“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” Cicero

Chatting with three middle-aged sisters, I asked, "Do you read books?"

"No, we never do." 

How can this be? They saw my surprise and went on, "We never developed the habit of book-reading. We didn't have books when we were kids."

That gave me pause.

I grew up in an area with public libraries within walking distance. If I wanted a book that wasn't at my local branch, the librarian would order it to be sent from another. Bookmobiles stopped on my street regularly. Shelves in my parents' house were filled with books. I grew up reading for pleasure every day, and in my childish way, I assumed that was what everyone did.

Life was not like that in Kagoshima in the 1960's. There was one library in the city. The ladies explained, "We lived in the countryside. Our parents didn't have any books. We never took buses and would have never thought to go to a library. Besides," one of the sisters went on, "our parents used their money to buy food, not books."

It's hard for me to imagine a childhood without books, but I suppose that is the norm rather than the exception in this wide world. May I never take them for granted again.

"There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all." Jacqueline Kennedy

It's Relative

Beautiful Yakushima

One of my sons was asked by a fellow high school student at his rural public school, "Was your mom alive when the world was black and white?"

"What do you mean?" my son asked.

"You know, all the old movies show everything black and white."

When the world was black and white

My son laughed, "What? Do you think the world evolved into color?"

Then he said to me, "Actually, Mom, that boy told me to ask you about it because he said you would know."

"Why me? Why didn't he ask his own mom?" I asked.

"I guess you're much older."

"Am I famously old or something?"

"Well, you are old enough to be my grandmother."

Alas, that is true. But isn't age relative? As I walked past tables of elderly folk into my English class the other day, I overheard a snippet of conversation.

A woman asked, "How old are you?"

Her gentleman friend answered, "Eighty-three."

"Wow! You are still so young!"

Lessons from Kanji

My 98 year old friend shared with me some old Japanese wisdom.

These are the Japanese kanji for ningen, "human being, person, man." The first character, read as hito by itself also means "person," but it is usually used in compounds. The second character, when read alone is aida, and means "relationship, between, space." A person cannot truly be a person on their own. Without relationships with others there can be no real humanity.

These characters, read seikatsu, mean "life." Like all kanji compounds, both characters have separate meanings. The the first kanji alone means "life, birth," among other things. The second kanji means "active, vigor." Without activity in a person's life, there is no real life.

Kame no kou yori toshi no kou. "Wisdom from age is better than the shell of a tortoise." Or, put simply, "The older, the wiser." Thank you, my ancient friend.

No one does English quite like Japan

Because regular water is too fattening

The following sentences were taken from third year high school English homework from three different schools, both public and private. Mind you, these are considered correct:

"I wish there were no earthquake in Japan. But for earthquake, what a great number of historic buildings there would remain!"

"I like baseball. Because I like the moment of hit ball."

"I met a woman whose name is unusual at the party."

"Is to read comic books interesting?"

And finally, from a test:

"Everyone is in this classroom having lunch." This is marked incorrect.
"Everyone in this classroom is having lunch." This is the correct answer.
But how is one to know, you might wonder? These are its follow up sentences which were given as the hint:
"I'm hungry. I also want to have with them."

In too many cases, getting good grades in English amounts to memorizing the answers that the rigid teachers deem correct. Does this explain why there are so many crazily worded signs? They are everywhere, from the new city hospital's "Extraordinary Entrance" to new year's cards wishing "A Happy New Year."

Sign in public toilet: 

Please have running water after use. (Toilet paper also together.)

How to shed a toilet.

No washing hair or clothes in the toilet.

After-hours entrance at a cutting-edge modern hospital:

Extraordinary Entrance

At a cash register

We do not break into small.

I am told the Chinese also makes no sense.

I have no words.

"Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot
Nine days old."
 Mother Goose
I have a feeling that is not what the writer of the sign had in mind.

Michiko's Story

Me and Chieko

Walking down the hall towards Chieko's room at the hospital where she now lives, I pass the open doors of four-person rooms holding rail-thin elderly folks lying in catatonic quiet. Some have tubes running from their noses to machines beside their beds. Others lie with mouths agape, eyes staring at the ceiling. There is no music. No conversation. Just the quiet hum of machinery.

I knock on the last door of the hallway, call out a greeting to Chieko, and step inside her private room. She glows with welcome, reaches for my hand, and I help her to sit up. Her five English textbooks lay beside her on the bed, radio nearby. The schedule of the daily radio English classes is posted on her wall.

Schedule of radio English classes that Chieko listens to daily

As we talk, our conversation drifts to her morning activity. She joined several others who live at that hospital in the recreation room where they sang traditional songs from their childhoods. She pulls out the songsheets and I read the songs while she explains the stories.

Then she mentions Michiko, a woman she has become friendly with. Michiko is 102 years old, and she has resided at that hospital for a very long time. When she was 100 years old, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. After a lengthy and delicate operation, she has lived on, bedridden and with tubes leading from a colostomy opening to a pouch by her bed. Chieko mentions she seems happy and enjoys their group singing.

Yet when they were alone, Michiko confided how bitter her life has become. Her friends and many family members have died. She is lonely. Unable to move on her own. Yet she lives.

I ask, "Why was she operated on at such an advanced age? Surely 100 years is long enough to live?"

"Her family requested it," Chieko told me.

Is it so hard to let go?

Chieko went on, explaining how doctors are bound to prolong life by their Hippocratic oath. They feel they cannot stand idle and allow a patient to die.

But what of quality of life?

So many of the elderly are sequestered in hospitals here that many people have no idea what it is really like to grow old. The loneliness. The frustration. The bedsores. And for many, the mental incapacitation.

Chieko herself is now in constant pain. Among other ailments, the cartilage in her right shoulder has worn away. She can feel—and hear—the bones rubbing against each other.

"Are you taking any pain medication?" I ask.

"Yes. Chinese medicine." (Chinese medicine is commonly prescribed by doctors in hospitals here.)

As I left, I asked, "Is there anything I can bring you? Do you need anything?"

"No, I don't need anything. I don't need this life either. Ninety-eight years is enough. I don't need to live to 100."

Happiest Days

Caves that people used for hiding during the war, now used for storage.

I sat next to Sumiko at one of the big oval-shaped tables at the Senior's Day Care center. Between bites of sweet bean yōkan and sips of tea, she told me how she was born in Taiwan during the days of Japanese occupation.

"I grew up in Taiwan and went to an all-girls school. We were not allowed to mingle with boys; that was improper. When I came of age, I was married to a boy whose family was also from Kagoshima."

"Did you have to marry someone from Kagoshima?" I asked.

"Yes, that was the way it was done in those days. We didn't marry people from other prefectures. Our parents arranged the marriage. I had never even seen my husband before our wedding day."

"When I was 26, we moved to Japan. I worked in a garment factory in Osaka before and during the war, making uniforms."

She wasn't happy with the government in those days. She hated its militarism, but of course, she kept quiet. There was very little food or creature comforts. Like others of her generation, she rejoiced when the war ended. "It was good we lost the war," she said, echoing the comment I have heard so many times.

Sumiko and her husband then moved to Kagoshima, their ancestral city that had been completely flattened by fire. "We could see from one end of the city to the other, it was so flat." Although the city has been rebuilt, the marks of war remain in the many mountainside caves where people hid from strafing.

Dealing with the daily hardships of rebuilding a life from the nothing but the ashes of the war, she managed to raise her family.

Now, in her 90's, she concludes, "I'm enjoying the happiest days of my life. I can live off my pension. I don't need to bother my kids for money. I am free. I can do whatever I want each day."

"The happiest days," she repeated, sighing contentedly.

Laundromat Kindness

It's rainy season. The season of mold, humidity, occasional landslides, joyful ducks, and contented rice farmers. And for me? It's a time of frequent trips to the laundromat to use the dryer.

On Sunday morning I put my wet laundry in the dryer, plunked in the coins, and drove to the pool for my customary swim. A little over an hour later, I walked back in to pick up my clothes.

Where was my laundry? The dryer I had put them in was turning and someone else's basket was perched on the wooden stool in front of it.

Scanning the room, I saw that my basket was on the large wooden table for folding clothes. The laundry inside was folded to perfection. I have never folded clothes so neatly.

"Wow! Thank you so much!" I exclaimed to the people around, sincerely grateful.

A lady folding clothes at the table looked up and shyly said, "I'm sorry. Please excuse me. Sorry." Ah, so she was the one. But, shouldn't I be the one apologizing?

"Thank you very much! That was very nice of you!" I effused.

Again, she apologized.

Sunset Years

Photo by Marianne

Chieko had moved to a countryside seniors' home to die. Before the move, she said her farewells and divided her wealth among her relatives.

But death did not come. After a year and a half, she moved back to her house in the city where she had always lived alone. After five days there, someone rang her doorbell. As she rushed to answer the door, her heart pounded. She sat down and hit the button, which she had had installed in her house years ago, to alert her local fire department.

An ambulance was dispatched, and she was taken to the city hospital. She was still there a couple weeks later when she called me.

I saw her the next day, and was delighted to see how well she looked! Her ankles and feet, which had been as swollen as can be for the last eight months, were back to normal. "When I first came in, I was put on oxygen, given an IV, and had wires attached all over. Yesterday they removed the oxygen, and now all I have left is this heart monitor," she said, gesturing to the wires coming out from her shirt. "I have liquid in my lungs and around my heart, so they want to monitor that."

She went on, "Here, I eat everything I am served. The food is really good. At the countryside home, they didn't even have a nutritionist. Not even a full-time cook! Just part time workers that didn't know what they were doing. I never ate the meals there. Here, I am eating everything. You don't need to bring me rolls anymore. Please don't worry about me."

"At night when I can't sleep I write out this English textbook in my notebook," she said as she pulled out her book. "Writing has been helping me to remember the spelling of the words. The time passes quickly when I write, and then I can sleep." I picked up her notebook, complimented her on her beautiful penmanship, and read the story she had written.

"I can understand it when you read it!" she said, eyes alight, when I finished reading.

When it was time to go, she told me, "Please rest assured that I am in good hands. No need to worry about me."

This is one of many things I love about my 98 year old friend. She correctly assumes I would worry about her. She paints me as one who cares and is concerned.

Of course, I am concerned, but it makes me happy that she takes that as a given.

Hidden Intellect

There is a gentleman who has been coming to my English class at the seniors' day care center for a few years. Now retired, he previously worked in the law department of a large university. Each week, one of the staff leads him into my classroom and helps him sit down.

The first time I met him, I greeted him with a hello.

"Hello! How are you?" he answered clearly. (Now that's unusual, I thought.)

"I'm fine, thank you! How are you?"

Eyes twinkling, he replied, "I'm fine, thank you! It's a fine day, isn't it?"

I've gotten to know this delightful man over the years. His habitual blank face transforms when I call him by name, get his attention, and direct a question to him in English. He looks up, momentarily lucid, and answers politely - usually correctly - before lowering his face again.

Each week, we play a different card matching memory game. When his turn comes, he looks around confused and needs to be told to pick two cards, inevitably picking the two closest to him. He then says their names in English. He is the only one that does that. Perhaps the only one that can do that. When he does randomly get a match, he doesn't seem to understand the significance.

Towards the end of class, we play hangman, which I have changed to a non-morbid version with a little girl flying a kite. He has trouble coming up with a letter when it is his turn, needing a reminder each time. Yet, his face lights up with recognition when he guesses the correct word, impressing the class with his vocabulary.

At these times, I do an internal dance of joy.

After class, he will shake my hand, smiling, "Thank you! See you next week!" then hobble back to his seat, unstable, helper by his side to assist him. There he sits, head down slightly, face blank. Back to default.

He is 62 years old.

Age

Looking around the room, in awe of the age represented, the lives lived, the wars survived, I couldn't help marvelling at the beauty: the gently sagging jowls, the soft fairy-pillows tucked neatly under the eyes, the myriad lines of wisdom. I wondered if these people realized how deeply beautiful they are.

(Will I think I'm beautiful when if I survive into my 90's? Hmm, doubtful.)

Out of my reverie I wake, when my favorite 98 year old starts in on a story. I had lifted up the "fish" card, "When I was young that was the only fish left in the rivers and it was delicious! Such a delicious fish," and on she raved.

Next was the "duck" card, showing a clear color drawing of a mallard duck. "Pigeon" called my friend. This was the fourth time she'd made this mistake since the class began. "It's a duck," I told her, "a duck," the room joined me in good-natured laughter.

I love how age seems to bring with it a lack of self-consciousness and pettiness.

"Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art."

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Midori no Hi

May 4th is "Midori no Hi" in Japan - "Greenery Day." Accordingly, I took a two hour walk through verdant forests and along narrow country roads. Even though I've lived here for many years, I walked in a completely new area about five kilometers to the north.

Along the way I met an old man driving by on his tractor who stopped to greet me. "There are tons of bamboo shoots around here!" he added. "Why don't you take some?"

"They're too much hassle to prepare, so I don't eat them." He laughed and went on his way.

A bit later, after plowing another of his fields, way further up the road he met me again on his tractor. We chatted a while in the shade of swaying bamboo, and he told me a little about himself. He had been born just after the war.

"Oh, that must have been tough," thinking of the devastation that was Japan at the end of WWII.

"Not at all! Not tough for me at all!"

"Oh, did you experience the bubble economy?" (The English word "bubble" is used in Japanese to refer to that era.)

"Yes! I was just an average 'salaryman.' When I retired, I was given two million yen. They asked me if I wanted to buy a car. I said, 'No, I want a tractor.' I bought a tractor, then I paid in cash to have a house built for me. I was set."

Indeed he was.

"Come and take vegetables from my garden anytime!" He told me before heading back to his house.

I wonder what his neighbors would think if they saw a middle-aged white woman taking vegetables from his garden when no one else was around.

The Hitchhiker

Son #4's obento was done and packed. Son #5 had already left for the four kilometer uphill trek to school.

Along the 20 minute drive to #4's high school, I told him about the case of Henry Molaison ("patient HM") and how he was treated for epilepsy by having a 5 cm section of his hippocampus removed. This did indeed control his seizures, but it had the unpleasant consequence of destroying his ability to form new memories, and caused other problems, including the loss of memory from the preceding two years as well as some memories from his earlier life. He was unable to recognize himself in the mirror.

Then my son took over the conversation, telling me the name of that brain section in Japanese and further explaining to me its function and the theory of how new memories are formed. Where does he learn these things? Neurology in Japanese high school?

After dropping him off, I stopped at the lone traffic light along my narrow country road route. I noticed an elderly lady near the intersection. She hobbled up to my car, "Can you give me a ride?" Before I could answer, she had opened the car door and gotten in. Impressive.

This hardy woman told me she is 98 years old and lives alone. "I missed my bus. Could you take me to a bus stop on the main road?" she asked. "I need to go to the hospital." I took her to the hospital downtown. Before she got out, she stuffed 3000 yen in my purse, saying, "I would have paid that much for a taxi anyway. Take it."

Who knows what a day may bring forth?

Supermarket Man

Shopping at the convenience-store-sized supermarket in my neighborhood, a man spoke to me in English.

"Do you remember me?"

"Where did we meet?"

Man, face lit with delight: "Oh, great! Thank you for remembering me!"

I smiled and we parted ways. I didn't have the heart to tell him.

The Well

For years I have been gratefully getting well-water from a place that was a 15 minute drive from my house. That has finally come to an end.

While walking through the rice fields, I stopped by my friends, the ducks. I watched them for a while - healthy, big, loud - I even witnessed what looked like, to my ignorant eyes, duck rape. (That duck did not seem to be enjoying her time with the aggressive drake, and she made her escape as soon as she could get away, drake in raucous, squawking, wing-flapping pursuit.) 

I turned to the farmer, "You have so many ducks now! Is that enclosure safe?" I asked, nodding to the makeshift, much patched and mended net strung around the portion of his garden allocated to the ducks, and alluding to a couple years ago when he lost most of his flock to animal attacks.

"I don't know unless I count them, but I think I've lost 6 of about 60."

I noticed he had put up signs warning of traps, so I asked, "What kind of traps do you have?"

"The animal steps in and it catches their leg. But I haven't caught anything yet."

"What kind of animals?"

"Wild boars, raccoon dogs, foxes, martens, badgers, and," to my surprise, "deer."

This was shocking. Where were these animals coming from? I've been walking around this area for 17 years, and the only four-footed animal I ever saw was a marten bolting into the brush, twice, years apart. That was newsworthy.

The conversation went on. I said, "It looks like this garden work never ends." He was standing in the midst of piles of netting, overgrown weeds, farming equipment. I was beginning to get a grasp of how much of that land he took care of.

"By the way, where do you live?"

"You know that place where the water is flowing? Right by there."

Ohhhh.

As I walked away, I thought, Next time I see him, I'm going to ask him what is the story with that water always running. I had wondered about that for years but never thought much of it.

I changed my route to pass by this ever-flowing water on my way home, and there just so happened to be a man squatting beside his tiny pickup truck collecting water in plastic bottles.

"What is the source of this water?" I asked him, after exchanging pleasantries.

"I'm not from around here, but I heard that in the old days, the people in this area only had this well. Now there is city water in all the houses, so people don't use it. But this water is delicious. I use it for cooking my rice."

An elderly fellow was smiling, looking out the window of an old house nearby. He seemed to be watching the guy collecting water. (Well, maybe he was watching me.) "Is it really OK for anyone to take that water?" I asked him.

"Sure!" and he repeated basically the same story. 

All those years of driving to get water, and there was a constantly flowing well right down the hill from my house.

Oh, and the traps? Next time I saw that farmer, he told me he had caught a fox.  

Ducks in a Row

These hard-working ducks keep pests at bay in some of the rice fields near my house. During the winter last year, on one my walks by the paddies I noticed they had disappeared. By the spring they were back, much fewer in number and in a different place bordered by a steep embankment. I chatted with their owner.

"Last year you had so many ducks - now so few. Did you eat them?" (Imagining months of duck dinners.)

"Wild boars and raccoon dogs killed them. There are a lot of those in the mountains. Here, they are safe," gesturing to the rather small enclosure where 14 ducks waddled and played.

"I noticed a couple have been living down the river, did they escape?"

"Yes, and once they're gone, it's impossible to catch them."

"Don't you clip their wings?"

"No need."

(I guess he's cool with escapees.)

Their population fell from 156 at the end of rice harvest two years ago to 14 last spring, plus the two gloating escapees.

This year, I can only find one escapee. And what of the flock?

I'll let you know next week.

Lunch with Chieko

Last year, when visiting my 97-year-old friend, Chieko, at the Seniors' Home where she lives in the countryside, she wanted to go out to eat some meat. I helped her into my car, strapped on her seatbelt, then did the reverse when we arrived at the nearby kurobuta (black pig) restaurant.

We both ordered tonkatsu. Her eyes opened wide when our trays were brought, "Woah! Look at all this food! We'll never finish it all!"

Chieko saying, "Woah!"

I asked her, pointing at the small dish of simmered vegetables with tofu and meat, "Do you eat this type of thing at the seniors' home?" I thought it looked like the kind of soft food they would have.

"They serve it, but I don't eat it. I also don't eat miso soup."

"How often do they serve that?"

"Morning, noon, and evening. And I don't eat rice either."

"What do you eat?"

Apparently, not much anymore.

Her story is long and amazing - like her life. Arranged marriages being the norm before the war, she met her husband for the first time on her wedding day. Soon she was living with him in Japanese occupied Manchuria, and after "we lost the war," as the old folks say, they came back with just the clothes they were wearing to a completely flattened Kagoshima. There was no food in the city, nothing at all, and people would be stopped by guards if they brought in so much as a few sweet potatoes from the countryside, so she and her husband went south to her in-laws' farm, where she worked growing rice and vegetables.

Some time later, her husband got a job as a teacher of engineering, and feeling the married life just wasn't for her, Chieko got divorced and went back to school. She graduated five years later with a teaching degree. She worked as an elementary school teacher, eventually becoming the principal of the prestigious kindergarten that is connected with the university here - the second of its kind in the country, first established in the Meiji Era (1879, according to Japanese Wikipedia). She retired at 60, took up studying English, traveled widely. She never married again and has no children.

She has a niece who looks after her and visits her a couple times a month. The doctor who opened the seniors' home where she lives is the father (and PTA chair) of one of her former students, also a doctor. (The dad has a clinic next door and looks after her personally. He is 82 and is also widely traveled, and an artist. Many of his drawings adorn Chieko's walls.) Pretty much anyone who is anyone in this city is her former student. She is well-known and well-loved.

She was right about the lunch. What we could finish, though, was delicious. Kagoshima kurobuta pork cutlet.

Update, March 31, 2017

Tea based meal and the brownies I brought

My two teenage sons and I drove in the rain an hour south to see Chieko. As we perched on round stools in her little room, she sat on the edge of her bed and regaled us with stories. After the excitement of her 98th birthday, which included 20 people coming from around the country who had been in her kindergarten class in 1962 to a celebration of her 99th year that was also on TV, then a week later, a lunch of green tea dishes that I attended on her birthday, she was worn out. Her liver and her heart have started to fail, and she still has the infection in her lungs that she's had for several years. It is hard for her to sleep, because when she lies down, she coughs. She said, "ima kara, kurushii," from now, it will be painful.

Then she went on to complain about how her former kindergarten is run these days. Entrance to the school is no longer limited, as in the interest of fairness, students are chosen by lottery from those who have passed the entrance test and interview. That, together with the fact that teachers are not taught effective class-control, has led to trouble. She went on to tell us the history of those types of elite kindergartens, how class control was never a problem and a teacher would never raise their hand to discipline a child - they would never have to, nor would they dare - the well-behaved students, including the emperor's kids in times past, came from a higher class than themselves. (Interesting perspective, eh?)

Then she went on to compare her seniors' home to a kindergarten, and that it was not being managed properly - class control is an issue there during their activity and exercise times - the old folks just do their own thing, talking among themselves, and don't listen to their overseers. "They need to get all the people sitting in a circle, looking at the teacher. Get their attention first and eliminate distractions, then go on with the activity."

Next came politics, first Japanese and then American, "Make America Great," she said in imitation of the current President. No one there is at all interested in such things, so she yells at her TV during news shows, but she told us, since the TV never gives any reaction, she was happy to have us to talk to. She said she felt all light and happy when she was done "vomiting out all her complaints."

We were happy to oblige.

Health Advice from Junior High School Boys

Boys: Is this all there is for dinner? No rice?
Me: Yes, there's rice. You need to get your own.
Boys: Where's your rice? You need to eat rice, too.
Me: I ate three rolls today, I don't need rice. You should eat rice, you skinny boys.
Boys: You need to eat rice, too. You're not eating enough. You must have that sickness where you don't want to eat. 

Youngest boy's novel solution: I'm going to have to inject lard into your vegetables.

80 Year Old Farmer

There are many elderly people around here, and they all keep busy. Most seem to tend vegetable gardens, play gate-ball regularly, and lead full lives. I often pass one particularly energetic old woman who tends a couple gardens every day, morning and afternoon, among other things. She has more than once enumerated her weekly and daily schedules to me, animatedly counting off events on her fingers. She's what Denny would describe as "high energy."

Yesterday, while chatting with her at one of her gardens, she quickly turned to show me some rapeseed blossoms growing behind her. She was explaining how the immature flowers were a type of vegetable and how to prepare them. In mid-turn, she slid down a muddy slope, landing on her derriere and back on the hard asphalt walkway! I jumped to help her, but before I could get to her she had sprung up and was on her feet again, "I just landed on my butt. I'm fine." She brushed herself off as she continued her explanation.

That's what I want to be like when I grow up.

Morning Cleanup

My face stung with the chill breeze. The sun had not quite made its way up yet and long shadows were barely visible on the concrete between us. We were, as usual, standing in a silent circle. We bowed at some unseen prompt, and called in unison, “Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”

It wasn't clear to me who was to get a broom and who a bag and dustpan, but as there were way more brooms, I helped myself to one. Twenty sets of white-gloved hands were busy cleaning the 250 meter long street that was the main entry to our hilltop neighborhood.

The little piles of leaves were multiplying, so I switched to picking them up. Many hands did make light work, and after thirty minutes the road was clean, the clip-boarded roll was checked, brooms piled, bags tied, and we were back in our circle. With the final bow and ending marker of “Otsukaresama deshita” we went back to our houses. It was 7:30am, Sunday morning.

Last summer, I moved away from that chilly area - chilly in more ways than one - to a different neighborhood. Today, this was my experience.

Unlike the former area, the cleanup was scheduled at a more reasonable 7:30am. I went down to help sweep the park right on time, but true to the spirit of collectivism and doing one's best, the park was nearly clean. This lively elderly bunch had started sweeping much early. I grabbed a bamboo broom and swept a swath of the park for about 5 minutes, then a man with a big trash bag and a couple women with brooms came and helped me finish up.

I marked my participation on the name sheet, and the head lady joked to me, "You won't be getting a pack of saran wrap for perfect attendance." Indeed, I hadn't made it down there every time. "Three times a year I actually have a good excuse," I told her, "since I need to leave early for work." She said, "Muri wo shinaide," which means, "Don't stress yourself over it," or something akin to that. There was no final, "Otsukarasama deshita" bow, no formality; after smalltalk, people simply said, "Bye," and went back to their houses.

I like this new neighborhood group much better.

A few hours later, when I came home from swimming and running errands, lo and behold, what did I find in my mailbox? A box of saran wrap.

Gentle Aged Man

One of my newer students at the seniors' day care is without a doubt old. But how old? I couldn't tell. He is soft spoken, polite, as thin as can be, with smooth, almost completely unwrinkled skin. He walks slowly and tentatively.

During my class, I noticed him unobtrusively wiping his mouth after coughing, and I noted the blood staining his handkerchief.

When I asked one of the staff about him, I heard this story.

He is 79. His wife died about 15 years ago. He lives alone with his son in government sponsored housing, which means a very small, most likely old, apartment. His son is disabled and does not have the use of his legs. They live off of his meager pension and the son's disability allowance.

From just meeting him you would never guess what his life was like. It sounds really tough. People are so much more than appearances.

"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Wednesday

Seated with eight others around a round table in the massive banquet hall of the hotel, I was introduced to the lady beside me. "This is the English teacher," the woman told her. She put her head down, closed her eyes, and shook her head with lips pursed. "It's OK, you can talk to her like normal. She understands Japanese." No response.

Hmm. OK.

Then she was saying to anyone in earshot, "I'm so cold. It's so cold in here. I was told it would be warm, but it's cold. They took my coat."

I offered, "Why don't you go and get your coat," supposing that the number on the paper that was attached to a rubber band around her wrist might somehow signify her checked coat.

Someone took her to get her coat.

No coat.

"This is what you wore when you came here this morning," the caretaker assured as she patted her on her shoulders. "You weren't wearing a coat."

"Would you like to use my shawl? I am atsugari (prone to be warm)," I offered, handing her my colorful woolen shawl.

She motioned "stay back," while saying "No, no," in case I hadn't gotten the point from her body language.

Awkward silence. Then the monologue continued. "I'm so cold. Maybe I should just go home."

Again the caretaker was by her side. "I will ask the hotel staff if they have a lap blanket you can use."

It was too small. Another woman gave her her shawl. She was now bundled up. Little blanket on lap. Gray shawl around shoulders.

Quiet.

Then the food service began.

"Oh this sashimi is delicious. It's so delicious!"

"That's the first positive thing I heard her say. Nice," I thought, relaxing.

"But we need rice. Where is the rice? Only people who eat sashimi while they drink shochu don't eat rice with it. I don't drink. I need rice." (Shochu is a specialty of this prefecture, a distilled alcohol made from sweet potatoes.)

There was no alcohol served.

Rice is always comes just before dessert in fancy Japanese meals. It was going to be a long banquet.

After that auspicious meal, I went to the tax office to file my taxes and was ushered into a room filled with rows of chairs, to join another hundred or more people waiting. Granted, the procedure was very well-organized, but oh, the microbes were palpably swarming in the stagnant air. This awareness was heightened to a skin-tingling perception by the fresh memory of the book I had recently finished, Ed Yong's, "I Contain Multitudes."

Kindergarten Bingo

One of my favorite activities at the countryside kindergarten is playing picture bingo. For some reason, it is terribly exciting.

After a class that included "Animal Bingo," one bright little boy came running down the hall as I was leaving.

Obviously, still puzzled by one of the animals, he asked, "What's a 'walrus'?"

"A walrus is a seiuchi," I explained in Japanese.

He ran off.

A moment later he was back.

"What's a seiuchi?"

"A seiuchi is a walrus."

As I was putting on my shoes in the genkan, he was back again.

"What's a walrus?"

Then it dawned on me. It was the animal that was the issue.

"Ask your mom to show you a picture of a seiuchi when you get home, OK?" and he was off once again.

Last week, we were setting up to play "Food Bingo." The usual buzz was in the air as the kids compared their papers.

One little boy said, "Look, I have wakame [seaweed]," as he pointed to the lettuce.

His friend answered, "I have a shu-cream [cream puff]," as he pointed to the muffin.

They still have a few things to learn.

Missy

I have been teaching at a Home for the Disabled for 17 years, where, like all such institutions in Japan, mentally handicapped and physically handicapped people are grouped together. Their needs are so different, yet the physically handicapped just take it all in stride and lend a hand in the care of the others.

My pet peeve is with the helpers. Why, oh why, do they feel they must rush to show my students the answers to the picture bingo game instead of giving them time to process it themselves? I wouldn't even treat a baby like that, and these are adults.

One long-time lady there, I shall call her Missy, is wheelchair-bound, cannot speak (she can squeak out "Hai!" though, which she does with great enthusiasm), can only use one arm, and is a bit spastic, as in that one arm is hard for her to control smoothly. For years, the helpers thought she couldn't understand anything and she would sit at a table to the side, doing nothing. Then one day, they started letting her come to my simple English classes, but even then, they treated her like she was a doll and did everything for her. They pointed to the answer (not always correctly), and put the markers on her picture bingo card for her.

One day she sat beside me, and I noticed that she understood what I was saying. I tried to keep the helpers from "helping" her; she would point to the object I said, and then try to put a marker on it. (We use goishi, plastic "stones" used in the Chinese game Go, as bingo markers.) She was way too spasmodic to do it, but she obviously understood. Great awe spread through the helpers.

As time passed, I noticed that she was the only one who remembered the English words for things (this includes the helpers), and would point to the object when I said the word and before I showed the picture to everyone.

I have also seen gradual improvement in her eye-hand coordination. Now she can gently place the markers right on the correct pictures (most of the time). I've stopped the helpers from clearing up her stones afterwards so that she can have the satisfaction of putting them back in the box. I started her off with just five or so, and now she enjoys putting all 25 of the stones away by herself.

Gratifying progress.

In the Shade of Sakurajima

Photo taken December, 2012 from Shiroyama

On October 3, 2009, at 4:45pm, a loud explosion rattled windows. The volcano erupted shooting out rocks, and the ash reached a height of 3000 meters. Thankfully, the wind was favorable to us, blowing the ash away from the city. (Pity the poor countryside folks on the other side.)

Should we be worried, living in the shadow of this active volcano? Will we suffer the same fate as the Pompeians?

Casts of corpses found in Pompeii's Garden of the Fugitives*

Some years are more active than others. According to the 90-somethings I teach English to, as long as it's letting off ash there is nothing to worry about. (Think of a pressure cooker.)

"Have you ever seen a big eruption?" I asked. 

"Oh, yes!" one bright woman piped up. "Once at night there was a big explosion and we saw red lava shoot up into the sky. It was beautiful!"

Far less beautiful is what we can face on a daily basis: ash.

Like snow, but gray.

July 30, 2012, five days after an eruption. Note the sky. This is a color photo.

Worse than ash is black ashy rain. Everything outside turns black. One morning, before driving Son #4 to school, I hosed off my car, dodging the splashing water and trying not to step in the ash/mud puddles. After dropping him off, I saw another eruption in the distance. Back home and safely indoors, more black rain fell. My car was black again. Clean rain would have been nice.

Another day, on my way home from running at the countryside sports park, I noticed a huge cloud of ash in the far distance. As I drove, I kept an eye on it. Within five minutes it had spread across the sky and more ash was billowing upwards - it didn't stop for the twenty minutes I watched. Undeniably, watching a volcano erupt is awesome.

Not long after, the local news reported on an emergency drill held that day for the people of Sakurajima. They had enacted what they would need to do if an eruption such as the one in 1914 occurred (which is what is being predicted). People, wearing helmets and masks, were evacuated from Sakurajima over to the city by ferry. Then a drill was held as to what to do during a tsunami - which would conceivably follow an eruption and its accompanying earthquakes.

As of today, February 5, 2017, Sakurajima has has not erupted since July 28, 2016. Lava is pooling underground to the north of us, building up pressure that will eventually force its way under the bay and out of the active southern vent. Volcanologists have raised the alert to level 3.

Level 1: Potential for increased activity
Level 2: Do not approach the crater
Level 3: Do not approach the volcano
Level 4: Prepare to evacuate
Level 5: Evacuate.

How long will that pressure cooker hold out?

Ash cloud filling the sky.

* By Lancevortex - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47499

Kids these days...

I just was sorting through the usual fall-out of random crumpled papers from Son #5's bursting schoolbag: papers from teachers, old homework, charts, etc., and then, among all that garbage, I found a couple standardized countrywide tests that he apparently took at the end of November. 99% in math. (He missed the ² in marking cm squared in the last answer.) 93% in Japanese, and 97% in Social Studies?! When I was a kid, I would have run to show my parents those grades.

Meanwhile, Son #4 has chosen this Sunday to tackle his reams of winter vacation homework.

"Why didn't you do it during winter vacation?"

"Because it was a 'vacation.'"

Schools in Winter

Driving back through the hail after dropping my son at his high school, I passed the little countryside elementary school and many students walking there - walking to school being the rule. The boys were wearing their regulation navy blue, short uniform shorts and the girls their skirts, all with bare legs and white ankle socks. These were topped with white button-up shirts. One plucky young lad even was wearing his short-sleeved summer uniform shirt.

Two of my children went to that school some years ago. Inside will be no warmer. In my kids' experience, the only rooms with heaters in the elementary and junior high schools they attended were the teachers' rooms and the libraries. Ditto with air-conditioning in the summer. I have been told it is to "toughen them up" - teach them to "gaman."

Then my work brought me to a kindergarten - a brand new shiny kindergarten - where, in respect to the clean floors, everyone takes off their inside slippers to go into the classrooms. It was like being in socks outside - the linoleum felt icy. The kids, of course, are in socks, some barefoot, and they're very small - so they're right next to the floor, that is, the ones who are not sitting on the floor. My feet were completely numb for the rest of the hour I was there. I lost feeling in them after a minute or two.

"What doesn't kill them makes them stronger"?

Never seen a Frenchman, Never seen a Foreigner

I was a little early for my class at the handicapped home, so I pulled over to get some vegetables at a road-side stall where you put your money in a lock-box and help yourself to produce. Another lady had also pulled over who, I supposed, was one of the people who sold vegetables there. In the car, I had had been listening to a history course where professor had just told the legend of how the the lone survivor of a French shipwreck during the Napoleonic wars was a monkey, dressed in a French military uniform (which apparently it was wearing to amuse the Frenchmen who kept it.) Scots took this monkey, and having never seen a Frenchman, having only heard that they were barbaric and spoke a strange, unintelligible tongue, after repeated questioning, decided that the monkey must be a French spy and summarily hanged it.

Still chuckling over that (while pitying the poor monkey), I got out and was greeted by giggles from the flustered woman. "Konichiwa," I greet. She continued to giggle nervously. My mind went to the French monkey. She blurted out, "I've never seen a gaijin in this area before!" I smiled and told her I live in a neighborhood not far away, then went about my business of choosing vegetables. After thinking a bit, the woman again approached me and said, "Oh, I'm sorry I was so rude to call you a 'gaijin.' I should have called you 'gaijin-san.' Would you like this daikon? And here, take these long onions." I offer to pay, but she would have none of it.

It was hard not to compare myself with that monkey. I had a much happier outcome, though.

Plastic Trash

The other day I was late taking out my plastic trash. I know that plastic trash is picked up early, much earlier than on the other trash days (burnable trash, or cans and bottles, etc.) So when, already dressed for my walk, I saw the truck out the window, I grabbed the trash and thought to head them off at the pass by unloading the trash at what was usually one of their last pick-up spots. To my surprise, they had already picked it up from there!

Now what to do?!

To my joy, I saw the truck stop at another spot, about 100 meters up the hill. Off I ran.

Then there was a kei-car beside me, driving at my running speed. It crept along, old woman driving and peeking over at me from time to time. I wondered if perhaps she was thinking of giving me a ride.

Anon, from the top of the hill came running down the street to meet me, one of the garbage men! Like a romantic scene from a cheesy movie, we were running toward each other - me with garbage bag in hand, he with white-gloved-hand outstretched.

He met me on the way, grabbed my garbage bag, and ran back up the hill to the truck. My hero.

And yes, the lady was thinking of giving me a ride. She exclaimed out her car window after the drama, "Wow! What a kind garbageman! I've never seen that before!"

I'm sure she hadn't.

New Year's TV

Imagine a TV show where men wear weird wigs, get herded from location to location on a bus, people do outrageous things to make them laugh - and when they do laugh, strange men with dark coveralls and ski masks on come out and spank them with rubber bats.

Well, that's what's on TV right now. The Dec 31 tradition. My boys think it's hysterical.

Just now, the non-laughers had to not laugh when men wearing g-strings took turns putting out a candle with their naked derrieres. Of course they laughed, and out came the spankers.

Welcome to my world.