One Month Anniversary

Hi, friend. Hope you're well. By now it's been quite a while since we last caught up - over a month, in fact!

It's pretty crazy to think that I've lived in Japan for a month already. It still feels like I'm fumbling around in Week Two, forgetting which school it is that I have to order lunch boxes by 9:30am, whether the 7:24 train is my Thursday to Kurashiki or my Friday to Yakage, and which of the dozens of teachers is Nakada-sensei. And which class Nakada-sensei teaches. And whether I team-teach that class with him. (Actually, Nakada-sensei is an inappropriate example; I teach first graders with him at my base school on Mondays and Wednesdays, and he looks like a grump but has fantastic comedic timing. His weapon of choice is the Dad Joke.) 

Now that it's officially almost Week Seven, I'd like to share with you some things I've learned so far.

1. I was right to cherish the karaage (fried chicken, quite on par with The Colonel's) I discovered in one of my very first obento (bento lunch boxes). I imagined life would be pretty sweet if I'd be getting very safe, very tasty fried chicken every day for lunch. I've had it again only once in the five weeks since - every other day is cold, pickled things, rubbery marinated mushrooms, questionable jellied things (often black in colour), and lots of kelp. Lots and lots of kelp. I can no longer bring myself to be happy to see fish in there; there have been too many instances of needing to extract bone fragments from my mouth, having unpleasantly crunched down on what I'd carefully inspected and decided (obviously wrongly) was a safe, boneless fillet. Fish are definitely not friends. Needless to say, I'm hanging out for a regular old sandwich.

If anyone's curious, that purple thing in the middle was a sticky rice sweet, and it was actually delicious.

2. Japan's summer is much, much worse than anything you can prepare for. There has been literally - literally - one day where the constant 32 degree, 88% humidity temperature has broken, and it was last Friday. I thought Autumn had finally rolled around, because it was 23 degrees and there was fog over the mountains that curl around Yakage Town. I was so excited. But alas, my joy was short-lived. It was almost immediately back up into the thirties again with no foreseeable cool change, at least for the next week. Japan's humid summer is a perpetually sweaty, exhausting, and excessively bug-filled affair. The number of days I've had to struggle through the front door, peel my clothes off my swollen, sticky skin (not an exaggeration), and sleep with the air con on is bordering ridiculous. It's seriously disgusting - and I don't even usually sweat back home, on the worst of days! I'll take Australia's dry, cloudless 40 degree total fire ban summers any day.

Japanese summer: 1, Meg's hair: 0.

3.  Eating at home without being able to read Japanese is going to continue to be a really difficult time. People joke about the impossible selection of soy sauce in the supermarket aisles, but that's nothing to laugh about. Figuring out ingredients - figuring out anything - in Japan is bloody impossible, even if you can read basic hiragana and katakana (the two easy Japanese alphabets). You've got no hope without any kanji (the supremely complicated Chinese characters). My favourite section in the supermarket is the fresh fruit and veg, because you can damn well see exactly what it all is, so you can just shove what you want in a bag and be confident it's not going to unexpectedly taste like something other than it should. I've yet to be really brave with home cooking. Sometimes I can't even be sure I can cook a packet mix in case I've misread the instructions. It's a frustrating time, in short.

4. It's unlikely I'll be temple-hopping every weekend. Actually, if this first month has been any indication, it's unlikely I'll even have many proper weekends at all. So far my 'weekends' have been jammed with school-related responsibilities and events. This past weekend was my first completely school-free weekend, and naturally I woke up on Saturday with a bad cold and was bed-ridden for the whole damn thing. Considering I've been here six weeks, I've done an abysmal amount of sightseeing - even locally. I'm going to have to be careful not to let all my spare time get clogged up with school stuff I've committed to weeks ago in my bright-eyed enthusiasm to support the students. This job has already proven to be startlingly demanding (I say 'startling' because there have been a lot of additional pressures on top of what I was reasonably prepared to be handling in this position), and I imagine it will become exhausting and toxic very quickly if we let ourselves get snowed under.

I stepped off the train into a glorious Okayama afternoon one day.

5. The novelty of being the only Westerner in town is starting to wear off. Personally, this brings with it a huge sense of relief, though I do like being cheerfully greeted in the hallways by students who seem to have forgotten overnight that I exist, and who are delighted to re-discover me each morning. It's weird and uncomfortable going about daily life, doing totally normal things like walking to the supermarket or posting a letter, or riding my bike to school, and being openly stared at by all the locals. All of them. Oddly enough, I've found that the elderly tend to be the most likely to break into a grin and stop you for a chat if you greet them politely in Japanese. Maybe they're just too old for prejudiced bullshit. Middle aged men straight up stare for extended periods of time. The most unfriendly, surprisingly, are young to middle aged women, who always cast their eyes down if they catch my gaze. It's very common to see them purse their lips tightly and hurry away, like I'm sin incarnate. I'm sensitive to local customs and expectations, so I'm careful not to accidentally dress or behave inappropriately. I can only put it down to their not being comfortable with my invasive existence as a foreigner. Coming from a place as multicultural as Melbourne, it's still a little jarring each time I'm snubbed, especially if I smile at them. But there's nothing I can do about it, so I just figure it's their loss and move on.

6. We're probably never going to be in a truly comfortable place with teaching. If I'm not wishing I could bash my head against the table for 45 minutes rather than give my self-introduction lesson for the 23rd time (I honestly have that many 'first classes' across my four schools), I'm sitting up until midnight, furiously creating lesson plans I'm terrified the students will hate, then lying awake with anxiety until 1:30am dreading the next day, and heading to school at 7:30 like a damn zombie each morning. The actual teaching day always goes smoothly and enjoyably at each school, but unfortunately that doesn't stop the gut-wrenching anxiety from rocking around the next week. Our predecessors and other ALTs have given us plenty of wonderful advice, like trying to keep the communication lines with the JTEs (the actual English teachers) as open and clear as possible, but our fundamental inexperience means we're probably all jelly-legged every single Monday when we have to test our newest lesson on the first class of the week. I've been trying to combat this perpetual state of panic by preparing for all the worst case scenarios at each school a week in advance, and being unnecessarily over-prepared at all times. At least it decreases the likelihood of forty disapproving teenagers staring expectantly at me for 45 minutes.

Have a rare, unexpected photo of me teaching my self-intro lesson. Don't expect to see many more.

7. Speaking of keeping the communication lines open with the JTEs... it's extremely difficult to figure out what your relationship is like with your supervisors and teachers. Everyone is so welcoming and friendly, but I'm largely left to my own devices, and a lot of the teachers are alarmingly busy 150% of the time. This did not come as a shock to me; I was prepared for how insanely demanding the actual teachers' jobs are over here. I mainly just try to stay out of everyone's way and not have too many questions that need answering. My supervisor at my base school whirlwinds in and out all the time. She always looks a little stressed even though she's extremely cheerful and supportive. I'd heard that it's unusual for your Japanese co-workers to give you much feedback (if any), but it's still a little disconcerting when you leave class and walk back to the staff room with them, and nothing is said except to comment cheerily on the weather (see above, and you might be able to imagine some of my reactions). So far I've been going with the 'no news is good news' thing - either that, or literally forcing feedback out of them. My supervisor frequently contacts me late at night about important things in quite a no-nonsense manner, so I often worry if I've annoyed her or done something wrong in one of my lessons. But then she pulls the rug from under my feet by sending me Shaun the Sheep stickers on messenger when she says goodnight. At least I'm never bored, I suppose.

My supervisor at my base school.

8. No matter how long I'm here, I will always get an uncomfortable icy feeling in my stomach when a Japanese colleague brings up controversial elements of Japanese history. It's only happened twice that I can recall, but I know it's going to happen again. You really can't prepare for it, either; it just comes out of the blue. You'll be having a totally relaxed, easy going chat about whatever, then someone will suddenly drop the Japan-Korea relationship, or the 'misrepresentation' of Japan's history in Western schools. So you mentally strap yourself in and brace yourself for what could be an intensely unpleasant conversation, especially when one accidental mis-step could result in that co-worker disliking you for all eternity. I just tread as delicately as possible, listening with rapt attention and saying very little. So far, it seems they want to educate me rather than engage in an intellectual discussion, and I'm happy to play dumb if it means I'm not going to step on anybody's toes. 

9. True independence and self-sufficiency has meant that I am the most content I have been in my adult life. Living in Japan is sometimes surprisingly effortless and sometimes the most frustrating challenge, but every day I am thankful for the opportunity to be one hundred per cent in control of my life for what feels like the first time ever. Maybe it is actually the first time ever. My apartment is pretty old, and bunged up in places, but it's mine and I love my space. I love the quiet and the isolation. I'm not a huge people-person, and I think I'm my most calm, stress-free and comfortable when I'm alone. That's not to say I don't miss my family and my friends, because I definitely do. I'm ludicrously excited for the day Shane tells me he's booked flights to come and visit me. And I talk to my closest buds every single day. I do think I'd go a little loopy without them. But on the whole, sometimes the relief of being on my own is so overwhelming that I nearly start crying in random places - often when I'm riding my bike at sunset and there's nothing for miles but the peachy sky, dusty clouds and endless rice paddies sighing in the breeze (albeit sweltering; don't get too swept up in the romantic imagery). I'm pretty happy right now.

Peaceful moments.

10. I was wholly, tragically unprepared for the season three finale of Downton Abbey. It's been days and I can't bring myself to go back to the show yet. I'm still reeling. It's still not okay. Someone please reach out to me if you know what I'm talking about and promise me it gets better. My heart hurts too much. 

So that's it! Ruminations from the one-month-anniversary mark. More to come soon. x