NOTE--the dashes in my program sometimes are read as question marks.  Am still working out the bugs--be patient, you know I really do know how to use punctuation, right????  Thanks.

September 4, 2000

Dear all:

Well, last weekend, as you probably knew, we celebrated my birthday.  We did this in a big way-you see, the JET Back-to-School bash was held in Kobe.  It was actually ON SATURDAY night, my birthday, so in effect, all the JETs came to MY birthday party-hee hee hee!  Let me start with that morning and get you caught up to speed!

Saturday morning we got up early because the first train was at 7:12 am and we wanted to be on it so that we could do some shopping for some essentials in Kobe.  We had planned also to meet up with a few of the ALTs in the area and all go together as a group.  My kohai Shawn came around 7, and we decided to take the second train at 7:42 to give Ryan and Richie enough time to get there also.  At 7:20, Shawn and Jessica and I started walking to the station, getting there in JUST enough time, and Ken and Ryan were on our heels at a dead run in the heat, and we bought our tickets in time to see our train pull out without us.  Richie had gotten lost, so he just drove on to the station and parked there, and we gave our tickets to Ryan who got us a refund and we went down  the street to catch the bus instead.  Imagine the shock and surprise on the faces of the locals who were bustling to get their stores open for the day, and here is this huge group of white people huddled at the bus stop waiting for the Zentan Bus to pick us up.  We were there in plenty of time, but the bus didn�ft come.  No problem-the next one was scheduled in 25 minutes so we just hung out and waited.  While we waited, we talked about various TV shows and movies and musicals and CDs and the like, and �gI Love Lucy�h was mentioned briefly.  Jessica turns to Richie and says in her best Desi voice �gLooooSeeee,  Ahm Hoooooome!�h  Richie laughed and then took off his backpack, putting it on backward so that it hung across his chest.  Then, he pounded on the bottom of the pack in the manner that you might beat a congo drum and he broke into song.  �gBaaaa Baaaa LOOOOOOOOO!�h was the first thing we heard, and then he proceeded to sing us the entire song, right there in the middle of the street, complete with choreography and dynamics, even accentuating the �glet me hold you�h portion by bowing down to Shawn and causing her to erupt into even deeper laughter.  He completed the song, at the top of his lungs, bringing shopkeepers outside to see what was happening, all the while keeping beat on his bongo-backpack.  We laughed until we cried, it was wonderful.  Jessica and Richie are good buddies.  He is really good with her, and likes listening to her stories, so you KNOW she loves THAT!  It made waiting for the bus a really nice time.  But that bus didn�ft show either, and THEN we discovered that it was on a different schedule and we had been waiting for nothing.  It would be another three hours before one came.  That`s just one of those things-you sometimes just never know because it`s all in Japanese.  It took awhile before Ryan (the fluent one of us) got everything figured out.  So we trekked back to the station and hung out for another half-hour, and FINALLY caught the train.  The attendants at the station really hate us-ha ha!  I mean, they issue tickets, they refund them, and then they issue them AGAIN.  Sigh�clike I said, we were wreaking havoc on Wadayama.

Once in Kobe, we headed for the Harborland Circus area-not really a circus-it`s the name of the shopping district there.  They have a mall area known as Mosaic, right on the bay, where there is a SIZZLER.  This place is awesome.  The salad bar is great.  I bet you would never have guessed that we would get really stoked about going to Sizzler, but it`s true.  We feasted on the salad bar, and Ken and I split a Ribeye that was beautifully cooked�cmmmmmmm�cI mean, it was my birthday-we splurged a little.  While I was getting some fruit, I lost control of the rather slippery little tongs and they  fell into the Italian dressing.  I retrieved them, grabbed the nearby cloth, and was cleaning up my mess when a man near me said �git is okay, they will do that for you, you can put down it.�h  He was in a white t-shirt and his dialect wasn`t native to Japan, and I guessed maybe he was Chinese.  He continued to practice his English on me, which was rather good even if it did sound a little forced.  As we filled our plates, we exchanged the regular �gI am an English teacher.�h �gOh, where were you born?�h  �gI am an American�h etc., and then he asked if I had ever been to China.  So my guess was right, and I was glad that I knew a little about Chinese history that I could drop casually to let him know that I hoped to see his country one day.  He was happy that I knew that most of the beautiful culture in Japan was borrowed from China, where the civilization (with writing) goes back 10,000 years or more.  We continued to chitchat for a minute, and he mentioned that he came to Kobe regularly because of his work, that he liked going along to make certain things went right.  I saw his card then?President and CEO of COSCO.  That`s when I think my heart stopped.  COSCO is a company that I had heard about WAY back in college-we studied it as a model in a couple of classes.  For those of you who aren`t familiar with the acronym, it stands for China Ocean Shipping Company, and it is the oldest, most prestigious shipping company in Asia.  They are pretty much responsible for opening sea trade.  So in effect, I was talking to a multi-billionaire in a white t-shirt with chicken stains on it.  (I judged it was probably chicken because it was the only sauce on the food bar that was the same color�c)  So I exumed a couple of company facts from the recesses of my steak-fed brain and shook his hand, complimenting him on his English.  When I returned to the table and told Ken, Ryan and Richie about him, they nearly dropped their forks.  I contend that you just never know who you might meet. That was a treat.

We did a little shopping afterward, our stomachs uncomfortably full from the feast, and headed on to Sannomiya, the central station in Kobe.  This area is huge-with dozens of arcades (outdoor shopping areas that stretch for miles) and just about anything you can imagine.  After awhile, though-the heat was making us all a little icky, so we decided to check into our hotel and freshen up before the party.  We got to the hotel room and the AC had not been left on, as is the norm in Japan.  So we cracked the  window and cranked up the AC, but it was still just almost too hot to move around.  Ugh.  We did manage to refresh ourselves a little bit, and soon it was time to head for the beergarden on top of the Sogo department store.  The food wasn`t great, but there was a lot of it, and the company was wonderful.  Because they print our birthdays in  the JET Directory, most of our friends knew that it was my day, and a couple even brought gifts for me, which surprised me tremendously.  They kept me talking right there at the line for the beer, so you can imagine that there was a steady stream of well-wishing.  It was great.  From time to time, an ALT would come up and sing the birthday song, and groups of people nearby would join in.  It was really nice.  But then, Jessica comes running up and tells me that I have to go back to our table, that there is a surprise for me.  When I got there, there was a cake with fruit and candles glowing, and more than 100 JETs waiting to sing to me en masse.  The sound was deafening.  Like I said?it was a good birthday party.

Sunday morning we got up and got ourselves together and headed for the shopping areas again.  It was interesting to walk down the streets and see people JUST leaving the Karaoke bars, where they had just sung the night away to the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel.  It was also interesting to see the lines of people waiting for the Pachinko Parlors to open.  They were jockeying for position, wanting specific machines, and it was still hours before the place would open.  I don�ft get Pachinko.  But I suppose I am knocking it before I try it, which may be unfair. Anyway--- After we had shopped ourselves silly, we called Shawn and arranged to meet her at the train station so we could all make our way north together.  The rest of our group had scattered.  So we met at Haagen Daas and (after a scoop or two) got on the train.  We were lucky enough to find some seats on the train to Himeji, and there were two together, so I sat Jessica down next to Shawn and Ken and I sat across the aisle from them.  There was a couple who sat across from them, an older man and his very elderly mother.  She was nearly ninety, he told us, and he spoke easy Japanese with Jessica.  Then, he took out a sheet of origami paper and began folding.  We have watched people fold things many times, but this was incredible.  You see, immediately upon meeting him, you don`t notice anything unusual, but I quickly saw the white cane folded in his lap.  This man was blind, and we sat in an awe-filled silence as we watched his nimble fingers fly around that piece of paper.  Suddenly, he made a large tear in the sheet, and it shocked me for a moment, but he continued folding at great speed, and soon he presented Jessica with a gift-a beautiful crane.  But not like any I had ever seen.  This crane had seven smaller cranes joined by the wingtips, flying in an arc over the head of the larger crane.  The feeling was beyond description.  I had never before seen any folding like this, eight cranes from a single sheet of paper, so delicate and beautiful.  Jessica thanked the man profusely, and he was so pleased with her delight that he pulled several others out and made presents of them as well.  He gave one to all of us, then brought out a larger one made of gold foil paper.  He even made a basket for her to carry it all in, and a samurai hat, with cranes flying over it too!  Before it was all over, he had fished out three packets of origami papers and gave them to her also.  She made a regular crane, and gave it to his mother for good luck, she said.  It was really sweet to watch his mother get so excited about her son`s cranes.  He would fold and she would squeal and clap.  They were so cute and energetic.  Before we all parted ways in Himeji, we shook hands and chatted briefly, and we Americans felt very lucky to have met some amazing people.  I studied those cranes closely on the way home?wondering what it must look like in his mind.  I mean, it is obvious from his actions and body language that he wasn`t born blind, but he has obviously been sightless for many a decade nonetheless.  It makes me wonder just what the picture in his mind must be.  Does he have any idea how the colored foil might throw the light like that?  Perhaps not.  Is the beauty of it in the creation, like an artist`s vision?  Or is the real beauty in the sounds of delight and appreciation of the children that he meets on the train?  For a few minutes I closed my eyes and just let my fingers wander over the creases in the paper cranes, marveling at the work he did, astounded because I don�ft think I could make a crane if the lights were out.  I am inspired to get the crane chain finished at home, and this was perhaps the boost that I needed to do it.  The crane chain, which Ken and I made a joint student project at our schools, will be strung together eventually and taken to Hiroshima.  I have mentioned the crane chains many times, but I will talk about it again.  The paper crane is a symbol of peace and hope.  It is said that if you fold 1000 cranes and you think hard about your wish, that the gods will grant it to you.  If a group folds it together hoping for peace, then the gods will grant that also.  After WWII, a girl named Sadako was dying of cancer from radiation poisoning.  When she entered the hospital, she began folding her cranes, believing that she would be well if she could only fold enough cranes.  A very sad story.  After Sadako died, her friends and family gathered and finished folding her cranes for her, then they strung them all together.  Today, she has become a symbol for peace and hope in the city of Hiroshima.  In the Memorial Peace Park, there is a statue of Sadako holding a large paper crane over her head, and at her feet, people leave crane chains by the thousands.  Before we leave Japan, we will add a chain to the pile.  Both Ken and I use this exercise in our classes to talk about what happened at Hiroshima from both the Japanese viewpoint and the American viewpoint.  It seems like a subject we should steer clear of, I know.  However, it has proven to be very useful in breaking down walls between us, the students, and the other teachers as well.  I mean, we brought it up, but we used THEIR own textbooks, and we contend that it is history and should not be forgotten, but rather seen as a terrible day that we can choose never to repeat.  By speaking of war, we celebrate peace.  You would just have to be in a class to understand, perhaps.  The end result is that the students get incensed to write down their own thoughts and we get to see just how deeply they think, which is terribly exciting!  They also work harder to learn the English words so that they can ask those probing questions that they can`t ask any other teacher.  Being a foreigner is really liberating at times, because the students will talk to us about their personal lives, when they would never dream of revealing such things to their homeroom teachers.  It`s a good exchange.  The best result, though, is that once the Hiroshima lesson is over, it`s out there?the horrible past is no longer looming overhead?there is nothing more to dread when you meet each other in the classroom.  You talked about it, you put it to rest, and now you can be friends and take real pleasure in being friends. Okay?I suppose that I will go for now.  That`s deep enough for today?ha ha ha!  I have to plan my lessons for the week, and the email is down, so I have no idea when you will get this letter.  I hope sooner than later!  I also apologize to those of you who tried to call over the weekend to wish birthday tidings!  I meant to be able to call, but when I had the free moments, it would have been the wee hours of the morning for you there!  So so sorry about that!

Alright, I am really going this time?bye for now, and write soon!
Love to all from all--Lynley