June 30, 2000
Hello everybody!
Well, it has been a few days since I have written, and I have tried to call MeeMaw a couple of times this week, but with everything going on at the music store, I guess everyone has been really really busy. I am so sorry that I have not been there to help. It has been a busy week here, though I have been a little out of it because I caught some weird summer cold. There has been no coughing, sore throat or nausea, just a complete loss of appetite, extreme sleepiness and a high fever. My go-between went with me on Wednesday to see a local doctor, who did some blood work and found not much else besides just a weird summer cold. Today is Friday, and it is the fourth day for me at home. I hope that the fever will go down over the weekend. Finals are next week, and then summer vacation will start for the students.
Last night I was supposed to go and teach my adult evening class, but Ken and our friend Ryan went in my place, and I slept. They were really nice to pick up and teach a lesson at the last minute, and they said that the students really had a nice time. The topic that they chose was GUNS in America and they took all the statistics that they could find on the internet, plus a couple of toys that Ryan has bought here. There are no guns in Japan, which is a nice change. There really couldn`t be that kind of threat here, what with all the pushing and shoving that goes on in the train every day people would just lose it, I`m sure. Did you know that there are people whose job is specifically to stand on the platform and shove people in the train doors during rush hour? I am infinitely glad that we never have to take the rush hour trains. It is nice to be able to just take the trains for recreational purposes. It is nice to have a car to drive. So they went and took Ryan`s toys, which are made to the same scale as regular guns here but they shoot little plastic pellets. They are only for target practice, and the Japanese have huge contests here for marksmanship. The toys are really eerie! They are the right color, but are not real. They do not even have the little orange caps or the bright colors that are necessary for guns in America to distinguish them from toys. A person could truly terrorize people with the kind of toys they have here, which is why they are illegal in America to have them. So Ken and Ryan talked with the adults in the group, who are always full of questions about how many people have guns, how easy it is to get guns, and what it costs us as a society every year. The statistics boggle my mind. Did you know that gun-related incidents, including medical, insurance and investigation costs, bring a debt of more than 24 billion dollars every year to our country? Last year, more than 34,000 people were killed with firearms. 33,600 (roughly) died in the Korean War. Isn`t that a staggering figure? Needless to say, the lesson they gave was a hit. The Japanese people hung on every word, and as Ken said, they were glad to finally be able to ask a lot of questions that could dispel what they see on television. The truth remains that while we are the strongest country in the world, we are one of the more dangerous countries of the world. When you compare the 34,000 deaths to firearms in our country compared to the 60 in Japan, you can see why they had so many questions!!!
I hadn`t meant to go on about that. I just thought the whole matter was interesting. I have been able to use some of my time at home this week to catch up on some much needed rest. Besides having a fever and being barred from work until it is gone, I don`t feel badly. I do feel a little anxious to get back to the students at Wadayama High School and help them to prepare for the upcoming exams. As a good portion of the English material of the exam is stuff from my lessons, I hope that they will be able to work with the other English teachers to be ready. I hate not being able to know what is happening. Soon, we will be going to Himeji again to complete the paperwork for us to be able to stay and work for another year. There is so much paperwork that still must be done. I am working daily to complete all the paperwork for our taxes here, which cannot be filed until we have lived here for 366 days. It is a good thing that we have the extra time, as it will take some more days to get the last of the stuff together. Ugh. Additionally, we have to send paperwork back to the states to have our international driving licenses renewed for another year, or try to go and sit for the Japanese driving test, which I could easily pass if it weren`t all written in Japanese! Ha ha ha!
Speaking of Japanese, Jessica`s Japanese is getting better all the time. She can read most anything you give her, as long as the kanji (Chinese characters) are easy ones. She is even talking to herself in the shower in Japanese. And her dolls communicate with each other in Japanese also. It is really amazing how quickly she has picked it up. Sometimes, though, it gets a little confusing around here, when you might hear something like:
ME: Jessica? (I call from the kitchen)
J: Hai? (yes, in Japanese)
ME: Could you come here a minute?
J: Okaasan, gomen nasai nani desuka? (Mom, sorry, what is it?)
ME: Could you come here a minute?
J: Eh? Sumimasen�E(excuse me?)
ME: You. Here. Now. Me Talk Tarzan
J: (snapping out of it) Oh, sorry, Mom! I was thinking in Japanese
ME: (sigh�c)
The same thing occasionally happens when she answers the telephone and the person on the other end thinks they have the wrong number because she sounds like a native speaker, and since a native speaker wouldn`t actually LIVE with us, the people just hang up and call back. We have had our friend Mary call (Mary from South Africa) and she has even called Jessica by name when Jessica was thinking in Japanese, and Jessica was unable to understand her English. Mary was certain it was a wrong number and called back again, to get me this time, laughing like a hyena because Jessica finally figured out that Mary was an English speaker. It was bizarre. We have gotten a lot of miles out of that joke.
Well, since I do not really have that much to say, I will let you go. This weekend is a slow one. We will go to a friend`s birthday party tomorrow. Lots of new friends there, some of the new JETs arriving and such, and then on Sunday we will go shopping with Ryan at an international market for some food for a 4th of July picnic. He has invited all his teachers for an AMERICAN-STYLE BBQ to celebrate our Independence Day, and wants me and Ken to do the cooking. As long as he is buying I don`t care. We will have sandwiches, coleslaw and potato salad, plus some ribs and stuff on the grill. He is getting some fireworks for that evening, and I have been instructed to make some Lipton Iced Tea like we drink it. I am thinking one regular and one sweetened jug. Also, there will be ice cream, and we are going to teach them how to make a proper banana split. That would be MINUS the corn flakes that you usually see in desserts here. We intend to use real bananas too, and strawberries, and hot fudge and I even have some cherries and chopped nuts for on top. It will be a nice fourth, but it would be much nicer to be able to shoot bottles rockets off the dock at Mustin Lake, eat some of MeeMaw`s homemade ice cream, and watch DaddyHorse cool off the charcoal underneath the burgers with water in a coke bottle. I can hear the sound of the water hitting the coals, and I can almost hear the distant laughing from the horseplay down at the swimming hole. If I close my eyes, I can smell the grass and hear the sound of the chains on the porch swing creaking and chinking against themselves. This is one of my happy places, always with my family around and the knowledge that in the unlikely event that the phone rings, chances are it isn`t for me. Ryan said that he will even splurge and get a watermelon to split with the gang at the BBQ and Ken and I have decided that the guys should explain how to have a seed spitting contest. Don`t worry, I will take pictures.
I got something from my friend Skipper online recently, who knows how into history I get, and who got hold of some interesting facts about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. In the spirit of true patriotism, I am pasting the text here into this letter, in case you are interested. We have a great country, bought at great price, and that fact is ever present in my mind every day I live in Japan. So when I bow my head on the 4th to give thanks for my many blessings, you can bet that I will say a word of thanks for the courage of those men, of the women who supported them, and of the country that was born that allows our many freedoms. In a world where families are separated and destroyed, I was born in the midst of people who loved me and loved each other. I never went without. I always had much more than I ever needed. I was blessed with a safe home, a good family, many opportunities, and more friends than I can count. For all these things I am grateful, but I also thank God for each one of you. Just wanted you to know. Happy Fourth, and let me hear from you!
Here is the text of the email I got from Skipper:
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion.
Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government! Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't.
So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.
Remember: freedom is never free!