My Fibroid Surgery in Japan (Diagnosis, Decisions & Pre-Op)

I've wanted to take some time to discuss my experience with fibroid tumors and having laparotomy (open abdominal surgery) here in Japan. It's been a bit over a week since I came home from the hospital, and I'm finally in a place where I feel I can write this up. I'm going to be as baldly honest as I can. Looking back, I realize I should have been a lot more proactive about this at certain points, and I'm grateful that things worked out as well as they have. Tomorrow, I have my post-op followup appointment with my doctor, where I'm anticipating good biopsy results and to hopefully be cleared to return to work on Tuesday.

A bit of background on Fibroid tumors. These are very commonly found tumors in women. About one in four women have fibriods, and most of the time they remain small and don't require any surgery. Fibroids are 99% + benign. Surgery is required when fiboids (a) grow rapidly (like mine) and/or (b) affect your life by causing heavy bleeding with your period and serious pain. (this didn't happen to me) . Other symptoms of fibroids include frequent urination and eventually a 'pregnant' belly, as the fibroid expands your uterus just like a baby. At the time my fibroids were removed, my uterus was equivalently sized to being four months pregnant.

I was diagnosed with fibroid tumors in August of 2010. This was the result of a general gynecological checkup at a local hospital: the Toyota Kosei Byouin (豊田厚生病院). My doctor, Dr. Yumi Hariyama, as a part of the regular checkup did an ultrasound in the office. There she found one 6cm fibroid as well as a four smaller tumors. At the time, six centimeters was pretty much meaningless to me. I'm crap with metric, and in my mind, I didn't really get this was the diameter of the tumor, which I'm guessing was about the size of a clementine orange. (I do prefer the American way of comparing tumors to fruits as opposed to just giving measurements.)

Even though I really didn't get how big my large tumor was, because my mother has a history of fibroids and uterine cancer, I was understandably concerned and scheduled surgery for the following March. Dr. Hariyama was on the fence at the time as to whether surgery or watchful waiting was a good solution, but she agreed to the surgery. At the time, I scheduled to have laparoscopic surgery to have the tumors removed. I ended up canceling the surgery due to a number of reasons, both rational and irrational. I told my doctor that I was going to attempt having the surgery done at home in the States, but due to insurance reasons and the general business of my life, this wasn't possible. I had a followup appointment with Dr. Hariyama in November, where she said the tumor appeared to have shrunk.

After that appointment, I was supposed to return in six months for another followup, but this followup didn't happen until the following August, 2011. This was entirely my fault. Having too much fun, my tumor was asymptomatic, and my doctor had originally seemed on the fence about the necessity of surgery at all (I'd pushed for it): all of these things made me less concerned about solving the problem as I ought to have been. At my November appointment, my doctor also recommended I stop all oral birth control pills. As I had run out, this wasn't difficult to manage, but I was concerned if this recommendation was medically necessary or due to the tendency in Japanese medicine towards fearing birth control pills. I resolved at this point to see a doctor in the States to find out if it was really necessary for me to stop birth control pills in order to keep the tumor from growing.

As my fibroid was mostly asymptomatic, the only symptom a gradual increase in the frequency of urination (ie: I had to go to the toilet more often, which was annoying) I basically forgot about it until July, 2011, when I noticed that if I laid flat on my back on my futon, I could feel a mass in my abdomen. At first I panicked, but then I wondered if possibly my fibroid tumor had gotten larger. I was due to return home for the summer, so I scheduled an appointment with a doctor at Planned Parenthood, partially to look at the mass and also to discuss what kinds of birth control I could take.

Looking back, I probably should have panicked more and ran straight to the doctor when I felt the tumor, but I hadn't been in the habit of palpating my abdomen, so I figured it was more the tumor had always been like that or maybe grown a little rather than it had almost doubled in size. I think this was a bit of denial on my part as opposed to rational thinking. In retrospect, I should have been more proactive about things, which I will be in the future (though hopefully I won't need to be, lol).

When I saw the Planned Parenthood Nurse Practitioner at home, she palpated my uterus and said that I most likely had a very large fibroid, and that it was similar to as if I was four months pregnant. She had actually given me a pregnancy test without my knowledge before proclaiming I most likely had a fibroid. I mentioned that my Japanese doctor had told me I had fibroids, one being six centimeters. I asked her if she thought I needed surgery and she said not to rush into it, but that my fibroids were rather large so surgery was a possibility. I also asked about birth control. She agreed with Dr. Hariyama that birth control pills were not a good idea because of the estrogen, but that I could do the three month Depot Shot. I did this while in the office. She suggested that I do a followup appointment with my doctor when I returned to Japan. I agreed.

While centimeters did nothing for me, four months pregnant scared the hell out of me, so when I got back to Japan at the end of August, I went in immediately for a followup appointment with Dr. Hariyama. She did another ultrasound and immediately scheduled me for an MRI. After the MRI, she said my tumor had grown significantly. This is where the language barrier went a bit awry, (she speaks excellent English, but there was a mistake somewhere) because I thought she said the tumor had grown from six to seven centimeters, but I found out two months later that she'd really meant that my tumor had grown from six to ten centimeters. Thinking about fruit, ten centimeters was somewhere between 4-5 inches, which seemed like a grapefruit to me. Yikes!

At the time of my MRI, Dr. Hariyama also dropped another bombshell on me: instead of doing the 'easy' laparoscopic procedure, the growth of my tumor and the fact that I now had five more meant that she wanted to do laparotomy. Open surgery! The thought terrified me!

When I was in the ninth grade, my mom had open surgery for fibroid tumors. She had an incredibly difficult recovery. Watching her go through this made me never want to experience the same thing. Now, not only was I possibly going to have to have open surgery, but I was going to have to do it in a foreign country! I asked Dr. Hariyama if laparoscopy was totally off the table, or if she could try it. She said she could try, but it would depend on if the shot (Lupron) that I would receive for four months prior to surgery succeeded in shrinking my tumor. The size, location, and volume of tumors made it very likely though that if she went in to do laparoscopy that she might have to switch halfway to laparotomy anyway.

At this point, I was hell bent on having the Laparoscopic procedure. I was desperately worried about the recovery, and having witnessed my mom go through open abdominal surgery twice, I really didn't want to go through that hell. At the same time, I was worried because my doctor, while willing to try laparoscopy, didn't really seem so convinced it would do the trick. I decided to try the shot and see if it worked. I was optimistic about the Lupron shot's efficacy though because I'd had one shot prior to my November appointment, and the tumor had shrunk from that.

I received monthly Lupron injections for four months before my followup MRI. In the intervening time though, I'd received a second ultrasound (at my request) because the tumor had felt like it was growing when I palpated it. The ultrasound (much less reliable than an MRI) seemed to show the tumor had shrunk. This turned out to be in error, as I found out on the followup MRI. My tumor had not shrunk at all! It had gotten a bit more fluidy, but that was it. Now I was faced with the very real possibility of having open abdominal surgery.

Dr. Hariyama restated that she was willing to give Laparoscopy a try, but there was a 50% chance that during the surgery she would have to change her mind and do Laparotomy. At this point, between my own personal terror and the hormonal issues that the Lupron was giving me (I had no real physical symptoms beyond some very minor joint pain and occasional hot flashes, but my ability to cope with stress or surprises was greatly reduced on the medication, and it also killed my short term memory), I had no idea what to do! I wanted to discuss it with my mom, but my mom's experience with abdominal surgery as well as the fact that she was recovering from a resurgence of breast cancer (which she hadn't told me she was dealing with until halfway through the process) made me very reluctant to tell her anything that would stress her. Because my decision making was totally a mess at this point, every time I sat in Dr. Hariyama's office, I assumed she needed a decision right then, so I just kept waffling, driving both her and me insane.

This brought me to December. A lovely and amazing volunteer (Sachiko-sensei) at one of my schools volunteered to go with me to the hospital the day of the surgery and to offer me any translation help I needed in advance of the surgery. She's Japanese and had lived in the US for over 15 years. She said she knew how difficult it was to have surgery in a foreign country and wanted to do everything she could to help me. I am so incredibly grateful to her for all of her help. She was incredible, and absolutely saved me both emotionally and physically as I went through the pre-op process.

I brought her with me for my final pre-op visit with Dr. Hariyama and also to help me translate with the anesthesiologist. (Dr. Hariyama speaks English but the anesthesiologist did not). At this time, they also took 500ml of blood to bank for me prior to the surgery, so if I had blood loss, I could receive my own blood back. I asked Sachiko-sensei to just touch base with Dr. Hariyama in Japanese to see what she really wanted me to do, because Dr. Hariyama gave me a 50% chance on the laparoscopy and kept insisting that it was my decision about what to do.

After our three way conversation with Dr. Hariyama, I learned some critical pieces of information (that I'd probably been told before, but my tendency to burst into tears at the idea of open surgery I'm sure wasn't helping my retention of information). First: the laparoscopy would require five hours on the table, while the laparotomy would only take two and a half hours. Dr. Hariyama believed that as I would be asleep, the differences in surgical time would mean little to me, but I didn't like the idea of being under anesthesia any longer than I had to, so the idea of a shorter surgery really appealed to me. Second: she also said that if the laparoscopy didn't work, she might have to do a vertical incision as opposed to a bikini cut to do the laparotomy, which would mean a more visible and difficult scar. (and three other small ones). Third: she said that the most likely reason why she'd have to switch would be due to the possibility of extreme blood loss. Fourth: I had until the day before my surgery to make a final decision.

The fact that she stated that I had time to actually do research and make a real decision (why I didn't think of this on my own, I don't know) really settled my mind. Even so, just from our brief conversation, I was beginning to change my mind about laparoscopy. Open surgery was looking like the better choice. I asked Sachiko-sensei what she would do, and she said if it was her she'd do the open surgery. Over the course of the next week, I discussed the problem with friends, and emailed two of my friends in the States who are doctors. My one friend is a General Practitioner, who forwarded my very detailed email to a colleague in OB-Gyn. His colleague responded to me in less than one hour recommending the laparotomy. My other friend, currently an ER physician but who had previously done a partial residency in OB-Gyn, sent a more detailed email basically stating the same thing, further adding that if it was her, she'd do the open surgery.

At this point, I decided that open surgery was the way to go. Three out of three doctors agreed, as well as all of my friends I discussed the surgery with. Once I made the decision, my stress about my surgery dramatically reduced. Because I didn't want my mom, who had had surgery 2 weeks before my scheduled surgery, to panic about my having open surgery, I decided not to let her know until after I was done. This was a very difficult decision for me, but it was the right one. I was also very fortunate because while I was in a foreign country, over the past year and a half, I have made many wonderful friends who went out of their way to help me in so many ways. Fellow ALTs, teachers from my schools, friends my company, friends from Sunshine conversation group, and so many others really rallied to my side. My cup overflowed with offers of help, prayers, and good wishes.

Even as I write this now, my eyes are stinging with unshed tears at about how amazing my friends here have been to me. I also had the incredible support of my best friend Steph, who listened to me cry and stress about what surgery I was going to do, helped my mom out with her post-op recovery, and basically did everything that an amazing best friend could to support me half a world away. Thanks to the internet, Skype, and smart-phones, the world is so much smaller. I was able to call my mom through her surgery and mine, and that also made a world of difference.

In short, my surgery was a wild success. I will write a followup blog going through the nitty gritty of the surgery process and aftercare, and a final blog about payment, but as it is almost 2am, and I have to go in for my Post-Op followup tomorrow morning, I'd best be going to sleep.

If you are facing surgery in Japan, especially fibroid surgery, definitely send me an email or comment. I will be posting more in the upcoming week on my surgery.

One Year Chotto: Reflections on Life in Japan and Who I Am Now, as I make the journey home (for a bit)

I've been thinking a lot over the past few days as I've prepared to make this two day trek back to the States to visit home about what my one year chotto (and a little bit) has taught me and how I've changed. I'm not sure this is a question that I can fully answer, especially in regards to the second part because I won't fully know how this experience has changed me probably for years to come. If ever. It seemed like a good time to put these ideas, as vague as they are, into words, so here goes:

What I've learned (in no particular order):

• You can successfully navigate most daily conversations while only understanding about 30-70% of the words that are actually said to you.

• Provided you don't have any major allergies, you can navigate most daily meals while only understanding 30-70% of what you are actually eating. Quite happily.

• In Japan, there is a vending machine for EVERYTHING. Yes, this includes beer, porn, ready made meals, hot drinks, ice-cream, train tickets...you name it.

• The Taiko Game is Saikou (the best!)!!!

• One of the most magical and wonderful things about being an ex-pat is not only the fact to learn about and experience the culture of the country you are living in, but also to learn about and experience the cultures of the many, many wildly interesting other ex-pats from all over the world that you can't help but meet.

• I like dressing well, having nice skin, getting my makeup done, and even shopping for clothes.

• I want to go to Brazil because Brazilian people are so awesome!

• When you are feeling down, or overwhelmed, or just need to do some meditation, a Karaoke booth is the ultimate solution.

• If you are an Western woman in Japan, with an Western sized backside and feet, you will:

  • A: Realize no matter how good your self esteem and body image is that you are suddenly feeling overweight (even when you know you are not) because it's so difficult to find clothes that actually fit over your butt (and don't make you look pregnant when you know you're not) even when they are in your size.

  • B: Eventually get over this because it really is a body shape and not a body size thing and really get a better feel for what sorts of styles and cuts look good on your body, and often find discounts even because often the clothes that look good on you do not look so good people with the more standard Japanese body type.

  • C: Go to Uniqlo for pants, go to Shimamura for shoes (big sizes) and always be on the lookout for a Brazilian clothing stores which are a bit more expensive but have a variety of styles.

• If you have hair like mine, the Sala product for reducing frizz and healthy curls is REALLY, REALLY good. But the one that just reduces frizz is just okay.

• Hats are awesome! It's important to develop ones own hat style.

• It's ridiculously nice to be able to pay all of your bills at the Conbini.

• Unlike the U.S., Japan is a cash and carry culture, so while it may feel uncomfortable at first, you will soon get used to carrying around the equivelant of $200-300 in cash on your person at all times. Everyone does this because using an ATM is such a complicated process in Japan and most places don't take debit cards.

• Get the iPhone. Yes, the AU phone (and other carriers) may have a cheaper monthly rate, but the iPhone has a GPS in it, gives you constant access to the internet (all you can use under your monthly rate) and can also store multiple dictionary apps. It's worth the money. The GPS alone is worth every penny. If you are in Nagoya, go to the Sakae branch, Exit six from Sakae station. They have English speaking staff, and provided you have your VISA (preferably 2+ years but if you have a one year Visa you can fight for it) you are eligible for the 2 year pay as you go plan for the iPhone which means you do not have to pay the 5man up front. They will also set it up to work in your home language. Having bought a cell phone from another carrier using only Japanese and despising my keitai for one year, the sheer ease and joy of using the Sakae branch Softbank almost brought tears to my eyes.

• Living in Japan (or I suppose any foreign country) is an everyday learning experience. No matter how much you think you know, you will always find out some new fact, detail, word, have some new experience, or be surprised in some way...EVERY DAY. If this is not happening for you, it means you aren't leaving your apartment and shame on you. (unless you're sick or something, or sometimes you really do just need a day in).

• Once you have started eating salad (and french fries and every other food in your life basically) with chopsticks, you will be totally baffled when a restaurant only gives you forks. I can't tell you how many Western Style restaurants I've been in where I've stared at my food with utter confusion, “how do I eat this?” when I don't see chopsticks.

• The “language immersion” headache that comes from having to use a foreign language (like Japanese) for much of your day, struggling to understand what people are saying to you and to get your own points across is not really a headache. It's more of a pressure inside of your head. This is an indication your brain is tired and sometimes you really do need a break. Don't beat yourself up about this.

• Tsuyuu sucks. Tsuyuu is that period that starts in June which is translated into English as “The Rainy Season”. Tsuyuu actually means “sticky and wet”. This is a much better description. What it means is that once you are outside of an airconditioned setting for more than five minutes (which will happen to you often because Japan doesn't believe in AC that much), you are dripping sweat, hot and miserable even if the actual outside temperature is not that hot. It gets hotter after Tsuyuu, but the humidity goes down some so it' s actually better in July and August, even though its blisteringly hot.

• Thanks to Tsuyuu, there are many, many words for humidity in Japanese. The words I use the most often are “mushi atsui” (hot and humid) and “mushi mushi” humid. Jime shiteiru also means humid. There are others. You will learn them.

• During Tsuyuu, you will take 2-3 showers a day. When you can't do this you will be angry. Not just a little bit annoyed, but fist clenching furious.

• Bring your own deodorant and fluoride toothpaste.

• Don't be scared of Onsen and Sento (public baths). They are absolutely the best. If there's a Super Yuu near you, go. For 650 yen (about) you get to have multiple baths, indoor and outdoor, as well as use of the other facilities, including massage chairs and the like. It's relaxing, healthy and FUN!

• When a Japanese person says they “can't” do something, there is a strong change they are better at the activity they “can't do” than you are at the same activity which you think you 'can do.' This is a culturally ingrained modesty (that is also true for Chinese people that I've met here), and for me the most frustrating part of living in Japan. You will see on websites that Japanese people will say they “aren't very good at things” and that means they can do it. This is true. But Japanese people will also flat out tell you they can't do something when they actually can. This is especially true of speaking English. And not just strangers on the streets, your coworkers with whom you may need to plan lessons, etc, are likely to tell you that they can't speak English. I can't tell you how many people who flat out told me they couldn't speak English, and me, being Western in thought assumed they meant they absolutely couldn't do it, so I just barrelled on with my broken Japanese only to find out 1-2 weeks later that they spoke perfect English. Or at least English that was worlds better than my Japanese. My solution has been to assume whoever tells me they can't do something actually can do said activity until they prove me wrong. And I always say in a vague way that Japanese people tend to underestimate what they can do, and that I'm very sure said person is good at said activity.

• If you can sing Enka (especially duets), Ojiisans will most always buy you drinks in Snack Bars.

• Ojiisans can really sing, so drinks aside, it's a pleasure to do duets with them.

• I really like to sing, and with practice I'm getting better at it!

• Traveling to a new city or country alone is an excellent way to make new friends.

• Japanese people will bend over backwards and sideways to help you out.

• The difference in sound between B and V is much more difficult to sort out with your Japanese students than the difference between L and R.

• A wicket is an entrance to a train station. (where you put the ticket in). Who'd a thunk it.

• It's perfectly appropriate to bow on a bicycle or in a car if the situation necessitates it.

• While at first doing an all-nighter at the club every weekend is easy and fun, eventually you get tired of the exhaustion and lack of money and begin to restrict that stuff to an occasional treat. As a result, you have way more fun when you do it.

• While it seems like the cheapest and easiest alternative to stay at Manga Kisatens instead of renting a hostel bed for the night, it really is worth it to pay the extra 1000 yen and actually have a place to put your stuff and a real bed/futon. That said, in a pinch, a Manga-kisa or Comic Cafe (same thing) is a decent place to overnight.

• If you are addicted to Karaoke and stay out too late in Nagoya to catch the last train back home, don't stay overnight in a Karaoke booth. You will get no sleep. And you won't be able to talk the next morning. But you will have found and practiced the full selection of Andrew Lloyd Weber showtunes in Japanese.

• Get the login for Joysound. Then you can save your favorite artists and songs for easy lookup.

• You don't realize how much energy you spend watching the people around you to make sure they aren't going to mug you or do other horrible things until you move to a country where it really, really is safe to walk around at night and nobody has guns.

• Don't do ANYTHING illegal in Japan. You are guilty until proven innocent, and next to nobody is proven innocent. (thankfully I have managed to avoid this, but it is worth repeating.)

• Culture shock comes not from the things you expect to be different, but from the things you had NO IDEA could be different but turn out to be different anyway. A small example of this is the numbering on elevators here in Japan (and Taiwan). They start with 1 at the top left and then 2 below, and then 3 below that, and four, etc, until it gets halfway through, and then start going up on the right side, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. Hence in a 12 story building, 1 will be next to 12, 2 next to 11, etc. You have no idea how disorienting this was.

• If you are used to American style measurements (inches, Fahrenheit, etc), when you move to Japan, you will really have no idea how hot it is, how far things are away from you, etc. Getting a feel for metric is really, really hard.

• Katakana words are very difficult in Japanese because most of the time they are close enough to English for you to think you know them, but far enough from English that you actually don't.

• For some bizarre reason, people in Japan will think you have an easier time reading and writing Katakana than Hiragana. In truth, I've found Katakana to be much more difficult than Hiragana, and often tougher than Kanji. (Once you know a Kanji, you know it. Katakana wiggles)

• Eventually you will begin to make the HI-Peace sign in every picture, and not even realize you're doing it. This instantly marks you as having lived in Japan when you go to other countries in Asia, like say Taiwan :)

There are many more things, but I'm going to have to cut it here because I have a plane to catch.

Additional note: my day in Taipei and Taoyuan had it's own mess of culture shocks that really let me know how acclimated to Japan I've become and how much of my nonverbal communication has taken on Japanese cultural norms. I had a hard time today reorganizing my mind to think in anything other than Japanese when reaching for words that I knew were not English. Even the few words I knew in Chinese. It was very strange. On the other hand, the exact same socializing rules apply no matter what language you speak, and I ended up making some awesome friends in my travels. I will update on that when I get home and post my pics. Now, seriously, to bed.

Bye Bye!

Interlude: Hair

I've wanted to write about my thoughts on Japanese hairstyles as I see it for a while now, especially in relationship to my own experiences as an mixed race African American woman in the States, but I've had so many things I've wanted to write about that this one, not being directly related to a travel destination, has gotten a bit lost in the shuffle. But hair musings kind of fit in with this section of my Tokyo trip, specifically in regards to the high fashion mall that Andrea and I passed through while waiting for new Steph and Ben.

I'm not sure what happened to the pictures I took of the various hair extensions and dyes that I noticed in one of the non-clothing stores in the mall; it's possible I didn't photograph them because these same products, namely hair extensions of wild colors and textures, are so common here. The desire to write about Japanese hair also relates to a conversations I've had with multiple people who have commented on the amount and variety of dyed hair colors that are abundant here, specifically in regards to the commonness of blond and lightening hair dyes. That and curly perms, which are also very common here.

In short, the type and variety of hair changing products, extensions, etc, really surprised me when I first came here. A part of this is because when I was a child, I really wanted Asian, or as my grandmother said, Oriental hair. Having long, straight, black hair instead of the frizzy (albeit long) mess I had on my head was something I remember actually closing my eyes and wishing for.

I think a part of this particular fixation came from my grandmother's desire to give me multicultural dolls as a kid in order to give me dolls that looked “like me”. Unfortunately, being so light skinned, the darker African American dolls she gave me (which I am grateful for, don't get me wrong) didn't really look anything like me, and she didn't want to give me brown haired, Caucasian dolls (though I have light skin and brown hair) so ultimately the best compromise (unspoken) became the Asian featured dolls. And they had hair that was naturally straight. No hot comb needed, no frizzy braids that rapidly became full of painful knots. I never wanted to be a blond, but boy did I want straighter, smoother hair.

Of course I'm sure the other part of my desire for more Asian hair is related to African American idea of “good hair”: ie: the straighter and longer the better – this is a much talked about thing in African American studies and not worth beating to death here, but I'm mentioning it for three reasons.

1. Ironically, as much as I hated my hair as growing up (and truthfully had an ambivalent relationship with it until I started getting it braided in Grad School, and then later cut it to shoulder length before leaving the country—two great hair decisions), I definitely have “good hair”. My grandmother was incredibly proud that she was able to take me from being a bald baby that seemed to hold the dubious future of NEVER growing hair to having a granddaughter whose hair went all the way down to her touch her butt. My mother had hair that was equally as long when she was younger, but she cut it, a big regret. (note: I didn't cut my hair until after my grandmother died, that's how strongly I didn't want to disappoint her)
2. I've had more than one conversation with different people (non African American) who have expressed confusion at why Japanese women often go for lighter hair, even blond hair. Until it was directly pointed out to me, it didn't really trouble me or really enter my notice as being unusual. What surprised me was the desire to have curly, full, ie: not straight hair.
3. The hair extension and attachment products you find here are exactly the same ones you'll find in Philadelphia for the stores that serve African American women. For example: the fake clip-on bun, the clip on ponytail of varying colors and lengths, wigs, weave in hair, etc. The only thing missing is the hair-grease (much to my dismay). Of course, Caucasians in the States do use these products (minus the hair grease, in general), but not nearly as regularly or commonly as far as I have seen. And the push to have lighter hair is common across races in the U.S.

Of course, everyone wants the hair they don't have. I think that's a universal; ask a woman what kind of hair she likes, and it's probably the opposite of the kind she has. At least until she's gotten old enough to develop a healthy relationship with the locks she's got. But in the African American community, the emphasis on “good hair” stems from historical pressures related to oppression, opportunity, and a push or desire for “whiteness” that has always felt deeper than a mere stylistic decision. In fact, one of the major thoughts that popped into my head upon seeing the array of hair changing items ran along the lines of "the people here must hate their hair as much as my folk at home".

Which is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. Why can't a person just want different hair because they think it's pretty, or different, or for some frivolous reason? Like in John Varley's "Steel Beach" where people just had sex changes because sometimes you want to try something new.

But in the States, hair decisions are more serious. At least from my experience. Choosing to go natural, get dreadlocks, braids or the semi-opposing microbraids, choosing extensions or not, going blond or not and how one chooses to lighten her hair all sends a message. For example, when I wore braids, there was a sense of relief that went with it because people as a rule didn't ask me nearly as often what my race was (or assume I was either Caucasian or Hispanic). Braids looked good on me, but they also made my life easier. They sent a message in a language that I spoke and understood without thinking about it or even consciously reflecting on it. In contrast, when I cut my hair, more people automatically assumed I was Caucasian.

I know hair here is also sending a message, but like the Japanese language, this unwritten language is also unclear to me. (unless we're talking about drinking, directions, work, how I like Japan or humidity) But it's interesting. Like does going blond and curly indicate a desire to be more International? More white? (because there is a definite favoritism of the Nordic Caucasian look here, IMO) A generational urge to separate from older ways? What does it mean for Japanese of Brazilian descent? Chinese or Korean? Or is it just a stylistic choice without so much baggage (an option that seems ridiculously freeing)?

I don't really know. But it's something that has been in my thoughts periodically, so I figured it was worth talking about.

Some awesome hair I've seen in my time here:

Day 2: 六本木の朝、渋谷 Scramble and Club Harlem:

Andrea and I were kicked out of our Karaoke booth bright and shiny at 5am, just in time for the Sean of the Dead reprise. I'm not kidding. The same girls and dudes that had been out the night before strutting their stuff in precarious shoes were now doing their best zombie impressions. The women especially were frightening. They managed a half teeter shuffle on their heels, their cell phones held out in front of them with shaking hands. The first girl I saw had me thinking, “wow, she's walking just like a zombie.” Then I looked to my left, and there was another one. And straight ahead, another one. I had an irrational urge to turn and run, but it was no better behind us. I saw one guy who seemed relatively sober dragging his girlfriend (I assume) across the street by the wrist. At first, I had the urge to step in thinking this might be abusive, but then I realized his firm grip was probably the only thing keeping her upright.

Drinking customs are quite different in Japan from the States. That's not to say people don't get vomiting, shuffling drunk in the States. It's just we tend to do it inside. This is in large part because of our laws against public drunkness. A bartender (as we all know) isn't legally allowed to serve a person who is clearly intoxicated. Also, even if the bartender isn't being responsible, your friends will usually cut you off if it's clear that you're putting yourself in danger of alcohol poisoning. Not so here. Though the drinks (excepting Nihonshu/Sake) are generally weak, what they lose in strength they generally make up in quantity. I'm a huge fan of Nomihoudai (all you can drink) but at 31, I have a good idea of my alcohol tolerance and will flag myself if I feel like I'm getting too far gone. You only have to have one drunken blackout to realize that's a very bad idea. (hell, better not to have any) There reaches a point where one more drink just isn't fun anymore.

I'm bringing this up at length because of our next morning event. Andrea and I started walking in a random direction away from Roppongi, but as we turned the corner we found Roppongi wasn't done with us yet. Halfway down the block, near the curb, there was a guy passed out in a pool of his own vomit, one shoe off, his cellphone (pink) about a foot away (half meter I guess, not good with metric) where it had clearly slipped from his limp hand. I stopped to check if he was breathing (he was) and then dithered about for a bit trying to figure out if we should call an ambulance. A passing woman, when asked, just shrugged and said it was normal. I would have left it at that (and should have) but I kept thinking of Kitty Genovese and diffusion of responsibility and figured I'd best call the ambulance even though probably this kid was fine. You never know with alcohol poisoning, and I wouldn't have lived with myself if he'd died and I hadn't notified someone of his condition prior. I was just so grateful he was breathing as I really didn't want to try out my CPR on him, even with the face protector thingy that was in my backpack. (though I would have) So I called 119 and talked first with a dispatch agent in Japanese, trying to explain where I was and then what was going on.

The Philly in me said I'd done my bit, the kid was breathing and I'd called 911 (119 here for an ambulance) so best get moving. Andrea is also from Philly, so she took my back from a good viewing distance acting like a bystander. Then my cell rang again, and I got an English speaker. I explained the situation again and he did not seem overly concerned, but he did say he'd gotten my location from the cell phone. So I said thank you and we left. I still felt a little guilty about not waiting for the ambulance, but the kid was breathing regularly and he was positioned in such a way that if he vomited, he wouldn't choke on it. That said, none of these events inclined me nor Andrea to want to spend another night in Roppongi.

We wandered into the day, eventually making it to a tranquil area that housed a number of foreign embassies and an awesome park. I also managed to buy some cough syrup, which was very good because I'd run out of Tussin and the coughing was getting kind of bad. The video below will give a lovely view of the park:



Then we wandered around Harajuku (which was still closed). It was in these travels that I got the picture of the billboard for SMAP's new CD “We are SMAP.”




This was very exciting for me because I finally knew what SMAP looked like. Not that I couldn't have easily found out this information before, I'd just never bothered looking. But once I saw the billboard, I knew that there had been a sore, open space in my knowledge that had just been waiting to be filled. (note: you'd know SMAP for their hit song: 世界にひとつだけの花　(Sekai Ni Hitotsu no Hana/The Only Flower in the World)

Video Below: Japanese Lyrics with English Translations:



After breakfast and more pointless wandering, we caught some sleep for five hours at a Manga-Kisaten.

Quick aside about the Manga-Kisa, Comic Cafe or Internet Cafe as they are often called. You may remember my in depth analysis of the one in Nagoya that I stayed at overnight my first month here. You know, the one with the creepy music. To reprise: a manga-kisa is nominally a place where people can come, rent a room, surf the internet and read manga at any hour of the day or night. They come with a free drink bar and showers (which you sometimes have to pay to use, and are sometimes free). In fact, they are basically the dirt cheapest way to have a place to sleep you can find while traveling in Japan. The manga kisas in Tokyo (that we stayed at) were blessedly quiet (unlike the one I stayed at in May Nagoya with the child murder midis, or this week on Monday which was featuring the best of Eminem and related artists ALL NIGHT LONG) and comfortable. Also, my reading is getting better, so I was able to start a manga and read a fair amount of it while staying there. (Tokyo ESP, I wasn't able to find it anywhere to buy it though, alas).

Manga Kisas are great if you're trapped out overnight at a club and need a place to crash before going home. They are a bit less great if you are using them as your only sleeping place for days on end, as Andrea and I learned as the week progressed. There is something to be said for having a place to put your stuff that's the same place you're sleeping (as opposed to having the bulk of your stuff in a coin locker in Shibuya Station while you are in a Manga-Kisa in Harajuku missing your toothpaste, hair care products and clothes.) Andrea packed much more sensibly than I did for the week, in that she didn't bring nearly as much shit. I probably used 1/3 of the stuff I bought with me. The rest was just there for physical conditioning and to test my patience. But this is a lesson I've learned well. I'm packing much lighter for Osaka.

After sleeping, we wandered around Harajuku which was pretty sweet. There were a number of cool outside shops and interesting people.

This guy was so awesomely 70's I had to take a picture with him:





It was the shopping in Tokyo that ate much of my money. I picked up some wonderful stuff, including a super awesome watch and ring that's shaped like a cat that goes around my fingers. Also picked up some new clothes on Andrea's recommendation (her taste rocks) and all in all, it was a money spending girltastic day.

After Harajuku, we moved on towards Shibuya and after some searching managed to find the Shibuya scramble. This was very exciting for me! I've wanted to experience this since college, when I saw the last scene of Gundam Wing's Endless Waltz, where Heero Yuy is standing right in the middle of this mass of people crossing the streets with such brilliant order and energy, and now, almost (god help me) 10 years later, here I was. (okay, I can't believe I admitted this to the internet...but there was a time I thought Gundam Wing was brilliant. So there, I said it! There was also a time I thought Space Above and Beyond was brilliant. Then I made the mistake of watching it again in my 30's. I'll never do that with Gundam Wing. Better to keep ones illusions sometimes)

Watch the Scramble: Shibuya Scramble from Above:




Do the Scramble: Shibuya Scramble from Inside:



I also took another later video of this at night, but I was drunk and the recording didn't come out. This will be one of the minor regrets of my life.

So after multiple times of walking the scramble (which Andrea took in stride), we decided it was time for food and partying, so we hit an Izakaya that boasted an All Products 280 yen sign (wahoo) and proceeded to enjoy food and liquor. A man sitting at the table next to us was actually wearing a Philly Cheesesteak Shirt, so we had to get our picture with him. It turns out that he actually knew about Philadelphia and was into Old School R&B, and he was as excited to meet two Philly natives as we were to see him.



After that it was off to Club Harlem, where we danced the night away. I admit, I'm rather in love with the 90's flashbacks on the musical tracks at clubs here. I never in a million years thought I'd ever be dancing to Bobby Brown's “My Prerogative” ever again in life. It flashed me back to me and Dimoli in my bedroom when I was, I guess 10 or 11, listening to that audiotape while she sprayed my room with obscene amounts of Jeanne Natte cologne. (actually, now I can't stand the smell of Jeanne Natte, but the memory still makes me warm and fuzzy. Or as we'd say here: natsukashii!) I actually still knew most of the words to it, much to my surprise. And for the second time in two months, I've actually gotten to dance to DMX's “Ya'll Gonna Make Me Lose my Mind,” something which fills me with the happy. And they even played TLC. As far as Tokyo clubs went, this was certainly the cheapest. Only 2500 yen and that included 1 drink. Of course, clubbing in Nagoya is cheaper, but Tokyo is the NYC of Japan, so you expect it to suck your money away.

Oh and somewhere in this time, we also found a super cheap Manga store that was down a long, dark, scary staircase but well worth it at the end. I actually got caught up on my large edition Gunnm: Last Order graphic novels that I've been collecting for like five years and soon have hope of being able to read quickly, maybe. (Gunnmn is Battle Angel Alita for all you folks in the States). As well as other great manga!

All in all, a great day!

東京 Day 1, Mostly Traveling: 18キップ、電車中、六本木なんて。。。

As I sit here at Kappazushi, enjoying plate after plate of 100 yen sushi and reflecting on my Tokyo adventures last week, it's clear that one entry is not going to to do the trick in regards to capturing the experience. Hence this breakup by day. Besides, dividing the entries adds nice “chapter marks” which I hope will add to the ease of reading. Or at least the ease of writing for me. Who knows?

(total aside: how come some Negitoro ねぎとろ sushi is more negi than others? Note: negi = scallions or onions）

So the first stage of my Tokyo adventure can be roughly described as “getting there with a taste of Roppongi”. Andrea and I (being broke) opted for the 18Kippu (pronounced: Juuhachikippu), which gives you five days (nonconsecutive) in which you can ride any of the non-express trains. This means 急行 and 普通 only, nothing that says super rapid, super rapid limited, or shinkansen. As a result, we basically spent most of Tuesday in transit. Andrea and I met up in Nagoya at the Kanayama station, where we promptly decided to get food and shop. That's where I bought the fabulous black hat with the flower that I'm wearing in most of my pictures. I got it on Andrea's recommendation; Andrea has fabulous fashion sense, unlike me.

We did this languishing in the misconception that my directions for train times and pickups were useful for our 18Kippu. I had been under the impression that as long as you weren't on a Shinkansen, any train was fine. We learned the hard way, through an 45 minute diversion to a train we couldn't ride, that this was not the case. Luckily the man behind the ticket counter was super kind and not only told us that we couldn't use the 18Kippu for the trains that we were trying to catch, but further went above and beyond by looking through his giant book of train information and writing out our entire route, with what stops to go to, how long each train would take, and when they arrived and departed.

Armed with this information and a tiny bit of backtracking, we were off and riding again!

A quick aside about the 18Kippu: traveling with it takes more time, but it is also one of the cheapest ways to see Japan by rail. For 11,500 yen (that's about $115), you get to travel on all local JR line trains (as we said, Futsuu and Kyuukou) for five days, each day equaling one stamp. My 18Kippu paid for itself and then some just for my Tokyo trip, and I still have three more days (good until August 31st) that I can use it. Hence I will be using it to go to Osaka and Mie-ken to visit my friend Susannah who just moved here. The 18Kippu is an EXCELLENT deal. You can buy one at any JR station. Also, if you don't use all of your days, you can sell the remainder at ticket resale stores, where you can also buy partially used 18Kippu for cheap. At least that's what people have told me. I haven't tried it yet, and probably I'm going to use my whole 18Kippu this summer anyway. Anyone can buy a 18Kippu; you don't have to be a student or a foreigner buying it overseas (though there's a great tourist JR railpass too that can only be purchased overseas. I don't know much about it though, because I didn't do this).

The other nice thing about the 18Kippu is that you can get off of the train, wander around and get back on the train without spending more money. So even though you may spend extra hours in transit, this is less onerous than it seems because it also affords you the opportunity to see other interesting places in Japan you may not have explored otherwise. (food is a great motivator, as is the need to stretch one's legs or sit down, depending on how crowded or not the train is or is not.) In short, the 18Kippu gets the Vash seal of approval, which worth about as much as the paper it's printed on, but there goes.

The 18Kippu allowed us many great stops, including in 熱海 (Atami) which is a lovely (probable beach town, considering the last kanji) town with delicious food and lots of cool shops. Though this takes these entries out of order, on our way back, we stopped at a Ramen shop that had some of the best Ramen I've had here in Japan. (and that's saying something because Ramen here is awesome) Though it's a pretty far hike from Toyota, the next time I'm going that way, I fully intend to stop in 熱海 (Atami) for the food if nothing else. 豊橋 (Toyohashi) is also an interesting station, and though we didn't really see the city, it seemed like a bustling place from the activity of the train station.

We arrived in Tokyo at around 8pm. (which meant about 10 hours of travel for me coming from Toyota) I'd been attempting to meet up with two different people in Tokyo, but neither panned out, so instead we figured why not hit Roppongi, which according to the internet would be a useful place to go to find a Manga-Kisaten and other all night clubs and establishments. It's also the foreign district, which seemed like a reasonable place to go for us who were foreigners. Also, it has super easy Kanji: 六本木 (six, book/source, tree).

So in my mode of super cheapness, I decided it would be a good idea to see if it was possible to save the 160 yen for the subway and find out if there was a JR station that could take us to Roppongi so we could use our 18Kippu). As Andrea and I approached the ticket counter, an older gentleman intercepted us and asked us in English where we were going. I told him we were heading for Roppongi, and he told us to take the subway. At that point, I drifted into Japanese to try and explain that I was looking to see if the JR line could take us to Roppongi, in large part because most of the time, even when someone starts a conversation with me in English here, usually if we move into more complicated topics, things get too confusing and it's easier for all concerned to struggle through with my rather awful Japanese (or most common, a mix of the two languages...communication, ya know). This has become automatic for me, so it was hugely surprising when the man, with an expression similar to one he'd wear if I'd shot his dog and was currently wearing the pooch's intestines as a necklace, asked me “WHY are you speaking in Japanese?” (I'm emphasizing the “why” here because that's what he did)

I was really confused and somewhat annoyed. I have wholly appreciated how wonderfully helpful Japanese people are especially when they see a lost foreigner like myself, and I have made great friends from this beautiful, generous tendency of the people around me here (much love, Mie-chan et. al) but I must admit, I really had no idea what to do with that question. In retrospect, I wonder if I offended the guy by implying that his English wasn't good enough. That wasn't at all what I was trying to do. At the time though, I was just ticked off and hiding it (probably poorly, as I'm not good at that sort of thing) and so I responded, in English, “because I learned it?” which was better than my internal monologue which went along the lines of “because I'm living in this country so why wouldn't I make even a base attempt to try to speak the language here and besides who the fuck are you anyway?”

He looked a bit offended and I tried to soften the approach by asking him another question in English, but luckily at that point we were intercepted by a really hot Japanese businessman who also spoke English and was a lot more helpful. (he didn't care what language we spoke and was way cool, hotness aside) Truthfully, I could have scrapped the Roppongi plan and seen if we could all get a drink together but he was clearly in a hurry. Alas.

And the answer to our question was NO.

So we paid the 160 yen for the subway and headed for Roppongi.

Roppongi is a dive.

Okay, it doesn't totally suck. And in keeping with what will probably be a repeating theme in later entries, it does have that wonderfully sleazy feel of a Cyberpunk style place where illicit meetings for-hire Edgerunner teams and illicit corporate representatives meet to discuss business. In fact, Tokyo, namely Shibuya, Akihabara and Roppongi (to an extent) are the only places in Japan (with the exception of Sakae in Nagoya a tiny bit, especially the underground mall and the giant ferris wheel) that make me think of Cyberpunk.

But places like Roppongi are where you get that Bladerunner opening, not the pan-over, which is more Shibuya if Shibuya was encased in a cloud of coal dust, but the part where Harrison Ford is eating noodles in the perpetual drizzle. “They say you Blade Runner...” Now add a bunch of drunk-ass people, women dressed in too-high heels and too-short skirts with the matching toe and fingernail designs, men with one shirt button open, cowboy belts, dress shoes that come to almost points, they travel sometimes in packs and sometimes alone, scanning the merchandise as the working dudes with their shiny heads weild pamphlets trying to sweet-talk this and that person into their club or bar...you get the idea. It's bright with blinking signs and neon. It's doors to club that look like the doors to apartments on Chestnut street in Philly, the apartments that live above stores like Easy Pickins (which no longer exists) and Karaoke places that have that veneer of high class that's like stick-on plastic tile in the swirls of marble. And disco lights.

So yeah.

Most people told me again and again that living in Japan would be like living in the future, but for me living in Japan has been like living in a weird amalgam of the 1950's and 1990's with interesting fashion input from the 70's and 80's. There are also musical annotations from modern Hip Hop, including a solid infusion of music from the 'niggas, bitches and hos genre', which would be troubling if it wasn't put in juxtaposition with a clubbing atmosphere where absolutely nobody has even made an attempt to grab my ass or fondle me in any inappropriate way, something that is a never ending shock to me here. (and this seems to be more of a universal trend than that my USA sized ass is unattractive here) In fact the freshest anyone has gotten with me here was one guy who gave me a kiss on the cheek and offered to buy me a drink. (this was in Nagoya, and my ride was leaving or I would have taken him up on it)

But Tokyo has the future feel. And Roppongi brings the gritty. You know somewhere in one of those buildings, maybe on the upper floors, there's a certain potential for darkness, the screwdriver in the dark, the light scratch of meishi passed across a dark table, not sticky, even the sleeze in Japan does not touch the surface, and in these business cards the slightly raised surface of the plastic information strip, like the one that runs through a $20 bill so that the cashier can check if its real. For most of us the information superhighway is a series of tubes, but for some it's lightening. Someone takes a puff of a cigarette, and the girls and boys who are leaning into each other, bouncing to the music, tossing back 700 yen drinks barely strong enough to qualify, they have no idea. But they're needed. They're as vital to the system as the neon, needed for the yen they throw about to impress each other, needed for their desperation, for their manic desire, for sheer ambiance, and we were a part of it. Andrea and I. We skipped over the surface like rocks thrown over a shiny pool, and the taste of it clung to us as we careened into the opposite shore.

So yeah, it's cyberpunk of a sort. Except safer. Because for people like us, who aren't playing the game, Japan is the fifth safest place in the world.

Andrea and I found a great hamburger place in Roppongi. In keeping with my Tokyo experience, a burger, fries and a hot tea came up to about 1200 yen. Not terrible, but a bit steep. We avoided Gaspanic: the internet warned us that it was THE Gaijin Desperation Meat Market, and instead we ended up wandering around until we found a pub, and later a great Karaoke deal, only 2200 yen for all you could drink and sing until morning. Morning being 5am. Which because Japan is not on Daylight Savings means the sun is well up by that time.

We sang a lot and slept a little.

And so ended Day 1.

笹百合（ささゆり・Sasayuri)

On Friday, one of my fellow sensei's at Ohata took me out on Friday, around the back of the school, down a hill, over a gully and into the wild. Like with many things in Japan, I didn't understand why we were going but I was game for any adventure. Along the side the hill, thick with a medley of wild plants, was a beautiful white lily with hints of pink near where the stem meets the base of the flower, and bursting from the center, bright red seeds.



As was explained to me, this was the Sasayuri, a special wild lily that only grows in Japan. Perhaps more solid, yet more ephemeral than Sakura blooms, the Sasayuri is only blooms for two days out of the year. I was there for the first of the two days. I can't even begin to say what an amazing experience this was, one of those thoroughly surprising things that makes it clear why I wanted so badly to go to Japan. Seeing this flower is something that could not only have not happened for me in the States, but something that could not even have happened for me next week here in Japan. I feel incredibly lucky both for the timing and also that my sensei thought about this and cared enough about me to take me on this trek to see the flower(s). It's even more fortunate because this particular flower, as she explained to me, is being picked into extinction.

These brief, brilliant moments define my life here. And what a life!

＊＊
For more of Vash's adventures at home and abroad, check out: http://vashabroad.blogspot.com

Parking Lot California

That's right, another adventure night in Nagoya. It started, as many such things do, with plans for dinner and clubbing. Maru-chan (who I met through my Japanese classes at TIA) and I decided at our last class that we'd go clubbing in Nagoya. Maru-chan is Brazilian-Japanese, now a naturalized Japanese citizen. This means many things, but the most relevant to me and him is that our common language is Japanese. He doesn't really speak a lot of English, I speak no Portuguese. Luckily, Maru-chan's been in Japan for nine years and thus Japanese is excellent (why we're both in the same class, I'm not sure. Probably because they don't have an A+ class to place him in; I feel the same way in regards to many of my classmates whose Japanese is clearly leaps and bounds above mine, but shou ga nai). This mostly makes up for my rapidly feeling crappier Japanese language skills.

One upshot of this language difference though is that through we talked about going out, both him and I were apparently under the impression that the other was in charge of the planning. So our planning ended up amounting to, “let's get together at Nagoya station and then we'll figure out what we're going to do next.”

We determined this when Maru-chan called me and asked where we were going. Erin and I had already gotten an early start on Nagoya, enjoying delicious kebab, wandering through some very exciting stores like a mecha model store and a build your own doll store that could only have existed in Japan. I

I invited a bunch of folks to join us at the last minute, and some made it out. Makoto-san and his friend (whose name I'm forgetting...sigh...I'm so terrible with names), Erin, Rosa, Maru-chan and his friend Kenji and of course me. Since Makoto-san was there and actually knows his way around Nagoya (as he lives there), he took charge of the dinner plans and after some minor antics we were enjoying a delicious Chinese Food (or Japanese interpretation of Chinese Food—no General Tso's Chicken that I saw, a staple of American/Chinese food, but overall still delicious)

Dinner was great fun (once we all got there, lol) and afterwards about half of our group stuck around for clubbing. We initially were looking for a club called Raggaetown, but once we got there, we realized it was a bar with a tiny dance area and tacky disco ball, no one dancing and all in all, not particularly exciting. Not the least bit because the drinks were also a bit high. So we booked out of there and headed across the street to the ID club, with it's exciting five floors of dancing, and 4 drinks included in your 3,000 yen ($30) admissions fee. That was super fun, and I admit I was more than a little Yoppara-ai when we left. Also, very exciting for me, we ran into Andrea (who I met on the plane) at the club, and so instead of heading back to the car at one as initially planned, we all decided to continue to hang out and do Karaoke (with Nomihoudai). Andrea and I are both from Philly, and as you may remember from my long ago initial blog entries about coming to Japan, while we lived essentially less than a kilometer from each other (maybe half a mile at most) but didn't meet until Tokyo, when we were transferring to the flight to Nagoya.

Andrea and I kicked it, Philly style, accapella-ing some Fresh Prince as we walked to the Karaoke place (Joy Joy), reminiscing about Philadelphia, enjoying the joy and versatility of the word “yo” as well as running through a few more colorful metaphors. We had an excellent time doing Karaoke and imbibing of further colorful alcoholic drinks before Maru-chan and our party parted from the pack, ready to return to Toyota.

But Nagoya was not yet done with us, as we learned when we arrived at the parking lot and it was closed. Gates down, abandoned, truly and completely closed. Turns out, our chosen parking lot was not a 24 hour parking lot. So now approaching four in the morning, we were brushing the possibility of another Nagoya all-night march. But luckily Makoto-san was also there. Makoto kindly offered to put both of us up at his apartment. He actually had two extra futons and enough floor space for us. So instead of walking through the night like last time, we actually got a few hours of sleep. Yay!

We got up around 7:30am and Makoto generously drove us back to the parking lot. Luckily it was open, and things seemed to be looking up, that is until we tried to leave. As we sat in the car in front of exit, Maru-chan put the ticket into the machine. Expecting it to be expensive, he had stopped for money on his way. Unlike in the USA, where regularly paying for something with the equivilant of a $100 bill is very strange, in Japan, a much more cash and carry society, it's perfectly normal. So Maru-chan didn't notice until it was too late that the machine we were using did not take ichi-man ($100 bills). Maru attempted to get the ticket back, but by the time smaller bills had been freed up, it was too late. The machine ate our ticket and we were stuck.

And thus tbegan a rather surreal experience. Maru-chan called the people in charge of the parking lot, and they talked for a while, Maru-chan explaining what went wrong with the ticket process and the like. And they promised to send someone. And we waited. And they called again. More rapid-fire conversation in Japanese. And we waited. And waited. Maru-chan had a TV in the dashboard of his car, so we watched a grainy show about artwork around the world, including slow motion pans over various paintings, with monotone narration in Japanese. Suffice it to say, the battle to stay awake was being heavily fought, its outcome doubtful.

Eventually, a representative from the parking lot came. He accessed the machine, determined how much we owed, took the money and then proceeded to commence the arduous process of getting the metal arm to lift so that we could exit (at last) the parking lot. He had what looked like a hundred keys hanging from his belt. It took many tries, but eventually the gate opened and we were on our way!

The ride home was uneventful (thank God) and when I got home, I decided to do my best to stay awake until bedtime. This seemed like a good plan on three hours of sleep, but the next morning, when I woke up and realized I'd planned all the wrong lessons for the day, it felt considerably less brilliant. Luckily, it was a light day and I was able to get my lesson planning done before I left for school. Phew! And so another week began.

In a sense though, over this week I've caught myself wondering if we are still sitting in that parking lot, dreaming our week with the monotone backdrop of classical paintings lulling us into believing that somehow we have beat the odds. Checked out and even left. Life is but imagination.

Great time all around!

***

For more of Vash's adventures in Japan and abroad, check out: http://vashabroad.blogspot.com

For Now, The Sun

For now, Toyota City is bathed in sunshine. I wake up, throw open the curtains to my small deck, slide the glass door aside and the morning pours in: crisp a hint of flowers, birdsong, and shining sun. Even so, I've been living with vague anxiety of the inevitable change. The rainy season is coming. An entire month of dreary, humid days where the sky alternates between leaking and pouring. After that, the heat. Imagine Florida in summer, except no airconditioning, at least not at my schools, which is of course where I am during the hottest part of the day. So at this point, I am living in a beautiful bubble soon to be broken by rain, the pieces of which to then be further dissolved by oppressive heat.

According to my flashcards the rainy season is in June. So from June first, I've been opening my deck and breathing a sigh of relief. Not yet, I've said, turning my face up into the sun. But soon. At Kosema yesterday, I found out the rainy season actually begins in the second week of June and continues on until (or possibly through) the first week or so of July. Worse, it is “abunai” (dangerous) to bike in this mess (at least according to my coworkers), so for a string of rainy days I am constrained to the limits of Japan's (albeit exceptional) public transportation system. If this is actually the case, not only does this mean a switch for me to the bus, but it means that everyone will be switching to the buses and trains (that would ordinarily bike), so it's gonna be humid, wet, sticky and CROWDED. But, as this is Japan, even so things will be very polite and organized. At least I won't have to deal with the soggy alcoholic with the aura of urine that makes Philadelphia trains and buses so exciting.

I am hoping, as with many things in life, that the anticipation of the event is far more powerful than the event itself. Like with Natto. And for now, best to live it up. Bike, run and be merry, for tomorrow we shall be inside. Doing Karaoke. So it's not all bad.

***
For more of Vash's adventures in Japan and onwards, check out: http://vashabroad.blogspot.com

Words for Time, Time for Words:

There are no words for the passage of time. None of any effect, at any rate.

So yes, my life here has picked up greatly. That's a part of the reason why you haven't heard from me. I've gone back to writing fiction, at least to some small degree, and started Japanese lessons, as well as continued the process of meeting people, making new friends, etc, which has steady filled up a lot of my spare time. There's also there's the issue of once you get behind, that makes getting caught up again far more difficult. So now the task has reached a stage of daunting, and I know there's no way I'm going to be able to catch up in regards to summarizing so much of my life. What can I say? In getting a life, I've become less scrupulous in documenting it. Such is life.

But with that said, I will randomly type for a bit about things which cross my mind in regards to the last week or so. First, of course, was the well publicized, much anticipated Undokai which all of my schools were ishoukenmei preparing for with vigor and enthusiasm (and no small degree of stress). The Undokai was basically a combination picnic, relay race with variety of games and talent show, all put on for the parents and families (who were basically picnicking on school grounds to watch as their kids performed.) It was a lot of fun, and I took a lot of video that I still have to get put up. That will go up in a separate entry, but alas not today.

After the Undokai, I met up with Mie and Haruka in Sakae, where we had a delicious Kebob dinner and then did Karaoke and clubbing. It was ridiculously fun. The Karaoke place had disco lights embedded into the ceiling and the club had six floors, each of which played a different kind of music. One interesting thing about clubbing in Japan is that the music isn't much different from what you would find in the same club in the States. R&B, Hip-Hop, some Raggae (and Raggaeton, which is Brazillian Reggae) as well as the obligatory Trance and House room (which we assiduously avoided). Supposedly there was a J-pop room also, but we weren't really looking for it so it went its own way. I also ran into some folks from the neighboring picnic from two weeks prior. One of the ladies recognized me and shouted towards me, giving me a big hug. We hung out with their group for a while. I felt for a bit that I was back in Philly because practically everyday I run into someone I know in Philly, but here I haven't really known enough people to have a similar experience. So this was very exciting!

The next two days I had off, so of course it decided to rain for both days. Then it was back to work, or back to school as the case is. I had a solidly good week and an excellent weekend. The start was going back to the Izakaya, where I got to see my fellow Jyouren and hang out/chat. For the entire previous week, I'd been feeling really stagnated in regards to my Japanese. I hadn't felt like I was making any progress at all, but at Kogame (my Izakaya) I felt like I'd taken a huge leap in conversational facility. Today (Monday) some of that easy feeling of conversation has receded again. It's a wheel, sometimes you're at the top, sometimes not.

But on Friday is also where I learned, much to my delight, that here in the Western part of Aichi (West of Nagoya) we speak Mikawaben! That's the dialect of the Mikawa area (near the Mikawa river). We here in Aichi are located between the Kanto region (standard Japanese, Tokyo and the like) and the Kansai region (Western Japan, near Osaka and the like). The Mikawa area is on the Western side (west of Nagoya) which gives us some more pronounced Kansai influences. Granted, the Mikawa dialect is not that removed from Standard Japanese. But there are some differences that are worth noting and since information on Mikawaben on the internet is sparse and sometimes inaccurate (at least for my area), it's worth talking about a little now.
Here are some common shifts from Standard Japanese that you will find here (that I've heard or been told about by locals):

Wakaranai → Wakaran or Wakarahen or Wakanai
I use “Wakanai” all the time, though this may not be an Aichi area dialect thing but instead a general use shortening/abbreviation of the word. I'm not sure. I love the way you say Wakanai here. It's like Waka (emphasis on the K sound, then a short pause) nai. Think “I have no idea” as you're saying it and you'll have exactly the right tone. “Wakahen” is common in the Kansai region. I have heard it around me though at random points when teachers are talking to each other and occasionally amongst students. “Wakaran” is used a fair amount (more than wakahen, but I've also only recently started listening for “wakahen” so that may be skewing my impression). Wakaran may also be something that is more common to all of Japan as opposed to just the around here (and Kansai). It's a very logical abbreviation, considering Japanse verb conjugation: with an U verb, the negative is always “a” followed by nai. And nothing else follows that “a” except some form of a negative, so just seeing the A + N makes it absolutely clear that you are dealing with the negative form of a standard verb.

takusan/ippai, etc (words that mean “very!”) → Dora, Dera. In Nagoya, they use Dera, in our area, we use Dora. Mie told me this one. It translates loosely to “super” so if you want to say “super cute” you say “dora kawaii.” A woman in a neighboring building, as I discovered yesterday, has two adorable cats who I spent a great deal of time petting after my late afternoon run. I said her cats were “dora kawaii” and she laughed with me, so this is definitely an understood term here, though it may not be in Tokyo. Another common word from Kansai that I hear a lot here is “mecha” which also means “very”. That's solidly Kansai-ben, but we use it here.

Iru → Oru. This is the start of my Izakaya conversation about Mikawa-ben. The iru I'm talking about is the standard “I exist” iru. So using my favorite expression “where am I?” (an essential phrase when you are always lost) Doko ni imasuka? The plain, dictionary form of Imasu is Iru (the ka is only there to let you know it's a polite question). So as a casual question, you'd ask “doko ni iru?” with a questioning tone. Well in Mikawaben, as a casual question, you'd ask “doko ni oru?” or as a noncasual question (though I'm not sure if this is really how people use it) doko ni orimasuka?

Kara/node → Monde: I'm referring to the Kara here that you use to mean “because”. Eg: Because I wanted ice cream, I went to the store: Ice cream wo hoshikattakara, omise ni ikimashita/itta. (I don't feel like romanizing Ice Cream, apologies. Also apologies if the word choice for this is off. I'm sure it is). Instead of Kara (or Node, which can be used here in an identical way), in Mikawaben, we can use Monde: Icecream wo hoshikattamonde, omise ni ikimashita/itta. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm going out drinking tonight with coworkers, so we'll see how that works out.

Anata → Oman (Oh + Mahn). So instead of using “anata” for you, we use “oman”.The guys at the Izakaya gave me this one. When I asked Mie about it, she said, sure, if I was really old. Truthfully, I've never heard Oman for Anata here except for that one instance. That said, you hardly ever hear Anata here either, because in Japan that's kind of rude anyway. So the jury is still out on Oman as a worrd of regular use.

Mushi-atsui: This may not be Mikawa-ben, but it's an accurate description of super humid, hot weather, which is the norm for our Mikawa summers. I'm sure the kanji are different, but I think of this as "bug hot" ie: so hot you get waterbugs. Mushi = bug and Atsui = hot.

I'm sure there's more Mikawaben going on around me that I don't understand. If anyone wants to offer more phrases or grammatical constructions that I'm likely to meet here as a part of Mikawaben, please let me know!

Payday and Looking Up As We Walk, or At Least Making the Attempt

I got my first paycheck on Thursday, April 20th. It was very exciting to look in my Japanese bank account and see real yen in there! This check was a bit short because my first two months rent at this apartment were taken out prior to receiving the direct deposit, but I still ended up with more than I'd thought I would. Just the fact that I can stop living off of my savings and stop getting abused by the exchange rate (basically for $100 in yen, I was spending about $108—it adds up) took a huge load off of my mind and stomach. The next step is to figure out how to move some of this money to a savings account so that I don't just spend it all. I really want to build my savings back up while I'm here, not to the extent of not having fun, but at least enough so that I have some of my reserve back again. Having money in savings is what made this trip possible for me. I like having that security.

So having gotten paid, of course the first thing I did was head out with Erin after work and do Karaoke and grab dinner. First we went to VITS where I found out that I had misinterpreted the 500 yen special. I had thought it only cost 500 yen if you were ALONE (hitori) but actually, what it means is that it's 500 yen per person from 4-8pm. So this means that I can actually go to Karaoke with a friend or two before 8pm AND it will still only cost 500 yen (plus whatever drinks we want). This is especially great to warm up a Friday night! I LOVE VITS!

Erin and I had a great time rocking out to Japanese and English songs, including doing a duet of Sukiyaki in Japanese. I had wanted to do this song for some time, but I didn't know the name for it in Japanese: 上に向いて歩こう。

Here's the song on youtube with realtime Japanese lyrics in Kanji with English translation, as well as facts about the song and the artist, Kyu Sakamoto:



I'm not sure about how good the translation is or not. This song is using the Volitional form (arukou) which I've been reading up on because it's been confusing me. My original understanding of the volitional form of the verb was that it simply meant “let's do X” but actually, it's a lot more complicated.

I've found a good explanation of the “let's do” version of this here: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/desire.html#part4

And how to use this in regards to intention, ie: setting out to do something, here: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/try.html#part3

But grammar aside, this is a great song, and very easy to sing! It was also the first and only song entirely in Japanese to hit the Top 40 in the USA, at least according to the above Youtube video. (and that's only the tip of the iceberg in regards to this video)

We also took a stab at the Evangelion theme song (whose name I never remember) as well as some classic music from the 70's and 80's. Just a general good time!

Afterwards we took off for a wonderful Malaysian restaurant that Erin had tried recently. I had a delicious meat and noodle dish. I don't remember what it was, but knowing what you're eating is overrated, such I've learned from Japan.

In short, a great day!

Japanese Sign Language, Ooku no Hito, and Vash on TV!

So Monday night was exercise, which was excellent. I then went to the Jusco, where I purchased Hoi Hoi traps to kill roaches. I had left the sheet which told me what roach traps to buy at Higashiyama (of course) so I ended up just going to a person who was working at the store and saying “Gokiburi wo koroshitai...” (I want to kill cockroaches!) and the nice lady took me right to the section and recommended some great products including the Hoi Hoi traps I've got scattered around my apartment now. Since I've put them out, I haven't seen a roach! I also purchased a Bento sushi for dinner (under $5 for a Sushi platter that would be almost twice that much in the States) and some milk. Suffice it to say, I was dead tired by the time I finished eating.

Even so, I didn't really get to bed until 12am, so I was tired on Tuesday too when I went to work. But biking woke me right up, first because of the exercise and second because I accidentally took the wrong road and had a real panic moment that my usual lack of direction would make me late for work. This was especially problematic because I also had to leave early to attend CPR training. So being late and and leaving early, BIG problem in any country.

Luckily, the road I was taking to Homi was roughly parallel to the road I should have taken (155, going to Seto) so when I realized after about 10 to 15 minutes that none of the landmarks I recognized were appearing, and that the Chome I was in was not on my map (they all aren't listed, alas) I asked for directions to Josui Station. That's the closest large thing that I figured people would know if I asked for directions. Then it was a quick left turn and lots of downhill riding, and I was actually not only right back on track, but I was actually right at my school! Turns out the road that I had taken to get to Josui station went right PAST my school!

So I was on-time for Toyota Yogo! Phew! It was also a real reminder that even if you've successfully walked or biked to a place once or twice before, that's no protection against being lost in Japan. At least if you're me. But while I'm still getting lost, my ability to handle it and get back on track is also definitely improved. And I am much more well able to deal with biking on hills, and getting better at understanding the Japanese road system. So yay!
Classes went well. Having made it my mission to greet and say goodbye to every student (or as many as I can) is beginning to show real signs of paying off. The kids now remember me, and some even pop out with a “good morning” or a high five unsolicited! It's very exciting!

I'm not sure how much of it is that they're learning good morning and the like from me, or that they're just getting over their shyness (it's incredibly hard to tell here--) but either way, I feel really great because it's beginning to feel more and more like my presence at this school (and all of them) is making a positive difference! And I'm getting to know the kids better, and they're getting to know me. It's great! I'm still terrible with names though at Toyota Yogo because I'm there more often, and I have more free time in which to talk to students individually, I'm probably doing the best of all of my schools with remembering specific children and teen's names.

Another exciting thing about working at Toyota Yogo is one of my coworkers, (name a blank, as usual, but he says his first job is fishing, and second job is as a teacher, really great guy) a nice older gentleman who worked at four schools for deaf children before coming to Toyota Yogo, is teaching me Japanese Sign Language. We have a great time chatting in the staff room about all kinds of things, and I usually pick up between 3-6 new signs every day I'm there, which (since he teachers me most of the signs in Japanese and English if he knows the English word – his English is really pretty good, so our conversations drift between the two languages) provides a great grounding for new vocabulary in addition to giving me a new language, and something else interesting to share with the kids at my various schools. The sign language helps me ground my Japanese, so I figure (like with any gesture) it will help them ground their English a bit as well. It's also totally fun!

I had to leave early for CPR and AED (it's a machine that shocks the heart if it's failing) training so after volunteering (inserting myself) into the third period songs class (far better than spending another useless 45 minutes in the staff room) I headed back to my neck of Toyota to go to City Hall. I also stopped at a 7-11 and treated myself to an American Dog, which is the Japanese version of a corn dog. It's about as healthy for you here as in the States, which is to say not very, but I loves me a corn dog. The corn dogs here are extra special because instead of having a thin layer of cornbread, they are thic like a fist. The hot dog is the same size as a standard hotdog, but the cornbread layer is about as thick around as the dog itself. It's made of delicious (though having tried 7-11's version and the Sankus version, I totally recommend Sankus more. The cornbread is a bit fluffier there, at least at the Sankus next to VITS Karaoke, where I buy my karaoke snacks. Of course, this is a wild generalization, so take it for what it's worth).

CPR training was fun because I got to hang out with some folks from my company that I hardly ever see because we're all off living our own lives and etc. (and the training was basically in English, though we ended up drifting into Japanese a lot because we had some very experienced Japanese speakers in our group (Lem) who could translate the more complicated questions and answers) We learned what to do when we see someone lying flat on the ground, clearly not moving. First, tap their shoulders vigorously and say in a loud voice “wakarimasuka!” (do you understand/are you okay enough to understand me?) and if they don't wake up, then call for help “dareka kite!” (da ray ka keetay)

After that, you check for breathing, and if they're not breathing, start CPR. Checking for a pulse takes too long, so we're not supposed to do that. Depending on how panicked I am in a real situation, I'll probably automatically check the gums though to see if they're blue, because that's what we do for cats. Blue is BAD, because it means the tissues aren't getting oxygen (probably not breathing); pink is good, it means that the tissues are at least getting O2. White is also bad, because it means that for whatever reason, there's blood loss or anemia (check for wound). But this is an aside. If they aren't breathing, start CPR.

Once someone comes, get the first person to call for an ambulance “kyuu kyuu sha wo yonde kudasai!” the second person gets to get the AED (heart shocker machine) “AED wo motte kite kudasai!” and then last person is charged with bringing as many people as possible: “ooku no hito yonde kudasai!” We all had fun with “ooku no hito yonde kudasai” for two reasons. First, nobody (at least sitting near me) had heard the phrase “ooku no hito” before. And most of these folks (with the exception of Justin, who has been here for 7 months, and me, getting on 7 weeks) have been here for at least 1-2 years. Lem's been here for 11 years. He may have heard it before though; but he's also taken the class before when he got his driver's license. So first we had to define “ooku no hito,” definition: lots and lots of people. I assume that the 'ooku' is some form of 多いOoi (many) though which one and why its being used this way, I have no idea.

The second reason for confusion revolving around “ooku no hito” was the question that two or three of us asked in various ways? Once you have all these “ooku no hito” gathered around, what do you do with them all? I've always heard that as a passserby, if there is an accident, and there are people gathered around (and someone is clearly handling the situation), the last thing you want to do is add yourself to the mass. Too many people can make a bad situation worse. But in Japan you want “ooku no hito” because they'll help you with the CPR. Apparently, people in Japan (according to my trainer) are very likely to know how to do the chest compressions as a matter of course, and since it takes six minutes from the phone call for the kyuukyuusha (ambulance) to arrive, you're going to need those extra hands to keep you from getting exhausted as you do the CPR. But if nobody comes at all, then you do two minutes of CPR and then run off and call for the ambulance. (Dial 119 for ambulance here. There's a different number for the police and fire department.)

The next part of our training was on proper use of the AED. I'd never seen an AED before. It's basically a machine about the size of an old Mac laptop (ie: thick as a brick, about a square foot around) that checks for heartrate and then delivers (if necessary) a shock to the heart. There are leads that stick to the chest, one over the upper right side of the chest (across from the heart), the other diagonally to the left, just below the ribcage. For a child under eight, you put one lead on the front of the chest in the center of the ribcage, and the other on the back. You also really need to take any metal off the chest and dry the area, otherwise it's bad things. The shock is pretty tough.

If the heart isn't beating at all, the AED doesn't give a shock, as unlike in the movies, jolting a flatline doesn't do anything useful. Our very important phrase that we learned here was “hanarete!” 離れて！It means, back up, get your hands off, etc. (separate/detach/release). This is actually a word in a song I'm trying learn for Karaoke, The Mass Missile's 愛の讃歌（あいのさんか）which is all in Kansai-ben apparently; this explains a lot about why I couldn't find a lot of the words in the dictionary. I'll never forget the meaning of this word though, because after Hanarete comes the shock. “Shoku shimasu!”

Like me, everyone I've talked to since the training has had some sort of experience with the word “hanarete” running through their minds or dreams. The AED is quite straightforward (though its all in Japanese) and none of us has any trouble learning how to use it.

During our training, there was also a news crew (TV and newspaper) taking pictures and videotaping us for TV and the paper. I did a short interview (in Japanese; it was me and two others of our group) about how I found the training to be useful which turned up on the six-o-clock local news! (including in Nagoya). I never got to see it, but throughout the week fellow teachers and one student, as well as a friend online, have mentioned that they saw me on TV. I wish I could find an online link to the interview so I could see it, but who knows. The nice people at Kosema however did clip the newspaper article out for me. I'm taking a picture of it to post online. I'm right in the center of the picture used in the article. This also gives you an indication about how stress-free life here is as our CPR class was actually newsworthy.

It's also, I'm sure, because we're foreign. Being foreign here in Japan, especially in school with the students, is a little like being a rock-star. People always want to talk to you and ask you questions, etc! Even so, in school, I still have some residual nervousness from my own Elementary School experience (where I was about as popular as a roadkill skunk). Sometimes I have to fight a diffuse fear when approaching students at random “oh god, they're not going to like me...!”

This is especially true with the fifth and sixth grades (where I was about as popular as a roadkill skunk that had been left out in the sun for two days) but with a bright smile and an energetic hello, everyone's around me chattering and giving high-fives etc! Just entering a school, often kids will wave at me from the windows, and I'll here in excited tones “it's Vash! Eigo sensei!” or some permutation of this. For a ham like me, this is ridiculously exciting! (it's also allowing me to exorcise some old demons.) Even so, I do tend to find myself drawn to the unpopular kids (or those with learning disabilities) though I try to spread myself as evenly as possible. As a general rule, the kids here are incredibly kind to each other. Any horsing around is not meant in a mean spirit that I've seen, though I'm only getting a very narrow window into this world, so I can't make any generalizations as I really don't know.

So that was my exciting Tuesday!

Phew these entries take a long time, especially when one has a backlog!

Hugs to all :)

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For more of my adventure in Japan and onwards, visit my blog: http://vashabroad.blogspot.com