I want a drug like me, dancing to j-pop in a room with blank walls, no furniture, like maybe a conversation with my mother once everyone else has gone to sleep. me and her, we talked until 3 after a night until 5 on a 3-4 hour run, where she consistently, yet absent-mindedly, hit me with the deepest, most un-answerable questions like “where does your soul reside in your body,” and, “do different people experience time in different ways?” Now, here is something to take home, i thought and laughed, walking in from walking in and out of department stores in the morning; i felt like an epicly groomed badass with longer hair, tighter jeans and my black pearl-izumi jacket zipped up tight then, but i couldnt find myself any souvenirs. that may be something ill have to forget about.

i found myself in the last two days of my 5.5 month long “exchange excursion,” as i called it in my first ever blog entry, when i woke up, the morning before shopping. I get hit with sensations in 1, 2, and 5 minute bursts like some sort of relapse, when i suddenly remember a time four months ago on a train or outside in the mountain air, and i lean forward, my heart races, stomach trembles and my head pushes me back like maybe standing in a wind tunnel; my appetite has significantly dropped and my Japanese turns worse and worse, when I am thinking about these other things. but in conversation, i can only tell people how quickly it went by, giving these quick summaries and wishing them good luck. i think its time i set down my thoughts.

Time ran short after new years, and a last act towards my best friends in a manner to suggest “yeah, this is the last time i will see you,” Naohiro broke out his cellphone and texted down our list. in a drowsy series of repeated dazed “what the f#$% !?”s, like an electric massager in a heated bath, we spent one night at a friends house, we all biked back across town to our house in the bitch of a cold evening, where another 4 came over and stayed until 2 pm the next day. now japanese parties arent as wild as anyone might have thought them to be, but the snack food is superb, energy drinks are stronger, and i had a solid sendoff with our 10 hours of card games and two trips to the bath house. the one kid who was getting on a plane to london the next day talked with me for hours about it; when i asked him why he was going, he grinned like it was funny, and said he was going to “find himself.” I happen to know he is going with his mom and i can guess that they will stay at hotels, but we were all saying wild and ambitious things to eachother, faking crying a little bit. now i am mailing back and forth with them all, telling them this isnt it because we still have email, skype, and there is still a day left if they feel the need, or when i need them, to drop back in again.

I like to think of naohiro as what an asian older brother of mine, with our relationship like this. He does looks suspiciously like a Hack… i met him in the weight room, we talked for a few hours that first night and struck up a friendship centered mainly around the bench press and those dirty english words. meanwhile, the nights i only wanted to go to sleep, listening to radiohead and chick corea came more and more frequently; i sent him a text message back when i changed hosts, and just today, i heard his story from my mother- when she had come in the door, returned from her week long trip to california, she was thanking her kids for being so understanding; naohiro said ‘dont mention it’ and held up the screen to her face.

I most frequently talk to people when we are just two. he told me the deepest conversation he ever had was on that night after the night i had come to his house. we mustve talked about love, or maybe stephen hawking and “a brief history of time,” which i tried to lend to him, but he looked at the back cover and nodded at me, almost laughing. but i did give him every thought i had on travelling, i looked up the word for “expansion of the mind,”i told him about my experiences here and there, we got all excited.

on living for so many days with the same person, always riding to school together in the morning, always locking his kickstand when hes not looking, too many times writing dirty, dirty words on the fogged mirrors in his favorite bath house, i got to know when he might laugh. I have explicit rights to cross his mood at any time, like snatch raamen noodles from his bowl the night he fails a test, unscathed other than a dirty look and fewer noodles that next day. naohiro told me he was in love with a girl i doubt exists and never considered what might happen if, for some reason, his plans to marry her on graduating college and move to tokyo never went through. that season came and gone when i was worried what might happen to my brother. he wants, and hell have, his own adventures.

i think he tells only me these things, like a little brother who we both know is only here for his 2 and a half months, and will then leave. and once i leave, naohiro will listen to his ipod full-time when in the house. his ears take in less than 50% of whatever you say, on the ipod. he goes back to it when he doesnt want to reach out or be spoken to. i told him staying in touch has never been so easy.

i shouldve asked ryouhei to paint a portrait of my mother, before i leave. she could be any flavor of slightly worried, deeply sentimental, oblivious but always smiley. i wanted some way to preserve the fact that i never meet people who ask to suddenly start world travel and “healing” at the age of no one will tell me. we cant go places without her talking about traveling; apparently, its all the rage among the middle-aged nurses at her office now, suddenly deciding to travel for the first time. a woman who, through my mother, invited my irish friend me to her childrens ballroom dancing class for an evening last month (?) leaves for france in only a few weeks, with the sudden interest and sense that it couldnt wait for another holiday.

for three days, she has started our conversations in english, english that sounds like its written down in a notebook, somewhere, because we only get in a few phrases before we get to ‘confused face,’ where we laugh and drop it. we might talk one night, and she would bring up that same thing the next at dinner, maybe more excited or eyebrow-bendingly curiously. she never watched movies seriously before, so i wrote down a list of every freaky movie i saw, i loved and woke up the next morning thinking “what!?”: so far, we have seen fight club, trainspotting, the truman show, a clockwork orange, oceans 11, slumdog millionaire, and being john malkovich is on the counter. and she loves it.

she wants to speak english over skype, send letters and email and, also, speak japanese over skype, she told me. earlier at the table, she humbly slid across a note with her contact information on it, like i might not accept it and would just continue eating. I offered the homestay up to her as well, and she would love to come to america to see me and my culture, but for now just wants to write letters for all the talking we wont be able to continue.

I looked at my cellphone once more before i told myself i would go to bed the other night, back at my most cherished notes from the last half year, like “how come my female relationships never start with me walking in on her bathing under a waterfall?!” this last half year, i gained a sharper idea of what was before a pixelized image: in starting every relation i had, walking, training and busing the japanese landscape, in writing the character of jay in weekly periodical documents of my adventure, we now know much more than we did before.

in significant times, there is a deep, warm pressure in my chest that pushes it up and forwards, makes it feel filled with warm liquid. on being inspired, hearing or seeing something i previously couldnt comprehend, it kicks in and my head goes light, stomach quivers and i can only imagine myself in so many angles with some new dimension, some previously unthought of dimension. I had this when i was younger, quite a bit, when anything would do it like a night at summer camp or a circue di soliel video tape and stayed up all night thinking of my future break dancing. it took me a while to feel it, but now i feel that pressure like nothing when i stopped to think and write, and im shaking and blushing while typing.

I had the most significant day in my life in week long spurts, since maybe when I got off the plane. I was mystified, repelled and confused at the things Japanese people construct their environment from, still feel sick sometimes, but then again, the thought that a 17 year old could comprehend everything would be disappointing. I think i have found myself at the summit of these 17 years; now, however, things have opened up and ive seen new dimensions and angles on who we are as people, and what we can make of it. My adventure ends here, but its hard not to look forward to the rest of my life, in the widening and diverse world that my experience in japan has introduced me to. I know I am going to be rolling off quotes and lessons from japan as long as anyone will listen.

And I have new friends, new people who have touched my life and I have played a role in so many others, knowing me exclusively for the fact that I came here and did these things. When I leave, its going to take years and years for the presence of eathother to fade, im thinking tonight. This is going to stay with me, hopefully with my friends and family, until we are beaten and aged, and the memory of jay hack disappears completely.

this marks the end of ‘in pixels,’ as i get on a train to tokyo in just under 7 hours. I would love to keep going at it week after week, but it is time for me to go home. i saw an article on comcast news the other day on massive winter storms hitting the midwest; facebook is plastered with people referring to their chemistry homework, winter dance, etc., and i looking forward to revelling in it all over. I will be a second-semester junior at my same highschool, but am entirely unsure about how the new (old?) environment will feel in comparison, what will have changed, and where i will be when things settle down. another adventure? eh?

this is going to be a great personal record of my thoughts and feelings while in the midst of my half-year exchange. I plan to keep it up on the internet for at least a little while, so feel free to stop back by. I hope you have enjoyed reading what i had to say, and thank you for your attention, comments, for providing me with this justifiable thought-log, and sending the love back out here. I am back in the states near midnight on the 10th, so drop me a line.

thanks, enjoy that weather-

-Jay

Jamie, my irish friend i met just over a month ago and have loved like a father ever since, leaves for tokyo in a number of hours, from where he flies home to ireland. as a last meeting, naohiro and i spent the night at his house. we had a feast that night with 10 other friends of his from the neighborhood, passed out on the tatami floor in his room around 2, and then went to a bath house the next morning. ryouhei took this video for us that second day, right before he walked us to our car. i put it up on youtube-

愛の意味探している三人；　three young men questioned their love

Jamie wonders aloud what love is, and i propose it “feels a little like this.” naohiro didnt know/couldnt pronounce the lyrics, but had a funny way of whistling, so we had him help us out a little.

I felt horrible the rest of the day, after saying goodbye. my stomach was shaking too much to eat anything until late in the night, and me and naohiro only sat cross legged on the couch talking slowly for the next half hour. people and things are disappearing all over; hes a great kid, and we had too much of a good time making fun of japanese people and drinking that one coffee, over and over again, went skiing, lifted weights, played frisby at 3 in the morning while naohiro tried to get us to lower our voices, did all the things it sucks to finally record because they wont keep happening. i couldnt stop thinking about it and couldnt sleep until, well, maybe in an hour or two.

it was great, man. i hope you have had a good time too. 人生の残りを楽しんでね、thanks, and youre welcome to michigan, any time-　

– 治永

For us, new years came and went in just under 24 hours, the time it took me to try significant thoughts, give up and listen to bump of chicken lyrics in my head. all the while a light snow fell that turned into thick slush, just enough to kill my feet as i walked down the streets outside.

the five of us prepared foods, cleaned the living room, and when naohiro declared he was the best nintendo player in the house, well, somebody had to take him down. our older sister, just returned from studying in kyoto for the holiday, sat on her knees and put things away while my mother spun 360s in the kitchen small enough that you can touch any 3 corners at one time. i read until the door-bell rang and our grandfather waddled in.

of all the holidays in japan, new years (お正月　＝　oshougatsu) is the biggest, baddest most streamer clad and lantern lighting bully on the playground. if holidays in japan were characters from highschool musical, new years would be the main girl after those pictures of her leaked on the internet. families gather, kids come home for the weekend, grandparents get driven over and get ready for the highly ritualized evening celebration.

we sat around the low-level table in the living room and ate designated foods until 9. there was some light chatter over sound of the TV, where naohiro was turned 90 degrees away from the real action to watch a yearly reality TV special. my grandfather had seen a reenactment of the japanese military campaign in china during world war two earlier that day, and so was eager to talk; as a young man, he had spent a year in manchuria. he never fired a rifle, but buried plenty of chinese. he kept telling me that the 66 years since then seemed like nothing when he thought about it as much as he did.

you know, i told my self at one point i had to avoid these things- the top three you cant bring up in an american-japanese conversation are the bomb/world war II, yoko ono, and the american air base on ookinawa. i kept asking questions to the granddad though, even hitting two of those three we didnt get anywhere uncomfortable or awkward.

(living in japan, my conversational attack style coupled with an eagerness to use big, unneccessary words i just learned makes for very uncomfortable situations every day. think of it like a guy you slightly know finding you, looking you in the eyes and suddenly asking, wanna hang out?)

we went to a shrine that night, and yes, i threw in my coins, prayed my prayers and got a fortune for the year. mine was good, and apparently the person i am waiting for is coming, but will be late. everyone else had either pretty good or really good. they clearly dont give out the bad ones, but its all for the best. we missed the streamers and everyone fell asleep before 2, except for me, and i read the longest time i have since coming here, until 6 am. i woke up on the sofa and lunch was being served.

in the end, this japanese holiday consisted of resting, for us. we had some events, some new foods, but we mainly sat around the table slowly talking until night time of the 1st, when we went to a bath house, the same as any other weekend. we passed around new years cards at the table that afternoon; ryouhei and i pointed out which girls we would receive as our girlfriends, and when we both decided the good looking thai girl from my orientation ‘belonged to me,’ we rock-paper-scissored it to find that yes, she belongs to me, he got the other asian chick and naohiro gets my chemistry teacher. he was spread on the sofa and putting in comments in comic voices, (he referred to ryouhei as “warm pillow,” constantly) still wearing sweat pants and a vodaphone jersey; three of our six soon fell asleep under the heated blanket and ryouhei retreated to his video games. it was clear that the day ended here, as far as events were concerned. i was still in my jeans and sweater from the last night.

japanese people think i am crazy for going walking outside, especially on cold days like this. my family tells me it is dangerous, asks me where i am going, gives me a reflector vest, but in the end lets me go as long as i have my cellphone. i celebrated my new year by walking up to the hillside graveyard and seeing the early night industrial cityscape in this valley, then responding to a few text messages, giving up thinking and going home.

after seeing 2012 and the trailer for “alvin and the chipmunks, the squeakquel,” I resolved to only watch good, worthwhile movies this year. Ive had a tendency since 8th grade to see movies ‘just because i want to see big robots get beaten up,’ but its time to put an end to it. we didnt go out last night, or tonight and might not this week, but in a bag on the sofa, the truman show, trainspotting and fight club are all just waiting to get watched.

happy new year, cheers-

-J

Comments (1)

Vini Jaquery — 2010-01-09

Happy New Year to you too man.

Your blog is pretty cool

In a concerned voice, they warned us that on our return home, we might get a shock like living in a foreign country. every once in a while, YFU (Youth For Understanding, the program i am on) will send out an informational packet detailing the measures you can take to lighten the load, slow the pain as you figure out its all over, and lately, the position we might find ourselves in once we get home. they say our local social scenes will have shifted and we will see more and less of different people, we may be more mature than our friends and that will be seen as arrogance, etc. to finish off the year in papers and informational sessions, they invited all the exchange students in the area, along with their families, for a re-arrival orientation in tokyo this last weekend.

on the night before we left, I stayed up until 3:30 rolling sushi with naohiro and my mother. when ryouhei woke up, came in and his face had swollen to make the shape of a sphere (apparently a nervousness-triggered non-viral version of the mumps…) we made some quick plans in our dazed, late night confusion. im sure none of us could have walked in a straight line, as this was getting near all-nighter #2 for naohiro and i, but my mother somehow managed to stumble to the phone and arrange it such that my area representative would take me and naohiro to tokyo; from there, as we had originally planned to do as a family, he would take us to a theme park at the foot of mount fuji for the day. he was surprisingly flexible for someone who works from from 9 to 10.

lately, i have been writing a lot of speeches. in preparation for the orientation, they asked all the students to write a japanese summary of their experiences and their thanks, to present in front of everyone; in a burst of a soft ending, my school has my scheduled to make a farewell speech for 1300 people on christmas, my last day at school. I am also writing “specialized versions” of ‘thanks, its been cool’ for my class and the teachers of the school, but those are only short ones. those can be written at 330 the night before, or taken as an excerpt from one of the ones i have already written because you can only state things politely, yet creatively, within the boundaries a limited amount of times. this week, i sat in the library and talked things over with the teacher there, each time slowly approaching her office door and politely asking if she was busy; each time i either skipped the next class because we kept overflowing to new subjects or was really really fashiobably late. i try to put thought into these speeches wherever they will let me, lately my method being descriptions of very specific, special events and times rather than grand roundabout discussions. looking my time back over, searching for special things and then writing them down has really started bringing them up to the surface, and has helped me think about bringing it to an end. who knew these things made it into memories?

the secret objective of the orientation was to compare the languages skills of the kids from different countries, and shame those who didnt do their kumon worksheets. they had the eight exchange students lined up in a batting order, clearly those who were incapable went first and they had a video camera trained on the mic; all the families, too, seemed very curious as to which country had the best language skills. we americans were 3, a friend of mine from the beginning orientation (actually half japanese, so his language skills are impeccable) and a kid from minnesota. as all the kids went down the line, thai after dutch after australian, me and the half sat smug in the back and bumped fists, saying “the ball is in our court, man,” laughing at bad accents, as we were scheduled to go last. then, just before me, a good looking thai girl got up and gave a near-impromptu speech full of giggly, girly things, but our faces dropped. naohiro, who was taking a video with his ipod, kept going over our faces just to record our reactions; it was a bad speech, but like a japanese high school girl had just gotten up to have a conversation with the crowd. we felt defeated.

these mark the last of my days at the school. i have been trying to spend them carefully, not that i was ever reckless in anything, but i talk to the right people now. when all five kids sitting at my table pulled out their PSPs, i talked for the period to the one kid in the room who ive ever seen reading a novel, the quiet kid who sits in the corner. i cleaned out my desk, full of filth and english tests, and looked up to see my homeroom teacher standing there, who had written down at least 5 ways of reaching him. after business talk was over, he stayed by me and said he was going to miss me. i think he will be reading this blog. (wassup, sensei?!)

when the girls walk by in the hall, saying “herro,” and giggling when i give it back in smooth english, thats when i know im going to miss being the romantic foreigner- that kid with the accent who doesnt quite get what you are saying the first time, but keeps listening. ive taken every attempt to be spoken to by any english teacher or otherwise, knowing its the last time i might ever get a conversation beyond greetings with that guy. the girls of my class asked me to stay after school tomorrow, to go take photobooth pictures at a nearby mall. the kid who sits next to me, best student in the grade and only kid to sincerely try speaking in english, gave me a christmas card when the class gathered for a farewell karaoke party, this wednesday:

“I am wishing you a merry christmas!”

talking to people, its getting harder to lie that i might come back and see them, someday.

late at night, when we have finished lifting weights in the weight room, all the club gathered in the back room and ate cake to celebrate christmas eve. we talked a little about how i felt about leaving, and i gave a round of overdone hugs to the gentlemen, saying “you will remain in my heart,” directly quoting a karaoke song and hinting at the tune. our leader is the type of kid who just picked up a carton of unopened warm milk from the corner of the room and started drinking, then looked surprised when someone asked him where it had come from; he could sit on me and kill me, but he gently handed me two pieces of chocolate before i packed up to go home and smiled.

tomorrow is my last day at the school, christmas, and if you believe in so-called ‘time differences,’ the last few hours ill be 16, for the duration. i give a speech in the morning to the room of teachers, walk around the school taking photos with the various kid who spots me and realizes i am leaving, pack it up. im nervous as hell, sitting here and typing that this is where it all ends for me, but i tell myself there are still a few days left outside the school.

this week, i have been staying around long after the halls go dark and only a few classroom lights remain on. ill look around my room again, re-read the posters ive seen every day, look at the staplers and chalkboards i used every day. right when you exit the shoe-less section of the school, there is a poster of a girl standing by her bike on the sunniest day, telling kids not to drink alcohol. i had a friend snap a pic of me and her, after i explained to him that she was the hottest girl in the school, and he blushed. i would have liked one of the blush, too.

I know that tomorrow marks the last day ill do so many things, like slide open the glass doors or change into the library’s brown slippers; ill be coming home with a notebook page full of email addresses, but i somehow know i wont keep in touch with more than a few close friends. for a lot of those kids, writing down their name will be a goodbye ceremony. Im going to hug some people and awkwardly shake hands with others, maybe wink at some girls and then finally ride home with my brother to celebrate christmas, maybe nothing at all, and maybe at a ramen shack nearby.

I saw a friends post on facebook last night, after a phone call to my mom where she suggested i might start to ease back in to the ann arbor life. the friend said he was a fan of pokemon, a game we americans may remember from a few years back, which abruptly went out about the time i turned 9. 10 years back, we had just red and blue- that is, 150 friendly, cuddily pokemon, and you only needed one other friend or a bitch of a spoiling mom to collect them all. we spent our elementary school careers strategizing on how to beat the elite four, linking games with a cable (a physical, made-of-rubber-and-wire cable), and i remember getting a charizard trading card at a birthday party that brought my brother to tears.

for years, the game lay in their basements while middle schoolers trashed it, like they had never loved it. we had sent it back to japan. but little did they know, it didnt need them to love it. it was still growing, gaining colors and expanding generations and bonus packs, where comic-book characters decorate pornography and every highschooler’s cellphone attaches to a chain, attached to a small, furry character. they were 493 strong, and i saw them on the shelf two weeks ago.

this kid made some comment, 11 people responded below him and only one of them wasnt sentimental. it seems almost everyone has good memories, given the time they need to appreciate them. but they dont know pokemon… no, they dont know the pokemon like i do. they dont know pain-have you ever seen a highschooler weep on losing a pokemon match, who stuffs his gameboy in his backpack and then sits alone? have you ever seen a grown man sitting on the floor of a train, huddled around his DS like it were his only source of heat!? since when is it an obligation to buy pokemon to fit in at the lunch table, since when did vocabulary rotate around imaginary species, since when did my love life become an affair with an role playing game!?

i was up until two every night last week, and im still not even half way through.

so i wake up with my eyes sore sometimes, now. of frequent trips to the school library to skip classical japanese literature and history, more and more were turning into naps, until just recently. i closed my book and slept for the first three hours of school on tuesday and only woke up when the library teacher touched my arm. we talked over lunch that day, and i finished ‘a wild sheep chase’ the next period. at her recommendation, ill be starting the wind-up bird chronicles, soon as i get this friggin game out of the way. just gotta beat that elite four.

-J

One thing my mother says she loves about ryouhei are the cups and bowls he makes from clay. when i wake up in the morning, i eat a serving or two of rice out of a shallow, rough textured bowl he made earlier this year with swirls in the bottom. she said it was great that he had found something he liked to do and pursued it; he is a pretty quiet, shy kid at home, but spends his days at a high school with a track in art, specifically pottery. in the glass cabinet low above the kitchen cabinet, our mother has colorful mugs, bowls and a thin vase of his, as if they were on display. I told him how cool eating off of something handmade was, after school, the other day, and he pulled his puffy cheeks back and blushed. I have a statue of his, a dragon, in my room.

a week or two ago, we took a day trip to Ueda, in the south of the prefecture; there are more mountains and fewer rice paddies, but the atmosphere is much the same. we were going to the top of a mountain to meet a new age hermit, the owner of the kiln and the chef of a mountain cafe. when we were getting in the car, i asked him how it was, and he said he thought i might like it.

It was a beautiful day and the house, as i had it explained to me, was in a “center of chi,” relating in some way to feng shui, the shape of the mountains and arrangement of the trees. there was good energy all around, man.

we got to the top, and a 50-some guy with his hair pulled back, wearing sunglasses shuffled out onto the porch, greeting us warmly with a laid-back posture. name was Sasaki-san; this guy was a legitimate new age hermit. he had built his entire own house (on the top of a massive mountain) out of the wood planks that cut under old railroad track, built his own clay kiln and workshop looking out on the valley below, grew all of his own food and tea and was “interested in buddhism, lately.” we sat and talked on the front porch while his wife, running the ‘cafe,’ made some of the best cake ive had in a while. the house actually reminded me of a family friend’s old house in maine, beautiful and natural but cold like a bitch.

we talked about all range of things, specifically japanese technology and information overload, or the balance that he thought was missing. his daughter had been studying tai chi in rural china for the past 6 years, apparently. he had these tibetan flags hanging all over, as well as his own works of pottery. before we left, i asked him if he knew who john lennon was, and told him he could pass for an asian version of him. he laughed, the way john lennon probably laughed where he threw back his chin, and then slowly came back down.

here are some pictures from the day:

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Comments (1)

Bennett — 2009-12-12

Jay dude,

You ‘da man. After hours and hours of pleading, Leah finally passed on the address for your webbie. I have finally finished reading all of the posts and I think I have a pretty good grasp of what life in Japan. I have concluded that, despite some struggles (duh!), it is pretty incredible. I can’t believe you met John Lennon. I always knew Yoko didn’t kill him. I mean, The Beatles.

Well dude, thanks for all of the stories and updates. You’ve crushed my econ grade but it’s really okay because my time was better spent reading the posts.

I hope I’ll see you in a few weeks but until then,

rock on,

Bennett

I put my hand in the upper front pocket of my blue bag late tonight. its a beaten blue backpack ive had since middle school, but is still stitched together. i reached into a dense sack of sloppily folded papers, some grimier than others, all with pencil lines lightened by sweat from my hands. i sat back and thought damn, i have to clean this. i have to get rid of these things.

Whenever i hear a new word, or realize a new arrangement of the chinese characters that make up the written language, i write it down to “memorize later.” when i get things made of paper, its sunken into a reflex for me to crunch over and obsessively cover it in characters, diagrams, etc- handouts, receipts, envelopes, my math notes, like they might have been pushed twice through the printer. i am studying Kanji, the chinese characters that are the basis for the written language.

A small group of people came to see my drawings, today on the inside cover of my ‘science’ notes; i avoid definition of new words and their characters in english, and so will draw stick figure scenes to illustrate the idea- recalling the word is more direct, or fluid, this way. we write smaller and more fine for the complex, sharp and compacted shapes and lines of these characters than english letters, a skill i am training my fingers, arm and upper back for. i have a thing for broken tips on .5 lead because they write with a sharper point. i break it off when my characters get sloppy. a kid in class is teaching me to twirl the pencil between my fingers.

This is how my days go by in the classroom, while the teacher is talking and when everyone else is reading and working. all was well until i found myself an outlet to cling to a week or two back, and havent parted with it since- the books of Haruki Murakami. ever heard of ‘a wild sheep chase’? a surreal, unusual adventure of a slow and incredibly uninformed narrator to hokkaido to capture and retreive a sheep with mystical powers, making detours, getting lost on the way and smoking and drinking as he waddles along. ive read it in english before, which was great, but i love what i can get out of the japanese version.

things certainly make more sense in the original language; these are the authors original words, not another’s interpretation. it wasnt clear before, but what becomes obvious is that the main character, who we think is a brutally honest, exceptional loser when stated in english, is actually a brutally normal japanese 30-some year old. said in japanese expressions in a much more japanese context, his character becomes an instance of a much more common set of people you get used to around here. i see so many faces that would fit to this guy, walking the streets. i say ‘this guy,’ because Murakami doesnt give him a name.

I certainly find things to think about in my foreign reading. when i compare it with my memories, its a good excercise in methods of translation. i talked with my brother on the phone about it. he asked me, “is that the one with ‘the Rat?’” “the Rat? you mean his friend ‘Mouse?’” – same in japanese. Its interesting in the variations of chinese character representations of words: some, archaisms and meant to be so to give an effect, others not even official readings but after-the-fact synthesized combinations chosen because they form the correct pronunciation, and may loosely represent the actual meaning, but bring out some other connotation in the word. (ex: Murakami’s spelling of “tobacco,” a foreign word, is composed of ‘smoke’ and ‘grass/plain.’ certainly more open to interpretation than just the word, or its pronunciation. i think of reeds in the wind in a wide flat plain, when i see that second character. when our hero smokes three cigarettes in a bar looking out on the city, it seems desolate and he seems displaced from his surroundings.)

There was a relatively recent movie of romeo and juliet starring Leo Dicaprio, forget the girl and forget the director but i think he was italian. there were neon lights, guns, beaches and hair gel, but it always rested on these spaced-out slow guitar riffs. i saw it in a unit on shakespeare in my 10th grade english class, looked up the soundtrack on itunes and now listen to it when i read, when i get the chance. they fit perfectly.

I was reading at home, and Naohiro told me hed like to read the book once i was finished, so we could talk about it. he seemed interested.

my mother sings vocals in a jazz band thats been going for 30 some years. i told her i was interested, and she invited me to their next practice that week, on the condition that i would correct her pronunciation for the first few tracks on chick corea/return to forever’s ‘light as a feather.’ she sang it beautifully. in a crazy connection, a recent irish exchange student who apparently has been going to a school near mine also guest starred at the practice and played a traditional irish flute for us all. (i brought my ukulele but chose not to take it out, because these guys were clearly about playing music, not screwing around.) he seemed like a nice kid, so we exchanged contact info after a quick conversation and i told him id love to hang out.

yesterday i got a text message from him, asking what i had in mind, and so today i met him after school and we went for coffee. hes a tall, buzz-cat (cutted?) 19 year old already out of highschool and here for a semester, knew some dirty japanese and had things to say. i got his opinion without even having to pry for it, on so many things and we talked for 4 hours until the first cafe closed and the next one started locking doors, steadily, one by one.

We talked about impressions on japan, japanese food, japanese females, our own countries (and their respective females), and finally i stopped asking questions to structure myself while we spoke louder and faster in a mix of the two languages. i described to him my summer and how i liked my ‘bouken,’ roundabout adventures with uncertain outcomes, then he scrolled down a list of his ridiculous undertakings from the past year or two. he had biked full circuit around ireland in 20 days with a friend, a tent some money and a cellphone, all planned in under a week and only a dublin music festival flier as an “itinerary.” he had slept in houses of people he met that same day and people he hadnt seen for years, over a decade in one case. he described it in terms of how it felt before and after and the fact, while we were drinking that one cup of coffee we had to to legitimize being in the cafe. and at one point, he told me about a hobby of his to set out in the morning with a backpack and the same bike, kicking it with his friends and turning left until he was lost.

they dont have the opportunity to run like that here, we agreed, when you are considered a child until 20 things are clearly layed out, like course plans and meal plans and when you should rest. (city streets are pretty well marked, too)

i told him to come to my school tomorrow and we could continue the conversation, kick it and he could meet my friends. as of now, it looks like were going to get along.

two days ago in a sang karaoke with Naohiro and two friends, from 12 to 530 and they said it had to be ‘cut short.’ i know very little about pop music from the past ten years, let alone whats been good in japan; i ended up singing stairway to heaven, a few tracks off of a coldplay cd my dad likes and, to my friends delight, the Jonas brothers, since i could read the lyrics and was hinting that i wanted to, really bad. (i thought the girls here liked them… the girls…) We biked over to the nearest mall and crammed into a ‘purikura’ photo booth- arcade attraction that takes your photo, allows you to draw on it, add colorful backgrounds and designs and then prints it out as small coin-sized stickers. i thought i might put them up in my desk for safe keeping, but then thought i might put up the digital files to share:

(please dont take offense, its actually pretty cute to cut filthy american slang and gestures here. at least now it is…)

When i last talked to my cousin living in tokyo, i asked if he wanted to talk. he was combing back his hair and looking in the mirror when he said to me “yeah. wait, it could be dangerous. what if she falls for me?” when i asked him that night in the baths if i could put his face up on my blog, while we scrubbed ourselves down, and he said “yeah. put my phone mail address up too. wait, dont, i pay for people not on my plan.” he sounded like he might actually be worried, then smiled and looked back at the mirror. funny kid.

I told him i hadnt seen the beautiful nature of the area, and thought he might like to go hiking. he called our friend taniguchi, who started laughing and wanted to go tomorrow. (which isnt going to happen, because we have school, but i didnt tell the kid that, ill just wait for the weekend) they have never been hiking, and at first Nao suggested a paved road that lead to a grouping of onsen bath-houses further up the side of the mountain.

and it seems jamie will be glad to come, as well.

I’m getting closer to Nao and the family, making efforts with the thought in mind that i only have a little over one month left. i get a sense for when they might laugh, when they want me to laugh, when they might call a evening run to the onsen baths, etc.. when i walked in the door at 930 tonight after talking with Jamie, everything was alright because my mom told me she knew where i was, and i could find my way up the lit streets to our house.

This is breaking news, to me and everyone else who hasnt heard-

sitting around the heated ‘kotatsu’ table tonight reading with only my mother still awake, she suddenly turned to me and started talking. she walked back on things we have discussed now and then for the past few weeks; the dynamic of japanese families and society in which people sacrifice their own personal interests for what might be the benefit of another, her own disappointment in realizing that she had partially compromised herself times before; her impressions with the world after her first airplane ride since she was born to a week of hiking in sedona, arizona, and living in the same house as someone from another country. she excitedly told me her story again of stepping on the plane and being shocked that she was “surrounded by people from all sorts of countries- indians, americans, asians and so few spoke my language.” i could never guess her age by merely looking but it seems she is around her early 50s, a nurse since before she was married; she told me just now that she was going to go out and find a new job.

i was taken back, listened closer and we talked for another 30 minutes or so. she had just decided today that she wanted to find something new and better, something that was in her interest and that could hopefully get her in on what she hadnt known about the world for so long. she had taken the first step today, telling her office she was looking, and i was apparently the first of the family to know. she didnt know what specific job she was going after, but wasnt phazed by the difficult economy and said she had been building this idea for a while, and had finally been inspired upon coming back. its not a common thing at all, especially with her as the main (only) breadwinner of the fatherless family. she has until march to figure out what it is she wants to do, and we discussed until she got up and went to bed.

when the rest of the fam’ hears next week, i think they’ll be all for it, and here’s to whats going to be moms (second?) great, bitchin’ ‘bouken’ adventure-

-J

I consider this a combination of feng shui and a jackhammer. or a T-rex.

Its my take on what energy looks like.

Naohiro can do it too:

I spent a day with a camera strapped to my belt and asked a few people to snap photos of me along the way. let this represent the imagery in my average day, with a manlier-than-usual slumber party appended to the end. we talked until 3 that night.

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The kid in most of the pictures with me is my host brother, the kid im holding near the end. in the red is my friend taniguchi, a body builder who insisted i put his biceps on the internet. he came over later that night as well.

when you slip into the water of a hotspring, the japanese call the tingling sensation of bubbles and needles pushing beneath your skin “chiku-chiku.” onomotopeia like this, words that convey their meaning through sound and feel, rather than merely a name, are attatched to every action, like the pencil lines and ripples that show motion in comic book magazines. tonight, my host brother and i, submerged in an outdoor stone pool of mountain spring water discussed it at length-

kuru-kuru = a helicopter spinning motion

moya-moya = gloomy sauntering or gliding

pyoko-pyoko = short lively hops, as in a rabbit

nyogo-nyogo = a snake-like slithering

and im sure you can imagine two naked young men splashing, waving their arms, puckering their hands to explain these things. the place was empty on our side of wall, (a few elder women talking about their grandkids on the other side, or so i was told) so we had plenty of room to speak in louder voices than usual and think louder than usual. i like the way mist floats over the water and how people look behind it.

naohiro wants to learn english, he told me in the baths one day. he had a deep desire to travel, but never knew it was so possible. plans to go to france and fly out to michigan to chill with me, but first things first, he says- learn english, learn how to speak it. in the morning, downhill on our bikes we go back and forth in engrish.

“what does ‘borrow’ mean?”

jay explains

“oh- can i borrow your coat?”

…

“can i borrow your girlfriend?”

“… no understand…”

he understood perfectly well.

it was an old style bath, with natural spring water. first thing i did when i walked in the room- take it all off, compare pec muscles with naohiro, which lead to english frat-boy vocab on the subject. told me he likes slang. everybody is totally stripped down on the tatami (grass-mat) floor, which was the two of us at the time and the two of us in the mirror. that kid is hillarious how much he looks in the mirror.

the baths are a place to discuss things because its a step outside, but i was confused at first- it seemed contradictory that people who value isolation and distance would put it all out there, like that.

three weeksa ago on the clearest day ive been through in a while, i drove to nagano city to see a special mountain hotspring with my area rep- a pack of mountain monkeys liked to dip in and out, and didnt mind the hikers watching them either. families of four or five were all over, shrieking and running around like animals. after f***ing it up once, tamura-san warned me not to make eye-contact with the males, because they would charge you. i took it to heart, twisting away like a five year-old whenever a monkey looked my way. in the lodge, an infant in a basket resting near the fireplace turned my way, and i quickly looked down.

i asked him in the car why it was what it is, with silence in public and naked, shriveled old men quite talkative when submerged in hot water, leaning against the stone next to you and sighing;

japan was once in a state of war, between kindgoms and samurai. it is renowned for its warriors of the age, all of whom spent the better part of their lives training not only their bodies, but their mind and strategy. the japanese samurai sword, known as the katana, is one of the deadliest weapons around and museums of the crafstman who made them are all over. ive seen two exhibits in matsumoto, and another separate showcase on and upper floor of the town’s famous castle.

people wore long decorative robes, “kimono,” stitched from thick fabric. these robes were long enough to stick something dangerous in. in fact, most people carried short knives next to their chests. you dont want to seem disrespectful to an asian hulk who might be, probably is, holding a knife. and so they withdrew.

but when you slip into the hotspring, all the heavy robes come off and we relax in knowing that this is ourselves without suspicion and concealed knives. there are no knives. they were actually banned along with guns outside of cooking and fishing, a few years back.

through talking with kids and teachers in the school, i learned about the other american in the school. i had been introduced to him once, by my homeroom teacher for a short conversation about the weather, ann arbor and where he was from in boston. spoke perfect japanese and had been at this same school since almost 20 years back, so as he explained it, there was no reason he shouldnt get it. he apparently translates japanese books.

he teaches the seniors, and so had nothing to do with me but the fact we both stood out like white people in japan might. i learned he was a total bad-ass who broke peoples cellphones when caught texting in class. the librarian broke her two hands over her knee when she described it to me, like a tae-kwon-do excercise. thats a bad-ass way to break a cellphone.

I finally got the chance to talk to him. he saw me in the hall today and struck up a conversation, asked me if i planned to take the mid-semester exams and i told him no, i didnt think i would. we got talking about japanese culture, quite easily. it was nice to get someones opinion without directly asking. but i did ask, and he told me what he thought.

the popular phrase KY stands for “kuuki yomenai,” or an inability to read the air and tell how a person feels by the atmosphere. its an insult, not very insulting because all i can think is its not i who should be blamed for not seeing emotions unshown, but still shameful. i didnt think the problem was on the receiving end. he said yes, its total bullshit, they think they transmit these magnetic waves from head to head and i shouldnt mind it, its got no weight behind it, nothing pushing it forward, its just their phrase. i walked the rest of the way down the hallway and down the stairs shaking my head and laughing at what he had said, because nobody says those type of things anymore.

I feel like there are themes in my life, now. people stand for things, and there are symbols for the larger ideas im hoping ill be getting sometime soon. i remember a year ago my brother and i were in the basement and i wondered to him wether reality was made up of themes and symbols, like the books that read about them. he told me he definitely read his life like a book. interesting.

I wondered out loud to naohiro what things would be like if all life was lived as if in a bath, while we ate ramen and half-watched a report on a recently caught murderor on trial. he said he didnt know, but high school would be a hell of a lot more interesting and we would need some heavy air conditioners to stay warm. i stayed up with him until 3 last night, with 4 other friends and talked about exactly this type of thing, then woke up and trudged to school. im getting to know him better, as well as his friends. a friend of his wants to take me to a hotspring on his side of town. he invited me after we talked about the books of Haruki Murakami for a while, last night.

so it seems someone is writing about the impact of the seeming absence of deep social connection on the mind, and how hot water and steamy baths and 18 year-old humor compact this. you come to see that its not the man-made illusion we live in, but what we can observe and only those who wear a heavy robe put it back on when leaving the baths.

I asked Nao what he thought while we walked out the other day, and he laughed and shoved me so i lost balance on my tall, wooden sandals.