It's Christmas Eve here in Japan, and I'm sitting at school, having taught all my classes for the day. If I didn't specifically request to have tomorrow off, I'd be working on Christmas as well. Christmas in Japan is much different than Christmas in America, and I'll tell you how.
All right. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine a traditional American Christmas--a time when couples go out on a romantic date, then stay the night at a fancy hotel. To maintain the true spirit of Christmas, department stores and shopping malls play traditional Christmas songs like Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You and Last Christmas by Wham!
For Christmas dinner, perhaps you've ordered the traditional plate of fried chicken, possibly weeks in advance, from a place like Kentucky Fried Chicken. As the breadwinner of the family, you stop by the store on the way home from work and pick up the Christmas cake, which everybody in the country is eating. Perhaps you even have a Christmas Party lined up, where people will all make Christmas cakes and you'll judge them on taste and design. On the table, along with the cakes and fried chicken, is a plate of sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off.
The kids have all left their stockings on their pillow in their bedroom so that Santa, who comes all the way from his home in Finland, will be able to access them easily. Santa will give you your one and only present, and if you're lucky, it'll be something other than a scarf. But you don't really care, since you're going to be getting loads of presents for New Year's Day. Isn't Christmas in America great?
The past two weeks, I've been giving three or four short presentations a day about Christmas in America. I've been just as surprised as the kids have to discover the differences between the traditional American Christmas and the way the Japanese celebrate it, which is obviously what I've described above.
Not even touching on obvious omissions like the Nativity, it really is a different holiday here--much more like Valentine's Day. Everybody knows that Christmas is a western holiday, so all the students and teachers are shocked to hear that their Christmas traditions haven't actually come from America (granted, some of the "traditions" I readily mock may actually be tradition in Europe, but I don't really know--and it's a lot easier to just point and laugh).
Kids here are blown away when I tell them how many presents we traditionally get in America. They're even more shocked when I tell them that we don't exchange presents on New Years. "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehh?" is the universal response. Christmas in America is very similar to New Year's Day in Japan.
Perhaps my favorite part of Christmas festivities this year happened on my island school, Sekizen Junior High. My teacher wanted to sing a popular traditional Christmas song from America, so she chose Wham!'s Last Christmas. Not Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, or Silent Night. George Michael (the singer/songwriter). From England. Singing about how heartbroken he is on Christmas this year, because he gave his heart to someone who he knew so well that she (or he, I guess) didn't even recognize him only a year later.
I think Christmas would be a bit more depressing here if it actually reminded me of what I was missing at home. Sure, I'm sad that I don't get to spend Christmas with our families (though we did get to see Stef's parents just a couple weeks ago, and we opened up presents with them). But I've got Stef, the girls, and the sweet voice of George Michael to soothe my soul.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Kelsey Didn't Want to Go to Han-pock Fabrics
When I was a kid—maybe 3 or 4 years old—I went missing. My mom had been getting ready to go to the fabric store—Hancock Fabrics—and I didn't want to go. So I disappeared. She looked everywhere in the house, and when she couldn't find me, called the police. Right before the police showed up, she had the feeling that she should look under her bed. There wasn't much space there—definitely less than a foot of clearance—but there I was, fast asleep. When I woke up, I explained why I had crawled under the bed in the first place—I didn't want to go to "Han-pock Fabrics".
A few months ago, the news networks got swept up into the Balloon Boy fiasco, where a kid supposedly crawled into a weather balloon before it was "mistakenly released" into the sky to the horror of many. I remember thinking that he was probably fine, since the whole "he might have climbed into the balloon by accident" angle seemed a lot less plausible than the "he's probably hiding somewhere" one. As a parent, however, the possibility that this child was in danger resonated with me, as it probably did with many parents around the world. It's probably why we felt cheated when the whole thing turned out to be a hoax, and he was found hiding in his attic, likely at the behest of his fame-seeking scumbag parents.
Yesterday, Kelsey went missing at church while I was in class. The lady who was in charge of nursery had taken her eye off Kelsey for a moment, and that was all the time Kelsey needed to slip out the back door and start wandering the neighborhood. When I came out of my class, I saw a lady go out the back door, calling Kelsey's name. I hurried to catch up and find out what had happened, when I saw that a few other people had gone after her. They had just found her laying defiantly on a wooden pallet outside a business two buildings behind the church building when I showed up. I picked her up and carried her back to church. As we walked back, she said that she wanted to go to the playground. My heart was pumping at the brief thought that Kelsey had been lost, but the nursery teacher apologized for not watching her closely, and all was well. Or so I thought.
The guy who normally picks us up for church, Aki-san, didn't show up that day, so we had to come by taxi (after first leaving on bikes and realizing it was too cold for the girls). When church was out, nobody offered us a ride, so I started asking people how I should describe the church building, in order to correctly guide the taxi company to us. In the past, every time I'd described the location of the church building to taxi drivers, they'd get a bit confused (since nobody knows where the Mormon church is). I'd always had to tell them which streets to take and where to turn, so I anticipated a bit of difficulty when I called the taxi company.
I went outside to phone the taxi, away from the noise of the church halls. I explained that the church building was right by the Toyota dealership (the only one in town by a specific name), but the guy on the phone made no attempt to understand what I was saying. This is common in Japan. If you don't speak with a perfect accent, many people make no attempt to figure out what you are trying to tell them. Given that there's often an extremely specific way to ask certain questions, if you don't ask for things in the prescribed way, you often won't get anywhere—even if you pronounce everything correctly. They just give up and wait for you to come back with perfect Japanese, or at least written (in Japanese) instructions of what you want. Stef found this out the hard way when she went to pick her parents up at the train station by herself (luckily, I had given her parents a copy of the address in Japanese in case they needed it).
So, I explained that the church was the very next building, next to the car dealership, but the guy on the line got hung up on the fact that he didn't know which side of the building I was talking about. I got so frustrated with his inability to overlook such an unimportant detail (I mean, really? They can't just figure it out when they get to the car dealership?) that I told him that I no longer needed a taxi and hung up the phone. At this point, I was extremely frazzled. I just wanted to go home.
I walked back into the church to ask someone to either give us a ride or call the taxi company for me, when Stef came rushing towards me, asking me where Kelsey had gone. She was watching Mia, and thought that I was watching Kelsey. I checked in all the rooms at the church, but couldn't find her. I, along with ten other people, rushed outside and started looking in different directions throughout the neighborhood, calling out Kelsey's name. I was overwhelmed with the thought of losing Kelsey, so my calls for her got frantic. Walking with me was a mentally disabled man from church who meant well but kept parroting everything I said in his Japanese-English accent, causing my stress level to go through the roof.
At this point, I began to fear the worst. I continued to shout Kelsey's name as I wandered through the streets, checking the 5 foot-deep drainage canals that surrounded the roads in hopes that I wouldn't find her. Even though Japan is a safe place, there's no place on Earth where every single person can be trusted. The thought of someone taking her terrified me. All I could do is pray that she was all right.
I made my way back to the chapel to see if anybody had seen her, and one of the ladies waved and gave me a thumbs-up sign. Kelsey had gone into the sacrament room hid herself inside the pulpit. I couldn't be upset at her—she's just a kid, and she didn't understand the consequences of hiding. Nevertheless, it took me a good hour or so to get my emotions under control, and I was quite short with everybody as they asked if I was able to call the taxi. I vented my frustration about the taxi debacle and walked away from everybody, not really wanting any human contact. I won't even try to justify my behavior at that point. I know I was wrong.
I'm glad Kelsey was all right. I've resolved to pay closer attention to her at church and in public. We often let her wander around some stores as long as she's within sight, since she's so active and it's basically impossible to match her energy. Kelsey's a good girl; she gets a bit difficult when she's tired or hungry, but who doesn't? She's a sweet girl that likes to play, help, love, and be loved. She's also not even three years old, so we can't expect her to behave like an adult. She just wants to go outside—to go on walks with Mommy or Daddy. It doesn't matter where—the park, the cats around the corner, Han-pock fabrics—she just wants to get out. And there's nothing wrong with that.
A few months ago, the news networks got swept up into the Balloon Boy fiasco, where a kid supposedly crawled into a weather balloon before it was "mistakenly released" into the sky to the horror of many. I remember thinking that he was probably fine, since the whole "he might have climbed into the balloon by accident" angle seemed a lot less plausible than the "he's probably hiding somewhere" one. As a parent, however, the possibility that this child was in danger resonated with me, as it probably did with many parents around the world. It's probably why we felt cheated when the whole thing turned out to be a hoax, and he was found hiding in his attic, likely at the behest of his fame-seeking scumbag parents.
Yesterday, Kelsey went missing at church while I was in class. The lady who was in charge of nursery had taken her eye off Kelsey for a moment, and that was all the time Kelsey needed to slip out the back door and start wandering the neighborhood. When I came out of my class, I saw a lady go out the back door, calling Kelsey's name. I hurried to catch up and find out what had happened, when I saw that a few other people had gone after her. They had just found her laying defiantly on a wooden pallet outside a business two buildings behind the church building when I showed up. I picked her up and carried her back to church. As we walked back, she said that she wanted to go to the playground. My heart was pumping at the brief thought that Kelsey had been lost, but the nursery teacher apologized for not watching her closely, and all was well. Or so I thought.
The guy who normally picks us up for church, Aki-san, didn't show up that day, so we had to come by taxi (after first leaving on bikes and realizing it was too cold for the girls). When church was out, nobody offered us a ride, so I started asking people how I should describe the church building, in order to correctly guide the taxi company to us. In the past, every time I'd described the location of the church building to taxi drivers, they'd get a bit confused (since nobody knows where the Mormon church is). I'd always had to tell them which streets to take and where to turn, so I anticipated a bit of difficulty when I called the taxi company.
I went outside to phone the taxi, away from the noise of the church halls. I explained that the church building was right by the Toyota dealership (the only one in town by a specific name), but the guy on the phone made no attempt to understand what I was saying. This is common in Japan. If you don't speak with a perfect accent, many people make no attempt to figure out what you are trying to tell them. Given that there's often an extremely specific way to ask certain questions, if you don't ask for things in the prescribed way, you often won't get anywhere—even if you pronounce everything correctly. They just give up and wait for you to come back with perfect Japanese, or at least written (in Japanese) instructions of what you want. Stef found this out the hard way when she went to pick her parents up at the train station by herself (luckily, I had given her parents a copy of the address in Japanese in case they needed it).
So, I explained that the church was the very next building, next to the car dealership, but the guy on the line got hung up on the fact that he didn't know which side of the building I was talking about. I got so frustrated with his inability to overlook such an unimportant detail (I mean, really? They can't just figure it out when they get to the car dealership?) that I told him that I no longer needed a taxi and hung up the phone. At this point, I was extremely frazzled. I just wanted to go home.
I walked back into the church to ask someone to either give us a ride or call the taxi company for me, when Stef came rushing towards me, asking me where Kelsey had gone. She was watching Mia, and thought that I was watching Kelsey. I checked in all the rooms at the church, but couldn't find her. I, along with ten other people, rushed outside and started looking in different directions throughout the neighborhood, calling out Kelsey's name. I was overwhelmed with the thought of losing Kelsey, so my calls for her got frantic. Walking with me was a mentally disabled man from church who meant well but kept parroting everything I said in his Japanese-English accent, causing my stress level to go through the roof.
At this point, I began to fear the worst. I continued to shout Kelsey's name as I wandered through the streets, checking the 5 foot-deep drainage canals that surrounded the roads in hopes that I wouldn't find her. Even though Japan is a safe place, there's no place on Earth where every single person can be trusted. The thought of someone taking her terrified me. All I could do is pray that she was all right.
I made my way back to the chapel to see if anybody had seen her, and one of the ladies waved and gave me a thumbs-up sign. Kelsey had gone into the sacrament room hid herself inside the pulpit. I couldn't be upset at her—she's just a kid, and she didn't understand the consequences of hiding. Nevertheless, it took me a good hour or so to get my emotions under control, and I was quite short with everybody as they asked if I was able to call the taxi. I vented my frustration about the taxi debacle and walked away from everybody, not really wanting any human contact. I won't even try to justify my behavior at that point. I know I was wrong.
I'm glad Kelsey was all right. I've resolved to pay closer attention to her at church and in public. We often let her wander around some stores as long as she's within sight, since she's so active and it's basically impossible to match her energy. Kelsey's a good girl; she gets a bit difficult when she's tired or hungry, but who doesn't? She's a sweet girl that likes to play, help, love, and be loved. She's also not even three years old, so we can't expect her to behave like an adult. She just wants to go outside—to go on walks with Mommy or Daddy. It doesn't matter where—the park, the cats around the corner, Han-pock fabrics—she just wants to get out. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Samaria is not a place in Japan
Today, as I made my early bike commute to work, I crossed a busy road illegally about 150 feet before the street where I was planning to turn. I looked ahead at the crosswalk to check the traffic light, and I saw and old lady with a knit cap standing with her bike, waiting to cross the street. I waited for an opening, and then crossed illegally. As I approached the intersection, the light changed and the lady mounted her bike to cross. I shook my head, since I could have crossed legally without waiting. I looked away from her and watched the road ahead of me, when I heard a horrible crashing sound. I whipped my head over to look, and saw the lady falling to the asphalt, having been hit by a black Prius that was making a right turn (like a left, since they drive on the opposite side here).
I ditched my bike and ran into the middle of the street where she was laying. The knit cap had been knocked off of her, due to the force of the accident, as had been her right shoe. I picked her up and carried her off the street, setting her down as gently as I could on the sidewalk. The driver of the car that hit her left his car in the middle of the street, straddling the two lanes, and ran over to check on her.
She was conscious but a bit loopy, repeating that she was on her way to a hospital just a block up the street. The man was really shaken up, apologizing profusely and mentioning over and over that he hadn’t seen her in the crosswalk. All she could say in response was, “I had a green light to cross, right?” They both had a green, but turn arrows are rare, so drivers have to yield to pedestrians. My heart reaches out to the man almost as much as the lady.
I asked the man to call 119 (yeah, they do everything backwards here), but his phone was dead, so he couldn’t. He asked if I could do it for him, and then took off on foot to the nearby hospital, in hopes that they had some kind of emergency services. I asked another lady (who had just come over to help) to make the call, since I’m not the best at giving directions in Japan. I was a bit surprised that it took someone else so long to come over to help. It’s a pretty busy intersection, and cars were crossing in all directions—yet nobody stopped their car to help. I guess they figured that I had things under control. It’s so strange that people could witness something so shocking, and then just go about their day as if nothing happened.
While the other lady made the emergency phone call, I pulled the bike and some of the victim’s strewn belongings off the road, and then checked on her. She was complaining about pain in her head and clutching her right leg, which was likely broken. A few minutes later, an employee from the hospital approached us and mentioned that they didn’t have emergency services at their hospital. By that time, we had already contacted an ambulance, which was on its way.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics got out and put the lady on a stretcher, then asked me some questions about the accident. As they were getting the stretcher ready to load onto the ambulance, the Prius driver returned from the hospital and apologized again to the lady. The paramedics instructed us to stay there and wait for the police to come.
As the ambulance pulled away, the Prius driver frantically asked me if I had heard anything about her condition from the paramedics. I told him that her head and leg hurt, but that she was probably going to be okay.
The police showed up and asked me for a statement, after wondering aloud if it was okay to speak Japanese to me. I’m normally very comfortable with my Japanese, but this was new territory for me. I didn’t know all the terms used in an accident, so I spoke in very plain language. I don’t have a lot of experience with accidents, but I could at least explain what I saw.
I realized that by moving the patient and the bike, I messed with evidence. But I didn’t care, since it was more important to me to maintain safety. The bike bell was a good twenty feet away from where the accident occurred. Having not touched that, I pointed it out to the police, who drew a circle around it in chalk. They asked more questions about the traffic signals, my point of view, and where the lady, the bike, and the car all came to a stop. I did my best to describe what I had seen. They took down my contact information and let me know that I’ll probably receive a call later.
After that, I called my school to tell them that I’d be late to work (I was already about 45 minutes late by this point). While riding my bike, I jumped at almost every car that passed close to me. I keep thinking about all the little decisions I make during the day, and how much one little thing can change everything. Honestly, if I hadn’t crossed the road illegally, I could have been in the crosswalk with the lady. It could have been me—or both of us—in that crash.
The lady likely has at least a broken leg and a concussion. I’m sure she’ll survive, but as a 63 year-old woman, she’ll probably never fully recover from her injuries. I just hope that she’s okay, and that the driver will be able to forgive himself.
I ditched my bike and ran into the middle of the street where she was laying. The knit cap had been knocked off of her, due to the force of the accident, as had been her right shoe. I picked her up and carried her off the street, setting her down as gently as I could on the sidewalk. The driver of the car that hit her left his car in the middle of the street, straddling the two lanes, and ran over to check on her.
She was conscious but a bit loopy, repeating that she was on her way to a hospital just a block up the street. The man was really shaken up, apologizing profusely and mentioning over and over that he hadn’t seen her in the crosswalk. All she could say in response was, “I had a green light to cross, right?” They both had a green, but turn arrows are rare, so drivers have to yield to pedestrians. My heart reaches out to the man almost as much as the lady.
I asked the man to call 119 (yeah, they do everything backwards here), but his phone was dead, so he couldn’t. He asked if I could do it for him, and then took off on foot to the nearby hospital, in hopes that they had some kind of emergency services. I asked another lady (who had just come over to help) to make the call, since I’m not the best at giving directions in Japan. I was a bit surprised that it took someone else so long to come over to help. It’s a pretty busy intersection, and cars were crossing in all directions—yet nobody stopped their car to help. I guess they figured that I had things under control. It’s so strange that people could witness something so shocking, and then just go about their day as if nothing happened.
While the other lady made the emergency phone call, I pulled the bike and some of the victim’s strewn belongings off the road, and then checked on her. She was complaining about pain in her head and clutching her right leg, which was likely broken. A few minutes later, an employee from the hospital approached us and mentioned that they didn’t have emergency services at their hospital. By that time, we had already contacted an ambulance, which was on its way.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics got out and put the lady on a stretcher, then asked me some questions about the accident. As they were getting the stretcher ready to load onto the ambulance, the Prius driver returned from the hospital and apologized again to the lady. The paramedics instructed us to stay there and wait for the police to come.
As the ambulance pulled away, the Prius driver frantically asked me if I had heard anything about her condition from the paramedics. I told him that her head and leg hurt, but that she was probably going to be okay.
The police showed up and asked me for a statement, after wondering aloud if it was okay to speak Japanese to me. I’m normally very comfortable with my Japanese, but this was new territory for me. I didn’t know all the terms used in an accident, so I spoke in very plain language. I don’t have a lot of experience with accidents, but I could at least explain what I saw.
I realized that by moving the patient and the bike, I messed with evidence. But I didn’t care, since it was more important to me to maintain safety. The bike bell was a good twenty feet away from where the accident occurred. Having not touched that, I pointed it out to the police, who drew a circle around it in chalk. They asked more questions about the traffic signals, my point of view, and where the lady, the bike, and the car all came to a stop. I did my best to describe what I had seen. They took down my contact information and let me know that I’ll probably receive a call later.
After that, I called my school to tell them that I’d be late to work (I was already about 45 minutes late by this point). While riding my bike, I jumped at almost every car that passed close to me. I keep thinking about all the little decisions I make during the day, and how much one little thing can change everything. Honestly, if I hadn’t crossed the road illegally, I could have been in the crosswalk with the lady. It could have been me—or both of us—in that crash.
The lady likely has at least a broken leg and a concussion. I’m sure she’ll survive, but as a 63 year-old woman, she’ll probably never fully recover from her injuries. I just hope that she’s okay, and that the driver will be able to forgive himself.
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