered the cheapest dish, ate a few bites and retired to a less visible part of the shop to sleep. I got in 2 hours before the manager got pissed and told me to get out. The Chinese guy defended me, but I left because I didn’t want him to get into any trouble. Back into the cold I went at 5am, warm, but with a pounding headache and exhausted. I wandered a bit for a bathroom, and finally just went back to the park after seeing that the subway bathroom was on the other side of the gates, and damnit, if I am not paying for a hotel, I am not going to fork over 120 yen to use a subway toilet.

I tried to sleep some, but with daylight coming, it was difficult, and people were starting to wake up and wander around the park. A lady told me that I should just teach English so I didn’t have to live on the streets and then gave me 100 yen, I didn’t argue, because it was funny. The post office’s service desk was open, but the ATMs were not, this was still warmer and quieter than the park, so I crashed there with the excuse that I was waiting for the ATMs to open. After an hour, they did, and I once again had money to pay the Visa fee. I went straight to the consulate, 4th in line, not bad at all. But it was another hour till it opened and there were some shops to peek into now. I picked up some Choudoufu for “cheap” to share with the Chinese back at Chubu, and got back in line at #9. I waited, and waited, bumped into a guy from the Bronx to chat with a little… mmm, English conversation with a person, not a robot/Japanese. It opened, I rushed in, and of course I got the best line ever from the service desk while filling out my form.

“Oh, you are from Aichi, we don’t serve Aichi anymore, you have to go to Tokyo”

FUCK! Had this entire thing been a waste? That’s what he seemed to be saying. I am cold, tired, exhausted, out cash on the trip here, and I get nothing for it? I refused to accept this and asked what I can do right now. He said to go through a travel agent on the other side of the building. At this point it was already a money pit with sunk cost, and whatever fee the travel agent would charge would be less than a trip to Tokyo. The visa fee for Americans is $50, the company hit me with a $50 surcharge and a $10 shipping fee. Screw it at this point, I just want to sleep. I filled it out, paid, gave them my passport, and stumbled my way back to the station to catch the subway back to Shin-Osaka station for the Shinkansen. To make matters more fun, I went the wrong way from Jinryou and my 20 minute walk home became 90 minutes. Got back, had some food, and collapsed. I love Osaka though, it feels like Chicago, same rudeness, jaywalking, cold, elevated roads over normal roads that are wide as hell. For a brief moment, it felt like home. My passport came in on the 15th with a new visa that oddly was not the 30-day that I requested, but a 60-day, which Americans are not suppossed to be issued.

On the 17th, there was an opportunity for another homestay. Me and Ben both signed up for this along with Sharmin and Sarah. It was in a small town called Kasahara in Gifuken. This was just a sleepy little town with a ceramics factory as it’s only real attraction. I had long forgotten that there was always a catch to these things and that nothing is ever as easy as it seems on paper. To start with, we had to go to the Kasahara middle school for another Culture Day thing. This time, we had a packet of information asking that we wear “Cultural dress of our country” and have some stuff to show them. I basically had nothing to show them and decided to grin and bear it. Hell, I’m an American and we always get the most attention from the kids because of that fact, I could find some way to get by. After a bus ride, with some students from Nanzan and Nagoya Dai, we arrived and were ushered into a meeting room to get some information about what we were about to do. I met up with some old faces from the previous two school visits, and exchanged contact information with a few of them. The principal was cool, and did this thing where he said a few words in the languages of each of our native lands. Then we went to the gym for the celemony (it was spelled that way on the information sheet, so I’m sticking to it). A chorus of We Are the World greeted us as well as a standing ovation. We got to introduce ourselves in both Japanese and English, and then listen to a bunch of speeches from the Mayor, student representatives, and a few others who were building this whole thing up to a level that was quickly progressing from amusing to just weird. Once this was over, we went off to the classrooms, on the way a girl ran up to me and said “Me your homestay”, hehe, it was cool, took some stress off of me, I knew that at least one of these kids would be seen again later in the day.

I was grouped up with an ALT from Wales, a lady from England, a kid from Uzbekistan, and a girl from China (who I later learned had started learning Japanese 6 months ago at Beiwai and now spoke incredibly well). It was a good strong group indeed. Again, the kids were over-prepared and had tons of material ready for us. We did a short (10 minutes) introduction about ourselves and our country. The other bastards had stuff, and I had my passport (with a new Chinese visa, yay), my UWM student ID, and that was pretty much it. I felt like a jerk, but it was ok because the others had run long. Phew, past the hard part. Next up was a quiz about our 5 countries and a 6th country, guess which one. Japan of course. It was all trivia, and it was really obvious. This wasn’t about the kids knowledge, this was for some reason about ours. I think they wanted to test us for reasons unknown, but there were 6 groups and they rotated around so we each had 5 of them to discuss the answers with and WOW them with our freaky gaijin knowledge of the world. The kids loved me because I could speak well and was American, they loved the guy from Uzbekistan because he was fluent and really good at Japanese which shocked them. We had a decent lunch to some 80s music from the states and closed-circuit TV from the students. The kids were really a lot more mature than American Junior High kids, which was amusing for some reason. They seemed more self-reliant, although the grils were always huddling together in some state of fear and shock and the guys were trying to be showoffs, but it was all good. We had our lunch then went out for sports. YAY, I have shoes again! Dodgeball was the sport we had for the day, and this is where I noticed the girl-huddling the most. They were in a state of shock and panic and as any good boys would do, they whipped the ball at them without fail. There was a good half our of this, followed by a return to the classroom for “Gesture Game”, aka Charades. It was all in Japanese of course (what? you think in this cross-cultural thing we were suppossed to dabble in other languages with the kids?) and it was rather fun. After charades they all had presentations in groups of 4 to tell us about places in Japan that we should go to and then a vote about which place we wanted to go to most. When this was done, we got some gifts from the class. The class had worked on choosing Japanese names for us and had voted on the one they liked the best for each of us. We got a nice printout of this, a few other gifts, and then went down to the gym for the closing ceremony (this part of the itinerary had it spelled correctly).

We gathered in our classes and at this point I was decent buds with most of the guys, as was the guy from Uzbekistan. They were literally chanting our names and going crazy, it was fun as hell. The Chinese girl was popular with the girls, and the two UKers were “old” and had shown all their visual aids that they prepared for this sort of thing, so, the kids pretty much left them alone. We had more “We Are the World” and some students came around with mics to get our impressions, which was fun. This is where it sucked to have them know I could speak well, because they were proud of that fact and wanted me to show off. We got more Toshoken, and then school was done for the day. Well, except for the grand exit. They made a tunnel out of all the students holding anothers outstretched hands for us to go through. I think a few of them seriously wanted my hat. It was actually incredibly fun. I met up with my homestay and went back to their place in the car. On the way out I got cheers and shouts from the students.

My homestay was really cool. The family consists of an 11 year old boy, a 15 year old girl who I met earlier, a 17 year old girl who was cute, the parents, and grandma. I was pretty worn out already, but managed to hide it well. After dropping off a few things at the house and meeting everyong, we went to what is best described as a pottery bar, where we painted some bowls along with the rest of the Nanzan, Chubu, and Nagoya Dai volunteers. We went back home and had sukiyaki for dinner over their grill at the table, and I chatted it up with them all. I shared my stories, answered their questions, asked a few of my own, and it was all good. Then it was pretty much “hangout time” where we just talked over a few beers, the cat hated me, and I passed out for an hour on the couch when I couldn’t fake alertness anymore. I woke up a little late in the morning, just in time for breakfast, followed by more conversation and teaching and learning a few card games. I am a horrible person, teaching an 11year old to play poker and Texas hold-em. Next up, lunch. Oomae-Okonomiyaki was the course, and it made sense because their family name is Oomae, and they indeed have a ritual to making their pancake as they like it. I am curious as to what and when grandma eats though, she just seems to make food and serve it, I have never seen her actually eat it. Does she get nourishment from others enjoying her food? I freaked them all out when I expressed my disgust for mayo and my neutrality to nattou. How can someone NOT like mayo? cringe

We ate for a while, some school chums came over to eat with them, the youngest went off for baseball practice, and I bonded with the friend of the 15-year old by plaiying PS2 for a while. Had some strawberries, oranges, and cake that was good along with coffee. Talked some more about life with the parents, and all too soon it was time to go back to the school to leave… that sucked

Before I left, I got a new years present from the family, and they gave me a red envelope which I still feel really quilty about and have to send them stuff from China to make up for it. We all met up in the school again for a final thankyou speech by the principal, and a few gifts that the students had made. We got a nice wall-hanger about the Doll festival, and I had my family write some things to me on the back. Oddly, I liked them even more than my previous homestay for some reason, it was a nice large family in a traditional house, and they were all very cool together. I still miss them, and it really sucked seeing them fade into the distance as the bus pulled away ;_;

My best times in Japan have been with homestays, I need to find some way to get one that is close to campus next semester instead of being stuck in the dorms. Hell they do it for the Nanzan program, we deserve the same.

Back in Chubu life, we were winding down the days left. I finally cooked my Choudoufu, deep-fried it, and stunk up half of campus. We actually had finals for our Japanese classes, but in the end the teachers didn’t care and I doubt they graded the ones that a few of us handed in. The sociolinguistics teacher took me and Ben out for a dinner in Nakagawa where we had REAL STEAK and an 8-course meal with wine, beer, and deserts. He blew entirely way too much, but we were greatful and he enjoyed his time with us. He was also the 3rd Chubu Prof to tell me that Chubu sucks and to go to Nagoya Dai. I told him, like I told the others, that I have no choice in the matter and will see him again next semester. Time to stumble half-drunk to Ron’s going away party at the zakkui nomihodai that we all love and enjoy.

Then it was the 24th. Weilik and Shuyi had already left a while back, Ron had left the day before, Sara and Sharmin had left, and Ben was gone in the morning. There was no more food on campus and everything was closed for break. During these 2 weeks of hell, I did very little in fact. I bonded with Chinese friends, tried to get together with Umeka for New Years and discovered that she actually already had a boyfriend and just wanted to bag a gaijin, at which point I called her a worthless lying bitch and left it at that. I really did pretty much nothing for 2 weeks, and nothing felt great. The break ended, but I didn’t have any more classes because the IES program was officially over. I waited around till friday and went to my Chinese class to discover that it was the day of the final, and no more classes after that. I only went because I needed to reschedule my final to before the 15th. It was easy, and the teacher didn’t expect me to show up and was glad that I managed to

I had been searching for tickets to Beijing for a while now, and had a plan. I was going to go down to Fukuoka, see friends, take a hydrofoil to Busan, and buy a $200 ticket to Beijing. The campus travel agent that gave us student discounts wanted $470 for a one-way. HAH! The scheme I found was about $300 total. Then I started to think about it more. Sure, I had friends in Fukuoka who I want to see, but, I have friends at Chubu who I like hanging out with. I tried to get tickets on my own from Nagoya to Beijing, but the system is backwards in Japan. Instead of jacked up prices at the agent and cheap prices directly, it is jacked up prices at the agent and double that directly. I grinned, and said screw it and went down to the agent again for a pleasant surprise. $470 one way, $530 + $20 tax round trip. What the hell is this? Round trip it is. Wait, what!? No flights on the 15th? You lie so horribly! Fine, the 16th it is. This left two small details, the first was my re-entry permit for Japan, which was in Nagoya, NOT Kasugai, oh what a fun day that was. And more importantly, a final get together the night before I left with Emi, Asumi, and anyone else who could come. Anyone else ended up being WanYing, and Masumi who I had met at the last nomihodai. It was fun, I got trashed, WanYing got trashed, Emi got trashed, and the other two only drank juice

Before the party, I had informed the Gotos that I had a 1pm flight and needed to checkout before 11am. I had cleaned everything and packed my clothes, nothing else. I woke up at 6am, hell no; 8am, try again; 9am, 5 more minutes mom!; 10am, ehhh maybe; finally deciding that at 10:30 I really needed to finish packing and get the hell out of there, so I got up at 10:35. I crammed my laptop and other stuff I wanted into my backpack, checked out, and had Otosan call a cab. Of course, I did something stupid again. I never got my free voucher for a cab ride to the airport, the cab didn’t take plastic, and I was down to 2000 yen after covering my tab from the last nomihoudai and covering for WanYing the night before because I am nice like that. I needed 4000 yen. Nick is coming back for next semester, he had money, I like Nick, I owe Nick 8000 yen. I got to the airport 4500 yen later, ran around to get my tickets, check in, head to security, realized that I still had my knife… haha, I love that knife, this is the 3rd damn time this has happened. I went back and checked it in seperately. Then went through security, got through customs, and was 30 minutes early for boarding

I have escaped from captivity for 2 months, my Japanese life now joins my American life in a paused state.

Before I left, I told all my Chinese friends to make me a list of things they miss that I can bring back for them. They said it was ok, I said I insist, they said they didn’t want to burden me, I said it was no problem, they said ok. It has been a month since I told them this, I still do not have a list… I fear the list.

Back to the China adventure!