Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Vietnam
Chapter 2
New Home
in Kofu
Chapter 3
Hong Kong
China,
&
Korea
Chapter 4
Yamanashi
Chapter 5
Society
Chapter 6
Hospital
Chapter 7
Nikko
Chapter 8
Holiday
Greetings
Chapter 9
Culture
Chapter 10
Holiday
Trip:
Kansai
&
Kyushu
Chapter 11
Mores
Chapter 12
Hankos
& Brush-
writing
Chapter13
Friends
Chapter 14
Festivities
Chapter 15
Okinawa
&
Nagasaki
Chapter 16
Hong Kong
&
Australia
Chapter 17
Special
People
&
Events
Chapter 18
Coming
to
Japan
Chapter 19
Letter to
Editor
Chapter 20
Teaching
English
Chapter 21 Hamamatsu
Chapter 22
Women's
Relation-
ships
Chapter 23
Reflections
on
Education
Chapter 24
Nephews'
Visit
Chapter 25
Thailand,
Korea
&
Home
Chapter 26
Taking
Stock
Chapter 14
Festivities
March 17, 1996
Dear Friends,
First of all we want to thank all of you for the birthday cards, letters, phone calls, and packages. You can never know how much your thoughts and thoughtful gestures mean to us..
The last six weeks have been a blur of activity and adventure, and throughout our travels and celebrations, we've silently been composing letters to bring you up to date. Now it is difficult to know where to begin.
First a brief synopsis. A couple of Japanese holidays. Travels to Australia, Hong Kong, Nagasaki, Okinawa, etc. Eiwa graduations and preparations for the move to the junior college buildings. An extended visit with an old friend. Many reunions. -- overall, a life's "quilt" made up of various fabrics and textures.
Carolyn and Kathy arrived in time to celebrate Tom's 60th birthday and Setsubun. Setsubun is a Shinto new year's holiday and ritual of cleansing one's home (and one's self) of evil spirits and welcoming good spirits. One tosses a special kind of bean and chants, "Fuku wa uchi! Fuku wa uchi! Oni wa soto!" (Good fortune come in! Good fortune come in! Devils get out!" This was Kathy and Carolyn's introduction to the crowds, food, and frivolity at a Shinto shrine during a festival. The crowds were a bit overwhelming for them, initially, but they got used to them in time.
Soon after, Carolyn and Kathy spent a few days in Kyoto, Kamakura and Tokyo before Kathy had to return to Pennsylvania and work. (Well some of us have to work!) We wished she could have stayed longer, as she had great questions and a wonderful curiosity. She has the natural wonder of the born traveler and a willingness to take it all in without preconceived notions getting in the way.
Carolyn returned to Kofu to continue her cultural adventure in Japan. Having her here helped us to see Japan from a different perspective and to become even more aware of the extreme contrasts between cultures. We have become so acculturated that many things that would strike a newcomer to Japan as unusual have become the norm for us. Carolyn said that even reading our letters had not prepared her for the reality of Japan. Usually, when tourists come, or when people live in Tokyo or do business here, they do not get a feel for the culture. They are apt to see a side of the Japanese that they consider friendly or helpful, but miss much of what is being communicated. It is easy to live here even for an extended period of time, and be blissfully unaware of the faux pas one is committing -- because the Japanese are so polite. And it is easy to live in Tokyo in sections that are primarily foreign and therefore miss the "Japanese" experience.We still wonder what faux pas we are committing, but simply have no way of finding out. Our friends are too polite to tell us and it is the Japanese way to save face above everything else. That includes saving face for us.
In any culture, communication is about 70 percent nonverbal, but in Japan that is even more the case. Most verbal communication is indirect, but the nonverbal communication, "stomach talk," is amazing. (The stomach is considered to be the center of one's life force.) So, unless one is really aware, it is easy to offend people.
As we've said before, we wonder at times what we might be missing and what we might be doing wrong. One thing that Marie is well aware of is trying to be as "small" as possible. There is limited space and she is careful not to take up too much of it -- not just physically, but also with trying to not assert her personhood too much. This comes from her training in cross-cultural counseling as well as her personality in general. That means keeping a cap on emotions, opinions, and anything that would make us stick out more than we already do. It is a matter of trying very hard not to be an "ugly American." What that leads to is an odd combination of feeling obtrusive and invisible at the same time.
Today's paper has an article about the wife of the French ambassador to Japan. She had lived in Morocco, Iraq, Korea, U.S.A., and Brazil before coming to Japan. About Japan she says, "I thought I would feel very differently in the delicacy of Japan. But then I found that you have to earn Japan. You have to work at it. When you begin to like it, you love it. You are so happy when you begin to understand. And I have never been so helped as I have been here to try and understand a country."
We can relate to what she said and heartily agree. On the other hand, we believe that no one can ever really understand another's culture, although we can and do respect it.
Another thing that we have come to realize is that travel is really about finding oneself and one's own values. Unless we are in touch with what we stand for and have some grasp of it, we can't even begin to understand how other's live, or what their values are. It can be a real challenge to travel, explore, and experience other places without passing judgment, but it is so important. And it is humbling indeed to have people work so hard at speaking English....
Anyway, we tried to give Carolyn a cultural experience rather than a tourist experience. That included calligraphy lessons, acupuncture and massage, participation in an abbreviated tea ceremony, Kabuki theater (4 1/2 hours that seemed like minutes), introductions to various festivals, interactions with friends and students and interminable lectures on the culture -- probably more than she ever wanted to hear, in addition to the regular tourist attractions. Her message to all of you is that you are missing out if you don't come to visit us.
One weekend we traveled to Kamakura so that we could witness the water dousing ceremony at one of the temples. There we watched 30 Nichiren Buddhist priests in-training strip to loincloths and pour ice cold water over themselves in a special ceremony. This ritual was the culmination of 100 days of fasting, meditating and walking to reach their destination, physically and spiritually.
While in Kamakura we stayed at Zushi Marina again, thanks to Mrs. Inoue, and we were rewarded by a breath-taking view of Mt. Fuji rising above the water early in the morning. This is another view made famous by postcards, but not glimpsed that often, due to weather conditions.
We were lucky enough to see a traditional wedding procession while in Kamakura, in addition to all the of the "must-see" tourist attractions, such as the big Buddha we mentioned earlier. The city is crammed with temples and shrines, and it is one of our favorite shopping places in Japan. One special image that will always stay with us is the great shrine that stands at the end of the street from the train station (eki). The shrine is named for the god of war and has three giant torii leading to it. It is too expansive to try to capture in a photograph. (Torii are the gates that lead the way up to every shrine. If you haven't had the chance to come to Japan, you may have seen a picture of the red torii at Disney World in Epcot Center. It is a replica of the one in the water at Miyajima shrine near Hiroshima.)
A couple of days before Carolyn left, we had a guided tour of Minobu Temple, the center of most sects of Nichiren Buddhism. Our guide was Sayaka, the daughter of one of the priests at the temple and last year's exchange student at PV. The temple is in a spectacular setting, surrounded by mountains and with a wonderful view of Fuji. Following the tour we were treated to a lovely meal prepared by Sayaka's mother in a huge tatami room in the our host's home. The room is usually used to serve meals to the many pilgrims who make an annual journey to the temple. We have been invited back to Minobu for a special ceremony on March 31st, when the ancient weeping cherry trees should be in full bloom. Some are more than 700 years old, and were planted by the temple's founder, Nichiren, himself. We have been invited to stay overnight and participate in the ceremony which includes koto (a Japanese harp) playing and a tea ceremony. It is quite a famous place in Japan and we are looking forward to seeing the trees in bloom.
It is an interesting time to be in Japan, in Okinawa, (chapter 15) and in Hong Kong and Australia (chapter 16). Japan seems to be engaged in a "no-win" struggle between the old and the new. The old ways are just not working, but tradition goes back for so many years, and change is difficult. So political, social, and psychological battles are being fought. Hashimoto has only been Prime Minister for a few months, and his popularity has already plummeted. Members of the one coalition party have deadlocked the Diet because of his handling of the "jusen" scandal. (They are blocking the stairway leading to the room of the committee considering the bailout bill.) It seems that the huge debt incurred from the housing loan companies involved high ranking government officials (past and present) and the Japanese Mafia (yakuza) -- who have historically had an "understanding". Instead of getting to the bottom of who is responsible for the mess, Hashimoto intends to have the general public pay the debt (685 billion yen) through taxes, a policy supported by only 9% of the voters. Unlike the savings and loan scandals in America, no one has been prosecuted or charged. The public wants clarification regarding who is responsible and who is going to pick up the bill.
Another crisis involves a cover-up regarding HIV contaminated blood products that have been used for treating hemophiliacs. In 1983 the U.S. began using a safer procedure and Japan became aware of that procedure. However, the drug companies, with the knowledge of the Health Ministry, continued to do it the old way, knowing the risks involved. At least 2000 hemophiliacs contracted AIDS and 470 have died, with many others sick, while the government and the drug companies continued to deny any wrongdoing. The court battle has lasted 7 years so far, and the latest settlement resulted in an agreement of financial compensation and a formal apology. (Yesterday's paper has a picture of Green Cross pharmaceutical company officials kneeling to the floor in a public apology.) However, throughout the daily coverage in the papers, some interesting stories have appeared. Some are appalling. For instance, when more than 470 hemophiliacs had already been infected from the contaminated blood supply, the Health Ministry published a report indicating that there was only one case of AIDS in Japan, and that was a homosexual who had been to the U.S.and had been infected there.
Aside from the heavy press coverage, the main reason why the issue has not been buried by the bureaucracy is because the newly appointed Health Minister, Mr. Kan, who has a known aversion to bureaucrats. (He has even yelled at them on occasions!) He insisted on getting the facts out and the relevant studies and reports made public. Apparently, he has no previous connections to the Health Ministry, and, therefore, he isn't part of the "old boy" network. It's a mystery how he was appointed to the office in the first place!
In a follow-up to that story, medical institutions, physicians associations, and municipalities are promoting a boycott of the five pharmaceutical companies who continued to sell the tainted blood products, when they were known to be unsafe. Those organizations are not satisfied with the settlement, and think the drug companies should do more to compensate the people who suffered from their wrongdoing, and they need to be punished until they earn renewed confidence in their products. One physicians group of 1,100 has boycotted 160 products of the drug companies. (The drug companies say it has not hurt their business.)
Other problems include the anger that Japanese citizens have expressed about the bureaucratic handling of crises, including the recent cave-in of a tunnel in Hokkaido, where 20 people died. For almost two days nothing was done and then it took a week for the workers to get to the bodies. That was reminiscent of the Great Hanshin earthquake in Kobe last year. People were very unhappy with the slow speed at which the government acted to help people. Kobe continues to have difficulty with the rebuilding process, and the vice mayor of Kobe (who was in charge of the rebuilding) committed suicide this week, possibly due to his frustration over the task.
On to lighter stuff....The reunion for PV exchange students was Saturday. It was well attended and we think everyone enjoyed themselves. Some brought old yearbooks from PV and looked at pictures and reminisced. They all enjoyed the "souvenirs" from PV,T-shirts, mugs and pens & pencils, and members of the faculty at Eiwa enjoyed seeing the young women again. Tom's mom's famous fudge, the Diffenbach potato chips, and Sturgis pretzels were all big hits and brought back memories. Thanks to everyone who helped us put this together. It was worth it. We are glad we did it. Most of all, we are happy to be back in touch with some of some of the former students and we hope to have more contact through the rest of the time we have in Japan.
We are still "coming down" from the last six weeks, the emotionality of seeing the former exchange students, reliving our travels that were separate from each other, looking through the scrapbook of tributes to Tom (written by the exchange students and presented to him on his 60th birthday), and are celebrating being alone together again. Calligraphy, massage and acupuncture, tutoring English, teaching school, going for lovely spring walks, and visiting with friends are now taking center stage once again, as we know our time here is growing short.
And we are planning many other exciting adventures in the weeks ahead. This weekend we will visit two former exchange students and their families in Yokohama, where we will also tour famous gardens. (Spring is spectacularly beautiful in Japan. The plum blossoms are out. Cherry blossoms, azalea and wisteria, among others are next. Spring flowers are already blooming. Soon the rice fields will be planted. We still don't know why some flowers, including pansies, continued to bloom throughout the winter.) The Cherry Blossom Festival at Minobu Temple will be the next weekend. We are planning a weekend trip to Hamamatsu in early May for the kite festival on Boys' Day. So many exciting things to look forward to.
At the end of March Marie will be giving a cooking class for eighth graders at Eiwa, and she has been asked to teach some counseling skills to the chaplain at Eiwa. We have both been asked to give consultation regarding teaching techniques. We are looking forward to teaching the ethics class together again next school term.
At this point it appears that we may be leaving Japan the middle of August. We still don't know when Tom's contract officially expires or what the school calendar looks like, so we are trying to be flexible.
Marie and Tom
