Narrator’s Note August 2020: In August of 2005, I moved to Toyama, Japan to teach English. I was 22 years old, had only gone to Mexico once on a senior trip, did not speak Japanese, had no training as a teacher, was terrified of flying, and was living alone. In the interest of sharing my origin story, I felt I had to include writing from the time in my life that planted the seed of living abroad. I am including these Myspace- my God, I know- blogs of my year in Japan. Photos have been added retroactively, as when I was originally writing I had to go to an internet cafe, and I only had disposable cameras. What a time to be alive.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Japan is awesome, but so are my friends, and I miss you all!
Current mood: accomplished
Hello everyone! I have finally accepted after four months in Japan that there is no life without myspace, as all of you have been telling me. However, as you all also know, my computer knowledge consists of standing up, walking across the apartment, and asking who ever actually knows how to do anything how to do something. So, please be patient with what will probably be, for quite a while, my eyesore of the myspace world.
It is snowing here and I’m feeling all Christmasy- kind of gooey inside. We went caroling last night, much to the amusement of everyone passing by. Honestly they probably thought to themselves “Great, so this is what happens when we let these foreigners into our country- they drink cheap convenience store beer and then sing off key outside the train station!”
We actually tried to move inside, but that was rudely interrupted. To the awkward soundtrack of Ave Maria, I found myself watching a man not so surreptitiously (by that I mean, furiously and obviously) jerk off under a paltry cover of a trench coat. I interrupted the rousing rendition of that Christmas classic by shrieking, and that drew the attention of the security guards. In a bizarre twist, our singing was deemed more egregious than public displays of lechery. I was the sober one, like always, so it fell on me to try to explain our good intentions (the perks? of being a non-drinker never stop, y’all). We were still politely kicked out.
A good time was had by all. And the best time was had by that guy jerking off to foreigners blaring carols.
probably a scene you never wanted associated with christmas
On the work front my children are badly to horribly behaved, although there are quite a few exceptions, and those few I am clinging to for dear life and sanity. I have one student who seems more preoccupied with throwing blocks at me than learning English, and a few others who choose to use their time in my class to clean out their nostrils and then suck the contents from underneath their fingernails. Then we all pass the vocab cards around and pretend like they aren’t a bit damp with snot. Despite all of this, teaching is fundamentally something I enjoy. I think I would just enjoy it more if it felt more like a school, and less like a non-stop assembly line at a factory (eight lessons in eight hours is… a lot a lot). I read all the message boards before I came here, though, and they all said they work you to death, so I have no one but myself to blame for experiencing exactly what lots of disgruntled internet strangers told me on anonymous forums.
But, honestly, I can’t complain overall, because I never thought I would be having this experience. Japan is a beautiful, safe, great country. My Japanese lessons are going really well, and I think I’m picking it up pretty quickly. My apartment is huge, I get to live alone, and there is a view of the mountains from my window- you don’t get snow capped ranges in Texas, that’s for sure. I am learning to play these f’ng huge drums, it’s called “taiko”, and it’s so amazing to hear. The part of the country I live in has such harsh winters that a) I am given extra money from my company for a heating allowance and b) there is a taiko song called “Snow Country” that celebrates not dying during the winter. As a Texan, I’m curious to see how this goes. I only own converse sneakers and work shoes. Probably could have gotten something waterproof…
I’ve met people from all over the world, and although I was already- as you all know- an open minded person, I have discovered that there is always room to grow more than you ever could have thought.
When I’m walking around after dark, and I feel safe, and I pass by a six year old, in a little school uniform with a pointless but adorable yellow hat, walking home alone, I think “Japan rocks”. Of course, when I am literally squatting over a Japanese style toilet in a train station bathroom that smells like open sewer, only to realize I forget my toilet paper AGAIN- well the sentiment is different.
Hopefully my technological renaissance will continue and I will finally purchase a digital camera, so I can post pics on here and- hahahahaha, sorry, just laughing thinking about what a mess that will be- you guys can look at me.
Love you!
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Crucial Anatomical Differences between Japanese and American Snowpeople
Somehow, seeing mountains for the first time was one of the most foreign things about living in Toyama- their huge presence right outside my door was a reminder of just how much I wasn’t in Texas anymore
Merry Christmas everyone! It is midnight here, so Christmas Eve has just turned into Christmas. With all the snow, and the trees, you’d think I’d feel festive. But I have realized, as cheesy and trite as it sounds, that Christmas really isn’t Christmas without your family and friends. Although this may seem contradictory, given what I just wrote, I’m not missing Christmas at all. But it’s because I haven’t decorated the tree at Dad’s house with all the family. I haven’t watched my Mom and Granny make a lamb and fourteen sides all day. I haven’t made Christmas cookies with Brooke, or amused myself by wrapping tinsel around Mufasa’s fat, furry neck just to see him glower at me in that way only he can. So it just kind of seems like this year there isn’t a Christmas. Strangely, it doesn’t make me sad. It’s like this year is a leap year, where there are no holidays. But, for those of you in the states, or with your family, give them a hug, and enjoy your time with them. I’ll see you guys soon.
Now, onto lighter topics. So, I’m sitting in class with a favorite private student- who by the way makes me feel like a total loser, seeing as how she is only 14 and has traveled to 8 countries, speaks Japanese, Mongolian, and English fluently, and speaks conversational Russian, Chinese, and Korean, but whatever, I’m cool- and our conversation is as follows:
Student: So, in America, snowmen have three balls, right?
Me: Yeah, why? (and if this had been a male student at this point I would have started wondering where this conversation was going- my students have no chill with how obsessed they are with talking about off color topics in English)
Student: In Japan, snowmen have two balls.
Y’all, I literally gasped. It seems silly, you know, not a big deal. But I didn’t think something as universal as a snowperson would be so different. So she draws a picture on the board, and I’m thinking “Phhhht, American snowpeople actually try to be anatomically correct…at least as anatomically correct as you can make snow”. And then, on second glance- the two ball snowperson just looks better, frankly. I mean, I expected different food, different customs, a different language, but it’s little things, like the number of balls snowpeople have, that come out of nowhere, and make you laugh, and make you realize that these are the random things you’ll remember. That and the fact that the cashiers at the convenience store were in head to toe Santa costume. That’s definitely a keeper too.
Merry Christmas darlings. I love you all so much. I think of you often and miss you even more. Take care of each other.
Monday, December 26, 2005
I love Missionaries
I just spent two hours at the doctor’s office- acute bronchitis is my Japanese Christmas gift. Perhaps it’s because I worked all day Friday and Saturday hacking and coughing, running a fever, and dancing and singing for children like a college educated clown. No, I’m sure that only helped me. Working nonstop around equally sick children was probably the best thing for me. Rest, medicine, relaxation? Bah humbug to that bullshit.
The corporate education machine of ******** (it’s contractually illegal for me to say the name) stops for no one.
Me at 22, terrified of getting fired over a myspace blog post
So, today, Monday, my day off, I had to teach a makeup lesson. After said lesson, during which, like on Fri/Sat, I could hardly speak, I told manager that I needed to go to the doctor. She totally agreed ya’ll- that I should go to the doctor. I being the operative word. Just I, no us. By myself. To a doctor who speaks no English. I was beyond pissed. But, thankfully the Mormon missionaries I met at my favorite Indian food restaurant took me, and translated, and called my manager and said “The doctor told Cortney she’s really sick and should get lots of rest. She won’t be working tomorrow”.
Joseph Smith saw whatever he saw in that grove, and through time and space, it led up to my intersection with earnest young men who befriended my soul me in a restaurant and lobbied on my behalf with doctors and my boss. It was my little Christmas miracle.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Sesame Street Japan Needs to Calm Down
Current mood: contemplative
So, as you all know, I am weirdly obsessed with Sesame Street, muppets, Fraggle Rock, and you all know the Muppet Pope/Jim Henson assassination theory…anyway..
I stumbled upon Sesame Street Japan while I am drugged up on cough medicine, curled up on my futon, enjoying my well deserved day off from work on Wednesday. I was so excited! It was bizarre to be flung in a tunnel of nostalgia cutting through an uncanny valley; the voices were exactly the same, just in Japanese. It was the Christmas episode, and I had just finished opening all my Christmas packages that had come late because apparently it’s the worst winter in a hundred years or something, so combine that with me being high as a kite on a cough medicine and being in bed all day, and I was ready to settle in to a trip down public broadcasting memory lane.
They sang “Winter Wonderland”, they ate cake, they did a dance- it was all so wholesome and I was instantly transported back to 5 year old me at my Granny’s house. And then, things took a turn.
They introduced the English phrase of the day, which was, as you might expect, something to do with Christmas- well, dear reader, you’d be real wrong. The phrase was, inexplicably, unseasonally- “Get off”. I’m sorry, I know, it’s puerile, stupid humor, it’s not even a witty double entendre. But the thing is, you know how they repeat it, like ten times, to really drill it into you- all the different scenes popped up, everyone saying “Get off” (scene- grocery store) …”Get off” (scene- bus stop) …”Get off” (scene- me remembering that train station dude in the trench coat).. it was absolutely hilarious. A way too excited guy popped up between each scene, an unnecessarily close close-up, too many teeth (why do all male hosts of children’s shows have the biggest teeth on earth?) big grin, saying mechanically “Get off”.
At this point, I felt like I was in some reject scene from Trainspotting, because I had that balloon on a string medicine head feeling. Then there was a shot of some random, miserable looking white girl they probably just pulled off the street for the day, and she just kind of sighs and says, through pursed lips and with hunched up shoulders- “Get off”- you know, gotta get the first language speaker in there. I remembered how on my breaks I am made to stand in the window, like a living mannequin to Learning English, and wave at people as they walk by, and that woman cut a visceral path of empathy to my drug addled brain- I was feeling her pain, I tell you what. So, anyway, I continue to watch, and enjoy the next little skit with “Bert-o” and Ernie. Then, suddenly, they brought back the English phrase of the day.
In the final scene (and, please God remember, this was the CHRISTMAS episode, so I still question who cleared this phrase as relevant) these two weird little animals walk up to Elmo. One is riding the other’s back, and the one on bottom is saying, over and over “GET OFF!”..”GET OFF”…and they’re both rocking furiously back and forth. You CANNOT tell me that in a country where you can read explicit magazines in public in a convenience store, or on a train, and buy some really creepy things in vending machines, that the production team did not know damn well what this entire montage looked like.
Anyway, that did me in. I was lying on my futon, tripping off of medicine a three year old could take with no problem, surrounded by snotty tissues, eating ramen but not good ramen like the lady downstairs makes, just run of the mill crappy ramen in a cardboard bowl, watching Sesame Street Japan and chuckling at how ridiculous it all was. Personally, I’m going to blame that dude in the train station for forever linking the paraphernalia of Christmas with lewd behavior. It was a low point, darlings. A low point.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Off to Tokyo!! Happy New Year’s!!
Current mood: happy
Hello darlings! I am leaving for Tokyo in less than an hour. I just dropped into the handy internet cafe across from the train station to check up on my e-mails, and post on this blog just in case I somehow go missing. Here are the breadcrumbs, friends.
I should be in T town in about three hours. I am slightly nervous, as I am going to be meeting Jess’s sister and friend, and I don’t want her worrying for five straight days if we like one another while the four of us sleep all together on the floor in her micro apartment. We’ll see how it goes. I’m sure everything will be juuuuust fine…assuming my train doesn’t derail and I don’t plunge into icy water, trapped in my seat…whoa. Better stop that “train” of thought. Ha ha. Just kidding, I’m actually terrified of that and think by writing it I can jinx the universe into not killing me that way. Because the universe reads crappy myspace blogs by early 20 somethings. Obviously.
Anyway, I hope you all have a great New Year’s, doing whatever you will be doing, and please be safe. I heard a good quote the other day on a really depressing independent film, you know the kind where everyone is pathetic, and their live are pointless, and it’s shot all grainy and gray, and marriages are loveless, children don’t know their parents and vice versa, everyone’s poor and hates their job.
Here is where I honest to God have to stop writing and wonder why I spend so much of my time watching awful TV in Japan.
Anyways, here’s the quote- “Be good. And if you can’t be good, be safe.” Just a little New Year’s advice from everyone’s favorite alcohol/drug/smoke free hypochondriac friend. I love you guys! I miss you! Have tons of fun and send me the pictures!
Monday, January 02, 2006
I’m Exhausted with Being here
Current mood: frustrated
I want to come home.
Okay, I don’t really want to come home. I think I’ve just finally had my first day in Japan where I thought- “Shit, I’m so over it. I’ve lived and worked here for almost five months, I’m done”.
I think this vacation is giving me too much time to sit and self analyze. I need to get back to teaching those kids before I never teach them again.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Home sweet snow covered,Japanese speaking, cold as hell home
Current mood: content
Sorry about that unattractive mental breakdown I had. Whew. I’ll chalk it up to being sick as hell, hopped up on cough medicine (I LOVE being medicated, you can blame EVERYTHING on it!), and exhausted. And, yes, homesick. The train ride back to Toyama, I did a lot of thinking. And sleeping. Mainly sleeping. Pretty much all sleeping, but in my few coherent moments, which ocurred primarily when I woke up to find that the train was stuck in a tunnel due to heavy snow (yes, it did rock, thank you for asking, I love having panic attacks as my anxiety decides to talk to me about what drowning in a snow tunnel would be like) I realized I was homesick for Toyama- for my home I have made here, with pictures of family and friends, my bass and guitar standing at the ready, books and notebooks piled up to sift through, ballet shoes and Bjork to calm me down. My little nest, where I can curl up on my futon in front of the sliding doors I can look out over a snowy town, and ringing that, those beautiful mountains I’ve grown so used to.
I can handle living almost anywhere, as long as I have a space to call my own that’s safe and warm. I have said it before: I am rarely homesick for my actual home, but rather for the home I am occupying at the time. Everyone needs their place in this world, even if the location is constantly changing.
Me in 2005, having no idea how long this would be true
The truth is, I was sick, and tired, but I still had a great time in Tokyo. I feel like I have walked all over the city- Roppongi, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya- and ridden every damn train (damn near for free too 😉 ever cut into the ground. Walking up to Meijii temple on New Year’s day, as the sun was setting, surrounded by a mass of people, eerily quiet, was a great experience.
Buying Hello Kitty full body Santa Costumes, coat tailing in and out of every station, finding a $10 dress that fit perfectly at a thrift store, eating more caramel cheesecake crepes than my pancreas could excrete insulin for, celebrating New Year’s in a train station, all of it made for a great vacation.
But I am definitely looking forward to the next five days of solitude. In truth, that’s the main thing I have been looking forward to all along about these days off, other than seeing the incomparable Jessy-girl, who was, as always, a captivating mass of disgusting habits and catchy songs- hey girl! I have a good book to read, Japanese to study, and probably a doctor to see. Now, I know what you’re thinking “Hey, wait, that last one’s not fun at all!”. But just remember darlings, he doesn’t speak English, I don’t speak Japanese- it’s a real adrenaline rush to play medicine roulette every time you go to your health care provider. Will I be able to breathe when I take this? Will I be rocking a sexy full body rash (crossing my fingers for that one)? Who knows! Who cares! It’s terrifying! Yay, it’s fun! I am wondering if I can recruit the missionaries again, which is weird, since they should be trying to recruit me.
This vacation is only half over! Optimistically, I have half of it left! My job has almost become nothing more than a hazy nightmare, just a collection of sepia tinted visions that flit in and out of my mind randomly, like post traumatic stress disorder flashbacks. Other than waking up screaming in the night at the thought of going back, I’m doing great. Just great. Man I love Japan. Damn I hate my job. Can’t have it both ways I guess. I hope you’re all enjoying your break from school, and for those of you currently working, I’m sorry. That really sucks. I’m off to eat some sushi and pop some cold medicine. It’ll be another exciting night- I can feel it.
Read Part II here
