英語の弁当/English Bento Box

You've been flirting again

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 02:29:00 +0000

I cannot believe it is already mid-October! I have been missing Japan so much lately, even though I've been busy. I feel like time has been flying much faster since I left Japan. And since my last post I left you all in the dark as to what I have been working on lately. I've been so busy with creative projects that I haven't had much time to spend on catching up via the blog. Let me just announce that tomorrow I'll be showing an original interactive dance happening at the Tampa Museum of Art. If you happen to live in Tampa, please come out to view my work. After tomorrow, I'll catch you all up on what's been going on and where I am heading.

In the meantime, I've made a poster and trailer for the performance, which is called "A Homecoming." Leave me a message if you like it. Enjoy!

A HOMECOMING from Autumn Widdoes on Vimeo.

Dears, the Future is Now.

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sat, 13 Sep 2014 22:44:00 +0000

The future is now.

Dears,

I've been applying to jobs and imagining my future. After the last post, which seemed like the literary equivalent to Edvard Munch's masterpiece, I started to dig deep into how I felt in order to re-imagine the possibilities in my life. I have to also admit that this post was inspired by this wonderful article. By the way, I have many things to announce to you...but I shall save those for my next post. Instead, I want to share some of the thoughts I have been meditating on in order to change my perception. I want to say that I know that I'm not the only person affected by the current milieu in the world, especially in the US, so I know that there are many from my generation in particular who have been struggling with finding their way in this world-in-transition. Let me tell you something I have finally figured out. We are living great lives, even in our struggle. I was drinking some of my favorite tea the other day, and on the tea bag's label, it stated something like "Have gratitude in your life and opportunities will arise." I decided that was a message I needed to heed. Here are a few others I've been thinking about lately: These are all from issues I've had to face in my life, so don't think I'm just writing empty platitudes up here.

Reject false models of scarcity and austerity. Create abundance in your life, even if right now you can only do it with creative thoughts. That's where it starts. To hell with feeling like you need permission to do the things you want to do during your life. If you want to go back to school to better yourself, do it. But you don't need it to have permission (unless you're getting a degree that requires licensing or certification). If you want to travel the world, do it. You don't have to be rich to do this, but you'll need a job. If you have debt, live your life as you like it as best as you can. Find ways. Don't settle. Don't buy into the systems in our society if you want to live your life freely. Question things. Read between the lines. Think critically (esp. about social problems that may affect others). Think outside of the typical mode of thought or way of communicating. Don't buy into the media's bullshit. Have empathy. Don't spread negativity. If you're feeling negatively, dig into that and try to figure out how to use that energy properly in a more positive way. Get rid of anyone who tries to hold you back with negativity or tries to control you. Stop being afraid of succeeding. Stop being afraid of failing. Stop being afraid to be who you are. Quit worrying about what others think about you. Quit focusing on other people's lives and how good they have it. If you feel envy or the beginnings of jealousy (and let's be honest, everyone has at some point), use that to better yourself, not put others down. Find out what it is that you want that others have and go after it. Fill your heart and soul with gratitude. Give back and help others who are trying their best (do this without obligating them to you). Embrace love and kindness. Try your best to forgive (you don't need to tell the jerks who caused you pain, but you need to do this so you can move the hell on and get back up on the horse). Let go of the past. What's done is done.

Anything you'd like to add?

Have a nice day.

Finding a way...Finding my way

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 19:46:00 +0000

I'm just going to re-post something I wrote suddenly on my Facebook wall because I feel that it needs more context. I'm not certain if what I am feeling is entirely reverse culture shock or if it is a combination of being in transition, going through reverse culture shock, being unemployed, feeling very uncertain again about my life and the decisions I've made so far, fearing that I'm going to end up falling back into that familiar hometown rut, feeling as if everyone else around has their shit together and is much further along in their lives than I am, etc. etc. among other fears. Sorry this post isn't more cheerful. Yesterday was a wonderful day with a million positive ideas coming to me. Today seems to be less productive. Everyday throws something different at me and I deal with it either positively or negatively, though nothing exciting really is happening in my life currently (and maybe that's the real problem). It seems though that I usually feel this way whenever I have to apply to jobs and I look around at the jobs available in my hometown and how limiting they seem to be. To be honest, I'm considering going back to graduate school again. Not because it's a way to avoid working (I really do enjoy having a job and an income), but because I keep feeling that it may be the only way forward career wise. Maybe I'm not thinking creatively enough though. Maybe I'm just afraid of change and afraid of rejection and full of all the fears that hold everyone back. I feel that I need to start working harder at something so that I can be devoted to that while I'm trying to figure out the rest of my life.

Periodically throughout the day, almost everyday, though some days are better than others, I feel this sudden sense of bewilderment creep over me. The question "what am I doing here?" rises to my lips, though I don't mouth it aloud. When I first arrived 3 weeks ago, it was as if I could still see Japan's shoreline as I slowly drifted away. I felt sure of myself. I didn't mind things then as I felt sure in some sense that I had made the correct decision. Now, 3 weeks have gone by, and the shoreline has started to disappear entirely and I'm left out at sea with only this vague sense of movement pushing me further away from where I was into a vast unknown, with nothing in sight to guide me to the next place that I belong. Then the waves of pressure overtake me. My internal critic comes alive shouting "you should know what you are doing by now", "you should have a career", "you should be more established," "you're floundering" "you're failing," etc. I feel overwhelmed when this happens and start to worry that I've made all the wrong decisions, that I went in the wrong direction, that I spent too much time away from my own culture, that I didn't work hard enough or meet the right people especially in my 20s when I was trying hard to establish myself as an artist/performer/writer, that my graduate education has been wasted, that the doors just never opened, that I am in essence alone out on this ship out in the middle of the ocean without a compass or a map.

ただいま! Welcome Home: Finding a Career

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sat, 23 Aug 2014 02:16:00 +0000

At the end of July, I left the JET Program and with it my job teaching English to Japanese high school students.   Now I'm on the hunt for something new. Yes, I probably should have procured another job in advance instead of free-falling into the abyss of unemployment, but I did spend a year looking for work, going back and forth via Skype sessions and emails corresponding with an amazingly talented career coach from NYU who has pretty much done everything she can to get my profile and my career hunting attitude in gear. And yet, here I am.

After flying to mainland Japan in February to attend a career fair in Yokohama which led to a few interviews in the recruiting industry that allowed me to see that wasn't my destined path, I realized that it was time to come home. I am sure that if I had an extensive network in Tokyo, I could have found an awesome (non-ALT) job that allowed me to continue living in Japan indefinitely. But I want to believe that right now I was meant to return to the US and that it's time to start looking forward.

I know what I want to do. I want to work for UNESCO or an international organization directly connected to it. It's the same dream career I have wanted to pursue since I traveled to Paris, France with the Mountbatten Internship Program when I was 25. It's the reason I got an MA in Performance Studies. I wanted a solid theoretical background in an area of focus that combined cultural studies, ethnography, and performance. I'm interested in cultures, international exchange, educational systems, and as a performer/artist/writer, I am also passionate about the exchange of different perspectives/ideas/feelings via the arts.

This world is a complex one with a myriad of belief systems, languages, religions, rituals, artistic practices, architecture and design, among many other things. A world that, even in this era of globalization, seems to be retreating back into a black and white polarized system of organization based on fear, austerity, and war.   And yet, all around us we have incredible technological innovation, advances in the sciences, a deeper understanding about nature, the environment and our role to it, and the ability to communicate and connect with each other in order to learn more about our differences and similarities, so that we can deepen our ability to empathize and see and experience each other beyond the surface of our being. I believe that we do this best through creative expression.

If this all seems too dreamy for you, just realize that the world we live in is the world we construct for ourselves and the communities around us. It's really as simple as that. I know the world that I want to live in and I want to continue to help shape and build it so that the world based on fear, extreme poverty, environmental destruction, and war isn't the only reality that we have.

If you have any connections or any advice to give me, feel free to leave a comment or send me a private message.

Many thanks and lots of love to you.

ただいま! Welcome Home: Reverse Culture Shock

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 04:12:00 +0000

Hello! お久しぶりですね。

I've decided to update here to let you know that I finally left Japan after living there for 4 years. It was difficult to leave and the process of re-acclimating to the USA is already proving to be even more difficult than the heartbreak I felt as I said goodbye to all my friends before getting on the plane in Naha.

Moving is never an easy thing to do and moving across the world is double the work. I couldn't have done it without my close Japanese friends, whom I can never thank enough for all their help, their support, and kindness. Even after I left they were still emailing and messaging me to find out how I was doing in the US.

I never expected to live in Japan for so long, and especially in Okinawa, but life took me in that direction and now it has sent me in another direction. I'm now back in Florida and have been here for almost 3 weeks. It seems like I've been here much longer, to be honest. The transition back has already been super rocky. I feel like many people think I lived a glamorous life in Japan and maybe from a distance it seems that way, but the way I was treated at my school by some of my co-workers was as far from glamorous as the moon is from the earth. I think it's hard to understand that living overseas isn't necessarily always this wonderful, fun-filled exciting life. It's a life, like any other except the culture isn't American. Some days are awesome, some days are wretched and horrendous, some days make you feel like a superhero and some days remind you that you speak the local language like a 6 year old does and that you aren't anywhere as independent as you thought you were.

Reciting my 10 minute goodbye speech in Japanese!

Goodbye speech at my school.

Saying goodbye to my students.

Coming back has made me realize a few things:

1. I'll never be who I was before because a part of me has internalized Japanese culture/world perspective. I think it's a good thing though.

2. I want to keep traveling. I need to find a job/career that supports this desire of mine.

3. I want a job where I'm able to work independently and receive respect for the skills I bring to the job.

4. I miss my friends in Japan so much already and cannot believe I may not see them again soon. It's almost surreal that I won't be returning to Okinawa in a few weeks, as I have always done after the two short visits I made during my 4 years there.

5. I need to find a community here and start diving into my interests/passions/hobbies because I already feel isolated. I'm really hoping I can connect with Japanese expats or fellow returnees who have lived in Japan who are now living in the Tampa Bay area.

6. I miss having my own apartment, so I need to sort that out soon. I'm considering moving to St. Petersburg to be closer to the beaches.

7. I wish Tampa was a more accessible and culturally forward looking city, but I also have to realize that it's not a horrible place to live either. It's more dynamic than many places to live.

8. I need to stop comparing my life in Okinawa to my life in Tampa, because that's how I got into trouble in Ishigaki when I started comparing my life on that tiny island to my life in NYC.

9. Leaving Japan doesn't mean I have to leave it. I've been trying to stay up to date and in contact with Japanese culture on a daily basis by reading about current events there. Luckily for me, I follow a ton of really informative sites like Kyoto Review, Asahi, Ryukyu Shimpo, Spoon and Tamago, Tofugu, and a number of awesome personal blogs from bloggers all around Japan such as Sophelia's Adventures in Japan, Lost in Translation, More Things Japanese, and Zooming Japan, among others that I enjoy reading.

10. (I guess this is actually an extension of #9): Thanks to social media, my friends in Japan are always there and I can always reach out and message them, see their photos, keep up with their lives via their posts. But I know that it's not the same as real life. Still, it's better than not being able to see them or a part of them on a daily basis.

Some of the gifts my students made and gave to me

I've become really aware and careful about being openly critical towards America right now, because I know that probably won't come across very well to my friends and family and other fellow Americans. It also doesn't show my Japanese friends the good side of my culture.

Some days are hard and I feel like the lens I'm peering through isn't matching the culture I'm living in. One of the most recent things that has come up is the feeling that I'm in a sink or swim situation here in America, and that despite having lived away for 4 years in Japan, people around me act as if I never left in a way that makes me feel like my presence is taken for granted. Everything seems so hard and harsh at times. I recognize that part of this has to do with the fact that in Japan, I was always the guest, always the foreign novelty, always special, and even when treated badly by jealous individuals, I was still cared for in a gentle way by others around me. America just isn't about the hand holding, gentle, indirect behavior or language, and I'm not really special here.

My last month in Japan included a trip to Yonaguni, my favorite island. This is the view from the most Western tip of Japan.

I guess I'll eventually get over it. I have to constantly remind myself that transitions are difficult and I'm going through reverse culture shock and that I need to be gentle with myself, even if others around me are not aware of how brash or abrasive they may seem to me. I can't fault them for being themselves or for just being from a culture with different communication modes, different values, etc.

In some ways, I know that moving home was the best thing for me to do. I could have stayed in Japan another year, but it would have just been another year there and my life there was limited due to cultural and language barriers. The hardest part about Japan was not being able to eat food freely due to my dietary issues and at least in America I have way more options. So that's good because being exposed to gluten on a regular basis has not been that great for my health, though it did lead me to learn how to cook healthy foods and to fend for myself in restaurants.

My students taught me how to perform tea ceremony.

Final month foodie memories (しゃぶしゃぶ with local organic veggies).

At the beach in Onna, Okinawa.

I have to look forward now and keep my eyes open as I re-learn what it means to be American and what it means for me to be living in the US right now. If you've experienced reverse culture shock after a long time living overseas, what advice would you give to re-acclimate to your home culture?

By the way, I've decided to continue this blog, even though I am no longer living in Japan. Who knows, maybe one day I'll return. Or maybe I'll go off and live in another country somewhere else. But I feel like I don't want to compartmentalize my time in Japan as something that is cordoned off between then and now. My experiences there are always with me and I feel that in keeping this as my permanent blog it symbolizes that. My time in Japan is still with me no matter where I end up in the future. Isn't that better than just looking at it as one part of my life that's cut off from the next?

Overnighting with friends at the JET sayonara party.

Bonfires on the beach with friends.

From Rainy Season to a Summertime Blues

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 04:31:00 +0000

The rainy season of June came and went, but it didn't fly by gracefully. Instead, I struggled with it in a vicious stress-filled manner. It wasn't the rain that bothered me though. This June was one of the most difficult months I've endured here since the first 6 months that I arrived. Most of the issues occurred at work, since I spent a large portion of my month there pulling 12 hour days to get my skit team prepared for the prefectural contest, to finish up a major speaking project that I had designed for my English Expression class, and to write my final final exam. I didn't have any time to write or do anything after work, because I was so tired that I would just come home, cook dinner, and fall asleep. On top of this, I was packing up several years worth of belongings in the first two weeks of June, to ship them home to Florida. So, half of my apartment is gone, and the rest of it I need to deal with this month.

My brain feels a bit fried from last month, to be honest. So many things happened and I got so little sleep that I was starting to feel really unwell physically. I had to cut back on a number of projects and events that I had wanted to complete or attend before leaving Okinawa in early August. One thing I do want to mention though is that I was invited to help an Okinawan theater/dance artist director friend of mine with his interpretation of a bilingual Japanese-English Hamlet. It was a short reading at a large bookstore here, which allowed us to both perform and promote Shakespeare's text to the audience. He had me play both Gertrude and Ophelia in a doubling way alongside a Japanese actress, so that both the English and Japanese were echoing each other. It was very interesting and a fun project to complete with the talented Okinawa-based actors.


Ophelia and Ophelia's Double

I still have one month left here, but I know that it's going to fly by so quickly. There are rare moments of downtime when I recognize that I will probably never see some of my friends from here again in person. But, I'm also ready to move forward and I am hoping that wherever I am heading, that the future is as bright as an Ishigakijima summer day.

Speaking of Ishigaki, I decided to visit it before leaving Okinawa. When I left that island 3 years ago, I was determined never to return. I had mixed feelings about my year spent there. In retrospect, I think most of my problems stemmed from severe culture shock mixed with poor diet and health due to my inability to know what had gluten in it and what did not. I also felt terribly lonely on that island thanks to a JET community that was at complete odds with each other. But, when I went there this past weekend, I heard from several friends who had met the new JETs who had arrived after I left, that they also went through hell and back in trying to find their way and make a life for themselves on that island. So, I realized that it wasn't just me. As a tourist, the island is an exceptionally gorgeous place on this earth to visit. It's also still rather sleepy, even though tourism has picked up quite a bit with the opening of the new airport. It mostly looked the same apart from a few new restaurants and resorts, but I suspect within the next 5-10 years that the sleepy element will no longer exist and that it will become a world-wide destination for resort vacations like other islands are.

It was nice to go back and see everything there again in person. All I had were images of the island stored away in hazy memories. It made me think about how much of our lives are lived out in memories or in anxieties rather than in the present. It also made me consider not getting an iPhone when I return to the US, because of the fact that it is so easy to spend all of your downtime on that time-wasting contraption. I love taking photos of places and instagramming, but ultimately my memories shouldn't be of Angry Birds or Facebook status updates, they should be of people, places, and feelings I had at those moments in time.

Over the next month, I may be too busy to update here on a regular basis as I had planned to, but I will do my best to update at least once or twice before my Okinawa life is finished. Because I'd rather spend my life in the present, I've limited the amount of time I spend online, and this includes blogging as well.
Just know that I'm living my life and trying to make the most of every day.

See you again soon.

Love,

秋


竹富のシーサ

Two months left

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sun, 01 Jun 2014 03:34:00 +0000

Today is June 1st, and officially I have approximately 2 months left in Okinawa on the JET Program. I am at a strange place in my life where I am looking towards the future with hopeful uncertainty, yet longing to hold onto the beautiful moments of my life here in Naha. Yesterday, I went to 具志川城 ruins which lies at the Southern tip of Okinawa near Cape Kyan. This area is so calming and while visiting it yesterday, I lamented not having spent enough time outside of the city, away from my computer, away from the areas where I often spend my time. I don't own a car, so getting out of the city isn't easy unfortunately. Okinawa is built around car culture, just like my home town in Florida. Without a car, or a motorbike, you have to rely on other transportation methods (friends' cars, inconvenient and expensive bus routes, a monorail that doesn't go very far, etc). Parking is atrocious in the area of the city where I live, so having a car here just wasn't a good option for me. Still, I cherish the times I have been able to just get away from Naha and see parts of this island that remind me of how gorgeous it is and how lucky I am to have had the chance to live here.

I haven't been blogging nearly enough about my life here as I have been caught up in a number of other off-line projects (TASK 沖縄 dance film trilogy and rehearsals, laying the groundwork for a Tohoku-Okinawa Film Festival at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, initiating a job-hunting project for JETwit, submitting my resumes for jobs, etc), so I am going to try to post small updates of my favorite areas of Okinawa and of Naha on a daily basis. I may not write too much with the posts, especially if I do not have enough time, but I do want to have something documenting my remaining time here.

I'm uncertain where I am heading to next. I still haven't felt anything pulling me in a particular direction, so pretty soon the one thing that will pull me back to my hometown will be my lack of employment and an expired visa. I love Japan so much and I know I will miss it once I'm no longer here. For the next two months, I will do my best to bring you all the places that I have fallen for here in beautiful Okinawa.

With love,

アキ

Greatest Baseball Interview...

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 10:37:00 +0000

This video is making the rounds as an example of awful "Engrish," but I have to say that I love this. I know his English isn't great, but he's outgoing and having a good time in this interview. He knows what's up. In a few years his English will be great, so I think people shouldn't see him as an example of how awful Japanese are when it comes to speaking English. If anything, he's the kind of role model you want your students to see, so that they won't be afraid to speak.

New Beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 15:06:00 +0000

This post is my contribution to the J-Bloggers' Carnival "New Beginnings hosted at http://sopheliajapan.blogspot.jp"

Other contributors to this carnival are:

Zacky Chan of Gaijin Explorer (A blog about practicing Japanese archery, exploring Japanese wilderness, traveling around spots of interest, and other creative meanderings based in the southern Japanese island of Kyushu) withhttp://gaijinexplorer.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/new-beginnings-from-one-inaka-to-another-japan-blog-carnival-entry

John Asano Of Japan Australia joins us with http://japan-australia.blogspot.jp/2014/03/best-cherry-blossom-spots-in-gifu.htmlJohn Asano is a blogger, web developer and freelance writer living in Gifu, Japan. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, he writes about the must see sights and attractions in Japan at Japan Travel Advice (http://japantraveladvice.com/ ), as well as about Japanese culture and events on his blog Japan Australia.

Ishikawa JET Blog, the official blog for the Ishikawa JET community (writing about living and working in Ishikawa and Japan in general) offer http://ishikawajet.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/cultural-gap-jinji-ido

Sophelia from Sophelia's Adventures in Japan contributes http://sopheliajapan.blogspot.jp/2014/04/10-tips-for-frugal-living-in-japan.html#.U1SChFdIoxE

April marks the start of the new fiscal year in Japan, as well as the new school year. The graduation ceremony in March and the Entrance ceremony ushers out your former students and brings in a new class and a new course load. It's also a time for a number of goodbye and welcome parties. For me, the beginning of April has marked the countdown of the last 4 months I will spend on the JET Program working at my school. I'm ready to move on to bigger and better things, yet I feel reluctant to leave my life here. This year has been the best I've experienced in Japan. I've been able to deepen my relationships with people here, and I've felt more focused than ever in terms of finding myself, my mission in life (sounds grandiose, but I believe I've been searching for this for quite some time), and my artistic voice.

Graduation ceremony: out with the old

Not the best selfie
(on the way to my last JET welcome party)

I spent the first year really struggling, not only because I was knee-deep in culture shock, but also because I barely understood the language and I had also lugged over a bunch of hangups from my life in NYC and Florida that I had not yet dealt with. These things always take time to unpack and figure out, in order for one to make major positive changes in life. While I still deal with some of these things to a lesser extent, I feel that I've overcome so many of the hurdles that I kept coming up against in my 20s and early 30s. I've lost a few friends who had been very close to me in my teens and 20s, but I've also gained and deepened newer friendships as well. Letting go though can be incredibly hard to do.

My current Japanese reading level

Because of this, I do feel that my time in Japan has been so precious in ways that cannot be measured. The people here have taught me a kindness and gentleness that one rarely sees in this world. While Japanese culture isn't without its problems, I deeply love the people I've met here so much and they've made my life here so memorable that I know leaving this country will be so difficult once the time comes for me to walk out my apartment door one last time before heading onto the next part of my life.

K-san's goodbye concert

TASK 沖縄 members

As I round out the end of my early 30s and head towards mid 30s, I am ready for a change though. I'm ready to dive headfirst into a career and life that will match my passions and allow me to grow, to find a new home that I will feel comfortable in, in a city that will also match my needs. I can't see myself returning to NYC, to be honest. Though I love it, and will probably visit it again, I feel that I need to live somewhere that is a bit more relaxed with a better quality of life. In the coming months, I guess I will figure out where this next part of my life will be. Until then, I suppose the best way to move forward is to be as much as I can in the present, day by day...

本州「京都か大阪」かドイツかアメリカだったら、どっちに引っ越したいほがいいと思う？

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sun, 30 Mar 2014 13:16:00 +0000

It's impossible for me to ignore the fact that I rarely update this blog anymore, yet I am always thinking to myself, "you really ought to write something here again." I don't know what's wrong with me, but blogging no longer feels that exciting anymore. As I said in previous posts, I've been focusing on a number of other projects, most of them writing based, and one of them job-hunting based.

Apart from this simple synopsis of my current affairs, I wanted to post a few photos of my whirlwind tour of Honshu. It was originally a trip to Kansai, but I incorporated a side trip to Yokohama for a job fair, which turned out to be only somewhat worth the trip. I'm still uncertain where I will be in 4 months, when my JET contract expires and I am a free agent, so to speak. I keep looking back on these four years and wondering where the time went. On one hand, I feel like I've been in Okinawa for centuries, having lived what seems like a millenia ago on Ishigaki Island. On the other hand, I haven't accomplished all of the things I had originally set out to do and now I'm trying to pack them all into these last four months. I know I should just focus on my next move at this point and let go of the time line I had for myself. We never know where life will take us, or when it's time to do the things we dreamed of doing. Sometimes external forces prevent us from accomplishing these goals. For me though, I think internal forces had a much stronger influence. But, I believe I've matured emotionally and perhaps, spiritually (and of course, physically since I'm now on the verge of leaving the "young adult" age category, which I believe is 25-34, though sometimes 35 is added). I know, age ain't nothing but a number, and I do feel like I'm much healthier and way more comfortable with myself than I was 4 or 5 years ago, and certainly much more so than 10 years ago. So there's that.

But what about that chapbook I wanted to complete and publish? And how about my goal of reaching JLPT N3 before leaving Japan. Those seem to be sitting out there on a distant, though not impossible to reach, horizon. I've been studying 日本語 as much as I can, and taking time to speak it with my Japanese friends at least 30 minutes-1 hour a day without using English. One of my close friends here is so kind and helpful when it comes to this. He knows that I feel a bit down about my speaking skills, though I'm happy about my reading skills (although he says they are rather elementary, literally...maybe 六年生小学校). But I'm mostly self-taught, so I have to give myself a bit of credit I guess. But I have wasted large amounts of time not studying and not trying to better my Japanese skills, and not writing when I knew I should have been. Well, I can get back on the regret horse or I can just accept things as they are and keep moving forward. I've opted for the latter. We can only do so much. I'm happy with some of the things I've accomplished and am still working hard to get the others completed as well.

Now that I've gotten all of that out of the way...

My trip to Kansai - which may be the only chance I get to see that area of Japan, though I hope not -- was amazing, even though it was still in the dead of winter in mid-February. I really loved Osaka. I could see myself living there and having a great time. I loved the energy that I felt there. It was so unlike Tokyo, which I find rather corporate and cold in so many ways. Osaka was gregarious and in your face. I didn't spend enough time to explore it in depth, but I got a welcoming feeling from the city. I did have enough time to visit Osaka-jo and the Umeda Sky Building, both of which I recommend to anyone visiting the city. Unfortunately, due to my dietary issues, I can't enjoy Osaka's famous culinary delights, which I have heard are amazing. 残念ね。

Yokohama felt very new and reminded me of places in the USA I have either lived in or visited before. It was a very clean city, though it didn't feel particularly Japanese. I didn't have a chance to explore it much since I was job hunting, as I spent most of my time near the convention center and Yokohama Bay. Another friend, who lived there about 10 years ago, said it's a very fun city and told me not to overlook it. He grew up in that area so he's rather partial to the culture there. I don't know if I would go back to Yokohama though, unless I had a particular reason to do so. I didn't have time to go to Kamakura unfortunately, though I would go to Kanagawa just to visit Kamakura.

In traveling between Kansai and Kanto, I splurged and took the 新幹線 return. I loved being on the のぞみ. I felt like I was really in Japan while riding it as a passenger. Unfortunately, no one reminded me that I should ship my luggage ahead -- which you can do so conveniently in Japan -- so I ended up having to scrunch myself into my seat with the suitcase in front of me since it was too heavy to lift and place above the seats. That was a bit painful and rather embarrassing, though I felt like people would just write me off as a ばか外人 and not someone doing it intentionally to just be a space-hogging jerk.

My favorite part of the Kansai trip was after Yohokama, when I returned to the area -- since I had a return flight to and from KIX -- and stayed a long weekend in Kyoto. I would LOVE to live there. There was something so wonderful and refreshing about that city. It wasn't overwhelming, nor was it as snooty as I imagined it would be. Of course, I am sure it has its own sense of superiority since it is the center of traditional Japanese culture, but it wasn't pretentious or so refined that it lacked a fun-loving spirit. In fact, from my interactions with people there, I felt that it just the opposite of pretentious and snobby. Everyone I met was rather welcoming and neither intimidated nor turned off by foreigners. Kyoto has such a large expatriate community there, and it seems that they don't feel animosity towards foreign people. I ended up at one point, after visiting Ryouan-ji in Northwest Kyoto, getting lost in some residential area and not one person stopped to stare at me or make me feel unwelcome while I walked around looking for the train station.

As for my favorite places in Kyoto, apart from the Hotel Anteroom, which was fantastic and which is some place I would stay again and again and again anytime I visit that city (since the chef went of her way to make a wonderful, gluten-free organic breakfast especially for me every morning), were Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kiyomizu-dera, Kinjaku-ji, Ryoan-ji, and the Arashiyama area. I love the mountains, so being in a city that has mountains surrounding it is a dream of mine. Okinawa really does not have any mountains, though they do have elevated areas that could be considered mountainous, but there aren't really any mountains. Arashiyama, especially the bamboo forest, Okochi-sanso, a famous silent screen actor's the mountain villa, and the garden in Tenryu-ji, were my favorite places to explore. I'm sad that I had to try to put all of these areas into my trip at such a fast pace. Kyoto has such breathtaking beauty all around it and the city itself is alive and well, rather than being an antique place without a pulse. If I could have a dream come true it would be to live there happily with a nice job.

So, there you go. I had a fantastic adventure last month. I am hoping that my future will include more trips to Kansai and elsewhere in Japan, though God only knows where my destiny is going to take me. I'm hoping that my next job (and where I live next) will be the best yet.

三月十一日

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:36:00 +0000

陸前高田 (Rikuzentakata, Iwate) May 2013

Today marks the 3rd anniversary of the massive 9.0 earthquake that struck off the coast of Tohoku, Japan in 2011. Something about today has really hit me harder than it did the previous years at this time. I think I feel a certain connection now to that region since I spent some time last May volunteering there. Maybe it's also because I have written a number of poems that poured out of me afterwards. It's hard to tell why this year has left a stronger impression than the prior years. I suppose some memories strengthen in time, instead of fading away.

At 2:46pm today, I watched the clock and bowed my head. Three years ago I was watching the clock at this same time, without realizing that the entire Northeast of Japan was undergoing a devastation that would change everyone's lives in Japan. As I have written in prior posts, I was waiting (and wasting time -- as I so often did that first year) in a portable office on a small island named Kohama. I still remember the conversations I had with my soon-to-graduate 三年生 students. I remember that I'd sat for hours after lunch waiting for 3PM to roll around so that I could leave to get on a boat. When I think about how remarkable time is -- how it can seem to stall at times, crawling at an old snail's pace, or speed by in hyperdrive mode at other times -- I think about how much is taken for granted.

I feel deeply for the people who were affected by the earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear incident, those who were immediately killed, and those who survived but have basically had to hang on to a semblance of the life they once knew with some deep faith and strength that I can't claim to have. As time flows on, I think about the memories of those who perished, those who lost people they loved dearly, who never got to say goodbye or show their love to these people (and I'll add animals as well, because people do become very attached to their pets). Time continues to move the living forward, while the dead are left at that particular point in time. It's like a very slow boat moving further and further away from the shore. You can still see it, but you see that it's moving further away towards a horizon, where it will then disappear completely.

Doll found in Rikuzentakata, May 2013.

What's left. Rikuzentakata, May 2013

It's really important for the people of Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate to know that they are still being thought about. I believe that the majority of the people who have remained behind in these regions really do feel as if most of the world, as well as most of Japan, has forgotten about them. Whatever you can do, even if it's just some small gesture in spreading a note online to "pray for Japan" or forwarding a legitimate fundraising link to help raise money for reconstruction of these cities, do it. If you can do more -- if you can go to Tohoku to volunteer and meet the people there, if you can organize Japan-(your country) letter/gift exchanges to orphanages or schools, or even older folks homes -- do it. Even the smallest things make a difference and can have major outcomes for those who are in need.

As for me, I've been working with a few people here in Okinawa to start a film festival that will show Tohoku-based documentaries as part of an outreach fundraiser. We're also aiming to link up with a volunteer organization there that will allow the JETs and JET-related community members to go up to one of the cities and do volunteer work over the summer. Hopefully this link will grow and become something that deepens overtime.

I hope that whoever you are and wherever you are living, that you also find ways to use the time you have been given on this earth to do good things, spend time with the people you love, and show others compassion and forgiveness. One never knows if we'll get the chance to do so in the future. One never knows...

Rikuzentakata, May 2013

Kansai-Kanagawa Trip teaser...

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:22:00 +0000

About two weeks ago, I went on a whirlwind 5 day trip with an itinerary that took me from Osaka to Yokohama to Kyoto and back to Osaka. There's so much to tell you about this wonderful, necessary trip to Honshu, but I haven't been able to catch my breath since my return. Instead, I've been busy putting this together, as well as working on the treatment and scripts for my first web series (complete with an actor here whom I happen to know). We'll see if that actually greenlights into something more than just a wish.

I've been anxiously waiting to hear back from the graduate writing program that I applied to, though my hopes have been diminished since I heard back from the theater arts program (at the same school) already. I got a rather flowery, albeit touching, email from the director of the program that went out to everyone not on the shortlist. That was the morning of Feb. 20th (already a day into my trip in mainland Japan). I can't stop thinking about how wonderful Kansai was, and how happy I felt there. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have been happier if I'd just moved directly to Osaka or Kyoto, instead of going on JET. I love Okinawa, but it has taken me a long time to get situated and to be OK with the energy and slow pace here.

Anyways, I'll post a more detailed trip log this week. In the meantime, here's an awesome photo I took at the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka.

Love,

アキ

Okinawa's Future

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 08:22:00 +0000

I've been thinking about many things recently, not least the small mini-film series project I've been working diligently, albeit slowly on. Because I've decided that I won't be on JET as of the end of July, I've been carefully (read: skillfully (one hopes)) putting together my job-hunting profiles and materials (with the help of my friend T.), resharpening the job-hunting knives, and getting ready to go into full employment seeking battle. So I hope you can forgive me if I've seemed rather lackadaisical with my blog recently, especially after the New Year's fanfare. Secretly, I've been writing numerous blog posts in my head, but haven't felt ready to put pen to paper, or keyboard to blog, I suppose.

But this past week two things happened that pushed me towards writing again. I received a rather nice comments from several new readers, which actually answered a question I'd been posing to myself this past week (the question being "should I even bother continuing on with this blog?"). I felt that these comments were a nudge in the "yes, you should" direction. The second thing was something that a fellow teacher at my school said to me in the copy room. As I entered the copy machine room, she said to me, "did you hear that Ambassador Caroline Kennedy is here in Okinawa?" I had already heard that she was on her way, so I wasn't surprised by this. Then the teacher followed that up with, "She's visiting Shuri High School this morning." Now, that made me green with envy. "Why aren't they coming here to our wonderful school?" I demanded playfully, though somewhat seriously. My school has just as long of a history as Shuri's and we're in a more convenient location, plus I just feel that we're a cooler school (of course, I don't know Shuri that well). Well, OK...I'm sure people at Shuri feel the same way I feel about my school.

This teacher laughed at my dismay and then jumped to the subject of the Naha Kokusai High School girls who had sent a letter to Obama asking for him to prevent the construction of a new super base in Northern Okinawa. For those of you reading this who aren't living in Okinawa, the USA and Japan have finally agreed to close the US Marine Corp base Futenma, located in a very urban area in central Okinawa (although, most of the bases are located in urban areas since there are far too many bases on this island and the island itself is relatively small). The Governor of Okinawa, who had long held out against building another base in Okinawa, finally capitulated and signed an agreement to move the base to Henoko, a rural area in Northern Okinawa. The mayor of Nago, Susumu Inamine, is strongly opposed to a base in his backyard, so we'll see if he can continue to delay it via bureaucratic tactics. To be honest, I don't understand why, if the majority of Okinawans do not want another base on this island, the Japanese and American governments have the right to overrule the people's wishes here on this island?

I've been thinking about this issue quite a bit, since it's not a new one for any of us living on this island. But now the decision seems to be inevitable, while as before, it seemed like there was potential to shift away from Henoko and downsize the amount of troops on this island, which would be a step in the right direction, I believe. I am just going to admit that I oppose the building of a super base in an environmentally sensitive area (with a runway built on top of the coral reef -- the same reef that gives Okinawa its gorgeous ocean). I rarely get involved in anything political, and while I am barely involved, I do think it is wrong not to take a stand on this issue, especially since one can clearly see how it will affect the people here. Having spent nearly 4 years here, I have come to care deeply about what happens in Okinawa. It's clear that a majority of Okinawans (apart from those of the rentier/landlord class here who benefit from the SOFA agreement and make a ton of money off the rent charged to US troops) also oppose this. It's bad for the future of Okinawa, bad for the environment, bad for Okinawa's youth, bad for the USA, and is unnecessary for the world (that's right, I don't believe that anything "preemptive" actually supports peace). There are so many other options that could be chosen as a way forward, and yet what is always chosen for us is the one that benefits only a small portion of the world and leaves everyone else to suffer.

If you're interested in learning more about the ongoing socio-political situation in Okinawa, I suggest you read the links I've included. Additionally, you can sign the petition against Henoko, if you're so inclined.

Japan's Past, Present, and Future

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 13:01:00 +0000

The title is rather lofty isn't it? I know I ended yesterday's blog post with a hint that the next post will come in a week, but I found myself this evening reading an incredibly insightful article about the significance of Japan's post-3/11 trajectory, the 2020 Olympics, Tohoku, and Donald Keene's brilliant analysis. Normally, I would just post a link on my Facebook wall, but I'm taking an extended break from FB. So, instead I'll post it here. I wish more people were talking about this openly, and not just Americans or the American media, which has its own hypocritical role in what's currently happening in Japan. There's so much to say a bout Keene's memory of WWII and his warning about what's happening to Japan's Constitution.

By the way, most people outside of the world of Japan and East Asian scholars and historians (and maybe psychologists) rarely study the concept of Japan's collective memory, or collective memory in general. But it's important to recognize how we all simultaneously forget and remember the past in slippery ways. Japan is often accused of attempting to re-write its horrific imperialist history (which a faction of Japanese society would like to do), but it has also written and acknowledged its atrocities. It just depends on which side of the sociopolitical spectrum you fall on whether you view collective history one way or another. This isn't just a Japanese phenomenon either, but this culture attempts to maintain harmony to such a degree that having healthy debates and arguments about these things in public just doesn't happen. A good book on the topic of Japan's modern history (starting just prior to WWII to its current state) is John W. Dower's book of essays, "Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World." I highly recommend it. There's so much to say on this topic, especially in light of Abe's regime and the current political zeitgeist. I've been thinking about it often because everyday I go to work and interact with Japan's future generation. Why should the political leaders, who are mostly in their 50's and 60's, get to make decisions about how the youth get to live their lives? Didn't these same individuals get to live through a relatively peaceful and prosperous era during their own youth? I recognize that it's much more complicated than this simple reasoning, that there is so much lying underneath the surface of this culture, and that maybe we still do not really understand Japan's trajectory, its past, its present, or its future.

沖縄に帰りました。

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:29:00 +0000

皆さん、明けましたおめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします。ちょっと遅いですね、ごめんない。じゃ、今月13日日本に帰りました。一週間ボケ残っていたので、”英語の弁当”にブログアップデイトを書きませんでした。でも今週、とても元気になりました。じゃあ、今年は始めましょうね！

Hello everyone! I returned to Japan on the 13th, but I haven't updated yet because I was recovering last week from jet lag. I'm finally feeling much better and less muddled and wanted to update quickly. I promised something new and I plan to fulfill my promise very soon. Next week is the Nago 桜祭り and since I've yet to go (even though I've lived in Okinawa 3.5 years), I planned to make the beautiful Okinawan cherry blossoms and their festival part of the debut of a new element to this blog. So please check in with me sometime next week. Hopefully I'll have a few awesome things up here for you to view.

ORD --->NRT

In the meantime, I've been contemplating where I'll be after the end of July. You see, I decided not to recontract this year. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but it feels like it's time to say goodbye to the JET Program. I'm not certain if it's time to say goodbye to Japan though. I am thoroughly in love with my life here. I really do love this country and the people I've met. It's not a utopia. There are a ton of things that bother me here and there is plenty wrong with what's happening politically in Japan, so I'm not romanticizing it, but despite its flaws I adore Japan. There is so much to cherish, especially here in Okinawa, though I am sure if I were living elsewhere in Japan, I would feel the same way about wherever I was. I'm going to try to make the best of the next 6.5 months and I hope you enjoy the various experiences I write about in the remainder of the time I have here.

See you soon!

アキ

Apparently, my students love my class.
I will miss them.

Some of the things I am grateful for
and will be sad to say goodbye to.

Happiness is everywhere here!

A beautiful day on Akajima, in the Kerama islands.

Okinawa's ocean (the real deal)

Make a wish. (^з^)-☆

It's Been A Long Time. I Shouldn't Have Left You....

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 02:15:00 +0000

Well, the new year is nearly upon us and I feel terribly guilty for having left this blog in the past. My deepest apologies to you all. This fall season was extremely busy for me. My schedule was so jam packed that the mere thought of blogging exhausted me. It was getting to the point where I started to deeply understand the meaning of 石川啄木 Ishikawa Takuboku's poetry, especially this one:

はたらけど

働けど猶わが生活楽にならざり

じっと手を見る

Ok, maybe it wasn't that grim. But I just want you to know it's not because I wasn't thinking about you all, it's that I had very little time for myself. I was pushing a rock up a hill that kept sliding back down. But now I am back stateside for a brief respite and want to catch you all up on what happened -- some of it good and some of it even better. I also have a very exciting announcement at the end of the post (no, it has nothing to do with marriage or anything like that...I'm still a singleton and in love with love), so if you have a terribly short attention span, you can just skip to the end. Actually no, don't do that. You should practice your reading skills. (Also, I'll repost this with photos later since my iphone isn't uploading them properly at this time. Sorry about that.)

I'm going to try to rehash a few of the major things that happened in a rather quick sequence just for your viewing pleasure and to appease my guilt for being so negligent.

First up. I left you all in the middle of intense rehearsal schedule for the debut of an experimental dance poetry piece (I can hear some of you rolling your eyes now, but I really don't care). The whole process of making it was just as good as the actual performance. The performers and the sound artist I worked with were able to articulate and express my original intentions for the piece and we all had an incredibly fun time making the work together. I really came to love these people very much and we will be making more performance and film-related work together soon. So, here's to 2014!
If you like our work, or you'd like to have us perform at your venue, send me an email. We'd love to hear from you. But don't send insults. We're fragile, sensitive people. Actually, if you're going to insult us, you might as well send some cash our way to help us make the work better. And then you can say you funded the arts and that you're philanthropic. We'd be honored.

You can see our performance at Okinawa Christian University for the Japan Writers Conference here.

You can also see our dance film SIREN CALL here.

After the performance, I was really exhausted, but my school was working me hard with speech contest rehearsal practice. Our student didn't win, but she did a great job. I was really proud of her speech, which centered on her overcoming her struggle with cancer and moving forward with her life despite a disability. She was so inspirational to work with. I'm really happy she was able to open up and discuss her life.

My school then had a 3 week long 2nd grade skit contest, which proved to be hilarious and also showcased my students' English abilities. I wish we had more opportunities to allow the kids to use English creatively in a performative way. They really do have much better English than they let on and they are more willing to show it when they're doing something humorous or fun. Next semester we'll do a karaoke contest in my class after finals. I like my students to be able to have the chance to kick back and let loose in the classroom.

My English club also hosted both a huge Halloween party (Oct. 31st) and a Christmas party (Dec. 13th). Both parties were filled with games and activities and I enjoyed hanging out with the students and teachers. I like that they have a great time, laugh, and get a chance to relax (especially my 3rd graders, who I know are stressing because of their upcoming university tests). I have no clue if any of these kids will remember me in the years to come, but I do know that I will remember them. They make me smile and they keep me going everyday. I guess I have officially become a teacher.

I've been back stateside since Dec. 18th hanging with my family and enjoying my time here. I've been eating far too much (and far too many gluten free sweets that I cannot get in Japan). But it's been really enjoyable to see all my friends and to be close to my family since I rarely see them. This is the first time in 4 years since I've celebrated Christmas with my family. I cannot believe it.

It's now Dec. 31st, and as everyone counts down the final hours of 2013, I have started to make many plans for 2014. I know that this year is going to be one of the best. I already have many projects and personal goals in store (including working off all the cake I've eaten these past 2 weeks). As I mentioned above, I wanted to announce that I am starting a Youtube vlog channel that I will post once a week (I'll let you know the schedule when I get back to Japan mid-January). So you'll get 4 short updates about my life and life in general in Okinawa, Japan coming in 2014. I'll continue to blog here as well.

That's all for now. 2013 was an amazing year! I'm looking forward to 2014.
See you later Snake eyes (2013). Here comes the Horse (2014)!

Lots of love,

Aki

秋祭り

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 04:04:00 +0000

I just want to express how exuberantly happy I've been lately, despite feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work I'm doing right now at both my school and in my non-school life. And what better way to celebrate that life is beautiful than with an Aki Matsuri. My season's (and my own) festival. Of course, it would be even better if Okinawa actually had the season of autumn. To counter the lack of autumn season, I decided to visit Kamakura and Tokyo in late November (well, I'm going to Tokyo to take the GRE and to attend this festival). I'm hoping to actually see some of the autumn foliage that Japan is famous for that I've only seen in advertisements for tourism since I arrived in Japan.

It's already almost mid-October, which means that I've already celebrated another 365 days on earth. This year's birthday celebrations were amazing. I had an unplanned week of festivities, even though I had to work on my birthday (which was a weekend) thanks to my school's festival this year. But even that proved to be extremely fun. I've never experienced a school festival before since they happen every 3 years. The past two years have been sports related 運動会 festivals, so this year's festival was extremely creative, with skits, movies, fashion shows, tea ceremony performances, and even an intricate haunted house. Plus, the kids at my school are all so super 元気 and happy students, so just walking around the school to the various classrooms during the two day festival energized me. It's always great to see how contagiously enthusiastic and alive everyone becomes when they're letting go of the daily grind and stress they are always under. I wish we had festivals like this in our lives every week.

The students has a costume parade around the city
to kick off the festival events.

Advertisements for various events at the festival.

Follow the monster's footprints.

The students designed and built a haunted house.

After the festival, the teachers had the mandatory celebratory 飲み会 that evening. It was low key, but I did get a few birthday gifts from other teachers while my co-workers sang happy birthday and wished me お誕生日おめでとう。 I wasn't the only person with a birthday that day, so that made it a bit easier to deal with when I was ushered up to the front to give an unplanned speech. I also had to perform for the teachers to get them excited about the party in true Japanese entertainment form.

It's time to entertain my co-workers.

The next day was a one day holiday that my school gave us to make up for working a long week and the entire weekend. That day I made my annual list of resolutions for myself and then decided to go for a walk to the Chinese gardens. I made a few promises to try to have the best year of my life this year (of course, I hope to continue to build on this each year. No downhill slides are allowed).

At the Chinese Gardens in Naha

The beauty in the mundane

Then, throughout the week, I managed to get little gifts from my students and from teachers. My family sent me lovely birthday cards as well which made me miss them even more than I normally do. Even my ex-boyfriend sent me a letter to wish me a happy birthday. (Since we're on good terms, his gesture made me happy). It was so sweet to feel all this love being sent my way. I laid out all of these things on my table at home and felt overwhelmed with gratitude for the people in my life whose presence is a gift itself. I can only hope I play a similar role in theirs and others lives.

My students brought me so many presents this year.

All of the birthday gifts and cards

The end of the workweek culminated in a moon viewing party, which my school hosted at a fancy hotel in Shuri this year. I decided that it was time to finally wear yukata to a school event, since this is most likely my final year in Okinawa (and probably Japan). My co-workers were stunned that I was fully dressed up in traditional Japanese style. I have to admit, putting on a beautiful dress or clothing always changes the way you feel about yourself. It's a costume and as with any costume, you get to change who you are for a little while. I think my co-workers really enjoyed the novelty of seeing their ALT dressed up in full Japanese garb. I felt like I have finally fulfilled the role of the gaijin doll. Wearing the kimono really did add magic to the moon viewing party though. I realized again how much I love the ornamental and sensual elements of traditional Japanese clothing. It's very rare that I see anyone wearing kimono or even yukata (outside of the Orion beer festival) and since I've never visited Kyoto, I haven't seen traditional Japanese fashion on display. I hate to be that foreign geek that romanticizes Japan for its superficial trinkets, but sometimes the sensual is really what is needed to break from the dreariness of the mundane.

月見で

I've taken to embracing the aspect of the sensual that I see in Japanese culture. It's mostly romanticized, especially by westerners, but if you read classic Japanese literature and poetry, you gain a sense of how deeply embedded it is in this culture. Yet, modern Japan compartmentalizes it (maybe Japan always compartmentalized it though...only the dead know). Even after several years in Japan, I'm still a beginner in understanding Japanese culture. I will always be a beginner. Maybe all of us are even in terms of our own culture or even our own personal identities. There are just so many layers to grasp and it's easy to just stay close to the surface of things. Maybe that's why I like the idea of costumes though. We should all embrace this more often instead of allowing the banal costume we wear on a daily basis to become the "true" version of us. Because maybe there isn't one "true" version. I'm sure the cosplayers understand what I mean. After all, life is just a series of performances.

With love, 秋

Some thoughts upon awaking from a deep sleep...

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 04:59:00 +0000

I started this post as a short Facebook post, then realized it had turned into a "James Altucher-like" status update, which I felt was too much for my friends to deal with, so I moved it over here to my blog.
This isn't Japan related, just FYI to my readers. I'll update shortly with a new post relating to my Japan life birthday this year. It's more personal than most of my posts, but it's also just a recollection of a distant memory.

-------------------------------

This month, 10 Years ago, I decided to abort a Directing Theater MFA based in NYC due to a last minute egregious tuition increase (that I wasn't even aware of until I officially enrolled). I was then suddenly left without a real plan for my post-undergraduate life. In addition, my then-boyfriend who I had been in love with had just suddenly ended our relationship as soon as I had moved to NYC, and I found myself in a real emotional free fall. I didn't have a job either, as I had botched a nice film related internship that was given to me due to my own negligence and naivete. That was the summer of the 2003 blackout in NYC. I remember being up on the 25 floor of one of those new condos near Penn Station, sweating because the windows couldn't really be fully opened and deciding that I needed to get out of that place. The next morning, I went over to where my godmother was staying and suddenly we ended up leaving the city since it looked like the power would be out for a few days and the potential for riots was possible. Since I didn't have a way to contact anyone due to the cellphone overload in the city because of the blackout, my friends where I was staying didn't know where I was until about a week later, when I came back from Boston. My friend K. thought I was nuts to just pack up and leave suddenly one morning without telling anyone. That was just the way I was at the time.

After that mini-retreat from the city, one day, while aimlessly walking around Manhattan pretending to try to find a job and finding that process of rejection stressful to deal with at the time (I was constantly told that I wasn't qualified because I had no prior experience and this was on top of heartbreak), I decided to make a new life for myself instead. So, I packed up everything from my friend's apartment, bought my ticket home and decided to spend the next few months saving enough money to move to London instead.

It was a simple decision. I didn't even have a job in London. But I just followed my intuition. I jumped before I had a real plan, but I knew it was going to work out.

What happened to that girl who was spontaneous and fearless? Why has she become so cautious and careful now?

I made a few birthday resolutions to counter my current psychological milieu, so here they are:

Today is the first day of the rest of my life and I've decided that the rest of my life is only going to be awesome, full of rich, deep experiences, beauty, adventure, love, complexity, creativity, forgiveness, sensuality, the mystical, the unknown, newness, courage, and an opening of myself towards the natural world. I've been protective and closed off, unforgiving to myself and a struggling perfectionist for a while now, so I think it's time to make a change.

忙しいですよ！

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 12:46:00 +0000

This past week has been incredibly stressful because I had more than one deadline basically on the same day. One of the deadlines had to do with the Japan New Media Arts festival and the other with speech contest. Luckily, I made it through the week without too many problems. I finished piecing together and editing about 40 minutes of footage down into an 11:43 second dance film that I made and submitted to the above festival. I'm daring enough to submit it to Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center as well, though I have a long shot with that since the camera is very low grade and the filming is a bit amateur. I'm very happy with the dancers and direction of the performance itself though. It was so much fun to explore and create this piece and we did it within a week (with only about 5-6 hours rehearsal and 2 hours filming). The sound was created by a friend of mine who also lives in Okinawa and he's absolutely brilliant. Our process somehow worked perfectly, even though he never saw the performance and didn't see the film either. We just sat down and I told him what I wanted theoretically and he created a beautiful sound piece.

I was really lucky to have had the chance to work with so many talented people on this short project. I hope we can all collaborate again soon.

The (New) School Year and Other News

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 15:54:00 +0000

Summer is officially almost over and the second term of school in Japan starts tomorrow. I've been reminiscing lately about the three years I've lived in Okinawa prefecture, especially my first year. I guess it's as the old saying goes. In the end, you let go of the bad and remember only the things you loved. That's nostalgia for you.

This morning, I shot a short dance/performance art film with three of my students (who are basically my age and technically not really "students") from my class at ひやみかち学校. We got up around 5:45am to drive to みばる Beach on the Southern tip of Okinawa. It was an interesting experience. The area was beautiful, though I think maybe I would prefer to shoot something like this in Zamami or Tokashiki or Miyako as they have better beaches. The shore was mostly coral and I was worried about the performers cutting themselves up during the performance. I had gone there the week before to scout out the area, but forgot to check the sand.

The sand was really rough and full of dead coral and shells.

Anyways, we rehearsed a few evenings this past week. It was a rushed rehearsal process and I really wish we could have spent more time working on it, just because I enjoyed what we were making. I am going to try to edit together this piece and maybe post it online. It's really just a sketch of something that I think will become much bigger that I've been working on in my brain. I wanted to put it out beyond the page though, to make it real via the performance of bodies and then document it. I'm trying to get it finished on time to submit it to a festival in Tokyo. I feel like I'm finally back to a productive, creative place in my life.

Large formations around the southern coast

Mibaru Beach's landscape

At rehearsal:
Some parts of the dance we created together

They were so alive, fierce and fearless.

Tomorrow, I'll get up early to head off to the opening ceremony of the 2nd term, though it honestly feels like the beginning of a new school year. I did work all summer, but summer time much more relaxed - one can come and go without the pressure of being locked at the desk - though all I did was sit at my desk, study, plan some lessons, and work on my own stuff.

I've been meeting up with an actor here for private English lessons. He moved to Okinawa from Fukushima, so we often discuss the issues that Fukushima is now facing. He's somewhat of an activist and also does not trust the government since they haven't been so forthcoming regarding how dangerous it is to live in that region of Japan now. It's been interesting to have higher level conversations with someone here, especially regarding this crucial topic that most people do not want to really talk about.

I feel like I need a tumblr or something where I can just write a bunch of personal musings like this post without the need to write something substantial on my blog. Maybe I should also include a thousand selfies...can 30-somethings pull that off and get away with it still or is that just something 20 year olds can do?

It's late.... zzz zzz zzz おやすみなさい zzz zzz zzz

Obon in Okinawa: Returning the Ancestors to Heaven (Part II)

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 04:21:00 +0000

I went to my co-worker's house for the third day of Obon, which is the day when families gather to eat a large traditional meal, give thanks, and then pray for their ancestors' safe return to the other world. Last year I was merely an observer at a large gathering. Each individual household practices Obon a bit differently, just as each individual household does with Thanksgiving or Christmas or birthdays. There is a collective understanding to the ritual, but every family will hold it a bit differently. This year I felt like I was on a homestay in a Japanese house, which then prompted me to wish I were doing a homestay in a Japanese house because I think I would learn so much more about Japanese culture and my speaking skills would increase exponentially. Alas, that's not the life I live in Okinawa, but I still love my life nevertheless and am glad I had the opportunity to meet new people and experience Obon firsthand.

The altar was for two sets of relatives related to my co-worker's husbands family.
One set was for his grandparents who both died during the Battle of Okinawa
the other were for his parents.

The event is basically a bit like an American Thanksgiving, except to reduce it solely to that is to deny the presence of the spiritual element and ancestor worship. But there are some parallels. I finally learned what it means to receive the Obaasan kame-kame attack, in which you the guest are fed increasing amounts of delicious food until you feel like Violet Beauregarde from Charley and the Chocolate Factory. I found a way around that though by just sampling everything that was placed in front of me instead of attempting to finish any of it. The food was specially made for me because I can't eat most Japanese food if it's prepared with soy sauce or wheat. So I was really grateful that my co-worker went out of her way to allow me to try all of these traditional foods that I normally have to just look at instead of tasting.

Most of the evening was spent chatting with the men, because the women were in the kitchen doing all of the work. I wanted to help them, but they told me to sit since I was a guest. Later on my co-worker said, probably prompted by the wine we were all drinking, that she and everyone at my school think I'm a 大和撫子. I think it was meant as a compliment, but I am uncertain since it's kind of impossible for me to be that.

Typical Obon food in Okinawa:
Tofu, pork, kombu maki, gobo, shikawasa, shrimp tempura
and soki jiru (soup with pork spare rib with kombu and daikon).

When the women finally sat down, we enjoyed chatting about Okinawan vs. Yamato Japanese culture, especially relating to Obon, since they are very different from each other. Okinawa's Obon is more traditional and family-oriented and its connections to traditional Chinese culture are evident, especially in the layout and size of the butsudan (the altar). The family's altar reminded me of the altars I saw in Vietnam when I lived there. Like many Okinawan families, some of the members of the family had married people from mainland, so the family was part Okinawan-part Yamato. I asked one of the women who was from Yokohama how Obon is celebrated in mainland Japan and she mentioned that the altar is much smaller, that the event is very low key and that instead of the use of a sugar cane walking stick that the ancestors are offered to help get back to heaven, the families in mainland Japan build (or buy) a small replica of a horse made of fruits and vegetables that they use to ride to heaven. She also said that the family will go to the tombstone of the deceased family member and that there will be fireworks. She lives in Okinawa now and she also mentioned that Okinawa's rituals are quite different from the culture she grew up in, especially in relation to ancestors and ancestor worship. She said the Okinawan ritual of Shimi, which happens in the spring, isn't something that mainland Japanese do and she was surprised and intrigued by it when she married into an Okinawan family. Ancestor worship is much more prominent in Okinawa than it is in mainland Japan.

Sato-kibi: Sugar cane walking stick

I really enjoyed the conversations I had that night with the family over wine and a tiny shot of fermented awamori ("the good stuff") and the smorgasbord of food prepared. It was such a lovely memory to be able to share with this Okinawan family who allowed me to come in to experience a part of the culture here that I don't often get the chance to experience. It made me miss my own family though.

It's nice to feel "内" rather than "外" sometimes.

Burning special money for ancestors to use in heaven

At the end of the evening:
Placing the walking stick at the front door

Moving all of the food from the altar
to the front porch area

Offering final gifts before saying goodbye to the ancestors until next time.

Obon in Okinawa 2013 (part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:02:00 +0000

Today marked the beginning of another Obon in Okinawa. This will be the 4th year I've experienced Obon. I remember the first Obon I experienced in Ishigaki, which was so different from any of the Obon celebrations I've seen since. The Yaeyama islands celebrate Obon differently than Okinawa Island does, and they have a particular ritual that I was able to participate in on the third night of Obon. The community centers are paid money by families who have lost relatives recently. These community centers then create a dance and comedy performance that represents the spirits of the dead coming back to visit the houses. The houses are opened up to the public and anyone in the town can go to watch the performance. Everyone then followed the entire procession from house to house. Lots of music, dance, drinking and laughter. It was simultaneously a somber and joyous occasion. The second year I lived here, I had just moved to Okinawa and wasn't invited to celebrate Obon and didn't notice any festivities in Naha. Last year, I had a chance to visit the house of an English teacher who worked with a friend of mine. We went to Okinawa City to attend the final night of Obon and I wrote about this here. This year, one of my co-workers invited me to celebrate Obon with her and her family and I am very excited to attend. It's not everyday that you get invited into an Okinawan house, especially on a special occasion like Obon. I'll update you on later this week about this experience!

It's interesting to note that mainland Japan already celebrated Obon as of last week. They follow the western calendar and celebrate it every year from August 13-15. The Okinawans use the lunar calendar, an older calendar system that the Chinese still use. Since they follow the lunar calendar, the dates of Obon change each year. Last year, it was at the very end of August and this year it's a little bit earlier.

Since this is the time of year when the stores all change their bland muzak to traditional Okinawan folk songs to get everyone in the mood to celebrate their ancestors' return, I wanted to link one of my favorite songs sung in Okinawan language for you to listen to. This song is called ちんさぐぬ花 (Tinsagu nu hana). The meaning of the song is based on the idea that the lessons our parents teach us when we're young are imprinted on our hearts throughout our lives.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki mon amour/広島、長崎、我が愛

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 14:43:00 +0000

It's been three years since I moved to Japan. I keep reminiscing on my first year, despite the fact that it was probably one of the hardest years I've experienced since I arrived. Three years ago, this would have been my second week in Japan. I remember how intolerably hot Ishigaki was, to the point that I rarely went outside during the midday and I stopped wearing makeup because none of it would stay on my face due to the extreme amount of humidity in the air mixed with copious sweat pouring off my body. It was a difficult transition, to see the least. During that second week, I woke up early one morning - I was getting up around 5am due to time zone adjustment. It might have been midday, I think perhaps a Monday, so I had to go to work that day. Around 8:15am on August 6th, as I was in the kitchen cleaning up the morning breakfast dishes, a siren went off that eerily reminded me of sirens that one hears in movies about WWII. I didn't understand what it was and within the minute it stopped. I eventually asked someone about it that day and they said it was a signal to mark the memorial of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. They told me to expect another siren on August 9th as well to mark the bombing of Nagasaki. It was the first time I thought about the bombings outside of the scope of a textbook or literary book.

When I was in high school, my English literature class incorporated Japanese literature into the curriculum. We read translations of Kawabata Yasunari, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, and Ibuse Masuji. The book by Ibuse was "黒い雨" or "Black Rain". We read it and it was the first time that I saw a different perspective on the bombings than what had been taught to me in my history classes in grade school. I had never held to a very strong nationalistic belief system, so I suppose this book was able to open my eyes in seeing how the bombs caused such great suffering to innocent people, many of who had really no direct involvement in the war itself. Yes, there were soldiers and military related industry in those cities, but the majority of the people, including non-Japanese foreigners living there, were living their lives as one lives them...day by day.

This is not a post that excuses Imperial Japan of its tremendous destruction and war crimes. Absolutely not. I know that the Japanese government and its military were not innocent victims in the war. One of my ancestors went MIA and died somewhere in the Philippines because of this war. The Japanese will even admit that they were the aggressors and that something went terribly wrong with their government at that time. I also recognize that people argue that these bombs brought a long, drawn out brutal war to a swift close. Yet, it's also been argued that these bombs were like no other thing that had existed in this world before and that most Americans, because the photos and films were suppressed, had no clue the extent of the suffering that the people in those cities faced immediately and for many years afterwards. I have the privilege of looking back from a time in history that is not in the midst of war in Japan. It's easy for me to draw conclusions about the morality and ethics involved in the fates of these two cities. Had I lived during that era, I may have had a different opinion. Or perhaps, if I had lived during that era in one of these two cities, my perspective on these bombings would be extremely different from even the one I have now. Because I cannot know what it was like and I cannot experience it, it is a part of history I can only write about with words that cannot even come close to communicating the enormity of it. I can only write about it in a quasi-philosophical way for my personal blog, which I can write about far away from either Hiroshima or Nagasaki in both location and time. I have never even visited either of these cities. There's plenty to write about in relation to this part of history. Many people already have. I can't match them in their factual knowledge, so I won't try to give a history lesson here. But I've been thinking about some questions I posed this year on the 6 August to myself in relation to how people remember horrific, traumatic events:

Who gets to remember? Who owns these memories? Who is entitled to the shaping of their narratives, and thus the way they will be collectively remembered? How can one world-altering event of unspeakable, unknowable levels of suffering of fellow human beings become something that is shaped as necessary?

In a separate discussion related to language and translation, in conversation with a Japanese friend, I brought up the film "Hiroshima Mon Amour" written by Marguerite Duras and directed by Alain Resnais. He said it was a great film and I told him I had studied it in graduate school as my focus was on collective trauma and memory. The film addresses memory and the inability to grasp or recall a past traumatic event, to put it into language. Language fails in doing this, it can only point to the idea of it, but not the actual thing itself. Human memory fails as well. The human brain is designed to forget. The opening lines are "You saw nothing in Hiroshima...nothing" spoken by the Japanese architect. The French actress replies, "I saw everything...everything...the hospital, for instance that exists for real in Hiroshima. How could I not see it?" Then she goes on to talk about visiting the museum.

This is about as close as one can get to understanding what happened, but it is not the actual event. Those that know it, that saw it fully, did not survive. There is a play by the Japanese-born American playwright, Chiori Miyagawa, that is based on a deconstruction of this film. The play, "I Have Been to Hiroshima Mon Amour" re-examines the concepts of memory and narrative, especially in relation to who gets to remember and whose narratives are missing in relation to this part of history. The play is set within the same world of the original film, with the Japanese architect and French actress having their affair and discussing memory, but instead of moving towards the European narrative of WWII, as Resnais film does via the actress, a third character is introduced. This character is a Japanese woman who was killed immediately by the bomb. Her ghost narrarates the gruesome facts of the aftermath of these weapons, and the people whose lives were ruined because of them. The play accepts that this is part of history, but it gives a voice to those who were silenced.

When I was thinking about how to write this post, which I felt oddly conflicted about, I first felt that the entry point into it was not via the larger discussion regarding history, but via a photo another friend of mine posted from the Zinn Education Project It was a photo of a small tricycle that had been ridden by a three year old boy on August 6th, 1944. This boy's story is well known in Japan. The story of the boy and his tricycle made me cry. Yet, I don't know him and never will because he died. His short life ended with great suffering and all he was doing that day was enjoying his tricycle, which the caption of the photo said that he loved very much. He had no notion of war or even of death. There are many stories like his, some of them deleted from history altogether, some of them from those who survived. I write this for these fellow human beings, who were doing nothing but living their lives in those cities in the era of a very large war that their country had started. I can't bear witness to something I never experienced, that took place decades ago, but by recognizing that no one should suffer from atrocities like this, I can try to not lose my humanity. I write this also because the current government is moving forward on revising Article 9 in the constitution and just introduced the largest Japanese warship since the 1940s, on the anniversary of Hiroshima. If anything, one should write about the people of these two cities to remind those in the Japanese government that the pain, the heartache, the sadness that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced should not be forgotten, especially in light of the buildup of a new war cry.

Addendum: Howard Zinn wrote a very important essay on the topic of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as non-atomic the bombing of civilians. It was published in The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. I recommend it.

Typhoon of Steel Documentary

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 11:11:00 +0000

I wrote this long post and then just decided that I'd rather put this video up instead of commenting on the topic. I was told my original post was "too controversial".

Typhoon of Steel from gena hamamoto on Vimeo.

きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅはとてもかわいいですね！

noreply@blogger.com (秋 in Japan) — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 12:28:00 +0000

I usually dislike J-pop, especially girl J-pop groups like AKB48 (a group which I abhore with a passion).

But I really love きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ (pronounced Kyary Pamyu Pamyu). She's adorable and her video seems actually self-aware and hip. At the Japan MTV awards, she was dressed in a cosplay little bug suit. Her music sort of reminds me of Perfume (another Jpop group I like). Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is hyper Future-World Japanese Harajuku princess. Most of it is just image, but it's really exciting and fun to watch. She was, after all, a fashion blogger before she started her music career.

Here's her song にんじゃりばんばん, which has been playing constantly in stores this summer. I love hearing it as it makes me feel buoyant and energized.

I love it. It's not going to be a classic or anything that will go down in history, but it's a fun song.