April 25, 2000

Dear Mom:


Hello from Japan. Things here are getting back into a normal rut following the opening of school. Soon we will be making plans to go off for Golden Week. The plans for now are Yakushima Island?I will keep you posted. They have a tree there that is older than Jesus. Seriously, it is older than 2500 years. I can not wait to see it. Last weekend I went to a Hail & Farewell party on Saturday with the staff at my school, literally to honor the teachers who were transferred and to welcome the new staff to Wadayama High School. It was a good time. We started at the Wadayama Hotel, which is very posh, and there was a lot of food, all immaculately arranged and aesthetically pleasing. Very beautiful food, but you gotta be careful�cI got this little cube of jello-like stuff. It was salty and had chunks of squid in it, with a sprig of parsley and a dollop of KETCHUP on top. I ate it. I gotta say-soup is good food. The biggest production was reserved for the head table only. (thank goodness) There was a miniature parade carrying in this tray, with a fish on it. I do not know the name of the fish, but this is considered to be one of the greatest delicacies in Japan. They take a live fish right from the tank (or the sea) and they lightly fry it on both sides, very quickly, while it is alive. And then they pin it down to a board, and they cut filets on the side, very shallow as to not kill the fish?and then they sprint out so that the table guests can eat the poor fish while it is gasping on the table. It is disgusting, horrifying, nauseating�cand terribly expensive. I see it as unbelievably cruel, also. I think I might have nightmares. It was interesting to see, but I hope that when they do MY farewell party that they do not serve this. When the dinner was over there were a lot of speeches, and then the teachers all got together to sing the school song. The ones who were leaving were thrown up in the air by the male teachers and then everyone made a big tunnel (reminded me of a large game of London Bridge) and they all passed through it. I learned later that these are all traditions, as normal as us throwing rice at a bride and groom. The Japanese I talked to were horrified to hear that we used to throw rice on the ground. I wanted to point out that the rice was not alive and gasping for breath in utter agony on the ground. Instead, I tell them that now we use birdseed so that we do not cause any birds to explode. Anyway, the teachers are all really close to each other, and the custom is for everyone to continue the party at another location after the dinner, so we all got on a bus and went to a karaoke bar together. They would choose songs and then hand me the mic, and I would end up dueting with one or another of the teachers. It was a lot of fun. Sometimes I knew the songs and sometimes I didn`t but it really didn�ft matter. Morishita-sensei and I serenaded the whole bunch with COPACABANA. You have not lived until you have heard this done by Japanese people. You remember that L`s are virtually impossible to pronounce because this sound does not exist in Japanese, right? They are constantly mixing the L sound up with R and vice versa?so the trees are BROOMING now, and when the BROSSOMS fall to the ground, you will need to sweep them out with a BLOOM. Some of them just forego the agony and use the D sound. This is why I am usually called �gDin-dee sensei�h?so you have to imagine a group of fairly inebriated people singing along with us like this? (musical interlude�c.)
�gHuh name waaaz RO-RAH�c�cSee waaahz a SHO-gull�c�cWiss yah-low FLA-waahz in huh HAY-AH�c�cAnd a duless cut don ta DAY-AH�c..�h  It was priceless. But the fun didn�ft stop there?I ended up singing Mrs. Robinson from Simon and Garfunkel (love that song) and other than the confusion I felt trying to explain to them who DiMaggio was and what �gcoo coo cachoo�h means, it was pretty cool overall. I was also able to accompany some teachers who sang some of the popular Japanese songs?although I basically just was singing �gda da da da da�h because I recognized the tunes from the radio, but the kanji was incomprehensible and going about 90 miles a minute!  There is one song that is called �gmorning musume�h which is very popular, and I was asking about the meaning. One of my favorite teachers at the school was trying to help me. After about ten agonizing minutes (which made me wish I hadn`t asked) she laughed and said, �gDin-dee sensei might say it was like coo-coo-cachoo.�h Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious. After that, when she or I missed the meaning of something, we would look at one another and say �gcoo-coo-cachoo�h and then just laugh. There you have it�cinternationalization at its finest. I stayed at the party for a couple of hours, and they just kept handing me the mic. I would refuse, they would insist, I would sing and then give the mic back. Then they would start some new song and shove it back at me. I was tired, but we had a good time. They are used to singing mostly English songs at karaoke, but rarely do they get a chance to hear the words pronounced correctly, so one of my teachers said that it was a treat for them even though my singing was horrendous most of the time. They love the Carpenters, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Billy Joel and Elton John, so I got to sing along with these faves of mine---but they also like Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Madonna, so I had to try to keep up with these divas too! And though I can hit the notes and I know the songs, my vocal styling, as you know, is much different than any of these women, so I was afraid that they would be disappointed. They were good sports about it.
Do you remember me telling you about our going up to that waterfall in Oya, the one that is near that school where Ken teaches on Wednesdays? Well, we are planning another shindig for the JETs around here, like the one to Takeda castle last fall. After Golden Week and payday, that is, cause I know that most people will need another pay period to catch up after traveling on vacations, etc. I will let you know about the festivities. We are all excited-especially Jessica, who CONSTANTLY asks when we will see Chan or Sarah or Stephanie or Malcolm or Angie�cor...or�cyou get it. Since my last letter, we went back to Himeji Castle again for the viewing of the trees there, and a gathering of JETs on the lawn. The trees were very beautiful, and it was fun to be able to visit with everyone. Jessica kept everyone entertained by whopping people with Ryan`s foam swords. I will send you a copy of the pictures. An older Japanese gentleman came up to us and wanted to take our picture. Naturally, we obliged. He had a very nice camera and was wearing traveler`s clothes with dress shoes. He had one arm and looked to be around 60-65 years old, but in Japan it is hard to tell. He struck up a conversation with me, in Japanese. Needless to say, the conversation was pretty one-sided, consisting of his asking questions in unintelligible Japanese, and me smiling and nodding very slowly in deep contemplation, my lips pressed together tightly, you know, that international facial language that says �gI haven`t a clue in hell what you just said but I am trying to be polite.�h So then, instead of speaking more slowly, he just says the same thing LOUDER to me, since I am apparently deaf and not just plain stupid. Then he uses sign language. I get this:  He points at me, then points to himself. He makes a circular motion in the air with one finger. He is still speaking Japanese. He shows me his passport. He points at his feet, and then points back at me. THEN, he sticks out his pinky at me and smiles. (pause) Now, my mind is going a mile a minute and I am not the idiot I pretend to be. My cognitive powers are beyond your comprehension. I consider the possibilities and come up with--either he wants me to paint his toenails, or he is asking me to be his girlfriend. Surely, it HAS to be the toenails, but it is nevertheless a no-go. He steps into my personal space. I step to the right. He touches my hair and I step back again. He steps in, and slips the one arm behind me, into the small of my back. I jump to the left, and the image of doing the time-warp dance from the Rocky Horror Picture Show comes to mind. I start pointing now, first to my face, then to my wedding ring, then to my daughter, and I tell him in my broken Japanese that I am sorry, but I am not available. I hold my breath. He winks at me. YIKES! �gRYAN!�h I say, rather loudly, to get the attention of a nearby JET with good Japanese. �gHELP ME!�h Ryan was able to let the man know that I had to leave immediately to go find my husband, who had wandered off to buy some food. You see? This kind of thing ONLY happens to me. First, we get picked up off the streets of Osaka by a former elephant trainer for the circus, and now I am hit on by a one-armed grandfather in Himeji. As usual, truth is SO much stranger than fiction?I just could not make this stuff up. All is well here, and we send lots of love from all here to all there--Sayonara for now!  Lynley