Day Fourteen

DAY FOURTEEN (06/22/08, 5:00am)

I first met Kazumi just as we were leaving Meiyo Junior High School at the end of the day. Had I known that my host worked at the school, I would have made a point of visiting her class and talking to her. Everyone from my group who had seen her 9^th grade English classes said that she was a fabulous teacher. Within minutes, it was evident that she had real charisma and a great rapport with her students. I’m bummed that I didn’t get a chance to see her in action. When she found me in the hallway just as we were leaving and introduced herself to me, I was struck by how beautiful she is: long black hair, very slender body, a great smile, large lips and pronounced cheekbones. We talked for all of fifteen seconds and then I rushed out the door to catch the bus.

That was Wednesday. I saw her next at 10:00am this morning when she and all of the other hosts arrived at City Plaza Hotel to take each of us home with them for the weekend. Families with little children arrived, older couples who didn’t speak a word of English, and one by one, our cohort of sixteen teachers dwindled down to only a few. Kazumi came alone and we immediately recognized each other from the other day. Since she is an English teacher, talking to her was very easy.

We first went on a couple errands in the area: looking for stylish, colorful glasses for her mother who had recently had a birthday and buying a few items in the grocery store on the first floor of my hotel that we would use for lunch. We then went to her house which was a small but cozy place in a somewhat run-down area. She had a large garden that you could enter from the kitchen, a bedroom to the left as you enter the house, a small living room to the right, a stairway leading to her sister’s room, a small kitchen and dining area further down the main hallway to the left, and a bathroom and toilet room (the toilet is kept separate from the bath tub) at the very back of the house. I met her sister very briefly, but she soon left to go to her grandparents’ house where we would be headed later on. She seemed very shy but nice.

I sliced some cucumbers and took lessons as Kazumi prepared lunch (a cold noodle dish with shredded chicken, thin strips of egg, tomatoes, and cucumbers covered in a sesame dressing). Just before it was ready, her husband arrived home for a quick lunch break from work. I greeted him in the hallway as he was taking off his shoes and introduced myself. He then said in a questioning tone, “No pay?” and I was somewhat confused. He repeated himself and I finally realized that he was also introducing himself. His name, Nope, is pronounced “no pay”. He is a very thin, tan man in his late twenties but he could easily pass for nineteen. He has very chiseled features, short black hair, huge ears that stick out, and a big, honest smile. He understands English fairly well but it took some coaxing to get him to attempt to say anything in English.

Moments after he first arrived, he disappeared into a room (I’m not sure which) to perform his prayers/ablutions. He is from Indonesia and is a Muslim so he prays five times a day. When Kazumi got married, she converted to Islam and also prays five times a day. They even set their alarm clock for 4:00am each morning so that they can pray at sunrise and then go back to sleep. I asked her what it was like to convert to Islam and she said that for now she just practices the rituals and traditions but doesn’t necessarily believe all of it. Her in-laws are happy with that and hope that in the future with practice, her belief will develop.

In Japan, it seems common for people to practice multiple religions and, because it often isn’t a philosophical matter for them but more a matter of culture, ritual, and tradition, they see no conflict. Many people visit Shinto shrines throughout the year, pay their respects to the nature gods, and hang their wishes for the future on the designated branches or hooks marked for this tradition. They get married in Christian churches and have a funeral in a Buddhist temple. Given all of this, it was not too surprising that Kazumi was comfortable with converting to Islam.

When Nope finished his prayers, we all ate together in the living room, sitting on floor cushions around the table, watching a comedy show in Japanese. I fumbled with the chopsticks, slurping up the noodles, twisting the sticks in my hands and dropping chunks of tomato back into my bowl. It took me twice as long as them to eat my meal, but I finished it all with the chopsticks and enjoyed every bite.

Right after lunch, Nope had to return to work at the lumber yard where he cuts huge trees down to rectangular slabs of building material. After Nope left, Kazumi ducked into their bedroom to pray for a few minutes. I washed the dishes and wandered around the house looking at photos. When she returned, she gave me a stack of photos, mostly of her wedding, to look through while she packed for our overnight trip to her parents’ and grandparents’ homes high up in the mountains of the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes.

She and Nope got married in Indonesia and had a very traditional Indonesian wedding. Her hair was pinned up in a veil of flowers and then a very ornate widow’s peak with several sharp edges was painted along her forehead. Her face was caked in a thick white powder and her lips were painted a deep red. Even the little children and Nope had make-up on. She said that at first she thought that she looked scary and she did not like it, but she got used to it over the course of the ten-hour ceremony at which she and Nope greeted every guest one by one.

Shortly after lunch we were back in the car, traveling along sinuous, narrow roads headed high into the lush green mountains and blue flowing rivers of the Kii Mountain Range.

On the way to Kazumi’s grandparents’ house, we talked very openly about teaching, differences and similarities between our schools, and our lifestyle in general in two very different countries. Kazumi is much more international than most Japanese people. She lived with a host family in Nappa Valley for ten months, had a boyfriend from Seattle for four years, studied Spanish for a while in college, and married an Indonesian man.

Having heard that “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down,” and knowing that the Japanese take great pride in their culture, I wondered if she experienced much prejudice because of her international leanings. She said that in college when she studied Spanish with a girlfriend, other peers made fun of them for wanting to be international and “cool” and they couldn’t understand why they would bother to learn Spanish. Her friend dropped the course because of all the teasing, but Kazumi stuck with it and didn’t care. When she married Nope and converted to Islam, she said she didn’t experience much direct prejudice, but people were certainly very curious. Interestingly though, she said that she would never want to raise her children in Japan because she feels that they would have a very hard time as Muslim and she also thinks that Japanese schools put so much pressure on children starting at such a young age that they don’t get the chance to play or be kids long enough. When she has children and her oldest child reaches four years old, she and Nope plan to move to Indonesia. There, she said, children can be children. They also feel free to express their love for their parents openly, whereas in Japan, you would almost never hear a child say, “I love you” to a parent.

When we arrived at her grandparents’ home, everyone was there to great us: her sister (Sakiko), parents (Kenji and Shizuka), and grandparents (Ikuzo and Sumie). Her sister left within minutes, however, to the disappointment of both me and her grandfather who wanted to spend more time with her. I was introduced as Mika chan (Mee-kah, chonn), because it is much easier for them to pronounce than Michaela. “Chan” means “friend” and “Mika” is a common female name in Japan.

Her mother poured us some iced green tea and we sat on the porch for a few minutes, enjoying the view and the cool refreshment. Soon after, Kazumi got me set up in the largest upstairs room, a beautiful traditional Japanese room with tatami mats on the floor and a very bare but warm aesthetic with an expansive view of mountains and little villages nestled in valleys.

Once my luggage was stored away, we were off into the woods with her father to pick various edible plants for a vegetable tempura we would make later on. He used to be an ecology teacher but recently retired. He seemed in his element when traipsing through the woods, gathering a basket full of leaves to eat. After gathering several leaves, we went for a short drive with Kazumi’s mom as well to an area where wild raspberries grown. The pickings were slim so we ate all of our berries as we collected them. Soon it began to rain and we headed back home.

On the way, we stopped off at a shitaki mushroom factory owned by Kazumi’s mother’s cousin.

They graciously let us wander through and pick prime specimens from the many isles of stacked logs covered with dozens of mushrooms. We gathered a decent batch which Kazumi’s mother collected in her apron.

Once home, Kenji-san, prepared sliced sweet potatoes, onions, mushrooms, and the many leaves we had gathered for the tempura batter. He taught me how to coat each item and gingerly dip it into the pot of oil. Wait just a few seconds and then snatch it up with the chopsticks. As I did this, he and Kazumi kept saying, “Oh!” which made me worried that I was doing something wrong or something bad was about to happen as in, “Oh no!” but they assured me that it was a sound of approval and being impressed by my skill at using the chopsticks.

For dinner, we had the vegetable tempura, beef stew with rice, some vegetarian sushi that the grandmother made just for me, green tea, and various little side dishes like pickled things which I avoided. Nope arrived partway through dinner and joined us at the table.

After dinner I showed them all some photos of my classes, panoramic shots inside my apartment, and my neighborhood in spring. After looking at the panoramics, they thought I must be rich. I explained to them that my apartment was nothing fancy and that I am far from rich. Certainly there is a lot more space in America and if you aren’t in a major city like New York or Boston, the rent is not too bad. I think the panoramic style of the rooms may have made them appear enormous. I bent the photos into a tube and explained that it was a 360 degree view which I think they all understood but the rooms still seemed huge to them.

After sharing the photos, I did a little juggling performance for them which the grandfather seemed to heartily enjoy. Kazumi’s mother also became very excited and showed me a Japanese form of juggling two balls with a song to accompany it. She sang with a loud, clear voice as she tossed the balls round and round in a pattern circling towards herself. I wish I could remember the song!

After dinner we piled up into two cars and headed out for a local hot spring. When we arrived, Kenji and Nope went into the bathing room on the right and Kazumi, her mother, and I went to the ladies room on the left. We were the only people there that night so we had the room all to ourselves. After showering thoroughly, we slid into the silky water that was pumped into the bathing room from the hot springs below. The water was warm but not too hot and it felt smooth and sleek in texture. When we emerged from the water fifteen minutes or so later, toweled off, and got dressed, the air was humid and sticky. It was just beginning to drizzle outside. We hung out for a while in the little store where you enter the hot spring. The men drank beer and smoked cigarettes with a few other guys hanging out there. Kazumi and I had some grape juice and enjoyed the rotating fan.

When we returned to the house, the grandmother cut up some yellow watermelon for dessert and sprinkled it with salt. I brought down the presents I had set aside for them all, a new set of juggling balls and a beautiful photo book of Rhode Island. They all gathered around to look through the book and take turns practicing with the balls. They seemed especially interested in the little bit of contact juggling I showed them.

By this point it was somewhat late and we were all tired from a full day. Kazumi made up a bed for me on the floor with thin futon pads on the tatami mats and a buckwheat pillow which was very dense and full of what felt like little rubbery beads. I had a hard time falling asleep. The pillow seemed too dense and didn’t allow my head to go back as far as I would have liked. The futon pad was very thin and I could feel my ribs and hip bones digging into the floor when I curled up on my side. I was also excited by the day’s events, by the chance to go beyond a typical tourist experience of Japan and to be welcomed so generously into the home of friendly people.