Friday August 1, 2003
4:34pm
Today I was officially introduced into Tohaku society at the town hall meeting. I've found that there are some people here who know a bit of English, but conversations are still difficult. The few who can talk to me have begun translating what the townspeople are saying about me. The taxi driver said he had never seen a beautiful foreigner before. Ha! Apparently my lack of Japanese is not a concern, as I am quickly gaining the reputation as Tohaku's "kirei gaiin" (pretty foreigner). I`ve never been envied for my pasty whiteness before. But here people buy whitening creams and lotions, and get upset whenever they have a tan. I try to tell them that tans are beautiful in the U.S., but they think I'm just being nice.
Right now I'm sitting on a hanging wooden bench swing suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the living room. All the windows and doors are open, so it's like being outside. The bugs are so loud. The wooden swing creaks slowly and I feel very at peace. It's amazing how soothing the sensation of rocking can be.
Monday August 11, 2003
11:30am
Ha! I made it on the train. This is my first time on one. I feel somewhat independent and somewhat uprooted and confused. There are many men in suits with their arms crossed and eyes closed. One of them is snoring. The man across from me looks as though he could tip over at any second.
We're speeding through masses of greenery. People try to sneak glances at me until I meet their gaze and they blink and look away. I've found that this is the best way to keep people from starring at you. Stare back. The only people who have held the gaze until I myself looked away were the homeless men at the park in Tokyo. They seemed amused by my being there, and laughed whenever I stopped to look at an old fountain or bird's nest. But everyone seems to find amusement in my being here. I'm like the strange anamaly that occasionally provides a good bout of comic relief from perhaps some type of monotony.
It takes about an hour to get to Tottori-shi (Tottori city) where my orientation will be. My ears pop as we quickly descend into an underground tunnel.
11:50
A man comes by and checks everyone's ticket. I watch as he glances at the passengers' small slips of tan paper. I show him mine and he takes it, runs it through a machine that gives it a red circular stamp, and hands it back to me, Then he continues down the row, glancing quickly at the tickets and taking none of them. What was that about? The businessman across from me was now awake, and maybe he saw the confused and somewhat dissapointed look on my face. He tried to ask me something in Japanese but I couldn't understand him. He thought for a minute and said, "You live Japan?" Ah! An English speaker! I told him I moved here 2 weeks ago but he didn't understand me. So I said "Watashiwa atarashi eego sensei desu" (I'm a new English teacher) to which he tilted his head back slowly, narrowed his eyes as if deep in thought, and said, "Ahhhh Eego sensei...." Then he crossed his arms again and starred out the window, never to glance my way again. Sometimes you can see that a million thoughts are going by the look on someone's face, but it's extremely hard to read whether people are feeling something positive, negative, or completely indifferent... Emotions are _well_ hidden.
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