ホストファミリーとの暮らし

This weekend was my first 2 days with my host family, the Karahashis. The okaasan (mother) and otoosan (father) are both very caring for me. Neither speaks any English, but they have apparently hosted 6 students before so they are pretty understanding of my situation. Indeed, this past weekend has been a big learning experience. I learned first and foremost that Japanese proficiency in the classroom does not necessarily translate to ability to do anything in real life. I think I have been able to get around okay (I didn't get lost on my way to class this morning!), but whenever the okaasan or otoosan says anything to me I have to ask them to repeat themselves about 3 times, after which I usually give up and just smile and nod. I think that will improve a lot over time, though. My otoosan is hard to understand particularly because he has a very gruff manner of speaking, so if I don't catch what he said immediately, I probably won't get it at all. Also, the Japanese drink tea all the time! I have never drunk so much tea in my life. Maybe the black tea at dinner is the reason I haven't been able to sleep at night. (It may also have something to do with the fact that I can see my breath in my room, but that's a different story.)

My host family's house is very small and compact. I am now very glad for my height, because all of the doorways are about 5'5" tall, so if I were much taller I would be hitting my head all of the time. The kitchen, bathroom, toilet, laundry, and living room are on the first floor, and my room is on the second. The staircase up to my room is extremely steep--if the angle were any higher you would have to call it a ladder. I have a lot more personal space than I had expected, though. Rooms here are measured based on the number of tatami mats that it takes to cover the floor, and most rooms are between 4.5 and 6 tatami mats. (A tatami is about the same dimensions as a twin-sized bed.) My room has 6 tatami mats, but it turns out that there is also an adjacent room of the same size that is pretty much exclusively for my own use for studying or something like that.



My room

Because of energy costs and fire concern, most Japanese people do not heat their houses. To stay warm, they dress warmly while at home and wear slippers everywhere, as well as using clever space heating methods. My family has a kotatsu, which is a low table surrounded by a duvet-like blanket on all sides, and underneath it is a heated carpet pad. You sit on the floor (the carpet) and put your legs under the blanket, and then even though you can still see your breath it is very warm. Their little balding old dog spends most of its time under there, where it has 2 beds. In my room I also have a space heater attached to the wall, so I can actually get the air in my room pretty warm if I choose, and finally I have an electric mattress pad so I can warm the bed before I get in. So, all in all, even though I freeze when walking from room to room, I stay reasonably warm.

The bath is a big part of Japanese life. My family's bathroom is basically a tiny room with a tiled floor in which you take a shower, and after you have washed off you get into a heated soaking tub in the same room. It is shorter in length than most American bathtubs, but it is much deeper, so when I get in the water is about 2 feet deep. After your shower you soak in the bathtub for awhile, although hopefully not for too long or else you will fall asleep. Everyone in the family uses the same water, which is why you clean off thoroughly before getting in, and it is traditional to let the guest go first. My host mother also likes to add some powder to the water that makes it Shrek-green, and supposedly it is good for your skin even though it looks a little questionable. The bath also helps me to stay warm.


Last Friday for the last Orientation event I went on a tour to Kyoto. I was in a group of 7 international students, and we were paired with 5 (although we lost one along the way) Kansai Gaidai students. Together we all walked to the train station, and they instructed us on how to buy tickets and then we went to downtown Kyoto. It was very beautiful. All of the shops were so nicely presented, and there were a lot of trees and nature that combined to give the area a very traditional and peaceful feel. We stopped at one shrine and one temple, called Kiyomizu, which were both very big and impressive. The temple featured a spring that you could drink from, and supposedly it has blessed water. The water ran in 3 fountains, and supposedly each one will give you a different blessing--either health, longevity, or wisdom (but you're not supposed to drink from all 3 or it's bad luck!). I did not find that out until later, so I only drank from one, and I'm not sure which...Ah well, any of those would be nice. The water was cold and clean.



Kiyomizu Temple that we visited in Kyoto


In Kiyomizu Temple


The spring that I drank from

We left the Kansai Gaidai campus at about 2, but by the time we left the temple it was about 5, and it had gotten a lot colder. Washing my hands and drinking from the icy cold fountains did not help. We went to a restaurant nearby, where I got a donburi and udon meal, which was really tasty, not to mention warming. After that we took the train back, and I returned the dorms by around 9.


Larger versions of the photos, as well as others, are on the Flickr (link on the right column of the page).


I will update soon with classes!

Aruko!

Before I say anything else, I have to start by commenting that the internet here is painfully slow considering that I'm supposed to be here in the world capitol of technology. Or considering that I'm anywhere, for that matter. It's just slow. There it is.

Anyway, on to the main show. The biggest theme that I can think of to encompass the past 3 days is just walking. I must walk for at least 3 or 4 hours every day. It takes around 25-30 minutes for me to walk to the Kansai Gaidai campus from the dorms, a time that I always underestimate in the mornings and which inevitably causes me to be 5 minutes late for any morning meeting. On top of that is walking to get anywhere besides campus. On Tuesday I ended up unexpectedly walking to a kaitenzushi (rotating sushi) restaurant with some friends, at least a 45 minute walk from my dorm. Yesterday another group, with some overlap, walked to downtown Hirakata City, where we saw the real stereotypical Japan. Maybe it was not as much so as, say, Akihabara, but, well, there were plastic Hello Kitty water bottles. And a tiny super-cute girl mastering some Pokemon arcade game while her mother and older sister cheered her on. You get the picture. We went into a couple of bookstores, and half of each must have been devoted to manga. I guess I'm really in Japan. After that it took a good hour to walk back. Today Mieko and Alex, an old friend and a new friend, and I wandered around Hirakata City and went on a wild goose chase in search of a mysterious shrine that we saw on a map but were unable to locate in person. After 2 hours of walking we gave up and went back to the dorms. Evidently maps in Japan are never drawn to scale. Also, cars do not stop for pedestrians, and bicyclists like to sneak up behind walkers every 2 minutes and give about 1 second's notice with a ding on their bell to let you know they're about to run you over so you better jump out of the way right now. (And yet, bicycling on sidewalks is illegal.) Good to know.

I am very impressed by the food prices here. Anyone who says living in Japan is expensive clearly has not tried out many local restaurants. At the kaitenzushi restaurant, I ate everything I could eat, and in the end it came out to 380 yen. That's like $4. Or less. It was good sushi too! Plus, that includes tax, and there is no tipping in Japan. Additionally, there was the novelty of ordering off of little screens located at the head of each table, moments after which a little train would zip up to the table bearing everything you ordered and then shoot away at the touch of a button. At the cafeterias I have been getting donburi, rice topped with some sauces and egg and vegetables or meat or whatever you order, for lunch every day, and today it only came out to 220 yen. How crazy is that? It is surely better than anything you could ever find in Stevenson (Oberlin's main cafeteria), yet for less than half the price. Is there something we're missing in Ohio?

The days have been pretty loosely packed with various orientation meetings and activities, such as registering my laptop (but for some reason it still won't access the internet!), learning about life with a host family, and a rather amusing presentation about sexual health in Japan. Today I got a sheet of information about my host family! This is the first time I have heard anything about them. Their name is Karahashi, and they are an elderly couple that live in Yawata City, Kyoto, meaning that I'll have a commute of about 45 minutes to class each morning. So far, I have learned that they have a pet dog (so much for the title of this blog!), don't speak English, and enjoy bonzai gardening and handycrafts such as knitting. I am anxious about meeting them! It is hard to get a feel for life in their house after only seeing that much information, but then I will find out soon enough, "soon enough" meaning Saturday morning at 11. I'm not getting my hopes up about having internet at home, although it would be nice. Then again, maybe I'll be forced to be more studious without it. I just hope they'll teach me how to cook.

Tomorrow I will find out my class schedule and what level of Japanese I've been placed into. I am crossing my fingers that everything goes well. I already know that I got into ceramics, which pleases me immensely, so the only real question besides that is about the Japanese literature class. (I'm thinking that I'll drop the Kansai Art class so it won't matter anymore, and I'll only be taking 4 subjects, leaving me with more time to explore.) The ceramics class expects about 7.5 hours of studio practice outside of class every week, so I am hoping to become a truly skilled ceramicist by late May. Yes!

I am happy to say that I have been pretty pleased with my ability to communicate in Japanese since I got here. I still have a long way to go, but I have been able to sort of hold a conversation with a Japanese person and understand basically what's going on, and I haven't had much trouble with asking people for help if I get lost or am looking for something in a store. I think that after speaking with my host family, things will improve a lot more.

Okay, it's getting late. More to come! Once I can get the internet on my laptop to work there will be a wave of pictures coming your way, so prepare yourself.

Settling into Japanese Life

After 3 days, I feel like I have been here in Osaka for weeks. I am still really enjoying myself, and there has been a fairly steady stream of activity over the past couple of days. Yesterday and today I spent a lot of time taking care of administrative kinds of matters, and today on top of that I also had my language placement test! I think everything has been moving along smoothly, and I really like the people I've met here.

I have signed up for classes now. Since classes in too high of demand are decided by lottery, I won't find out my finalized schedule until Friday. I am definitely taking spoken Japanese, as well as Japanese reading/writing, since they are available for everyone, and I will find out my level based on the results of the placement test on Friday as well. Besides that, I am hoping to take Japanese ceramics, art in the Kansai area (field trips!), and a class about the intersection of the real and imaginary in modern Japanese fiction. It will be good to take a literature class again for the first time since high school so that I can get credit for reading fun books! I've already read one of the books on the list, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and it was really interesting. I hope it works out.

Tomorrow will continue with the orientation schedule, and I will find out the details on my host family on Thursday. I am looking forward to moving to a more permanent residence and having classes start so I can get into a regular routine. In the meantime, I am trying to keep my things together so that I will be ready to leave quickly, but it's hard to live out of a suitcase for a week without spreading out at least a little. I suppose it is all part of adjusting.

First Day

It's still hard to believe that I'm really here after my first day. In spite of my nervousness before I left California, I am actually having a great time. There was nothing scheduled for today, allowing any students who have already arrived time to explore and settle in. The food is really good and really cheap. The streets are all clean, and everyone rides bicycles, and it is amazing how many elderly people still ride their bikes--you definitely wouldn't see that in the US. It seems that no one locks up their bikes when they park, giving me a sense of safety only slightly shaken by the ominous signs on streetcorners depicting chikans (perverts, or "lascivious men" according to my textbook) sneaking up behind unsuspecting women and children.

The thing that has surprised me most so far is how Japanese things are. That should seem obvious, but I was expecting much more Westernization around urban areas, especially after seeing so many signs in English on the bus ride from the airport. It is really pretty though, and I like the style a lot. This morning and through the afternoon I have been wandering around the area with a group of 7 other students in my program, and especially in the residential areas the architecture is very traditional. The streets are narrow, and before each house is a stone wall with a garden behind. The houses themselves usually have wood exteriors, and they are built in a very attractive style. Even in the dorms, the floors are covered with tatami mats, and we sleep on futon mats on the floor that you fold up during the day. They were surprisingly comfortable. Shoes must be removed at the entrance to the building. It's the real deal.

Already we have gotten several Japanese people pointing and staring at our group. I suppose it's to be expected. I find it funny, although a little awkward...

I am eager to see my friends from Oberlin when they arrive. All of the other students here have been really nice. This feels just like going to college for the first time again. A whole new world is open at my feet.

Tsuita!

I am writing from the computer lab on the first floor of my dorm! I am staying here until the homestay move-in in a week. After a long night of packing and preparing (and finding out just how un-prepared I was) I made it to the airport for my 12-hour flight. Evidently almost all of the non-Japanese college age passengers on the plane were Kansai Gaidai students, which was reassuring since I was worried about trying to navigate the airport on my own. In total there were about 20 or 25 of us, and Kansai Gaidai took us on a 1.5 hour bus ride to the dorms. More to come!

(p.s. tsuita means "arrived.")

Leaving Tomorrow

My flight is tomorrow morning at 11:45! This is terrifying. I have a direct flight into Kansai International Airport, where someone from Kansai Gaidai will hopefully be waiting to pick me up and take me back to the dorms (or Seminar Houses, as they call them). I am pretty terrified. I still have a lot of packing left to do, but besides that it is just so weird to think that I will not be back in the United States for 5 months.

Of course there is a vague generalized worry that something will go wrong with the flight tomorrow--what if there was some key step in the getting-to-Japan process that I totally missed? I have my passport and student visa and certificate of eligibility, but all the same there is a nightmarish feeling lurking that I might arrive at the airport and somehow be turned around. Or what if my flight is canceled, or delayed so long that the people will no longer be willing to pick me up in Osaka. What if I somehow got the date wrong and my flight was actually 2 days ago. I am mostly putting those worries aside, however, as there is not much I can do about them now, and in any case they will probably be no problem. Right?

A bigger worry comes, of course, from the culture shock. I went to France once for 2 weeks after I graduated from high school, and while I had a great time, I was also really stressed from having to speak French all the time. When I got to the the London airport on my way home, all I remember is an immense sense of relief when I could just walk up to a store and buy a bagel, in English. This will be so much bigger than that. I won't be with family, it will be for longer, and I'm worried about my Japanese. All of the honorific speech and levels of politeness are a complete mystery to me. I know how to use them when I'm filling out a worksheet, but sensing what is appropriate and being polite and not offending people in real life is a completely different deal. What if I meet my host family (the move-in is around January 30th) and I horribly offend them the moment I meet them? Or what if I don't get along with them? And considering that the Japanese don't heat their houses, how cold will their house really be at night?

Also, I love Japanese food, but new places coupled with stress and a change in diet invariably leads to an unhappy stomach. I suspect that I will feel sick many times in the first few weeks. Ah well, I suppose at least that will limit me from binging on too much ramen and wakame salad...I do know already that I will miss good Bay Area bread and cheese. Also good yogurt and pizza. And my Decafe (that's pronounced day-caf) smoothies. and pesto. It always comes down to the bread, though. I hope they have good bread in Japan.

It is also strange thinking of what I will miss in Oberlin. When I come back to campus I will be a senior, which in my mind means I'm supposed to have an idea of what I want to do after college, and I will have to start networking and interviewing for jobs. My friends who are now seniors will be long gone. Blogging, email, and Skype make it easy to stay in contact with my friends, but still, I will miss so much of campus life. Some of my friends are hosting a conference on campus, and they are sure to bring some amazing speakers. I won't know what's going on in my co-op, which was practically my home for the last semester, and I will miss out on much laughter and gossip. After 5 semesters, I will no longer live in Asia House ever again. I guess it's just odd to think of life on the campus continuing without me, but sure enough it will.

Finally, it would look terrible if I did not say that the thing I will miss most of all is the people. Friends from school, friends from home, and family. I will not see them for so long, and they are such an essential part of life as I know it.

To counter this negativity, I will list some things that I am super psyched for. First of all, I will become really good at Japanese. Like, fluently good. I love learning languages, and Japanese has been a welcome and refreshing challenge, which I feel I am totally up to. I will get to know 4 other awesome Oberlin Japanese language students much better. I will also get to meet a lot of other students from around the world, especially, of course, from Japan. I will see a lot of beautiful sights, including an aesthetic and a style of architecture very different from my own but that I already love and will learn to love even more. I will eat my fill of Japanese food. I will be excited when I visit and recognize locations that I studied in my history class. Maybe I'll reconnect with some distant family and actually be able to have a conversation with them. I will learn about art. I will become addicted to Japanese TV dramas（テレビドラマ！）. In short, I will become a much cooler and more worldly person. yes.


I will post when I get to Japan!

Still in California II, with photos

As previously mentioned, I have been spending the 2 pre-departure weeks at my older brother's house, where I have been dividing my time between cooking, religiously keeping up with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and occasionally reviewing Japanese. Cooking has been an adventure, not only because I had never made most of the things I've been trying out, but also because halfway through a recipe I inevitably find myself missing some vital piece of cooking equipment that had not even occurred to me. This has forced some creativity and a lot of patience on my part, including but not limited to straining ricotta through an old T-shirt for lack of any cheesecloth, baking bagels 2 at a time in a toaster oven, and trying to beat 5 egg whites to form "soft peaks" by hand, with a fork. I would say, though, on the whole, that I have been rather successful. I think.

My first foray in gourmet cooking was with homemade ricotta. I had tried making it in Pyle, my cooking co-op at Oberlin, once before with the help of friends, but making it on my own was an intimidating step. Since I didn't have any cheesecloth and couldn't find any at either of the 2 local grocery markets, I thought I'd use the bandanna that I accidentally brought home from Oberlin to strain the cheese. Everything appeared to be running smoothly, and I was feeling pretty good as I poured the curdled milk mixture into a bandanna-lined colander to drain. It seemed to be draining pretty slowly, though, so I tried to adjust the bandanna to make things run more quickly. The next thing I knew, half of the cheese had been dumped out into the sink. Horrified but determined, I tried to scoop as much cheese back into the bandanna as I could. The thing is that there was still some water-logged cat food stuck in the sink's drain from an earlier change in the cats' water bowl, and I tried to avoid the pieces, but when I sampled the ricotta that I had saved, it tasted distinctly...fishy. Still determined, I dumped it all out and walked back to the market (actually I ran, because I was mad) and bought a second round of milk, cream, and lemon, and returned to the house. This time I used an old cotton T-shirt in place of the bandanna as it felt much more water-permeable, and sure enough it was a success. It had a nice creamy flavor and texture, and I would certainly make it again, provided there were no bandannas involved.



A successful batch of ricotta

The next day I made a pizza, featuring the ricotta on top. The whole wheat crust came from here, my favorite food blog. I think pizza needs a stronger cheese than ricotta, but nonetheless it was very easy and it tasted good.



It would have been better if those were basil leaves instead of spinach

Next up was whole-wheat bagels. They were rather a lot of work given how few bagels the recipe produced (8, to be exact), and they were still nowhere near Ess-a-Bagel. (But what do you expect.) They weren't bad. They came out rather hard and dry though, and I'm not sure if that was primarily due to problems with kneading or the flour that I was using, or something else in the process. The recipe called for bread flour, but since I didn't have any I substituted 3 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of all-purpose flour. Maybe that was the culprit. Anyway it was worth a try.



Bagels waiting to be boiled


An especially attractive bagel, upon completion

I also tried making chocolate truffles and bacon-corn-maple cupcakes. The truffles came out very handsomely and I heard that they tasted good. I used Alton Brown's recipe from the Food Network website, which was fairly straightforward. Unfortunately I was so sick of chocolate by the time I had finished making them that I just could not bring myself to enjoy them. My plan is to make more of them and bring them as a gift to my host family. The idea for the cupcakes came from here. Weird as they may sound, they actually weren't that bad. I don't think I would make them again, but still, not disgusting. I had seen a few stories of bacon cakes around, and I decided it was time to try them for myself. They were not as fluffy as I had expected. The recipe suggested beating the egg whites to form stiff, glossy peaks with a mixer, but all I had on hand was a fork and a bowl, so needless to say, I did not quite get them as aerated as one might hope. I think I did well for what I had though.



Truffles, not by Andrew


A small army of cupcakes on the only open surface in the kitchen


Side view of a cupcake

But wait, Mariko is eating bacon? I figured that I better return to full-scale omnivorery for the next 5 months after a 6.5 year hiatus so as not to alienate my host family in Japan. I heard that vegetarianism is practically un-heard of in Japan, and since I am supposed to have dinner with my host family every night, I figured it would be best not to inconvenience them with the burden of cooking an entire separate entree every night. Plus, Japanese food is delicious.

Hopefully I have not bored you too much by now. Thank you for reading this far.

In terms of life outside of food, well there hasn't really been that much. Most days I spend at home with the cats. I did get to see some old friends from high school this past week, though, which was great. I felt so luxurious sleeping on a fold-out mattress for a night, since otherwise I have been sleeping on a small and rather hard sofa, which I estimate to be about 2/3 as comfortable as my cats' bed. Plus it was nice to see them. On Sunday my mother's side of the family got together for a New Years' (or as they say in Japan, お正月, osho gatsu) dinner celebration where I stuffed myself with delicious Japanese food and then went into a food coma. (Wait, I thought I was done talking about food.) I really should be getting more exercise.

Alright, that's more than enough for now...I think I'm going to go take a walk before it starts raining again.

Edit: Oops, too late, already pouring. Wow thunder.

Still in California

My flight is a week from today! I can't believe it. I really need to be spending more time reviewing Japanese. When I look through my old textbooks I recognize the vocabulary and grammar patterns, but when it comes time to use even basic things on my own they just escape me. (On the other hand, I don't even remember having ever seen some of those kanji (Chinese characters that Japan borrowed) before.) To procrastinate (what else?), I have been cooking and baking like crazy over the past week. I will update soon with pictures! In the meantime, await homemade ricotta, pizza, bagels, almond flavored truffles, and, yes.......bacon cupcakes!!

Get ready!

Hello

Hello friends!

I've finally set up my travel blog for my semester in Japan, as promised to several of you. I don't have too much to say at this point, except that I'm excited to go (leaving in 17 days!), and am worried about the hundreds of kanji that I've forgotten over the past 8 months. Looking at the pieces of paper I keep finding around my room with characters diligently written over and over, I am impressed that they didn't stick forever. Tomorrow I will go to pick up my student visa from the Japanese consulate in San Francisco. I feel so official. Anyway, I will try to update frequently, and I even made a Flickr account so I can share photo albums. I hope you enjoy!

Also, if you have an account on Skype, I want to talk to you! My username is marikoandme.


In parting, I leave you to contemplate this poem that I wrote in elementary school and rediscovered today while digging through boxes.

"Don't Eat a Bun" by Mariko Meyer, age 10(?)

Be careful when you eat only a bun!
If you eat them, they might make you run.
That happens mostly of you're a nun.
Then, you should have none.
You might run all the way to the sun!
Don't worry, the sun won't have a gun.
Don't eat a bun!


Warm tidings,
Mariko