I`m on the way! Nick and I will be home for nearly two weeks. We leave our Furano-home in just a few hours, and will arrive in Omaha late Thursday.
Please keep Nick`s family in your thoughts/prayers, as his uncle suddenly passed away this week. We travel to be with family. This situation comes to us at a time in Japan when taking a break is possible. We will be home for two weeks but I will only miss three days of classes due to a year-end holiday. Both of us have been able to get the time off work and we are looking forward to this very surprising (and sad) journey!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Forest
It is possible to purchase our music online! Check out the city website:
http://furano.biz/node/15
Friday, March 14, 2008
Happy Birthday Girl Scouts
Hooray for Girl Scouts and Girl Guides!
I was a Girl Scout thru high school. It was an excellent program to encourage leadership, integrity, and diverse skills. I strongly believe that GS provides a unique and important environment for young girls to develop pride in a patriarchal society. Girl Scouts took me `survival camping-canoeing` for weeks in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I received the Silver Award for a project recording hundreds of camp songs and typing out all the lyrics. The results of our project were kept in the GS library for use by leaders and camp counselors. My Gold Award project was to make a quilt that was gifted to a nursing home. The quilt was used by the nursing home staff and residents as a tool for grieving when a patient passed away. All that leadership development, AND I received great scholarships to college for my participation in Girl Scouts!
There is a certain amount of competition that exists between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. My perspective on the Boy Scouts has really changed in the last two decades, and I do not support the organization of Boy Scouts as it currently stands. Girl Scouts encourages diversity, strength, and cooperative leadership. In stark contrast, Boy Scouts of America as an organization is now notorious for homophobia. Less well-known but equally troubling, BS requires that all members are theist and Boy Scouts of America does not acknowledge Unitarian Universalism as a valid religion. How can they claim to educate young leaders with integrity, when the Boy Scouts teach intolerance? ----- end rant.
From the good people at GS-USA:
"On March 12, 1912, exactly 96 years ago today, Juliette Gordon Low convened the first Girl Scout Troop in Savannah, Georgia. As early as 1912, Juliette recognized that developing girls' leadership abilities was critical for ensuring they would be the change-makers of the future.
Today, Girl Scouts continue the legacy of leadership. From founding libraries in America's heartland to establishing free medical clinics in India, each year 2.6 million Girl Scouts take the lead in bettering their communities and the world. Girl Scouts is, as it always has been, the organization best positioned to offer girls the tools they need to be successful leaders now and throughout their lives."
I only wish I could buy some Girl Scout cookies here in Japan!
Monday, March 10, 2008
Spring is coming!
It really is!
In February it felt extremely dangerous to drive in town because of visibility issues. At intersections the 4-meter high piles of snow impeded sight lines and made me worry that I would crash into a car or pedestrian. So about a month ago, bulldozers took over the city center to shave the snow piles into meter-high mounds, and cart away the snow. Now those snow piles are finally melting. In the countryside the rivers are swelling with snowmelt.
In my ikebana class last night, the flowers from my arrangement were tulips and cherry blossoms さくら. The tips of some young trees have a reddish-tint, as if they are considering buds. Birds have returned. The sun rises and sets at around six, which is a lot of daylight. And today is our first day of RAIN. Bad news for the ski slopes, but good news for my spirit.
In February it felt extremely dangerous to drive in town because of visibility issues. At intersections the 4-meter high piles of snow impeded sight lines and made me worry that I would crash into a car or pedestrian. So about a month ago, bulldozers took over the city center to shave the snow piles into meter-high mounds, and cart away the snow. Now those snow piles are finally melting. In the countryside the rivers are swelling with snowmelt.
In my ikebana class last night, the flowers from my arrangement were tulips and cherry blossoms さくら. The tips of some young trees have a reddish-tint, as if they are considering buds. Birds have returned. The sun rises and sets at around six, which is a lot of daylight. And today is our first day of RAIN. Bad news for the ski slopes, but good news for my spirit.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Girls' Day
March Third was ひなまつり or "Girls` Day" or "Doll Festival Day". We were invited to celebrate the holiday at the home of my supervisor, who has an 8-year-old daughter. I hope she felt like a princess!
You can read a bit about the tradition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinamatsuri
The Feast, with lots of pink-colored food! I read somewhere that the pink color symbolizes a girl`s first menstruation, but now with greater research I can find nothing confirming this idea. The pink foods also symbolize the spring blossoms blessing southern Japan this month.
Dolls of the emperor and empress are displayed. Traditionally the dolls were understood to posses bad spirits, and were sent downriver in a basket at the conclusion of the holiday. Now the dolls are taken off from display immediately after the meal. If parents delay putting the dolls away, it is thought that their daughter might marry later in life. Perish the thought!
The Empress Doll. Note the anatomically-suggestive folds of her dress.
The Emperor Doll. Note the anatomically-suggestive sword and hat.
The Lady of the Evening, with a special ikebana arrangement made for her by yours truly.
You can read a bit about the tradition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinamatsuri
The Feast, with lots of pink-colored food! I read somewhere that the pink color symbolizes a girl`s first menstruation, but now with greater research I can find nothing confirming this idea. The pink foods also symbolize the spring blossoms blessing southern Japan this month.
Dolls of the emperor and empress are displayed. Traditionally the dolls were understood to posses bad spirits, and were sent downriver in a basket at the conclusion of the holiday. Now the dolls are taken off from display immediately after the meal. If parents delay putting the dolls away, it is thought that their daughter might marry later in life. Perish the thought!
The Empress Doll. Note the anatomically-suggestive folds of her dress.
The Emperor Doll. Note the anatomically-suggestive sword and hat.
The Lady of the Evening, with a special ikebana arrangement made for her by yours truly.
Monday, March 03, 2008
A Sample
Here is a little snapshot in words; a glimpse into three days of my life.
さんぷる 1
Saturday was a quiet day for me. Our wireless internet, which we share with my coworker/neighbor downstairs, was not working. I should be grateful for being lucky enough to live in a town with broadband. . . many JETs do not. But a lack of internet usually just leaves me cranky. I made okonomiyaki おこのみやき, cleaned, and read. The snow is melting (finally!) and crashes off the roof with incredible force.
At the train station at six, in the dark, I met Nick who was returning from work in Asahikawa. We rushed to meet my JTE/friend Inugami-sensei and his wife Yuko. The four of us planned a "double-date" for the evening. We met at a culture event coordinated for Furano ski tourists. It was an incredible spread of traditional music and dancing. Unfortunately the food served was some of the worst I`ve eaten in Japan, perhaps made for the tastes of Western tourists. But never mind; the music and beer were a great combo! The four of us had a nice time meeting Furano`s (mostly Australian) tourists and catching up with local friends involved in the tourism industry. Apparently Inugami-sensei and I share some local notoriety for our music performances together in the past months.
After the culture event rolled to a close, the four of us walked to a blues bar serving Miller Light. The owner of the bar is the oldest of three brothers with businesses in town; his next brother owns a lovely coffee shop; the youngest owns a popular bar welcoming many locals and foreigners with classic rock riffs spilling out of the stereo. It`s been funny to meet the whole family, in stages, over the months we`ve lived here.
さんぷる 2
Sunday morning was an early one, as we`d been out late and Nick needed to catch the SIX am train to work. His students (adorable: aged 2-5) were performing in a speech `contest` in front of beaming parents. After the contest, I took the train and met him in Asahikawa for some shopping. We caught a free bus, packed with teenagers, to the biggest mall in the region. For a country that constantly waxes over their uniquely "polite" culture, not a single person offered their bus seat to the elderly woman standing. Grr. First stop at the mall was a ridiculous Western-food buffet lunch, quite a deal at 1300￥ (about $12) each. I wonder if the other guests had ever seen a man put down quite the amount of food that Nick managed to consume. Men, women and children stared slack-jawed. After months of living as circus performers, I don`t even mind the googling eyes.
The highlight of our day, though, was a return to the mall`s foreign foods store which we`d visited back in October. Back story: In our last visit the store had held our purchases for a few hours while we continued mall shopping, and we picked up the bags on our way out of the mall. Upon returning to Furano I received a frantic call from the food store, apologizing profusely for omitting to return our precious bag of tortillas back into our grocery bag; they had refrigerated the tortillas and forgotten. . . oh shame! Well, this time, upon checkout, I mentioned my name and that I had not received a bag of tortillas about five months ago. . . The looks on the cashiers` faces were priceless. My cashier ran into the back and immediately brought out THE ORIGINAL BAG OF TORTILLAS, frozen, with my name and phone number still taped to the bag. Profound bowing and apologies all around. You know that store employees have been staring at those tortillas for five months during weekly inventory, willing me to hurry up and get the blessed bag. But I thought it was so funny and sweet that they saved the original bag (rather than a store credit or something). Japanese society is so HONEST.
さんぷる 3
Today was a brilliantly blue day of snowmelt and striking mountain vistas. I taught at a school nearly an hour away from town, and on the drive back managed some nice pictures.
I couldn`t tarry, however; I needed to make it to the bank before 3pm to send some money, in a frustratingly complicated system, internationally to my bank at home. Usually this is not a problem. Today I thought I would try to do the currency exchange on my own with the limited help of a bank teller, but, sadly, this did not occur. It is so difficult to be helplessly illiterate and inarticulate. I couldn`t understand the bankteller`s directions and failed miserably at my task. Within an hour my emotions dropped from generous appreciation of Japan`s natural grandeur to defeat. In this culture, to inconvenience someone (the bankteller) as I did (with 5 minutes of language misunderstandings) means that I must feel and show extreme apologetic humility. How can I retain confidence when I am constantly bowing and scraping?! And I will live with these linguistic limitations for another five months! Arg!
Upon returning to the office I had the fortune to run into Mr. Shima, the composer of the song which I sang for the G8 Summit. The CD`s have been burned (5000 of them!) with an unfortunate misspelling of my name, Nick`s English lyrics, my smiling mug, and what I hope to be a good editing job of the music. Who knows where this will go?!
さんぷる 1
Saturday was a quiet day for me. Our wireless internet, which we share with my coworker/neighbor downstairs, was not working. I should be grateful for being lucky enough to live in a town with broadband. . . many JETs do not. But a lack of internet usually just leaves me cranky. I made okonomiyaki おこのみやき, cleaned, and read. The snow is melting (finally!) and crashes off the roof with incredible force.
At the train station at six, in the dark, I met Nick who was returning from work in Asahikawa. We rushed to meet my JTE/friend Inugami-sensei and his wife Yuko. The four of us planned a "double-date" for the evening. We met at a culture event coordinated for Furano ski tourists. It was an incredible spread of traditional music and dancing. Unfortunately the food served was some of the worst I`ve eaten in Japan, perhaps made for the tastes of Western tourists. But never mind; the music and beer were a great combo! The four of us had a nice time meeting Furano`s (mostly Australian) tourists and catching up with local friends involved in the tourism industry. Apparently Inugami-sensei and I share some local notoriety for our music performances together in the past months.
After the culture event rolled to a close, the four of us walked to a blues bar serving Miller Light. The owner of the bar is the oldest of three brothers with businesses in town; his next brother owns a lovely coffee shop; the youngest owns a popular bar welcoming many locals and foreigners with classic rock riffs spilling out of the stereo. It`s been funny to meet the whole family, in stages, over the months we`ve lived here.
さんぷる 2
Sunday morning was an early one, as we`d been out late and Nick needed to catch the SIX am train to work. His students (adorable: aged 2-5) were performing in a speech `contest` in front of beaming parents. After the contest, I took the train and met him in Asahikawa for some shopping. We caught a free bus, packed with teenagers, to the biggest mall in the region. For a country that constantly waxes over their uniquely "polite" culture, not a single person offered their bus seat to the elderly woman standing. Grr. First stop at the mall was a ridiculous Western-food buffet lunch, quite a deal at 1300￥ (about $12) each. I wonder if the other guests had ever seen a man put down quite the amount of food that Nick managed to consume. Men, women and children stared slack-jawed. After months of living as circus performers, I don`t even mind the googling eyes.
The highlight of our day, though, was a return to the mall`s foreign foods store which we`d visited back in October. Back story: In our last visit the store had held our purchases for a few hours while we continued mall shopping, and we picked up the bags on our way out of the mall. Upon returning to Furano I received a frantic call from the food store, apologizing profusely for omitting to return our precious bag of tortillas back into our grocery bag; they had refrigerated the tortillas and forgotten. . . oh shame! Well, this time, upon checkout, I mentioned my name and that I had not received a bag of tortillas about five months ago. . . The looks on the cashiers` faces were priceless. My cashier ran into the back and immediately brought out THE ORIGINAL BAG OF TORTILLAS, frozen, with my name and phone number still taped to the bag. Profound bowing and apologies all around. You know that store employees have been staring at those tortillas for five months during weekly inventory, willing me to hurry up and get the blessed bag. But I thought it was so funny and sweet that they saved the original bag (rather than a store credit or something). Japanese society is so HONEST.
さんぷる 3
Today was a brilliantly blue day of snowmelt and striking mountain vistas. I taught at a school nearly an hour away from town, and on the drive back managed some nice pictures.
I couldn`t tarry, however; I needed to make it to the bank before 3pm to send some money, in a frustratingly complicated system, internationally to my bank at home. Usually this is not a problem. Today I thought I would try to do the currency exchange on my own with the limited help of a bank teller, but, sadly, this did not occur. It is so difficult to be helplessly illiterate and inarticulate. I couldn`t understand the bankteller`s directions and failed miserably at my task. Within an hour my emotions dropped from generous appreciation of Japan`s natural grandeur to defeat. In this culture, to inconvenience someone (the bankteller) as I did (with 5 minutes of language misunderstandings) means that I must feel and show extreme apologetic humility. How can I retain confidence when I am constantly bowing and scraping?! And I will live with these linguistic limitations for another five months! Arg!
Upon returning to the office I had the fortune to run into Mr. Shima, the composer of the song which I sang for the G8 Summit. The CD`s have been burned (5000 of them!) with an unfortunate misspelling of my name, Nick`s English lyrics, my smiling mug, and what I hope to be a good editing job of the music. Who knows where this will go?!
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