Probably a good description of Mutsu is from any typical visitor that comes here. It really has nothing going on at all from the outside. In fact, if people didn’t have GPS’s equipped they might not even know they’re in Mutsu. Ok perhaps that’s a bit harsh to say about this place. However, for that reason, being a resident of Mutsu means one must do what they can to find “the thing to do” here. Here the secret is to motivate yourself daily to get out of your apartment and find something to do. Believe it or not, with the right plan and motivation, you can make any cold brisk Saturday morning into a day of enjoyment.

Take my skiing weekend story:

A few weekends back I took out a pair of cross-country skis that were given to me by a friend. It had been awhile since I had skied and I was a bit anxious and nervous how I would do. I had decided for cross-country skiing I’d start off small and simple like Mutsu’s very own sport’s park. Here the facilities are often used all throughout the other three seasons, but in the winter it’s a quiet, silent, and peaceful place to ski around. Here in the winter, they never plow the snow in the park so it’s real thick powdery stuff.

Just strapping on and taking off from the baseball diamond was a beautiful wintery landscape. The track field was barely visible and nearly one and a half feet of snow sat perched upon the score board. Snow had piled so high that trees that towered around the park were reachable by hand as I slipped passed underneath them.

Faintly around the park seemed to be the sign of another pair of skiers that had gone earlier, but their tracks had been covered by a light dusting. If only I had gone later I wouldn’t have known if they were tracks or small dimples covering some mystery deep underneath them. This route I skied in took me all around the park. Tall slender trees stood silently in the distant as their branches deeply bowed as if burdened with old man winter’s heavy snow.

Deciduous trees, whose shade covers families and kids alike from summer’s harsh rays, stuck out of the white mass with their leafless branches reaching high into the air. Everything there looked quiet, still, and freshly chilled by winter’s cold breath. It was as if everything had been tucked into the vast blanket of snow and gone into a deep hibernation.  There was no cheering or roars from the stands, no cracking sounds of bats or starter guns, nothing  but the silence winter brings here to Shimokita Peninsula.

I had in fact gone out and discovered something indeed that day. I had discovered while skiing that every place does in fact have secret pockets of beauty in it. More over, because that beauty exists, it also makes living here in sub-freezing weather and bombarded with snow, all that more tolerable.

~J out

The perfect time to walk in the door is 7:53 am. From 7:53 it takes 1-2 minutes to take off your snow boots and find the locker they go in. Then after puting on your “indoor shoes” it takes about another minute to get to the teacher’s room. When one enters that teacher’s room they’re greeted by a round of “good mornings.” It’s important that you get to your desk, though, by 7:55-7:57 or else the “coffee lady” might not get you in the morning rounds.

You see, in most schools only 1 fresh pot of coffee is made a day. If your’re not in by that round then you might be stuck with “tea-bag” coffee or worse… “instant.”

Depending on the school, your morning meeting might start at 8am sharp or maybe as late as 8:20. I consider this brief time as my ‘warm-up’ phase, a time to put on your game face and prepare to play-the-game of Elementary School ALT.

A good ALT knows how to unpack their bag and properly clutter their desk. For the first hour you need your schedule, some teaching books, the class text book, a maybe a dictionary. The goal is to look busy till the morning meeting begins then afterwards look busy “preparing” till all the teachers scurry off to class.

The morning meeting only lasts about 10-15 minutes, but it’s the epicenter of the morning (if not the day). It’s a time when you see the Japanese people at the peak of orderly perfection. At first you rise like in  a courtroom; bow either toward the front desks or to right infront of you. A sharp uniform “Ohayoo Gozaimasu” is said then everyone sits down for the show. The meeting is just typically announcements, but the rules and proceedures are what make it interesting. To announce something you raise your hand, bow to the front, then quickly say your announcement followed by “iijo desu” (“over”) like two soldiers over a radio.

After the morning meeting, the teachers who have you in their classes consipire to tell you what their agenda is about 3 minutes before they have to go to class. Sometimes you’ll be given a paper with the agenda (often copied from some book or template) or sometimes it’ll just be told to you hastily in forced Japanese.

Once these small informal agenda meetings are done with, and teachers vacate the teacher’s room,  you can relax– chill out and drink your coffee– check your phone mail or read the news– pretty much it’s all up to you till your first class… just try to stay mostly awake.

~J out.

Snow, sure I’ve seen it before… From where I’m from I see a little fall here and there occasionally around Thanksgiving or around Christmas. Some people even wonder each year whether or not it’ll be a white Christmas or not… and… if it is… well for us that’s a big deal.

The thing is, no matter how much snow falls a year in Oregon or Washington, if it snows at all everyone gets excited. Schools might close at the very mention of snow forecasted the night before. Roads might close at the accumulation of an inch and almost always (even if it’s 5 or so centimeters) buses go on “snow routes.”

Now moving to Shimokita, I was told it snows here. I would ask people periodically just ‘how much’ it did snow and the answer was nearly always “ahh not too much.” To someone like me, “not much” means like well… “not much.” The nuance here is that if I were to ask the same people about Washington and Oregon’s snow fall… the answer might be more like “snow?! Where? What snow… it doesn’t snow at all here.” Since what we get each year is some absurd joke compared to here. Simply put… Aomorians are strong people to put up with, what I’ve seen as, a snow-monstrosity.

 To give the merest example I present to you a small story about this morning at my place…:

This morning as I attempted to escape my humble abode I left the door with my satchel, a pair of dress pants, some dress shoes, my Scottish scarf, and a medium to heavy leather coat. As I opened the door I was greeted by two fearsome abominable snowmen. In fact, it was merely the snow pack that had crowded on either side of my front entrance. I took one giant leap into this frosty dreamland and watched as my foot slipped across the steps of an ice rink. “This is unfamiliar” I thought to myself. The actual trek to my car was closer then the trek from my door to my bathroom. However all I could see to my right as I cautiously slipped down each stair was a mound of snow in the shape of what might be my Suzuki Jimny.

Behind me I was startled as the giant roar of this beastly blue machine started up my path. In the driver seat of this bulldozer, that had sat quietly all season in the parking lot, was my landlord. A thin small man that always has the aura of a small business tycoon, he pulled up beside me and grunted with a half smoked cigarette hanging loosely between his chapped lips, “Ohayoo.” I watched as plowed tones of snow to the side which seemed to form the huge side walls of a snow palace. Perhaps this was his newest apartment venture.

Not walking, but stomping towards my car, I tried opening any orifice I could to get in. All doors were sealed by winter’s cold icy lips. The only door that opened eventually was my rear hatch… It cracked and screeched as it opened revealing a dark covered cave that was my “new car interior.” I laughed remembering the guy who sold it to me how nice it was that he was giving me the “tinted windows option” for free. My only option was to start it up and punch it till I could get out of the lot. It seemed barbaric, risky, but shoot somewhere in the sea of kanji on my insurance policy was probably this scenario… right?

So on my car went and in 4wd I put it… I revved a little, shifted in first, and said softly “to hell with it…”

WHAMO!

The Jimny lurked forward and out of the rut it went. I proceeded as if it was routine getting out and scrapping the ice and snow off of only the important windows.

So as the car warmed up and I looked ahead at the obstacle coarse that was Mutsu’s roadways I thought silently to myself… “another day of living the dream life on JET…”

 ~J out

And finally he sits down to write out the last witty thing before saying goodnight. His head is swarming with useless thoughts of whether he forgot this or that. Ahead of him lays a journey far, and in a way he doesn’t feel the excitement as some might.

For him, going somewhere means leaving something behind. He pauses and smiles at all that he’s done, as well as all he is about to do.

As for me, I do sit and ponder the life of this 25 year old. There’s so much to say and little time to say it… but most of what should be said really doesn’t need to be said at all… As people, we feel it… live it… know through instinct what all needs to be said and done.

So think of it all as though he isn’t leaving leaving home, but that he’s arriving at home somewhere else…

somewhere exotic. ;P

~J out

A few weeks into 2009 I posted a listing of books (follow the link to read it) I’d try to read before 2009 was over… The result was that I read Bruce Feiler’s Learning to Bow (twice actually). I honestly felt The Great Wave By Christopher Benfey was very dry and hard to read so I didn’t finish that… Japan A Reinterpretation By Patrick Smith was a rip. I should have read the reviews more closely. While finishing most of the book, this one just pissed me off.  I did start Three Cups of Tea By Greg Mortenson and for the most part it was a very well written book. While I didn’t finish it, I think if I can find it again I’ll actually read it through again… so let’s say I did about 70% C meh good ’nuff..

Other books I read without listing in ’09: Tons of Japanese Grammar Literature, and a beautiful well written book titled “Yakuza Moon” Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter by Shoko Tendo

I liked this book because it was a non-fictional biography written by somebody who isn’t exactly a varnished writer. Tendo is very blunt in her book and when you read it… it comes out like a conversation you might have with her at a bar or something.. Very human and very good read..

The last book I dug into was

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami. Murakami is very well known author respectfully, but in this book he lets the victims of the Tokyo Subway Sarin Gas Attack give their accounts with Murakami periodically commenting here and there. It’s a good book to read just to read other Japanese people’s varrying perspectives on the same event.

Ok… now on to a few books I’d like to read for ’10

Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain by Martha Sherrill

(Author) – A story about WWII Japan and dogs. I figure this year I should read more good dog literature.

Discourse By Three Drunkards On Government by Nakae Chomin- Apparently a very loose informative discource on European, Japanese, and western political differences as well as speculation on the future…

Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. by Roland Kelts- A book on the exact same topic I wrote and presented in my high school senior thesis back at Fort Vancouver HS. (Go Trappers!)

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai- A unique Japanese author who writes somewhat sorrowful sad books… I actually picked up one of Dazai’s other books No Longer Human at a book store in Aomori Station’s and read through it a little. No Longer Human didn’t turn me on, but I still would like to read something of his sometime. Dazai, I think, writes in a very “Japanese-istic sort of personality.

From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States Sadao Asada- Gotta keep up with my pops whose also reading up on WWII from the US angle.

Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 – Yep, more history books I need to read.

Then of course whatever else I pick up and read…

Let’s hope I actually do order these and read ‘em..

~J out

It’s finally a new year with much to look forward to and much to get done. I find it daunting also to take a step back and plan out what all I need to accomplish this year…

Generally, in regards to this blog, I feel that I didn’t write as much as I should have in 2009. So much was happening during that year that I could have spent a little time writing about it all and didn’t. This means that for 2010, a major goal of mine will be to pick up the writing spirit I once had years ago and to take it to the next level.

My problem last year wasn’t that I couldn’t write, but that my will to write just wasn’t there. There’s no excuse that would adequate other then I was just too lazy and tired to do it. In other words, I neglected my duty. Shame on me.

However… the beginnings of a new year is time for reflection and self-correction. This blog is completely powered and managed solely by me so it’s my job to push on ahead with it.

So onward to 2010. This year will be truly unique because the better portion of it will be spent abroad in Japan. I was blessed that I could open the year at home, but 2010 will definitely be a challenging year of acclimating to living in a new surrounding. I feel that the culture shock is mostly faded, but the reality of day to day living there still will be an interesting challenge

To a year of hard work ahead… I am ready take it on.. and I hope to bring as much of 2010 to my readers as possible.

Cheers.. and to the best of luck to everyone on a new year of unfinished projects…

~J out