Moving to Japan is a lot like trying to learn how to cycle with no hands

I can cycle, I love cycling, me and Manwell enjoy our carefree spins by the river but I’ve always felt that my cycling skills left something to be desired (NB it was not my fault that the truck hit me). Its not the basics of manoeuvring and dealing with traffic that bother me, it’s the little things that give a cyclist some flair – I’m fine with speeding round corners and dodging pedestrians but the thing that has always proved too difficult is cycling without my hands on the handlebars.

I’m presuming that you know that it is supposed to be very hard to learn to cycle as an adult if you never cycled as a child – its cause kids’ centres of gravity aren’t fixed (they’re growing) and cycling requires you to shift your centre of gravity so when adults try they have a much harder habit to break. So I thought I was too old to learn to cycle without hands cause you have to shift position but I was wrong. The friendly river bike path to the beach is where I taught myself – it was easy to pick up and fun – one 15 minute trip to the beach and I was flying round an uphill corner with no hands.

But then I realised that everything you do in cycling has to be relearned without hands – turning, going over rough patches, going over the breaks in the footpath. Everything is similar but harder and slightly off kilter hence my Japan analogy– but I can do it now – I can cycle with no hands.

Shan-Shan Shangarilla – not my title this is what the dodgy dance version of the song (complete with Mark McCabe style English voice over) called it

So there we are 4 - gaijin trying to follow the directions of the dance instructor. He only speaks Japanese and his teaching method relies mostly on telling us what we are going to do – when we do try it we are expected to have mastered it immediately based on his lengthy verbal instructions. Fortunately most of the people around us (who are fluent in the language) look as mystified as we’re feeling.

A week later and we are now Shan-Shan gurus. Shan-Shan is a local festival that coincides with Obon – an important national festival when Japanese people return to their ancestral homes to pray to and feed their ancestors. It’s like the Blessing of the Graves but more important. Shan-Shan is a rain dance – hence the bell laced umbrellas although why they need a rain dance in the prefecture with one of the highest levels of rainfall in the country is beyond me (I really am in Leitrim, experimental roundabouts and all).

So last Tuesday we went out to beg the powers that be for rain and outside at the moment we’re reaping the benefits. The festival was a lot of fun. The Board of Education rented us yukatas (cotton and cooler version of a kimono) and even paid for us to go to the hairdresser and have our hair put up – think me using sign language to say ‘make it bigger’ – never been so backcombed in my life.

The actual parade was the highlight – as the foreigners we were placed near the front. Ahead of us were the BOE bigwigs who were there to drink rather than dance – an alternative option freely available to all. Everytime we stopped a cooler full of sports drinks appeared along side a cooler full of beer and sake. To my surprise the 4 hour parade flew by – a tribute to the craic more than the alcohol cause I didn’t drink.

Routine

I’ve been going to school for about 3 weeks now – the summer vacation is in August though so there’s no classes. There are students however, they all come to school practically everyday for bukatsu – club activities. I am now involved in the school swimming club and the table-tennis club. I sought out the swimmers and was roped into table tennis by one of my English teachers.

The swimming club has two hour training sessions in which myself and the 4 kids involved generally just mess about – I’m the one who does the most swimming which was never the case in my club at home. They are decent swimmers – better than me now but not as good as the best of my old swimming club (I was never one of the best) and I can swim further and faster than them underwater (great achievement Rach, you can hold your breath – hey shut up I’m proud (there’s not many comments so I have to argue amongst myselves)).

The table-tennis club is a different matter all together – the first time I walked into the gym to take part I was met with the sight of 5 kids at three tables practicing their co-ordinated table tennis moves without using balls. They looked like mini-Forrest Gumps in training – which it turns out is exactly what they are. I am abominable at table-tennis and because they are too polite to laugh it means that I’m the only one who does. I thought that my English teacher was in charge at table-tennis but today my fear of the Forrest Gump factor was increased exponentially by the arrival of ‘The Trainer’ – not only my title for him – when the kids told me who he was you could hear the ‘’ and capitals in their voices. He’s an austere man who barks in harsh tones at the mini-Forrest Gumps as they expertly reproduce the precise movements.

My serve is pathetic and I can’t master any of the robotic movements required so I exited stage left very quickly after the arrival of ‘The Trainer’. And so my education continues…

Signature Tune

I've decided that Hotel California that Eagles classic is going to be my signature tune for karaoke and I'll whip out Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival on special occasions. Hotel California has proved to be nice and safe - absolutely everybody sings along its great.

Happy Alone by Kings of Leon is currently my theme tune here. I'm thinking you've all been listening to Ain't no Sunshine (ahh how I love Al Green) since my departure...

Vindication

So I’m at a cross-roads (don’t worry this isn’t a metaphor), ahead is the well lit main road that leads you home and to the right is an alley badly lit by the occasional light from apartments above. Toshiyuki is with me. He is a random guy who struck up conversation with me, two of my fellow gaijins and the little Japanese woman we met at the festival dance practice.

Her name is Miko and she works in the prefectural (county) office and has been asked (ordered) like us gaijin’s to perform at next week’s Shan-Shan festival (think dancing and spinning umbrella’s covered in bells). After practice we asked Miko to join us for dinner which we had in a very nice subo shop where the little old lady in charge couldn’t do enough for us and it was here that we met Toshiyuki.

Being illiterate is hard but its not as bad as it could be when you’re in a country whose restaurants put plastic displays of the food in their windows. Toshiyuki followed us outside to help us pick our dinner and then struck up conversation. After dinner we all exchanged email addresses before hopping on our respective bikes and heading towards home. Toshiyuki and I had the same road home and so it was that I found myself at the cross-roads facing a choice.

Should I follow Toshiyuki, an acquaintance of about half an hour, down the dark alley so he could show me where his apartment building is?

Of course I did, I’m me, but I do know that it wouldn’t be the recommended course of action at home. But I’m not at home, I’m in Japan and the great thing about this place is that it vindicates all those arguments I had with people about not having to take a taxi home … it’s safe. So safe that when one clueless Jet guy asked some Yakuza guys (real Yakuza - all tattoos and missing fingers) where to put his empty beer cans they politely took them from him and located the correct bin.

And we don’t even have Yakuza…

Entertainment

So what do you do for entertainment when you’re a newly arrived foreigner with almost no Japanese. Go out with the other newly arrived foreigners with almost no Japanese of course! We had our prefectural (county) orientation last Thursday and Friday. We went out to a club on Thursday night and I was just getting into the swing of the night – up for a few dances, had some shots etc when everybody started to drift home. It was 11.30pm and they were all going home. I ended up with a British guy, two American girls, some Japanese guys and me being the only ones who made it past midnight – it had been a long day but still…

The next day was not a good one for a hang over so it was good I didn’t have one. We were treated to a boat trip up the coast and then we headed to the sand dunes. For those of you who didn’t hear about the sand dunes before I left I have to give a brief sketch. The sand dunes are what Tottori is famous for – 16km of 300 foot high sand dunes – a small taste of the Sahara complete with specially imported camels. We crossed the dunes which in the heat is a nightmare – I recommend that everybody avoids getting stranded in a desert. And if you do don’t wear flipflops – think burning feet. But of course the sea at the other end is the nicest stretch of beach for miles – crystal clear water. I rolled down the dune to go for a swim knowing it would make going back twice as bad – I had to swim out really deep to get any water that was even approaching cool enough (the lake has spoiled me for comfortable stretches of open water).

Now I’m really going to make anyone still reading really jealous. We went out on Friday night again to a beer garden – there was actually very little garden to speak of but plenty of beer. It was an all you can eat and drink in four hours deal for the more than fair sum of €20. I felt that national pride was at stake and so took advantage and ended up teaching a group of Japanese engineering students how to say cheers in Irish. Slainte everyone!

After the beer garden those of us still standing headed to a karaoke place. It is so much fun, I can’t believe how much better it is here - €10 got us another all you can drink deal and an hours karaoke in our own booth. Myself and a guy called Reed sang Hey Jude and Take me out. I sang Girls Just Wanna have fun (admittedly with every girl and several of the boys in the room) and did Californication with a girl from Brazil. I’m going to have to come up with some signature song while I’m here. So yeah … entertainment.

Communication

I live in shoebox in a three-storey stack of shoeboxes but the ground floor contains the restaurant run by my landlord and staffed by his family. They are really nice but can’t speak any English and I’m really nice but don’t speak any Japanese. It would seem that we have a bit of a problem. But with perseverance and pointing its amazing what you can say to people. We managed to establish where I was from by me noticing my landlord was wearing a t-shirt with a map of the British Isles – this was fuel for a full 5 minutes of laughter. Another day myself, the landlady and their son bonded over our attempts to lower Manwell’s saddle to a manageable height for me. My Japanese is terrible but I’ve discovered I have a talent for guessing what they’re saying to me if I know the context.

The people here are really, really friendly. I had been here four days when I was accosted by a little old lady with a smattering of English. She stopped me and started asking me where I was from, did I live in Dan’s flat, was my mother English-Japanese? The last question immediately followed the information that I was from Ireland – I get the feeling that she thought that I would need a motive like that to come so far rather than her detecting any Asian features.

I heard the story of the gaijin who was followed around the supermarket by an old lady who exclaimed over everything they put in their basket several times. Each time we were told the story the teller would explain that the old lady was not nosy, she was simply curious about this strange foreigner, what did it eat etc. I’m not so sure, I think the old lady is actually just nosy. I know that’s what the old women at home are. They might not follow the guy who has lived beside them all their lives around the shop but they do notice if he puts anything strange in his basket.

Settling In

My bike is called Manwell but we rarely get to try out how fast we can go because everyone here cycles so bloody slowly – there are very few opportunities to test your reflexes or fight the good fight against the taxis. There are taxis but most drivers here, even the taxi drivers are polite and well behaved – its put manners on me. The only place Manwell and I get to really test our speed is on the traffic free bike path to the sea, its left both of us quite disappointed.

Politeness is as the stereotype here goes, very important. My reflections on cycling here are flippant but demonstrative and so the first few days here were a succession of introductions to Board of Education administrators and school teachers. Learning the polite Japanese phrases and etiquette and unpacking is about all I actually did.

So yeah politeness is very important here but the reserve that I had half expected is not so common. People are curious about us gaijin and really eager to help when you’re stuck – which is often.

Welcome Home Rachel

There are lots of Jets in Tottori-ken (county) but 4 of us are new Junior High Jets and have the same supervisor. Me and three Americans, they’re nice but it’s definitely a case of the American and the unAmerican. I can refer to this place as the Leitrim of Japan as much as I want and they’re not going to get it. Our first day was a long tiring nightmare of admin stuff but then it was mercifully over and I was at my apartment.

So here I am, home sweet home and yes everything you have heard about Japanese living space is true – I now live in a shoebox but it’s a pretty shoebox and its my shoebox so I’m happy. Dan the guy I took over from left me a message on the white board saying “Welcome Home Rachel” and 5 minutes here and I was comfortable. Sometimes when I set my futon out on my living room floor to go to sleep I feel like I’m sleeping on someone else’s floor but not really.

Behind my shoebox are several mountains of the popping out of the ground covered in lots of green trees variety and beyond the mountains is the sea. Now I know that sounds like I live far away from the sea but it is actually about a 15 min cycle. Half an hour takes me to a nicer beach than the one close by but I have to go up and down one of the mountains to reach it so I reserve it for special and energetic occasions.

I go to the beach quite a bit, whenever I don’t get to swim in the school pool. Yes my school which is conveniently across the road from my shoebox – I mean flat – has a 25 metre outdoor pool which has resulted in the two competing swimsuit X’s branded on my back. I have a great tan (just for Emma). To counteract this of course when I’m not swimming or taking a cold shower (I take quite a lot of these in fact I haven’t turned the hot water on at all) I’m melting – its over 30 degrees here most days with high humidity. The thermometer in my kitchen has been known to read 38º. I have an air-conditioner and I’ve fallen in love with it, his name is Sam.

Training

Training - that is what we apparently received during those two jet-lagged and hungover days in Tokyo but I'm afraid bad 90's home videos on a day in the life of a Jet do not make for much enlightenment. I was good and went to almost all the required stuff until the second day when my hangover required that I go for a swim.

The hotel pool was on the 7th floor roof so I floated about on my back looking up at the skyscrapers around me and enjoyed the cool water of the pool. My enjoyment was cut short however when the nice pool attendent who had been running around tying everything down told me they were closing the pool because of the approaching typhoon. Fair enough, I had noticed that it was a bit windy, you don't usually get waves like that in a swimming pool.

But I've skipped a bit, the night before a gang of us Irish jets went out on the tear. The Irish group had been split up into two flights and I am now very glad that I was in the first group cause the others got delayed in Dublin, missed their flight to Tokyo and arrived on Monday evening instead of Sunday evening.

But anyway they did eventually arrive and those of us whose prefectures (Japanese counties) were too lazy to organise a night out headed out ourselves. Some random Jet met us on the street and led us to the nearest Irish pub, not what we wanted so some more wandering ensued til we bumped into some Japanese kids clearly going clubbing. I say kids cause I will never be able to tell what age anybody here is they all look really young, even the really old people. They led us to a club but we weren't allowed in not sure if it was cause we were gaijin or all straight but we left anyway.

We then found a very tiny club with cheap (in Dublin terms) drink and nobody but ourselves and some American and a South African jet. Darts were thrown and laughs were had and we were just getting stuck into dancing when two Japanese guys appeared. I am now convinced that they were there to practice their dancing (they were good and concentrating on the mirrors). I thought I'd try my hand at some conversation with the locals which consisted of me being told in very good English that they didn't speak English.

We all continued to get a bit pissed and enjoy ourselves until two of the Irish lads decided that dancing wasn't activity enough, wrestling was required. A few broken glasses later myself, Mairead and one of the wrestlers decided to head home. There are some universal truths connected with going out drinking and the need for food on the way home is one of them. We found ourselves in a little noodle shop and I had one of the best post-pub feeds ever. Ahh... happiness is a good night out and a pool to soothe your head the next day.

Welcome to Tokyo

That's right, welcome to Tokyo, thats what we heard every 5 feet as we exited the airport and were guided by a yellow brick road of orange uniformed Jets to the bus - a sign of things to come. It then took us two hours to wind through the mercilessly traffic free motorways of Tokyo to get to Shinjuku and our beautiful hotel. Tokyo is huge, I knew this before I went but reading it and seeing it are very different things.

We were in a gorgeous hotel in the coolest part of Tokyo and though I was wrecked it was time to take advantage so I called my friend Yi ting to see if we could meet up that evening. Yi ting came over to the hotel and we headed out into the neon craziness that is Shinjuku and aside from forays out to find a bar or club on the other nights this was the only sight-seeing I did in Tokyo.

We wandered around and ended up in a sushi bar which made me very happy - much better than M&S or Aya even if the food was in something that looked more like a factory conveyor belt than the smooth aesthetic poshness of Aya. I could see the sushi chef working away through the conveyor belt gap, picking what to add to the pile up according to what was disappearing quickest.

After the sushi bar we wandered around the shops - imagine it was a Sunday and they were still open at ... Jesus it must have been after 8pm. I found a Starbucks and decided it was time to invest in some coffee (which has proved to be a very very wise move - which reminds me I need a top up). Of course wanting and getting are very different things in a country where you are linguistically challenged and illiterate. Luckily I had Yi ting with me to help buy the coffee but we hit problems when it came to deciding how it was to be ground. I knew I had a coffee machine waiting for me in my flat in Tottori but I had no idea what kind of filter it used - paper or otherwise. The conscientious Tokyo Starbucks employee was determined to find out and so we (by this I mean Yi ting) ended up telling him that I had a coffee maker but it was in Tottori in the flat I hadn't moved into yet. Response; Tottori? (with much incredulity) and then a short conference with his colleague. It seems that it was important for him to share this information, mainly so that they could both laugh at the gaijin who was moving to Tottori. More incredulous-seeming comments passed between himself and Yi ting who joined in the laughter too. So there it was, I realised that I really am moving into the sticks, my pre-departure fears that I was moving to the Leitrim of Japan were confirmed by this short interchange between two strangers and my friend.

Of course the idea was further cemented by the fact that every Japanese person I interacted with in Tokyo after that either laughed or tried very hard to reassure me that Tottori is a very good place to be going. And this all without me mentioning that I had heard anything negative about it.

But back to Tokyo, I ended my evening with Yi ting on a high, very literally because we went up the bar on the top (47th) floor of the hotel. Tokyo is huge, much bigger than New York to my eye anyway because the skyscrapers aren't confined to one small section of the city. There are huge buildings scattered for miles and our view that night was made all the more impressive by the fact that there were much bigger buildings blocking sections of the view over the city. A very nice glass of white wine and that amazing view of Tokyo seemed to confirm that it is a good thing that I am here.