Christeph: On the Lam

If you’re going to move from the Middle of Nowhere, Japan back to your home country of America, there’s probably no better place than Los Angeles to fully embrace all that culture shock has to offer. Amidst the hubbub of the big city, reeling under the influence of jet lag, I had difficulty creating a coherent thought. Numb and overstimulated, I could only think: big. loud. bright. backwards.

Have I been changed in any permanent, meaningful way by my 3 years abroad? Probably, but whatever. It’s the little things I’m confronted with on a day-to-day basis that fascinate me now. Firstly, you’ll have to forgive me: I am slightly disoriented because the air doesn’t smell like fish. I am embarrassed by the degree to which I am in awe of raspberries. Portion sizes seemed to have quintupled overnight (look, a salad twice as big as your head! Good luck, friend!) Also? Flushing a public toilet by hand seems unspeakably vulgar, now that I’ve become accustomed to flushing squatters by foot.

We’re only here in the US for 3 days before we leave the country again, so I feel little need to acclimate to my homeland. Instead, I spend my time obsessing over every odd little detail. Everyone gets a menu when eating in restaurants, revolutionary! Soap and paper towels in public restrooms, brilliant! I can explain nuances clearly and competently to my doctor, fantastic!

But a more sinister side of America has started to manifest. Isn’t it unsanitary to wear one’s shoes into the bathroom? Why are you prescribing me medicine I can totally do without for $400 that I clearly can’t afford? Why, in a country fighting an epic battle with obesity, does it cost $15 to go to the gym for the day? And when I arrived in LA, I witnessed a street so clogged with traffic that a fire engine literally could not get through to its destination. How is that a workable plan? Why has this city not yet burnt down to the ground in a puff of smoke? And why does the main topic of conversation seem to be about all the stuff people have bought and how they can buy more?

It’s a novelty to be able to buy nearly anything I need with a credit card, but living in a country with tips means I can’t get rid of the spare change which increasingly weighs down my wallet. The frenzied rush of the LA freeway system, which functions on a totally different level from the equally crazy landscape of Japanese driving, also takes some getting used to.

The California public schools, I am surprised to note, are gorgeous! No prison block educational facilities here to insult the eye. Small community parks are green and luscious instead of bare patches of dirt. The backwardness of this confuses me though: it is a desert here in LA. Shouldn’t we have the parks made of dirt, and Japan have the lush green grassy expanses for kids to play on…?

And then there’s that weird SoCal phenomenon: the perfect 72-degree day with cloudless skies that stretch blue and flawless to the horizon. The first day of this weather was glorious, but after 3 days I began to get twitchy; it seemed unnatural after coming from Japan where I felt I’d been living under a little grey raincloud for 3 years. It only adds insult to injury to Noshiro, which was still probably drying out from the flood less than a week before (the second flood to hit that tiny town in two years).

Where, may I ask, are the cats on leashes? The onsens to soothe the aches and pains from lugging 80kg of luggage by hand across the Pacific? Where are the grannies bent over nearly in half with their pushcarts, elbowing people in the ribs as they plow through a crowd or brazenly stopping traffic as they meander out into the road? Where are the ubiquitous vending machines (they seem to have been replaced with an ample sprinkling of trash cans, a fair trade in my mind). And then of course, there is the soul-crushing smog, which brings us to the Californian existential question: Is it possible to fully enjoy perfect weather if you can’t see the horizon?

And not to belabor the point, but where’s my cashmoney, America? My bank seems to have vaporized sometime in the last year when I wasn’t looking. Washington Mutual, where are you? I thought you were going to meet me with flowers at the airport? I can only hope that the remnants of my life savings are floating around in the aether somewhere waiting for me to reclaim them when I return home this winter, ready to exchange cash for goods and services for my loved ones this holiday season.

A few more words on:

CELL PHONES
When I arrived in Japan, I grudgingly got the cheapest cell phone and payment plan possible. I’d never had a cell phone before, but I quickly grew to love it (you most of all, emoji!). Sadly, J-phones aren’t really designed to outlast the attention span of the average consumer (which is like 3 days), and at the end of my 3-year tenure, my phone was rebelling. The battery refused to remain charged. It also developed a rather suspicious-looking bulge which was getting bigger by the day, leaving me to nervously wonder when it was going to burst in a shower of battery acid.

Now that I’ve canceled my phone service abroad and gone through this exact process again in the states and I have to say, my new American cell phone… it sucks beans. Like an old friend I just can’t say goodbye to, my old J-phone is tucked away safely in storage. In the ruckus of repatriation however, I forgot to remove and dispose of the suspect battery. The worrisome bulge is probably still growing in my absence like some kind of space alien baby.

FOOD
In Japan, there were some hoops to jump through regarding food, for sure. Everyone deals with the scarcity of non-processed cheese, for one. And zucchini can only be procured during an obscenely short interval at the end of summer (pumpkin and daikon are, of course, available at any time). Some foreign foods, like Thai and Mexican are pretty much non-existent. So when I stepped into a Trader Joe’s a few days ago, I nearly wept with joy at the diversity I saw on the shelves. However, trolling the supermarket aisles later I was overwhelmed by the mind-numbing variety: do we really need Flamin’ Hot Cheetos con Limon and Cheddar Jalapeno Cheetos? Would America be any less complete if we did away with the whole aisle in the grocery store dedicated to Oreos and perhaps replaced it with only a pack or two? The variety of edible products really seems to have proliferated to an absurd degree in our absence.

WORDS
When I first moved to Japan, I found the new language overwhelming. My brain overloaded as it tried to sift through all the text seen and sentences heard and come out with something sensical. And it would grind to a screeching halt every time. After 3 years in northern Tohoku, I’ve learned to filter efficiently: focus on the pertinent, and ignore the rest. But upon arriving in LA, I find that I’m experiencing the same phenomenon all over again, only in reverse. I’m compelled to read everything, listen to everything just because I can. Advertisements for real estate. Strangers’ conversations. Sensationalist TV shows on FOX. And this effortless and immediate ability to comprehend everything is, frankly, wearing me out.

ALCOHOL
I felt the old puritanical attitudes toward alcohol come flooding back as I sat in my favorite brewery, void of ID. Imagine my embarrassment when at 32, I had to ask my dad to order beer for me. I then covertly sipped said beer from a straw because I know how fierce California establishments are about monitoring underage drinking. I’d grown complacent after all those izakaya visits and forgotten to bring either my passport or my drivers’ license. At 32, why can I not just order beer in this country? You’d think the grey hairs on my head would be proof enough (although now that I think about it, some of my 12-year-old students in Japan sport more grey than I).

RELATIVE SIZE
For the first time in my life, I felt average-sized in Japan, as I’m only slightly below average in height and slightly above average in other bodily dimensions there. In America, I feel categorically small again. I’m not sure how to feel about this. I can easily find clothes that fit me again (yay!) but I am no longer the bustiest girl in the room by default (boo). I’m no longer comparing myself to the stick-thin girls I was surrounded by in Japan (yay!) but I have zero visibility now when in a crowd (boo).

You may be tempted at this point to ask: Where next? All of this culture-comparing is nice and all, but where are you going to live, girl? To which my response is: Run away! Yes, I’m avoiding such weighty questions by going on the gap year adventure that I was too serious and focused to take when I was actually 22. We’ll be gone for 4-5 months (I promised the fam I’d be home this Christmas) while we visit our friends living far and wide. Hopefully, whatever comes next in life will sort itself out in the meantime.

Wish us luck, stay in touch, and see you on the other side!

As we prepare to leave Japan in two weeks, I’ve finally gotten around to something that’s been in the back of my mind for most of the three years we’ve lived here: writing down the things I love and hate about the place. Last week I griped about the things I find most annoying. Now it’s time for the bubbly conclusion.

So here’s the stuff I’ll miss when I go.

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It’s now less than three weeks before we leave Noshiro, our home of the last three years. In that time we have come to feel at home in Japanese culture. Like any culture, Japan’s is a combination of splendid and infuriating traits, and I’ve been tossing this idea around in the back of my head for almost our whole time here. So now that we’re approaching the end of this adventure, I wanted to commit to writing my take on the better and worse parts of living in Japan.

In the spirit of leaving the best for last, I’m going to start with the negative stuff. Some of this may come across as a snarky self-superior bitchfest; if so, that’s certainly not my intent! Indeed, my aim is to attain an Obama-like state, wherein I float serenely above mere human opinion and see all sides of an issue. Only funnier.

And so, these are the things I won’t miss about Japan, in no particular order.

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Dad’s always asking me how my Japanese language skills are coming along, and I never know how to answer this question. (3.2? C+? 78%?) While my Japanese ability has progressed a great deal in the last 3 years, those of you who understand Japanese and have heard me speak know that I have a long way to go before I achieve fluency. However, should the rest of you be mildly curious about my ability to communicate, here are some small victories from the past week:

*Successfully explaining the rules of Sharks and Minnows to a group of elementary school kids, each of whom has the attention span of a small kitten surrounded by fluff and balls of string.

*Figuring out who that random guy at the pool was. I had one of those awkward moments where I was greeted warmly by some dude I swear I’d never met before. After a brief conspiratorial conference with the poolside manager, I was able to divine that he was in fact my old salsa teacher (who’s also, incidentally, the nation-wide champion of Japan. And a hair dresser.) In my defense, I haven’t been to class for about a year, and he was wearing a swim cap.

*Conversing with a saleschick. Mildly curious about the GAP that materialized recently in Akita, I cautiously entered this new store but was skeptical about trying anything on. As I explained to the overly-eager sales staff, I’d been through this masochistic pas-de-deux with Japan-based GAPs before in Tokyo. Theoretically, the GAP is supposed to carry western sizes that don’t exist in the boondocks of Akita, but instead I found to my dismay clothing that had been tailored to fit the Japanese frame, and thus, not my own. After hearing my tale of woe and betrayal, I was assured that THIS store (GAP*USA!) was different, because everything is directly imported from America, and as such I was encouraged to approach shopping with renewed optimism and vigor.

I don’t know if any of that’s going to be on the JLPT, but it’s nice to know that I can increasingly say what I want to say on the spur of the mo’.

The honorific おねえさん (older sister) was first bestowed on me by the kids in my taiko group simply as a consequence of my age: I’m considerably older than they are, but not quite as old as their parents. My first two years here in Noshiro, I taught practically all of them, and Onēsan seemed like a convenient enough title when we were going about our business in taiko rehearsal.

This year, however, I was relocated to a bunch of new schools, and I now no longer teach any of my taiko kids. This has had some unexpectedly delightful side effects, as I’m now free to act more like a sister and less like an authority figure.

Last weekend we all attended a 2-day taiko workshop. At the evening’s enkai,  I finally felt the taiko kids fully embrace the title of おねえさん and all of the responsibilities that it entails. All you older siblings out there know the drill, but I’ll break down my role for the rest of you.

Being おねえさん means:

• issuing orders and having them carried out. In this case it meant getting an unusually bossy 10-year old to go and fetch a rag to clean up my drink, which she spilled while exhibiting excessive exuberance. The miracle is that she complied immediately and without complaint.
• allowing fingers to be dipped in beer foam. Foam swiping is all good fun (who doesn’t like a finger or two in their drink?), but the problem was that this then escalated to whining and pleading for beer. When I looked to their usually no-nonsense mother for help, we found her curled up in a corner next to a friend giving us a hopeful and encouraging “thumbs up” sign.
• making sure that one of the kids keeps my glass full of beer at all times during the enkai. I left this somber and sacred duty to the 14-year old to my left.
• wiping up spilled alcohol with the children’s socks that litter the floor. This is an excellent alternative which is readily at hand, in case those rags are just too far away.

and, of course, just generally inciting them to silliness.

Other pieces of information gleaned from the taiko workshop include:

• A time-tested method for finding an enkai’s after-party, which is this: Wander the halls of the hotel which houses all of you, listen for the loudest room, and burst in with a full bottle of JINRO to join the party. I know this because that’s how the TWO roving bands of drunken Japanese taiko players found my modest post-party. By the end of the night, my small two person room contained 9 drunken men (some of whom had to be extricated by force) and one set of bongo drums.
• How to drum for two days straight with a broken rib, as demonstrated by one participant from Kamikoani. Taiko people are hard core.
• The first hard evidence I’ve seen in Japan of the global meltdown: enrollment in the workshop was visibly down from last year.

And, lest you think that taiko workshops are all about drinking beer and mistreating children, here’s the new piece we learned in 8 hours:

We felt our fifth Japanese earthquake today. We were having pizza with friends in Odate city, about an hour east of Noshiro. This one was very light; the epicenter was way off in the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the country. I didn’t even feel the thing; my first inkling was when someone noticed all the lights in the restaurant were swaying. We probably wouldn’t have felt it at all in Noshiro.

Feb 15, 2009

For reference, the previous four earthquakes were:

• Iwate, July 24 2008
• Iwate/Miyagi, June 14 2008
• Niigata, July 16 2007
• Noto Peninsula, March 25 2007 (visiting Kyoto at the time)

…wherein I make heroic efforts to avoid words like “historic”, “hope” and “change”.

It started with the bulletin board. I’ve worked here for over two years and haven’t put a damn thing up on that English corner bulletin board. I’m just not a cutesy cut-and-paste scrap-booking bulletin board type. But last month? I finally had something to say.

I usually don’t talk about America in the classroom. I figure the students get inundated with enough crap American culture, I’m not going to force more on them… but, inspired by receipt of my absentee ballot, last month I made an exception and posted some information about the upcoming election. Pictures of McCain and Obama went up, along with a rudimentary explanation of Democrat vs. Republican. High school students began to gather around the board, giggling and pointing, looking confused but interested. This could be good, I thought.

Then last week in the days leading up to the election, I had the good fortune of working with my favorite Japanese teacher of English. Let’s just call him Rockstar, for his stellar teaching talents. Rockstar and I started class like we always do, by asking the students how they’re doing, and they respond in kind. In lieu of my usual schtick however, I responded by physically jumping up and down. Why, you ask? On Wednesday morning, I told them, we’ll find out who the next American president is. Be excited.

We then asked our 13 and 14 year-old students (impartially, of course) who they would vote for, McCain or Obama. To my surprise, everyone had very passionate opinions, like, way more passionate than I would expect from an American teenager. As it turns out, 95% of my students are for Obama.

How to explain this overwhelming majority? Some cynics theorize that Obama is popular in Japan because his name fits nicely into the Japanese syllabary. There’s also the small matter of Obama, Japan, a little fishing village which existed long before Obama the politician burst onto the scene a few years ago. However, Obama’s popularity with the kids is really no surprise… if you’re not avidly watching the campaign unfold, with the policy debates and the supposed scandals, all you have to go on is looks. I mean, who would you vote for, if you were 14? The young, hip guy with a smile or the old codger with a grimace?

My students verified this suspicion when we asked them to explain their reasoning. Most said they would vote for Obama because “He is cool!” or “He is black!” (which seems to lend one a certain mystique in Japanese pop-culture). One student though, blew everyone away when he simply replied: “Because Obama will see everyone as equals.”

Amazingly enough, one girl supported McCain to the bitter end, even after seeing all her classmates go for Obama. In a country that is all about not sticking out, at an age when you are dying to be just like everyone else, I was incredibly impressed that she stuck to her guns. Why does she support McCain? Because “Obama is too popular”. I didn’t delve any deeper, so we can’t be sure if she’s rocking the pity vote, or making blithe commentary on Obama’s messiah-like status. All in all, I was impressed with the students’ ability to express their personal opinion, especially when you consider that they’ve studied English for a year and a half, tops.

As Wednesday morning rolled around and electoral votes trickled in, I was on some kind of giddy caffeine-induced news high, drunk on information overload. Simultaneously chatting with friends, family, and my husband, we made the play-by-play back and forth as results began to pop up (Look, quick! Before it flips! Texas is blue! Go Dallas!) News began to trickle in about the rest of you as well: driving voters to the polls in Miami, last minute campaigning in Seattle, working long shifts at the polls in Ohio, stuck in chem lab in Texas, on the edge of your seat, waiting breathlessly in Harlem. As Obama’s electoral votes continued to inch towards 270, I raced off to teach for two hours. As usual, Rockstar and I brought up the election in class, that it was happening RIGHT NOW people, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! and if students wanted to know the results, they could come and ask me in person around 2pm to find out.

Little did I know that the entire school had been working on a research project about their hometown, culminating in an all-afternoon presentation. While this was a pretty awesome project, it may have stolen a little thunder from my election-fever. No matter… I went around from poster to poster, listening to students give speeches about the elementary schools they all came from, or what kind of fish swim in the river, or the best season to enjoy the local park, and it was incredibly sweet, actually. What a lovely way to celebrate and take pride in small town life (you know, the REAL Japan where the hard-working people with values live… ).

Then 2 o’clock rolled around. We were still rotating around the gym from presentation to presentation. But during those in-between moments, students inexorably gravitated towards me from across the room in groups of 3 or 4. In hushed conspiratorial voices, they would ask me「オバマかマケンか誰勝ったの？」After making them ask in English, and making a big “O” sign with my arms (also the sign for “Yes! Correct!” here in Japan), they would jump up and down, giving me high fives and celebratory terrorist fist jabs, then rush off to tell another cluster of students, who would approach me to start the process all over again.

But the most compelling moment was yet to come, when I returned to school on Thursday. Rockstar-sensei and I were on our way to class when he asked me to explain a little bit about Obama’s speech to the students. Unbeknownst to me, he had burned a copy of Obama’s acceptance speech to CD, and printed out hard copies for all of his students. I didn’t really have anything specific prepared. My impression was that he was planning on a 10 minute discussion, tops. To his credit, when I asked how much time I could use to discuss the speech, he replied “Take as much time as you want.” Anyone who has taught English in Japan while bound by protocol, anyone who has attempted to reach outside of the textbook, or tried to teach something which doesn’t fit neatly into the rigid government-determined English framework knows that setting aside agendas and schedules to learn from current events using real English is nothing short of miraculous.

We spent the entire hour going over the last 11 paragraphs of Obama’s acceptance speech, the part where the 106 year-old lady shows up to vote, and we stop for a moment to consider all she’s been through, to consider not only the hardships we’ve overcome in the last century, like war and inequality, but also all the progress society has made through technological breakthroughs.

To their credit, the junior high school students were familiar with just about every historical event mentioned in the speech (although it kind of blew their minds that this lady was born in a time without planes or cars). They nodded with hesitant familiarity as we went over (in English!) World War II, the first man on the moon, and even the Berlin wall coming down. They could understand how decades and decades ago, people were prevented from voting because of race, gender, or lack of money. What they hadn’t heard of and could barely comprehend was the Civil Rights Movement.

Using basic English we explained to our students about segregated buses and stores. We identified the “preacher from Alabama” as Martin Luther King (flashes of recognition here when Rockstar mentioned his name in Japanese) and that even though this man believed in protesting non-violently, he was still killed for his beliefs. When we stressed that all of this had happened less than 70 years ago, that was the kicker. That’s what they couldn’t believe. And that’s when it hit home, how this woman mentioned in the speech had been born some 40 years after the end of slavery, and had experienced the Civil Rights Movement and then lived long enough to witness the election of first African-American president. You could see the light go on, as students recognized the continuity and proximity of all these events, as they understood the context that makes this election’s results so extraordinary.

I am not a sentimental person. As such, I refuse to disclose the number of times that tears have come to my eyes since the election was called last Wednesday; frankly, it would be embarrassing. But I will tell you that each time we began this lesson, my tear ducts would ambush me. First it was discussing the Civil Rights Movement. When I got that under control, I then lost it when we got to WWII, which Obama describes as the time when “bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world”. Try translating that as an American standing in front of a class of Japanese school children. But the amazing thing was… we could all soberly acknowledge that this event happened, free of animosity on either side, knowing that even though our countries fought against each other in the past, we don’t have to be pigeon-holed by history. Tissue, please.

We wrapped up the lesson by discussing the “American Dream”, mentioned in the last paragraph of the speech. Until we began this conversation, I was unaware that many teachers and students alike in Japan have a very specific understanding of the American Dream. As it was explained to me, the Japanese interpretation has to do with the opportunity (possibly the right) to become rich and famous if you live in America. I explained my broader interpretation of the American Dream by making a list of some of the classifications that have divided our country in the past. Black and white. Rich and poor. Gender. Religion. And (in light of Prop. 8, thank you very much) gay and straight. And that no matter how you identify yourself, no matter what mix of all these things you are, you (should) have the same rights as anyone else. And (call me sentimental if you will) that if you work hard, you can achieve anything (even being rich and famous, if that’s your thing).

Now forget for a moment the larger-than-life oratory, the rhetoric, the poignant references to Lincoln and JFK and Martin Luther King. Forget the beautifully constructed arc of the speech, how Obama calls upon the citizenry for “service and responsibility,” the (dare I say it) historic drama of it all. Instead take in these words for a moment: “While the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility…” Humility. A word I’ve scarcely heard in the last 8 years, certainly not from anyone in the reigning administration, certainly not regarding current American policy.

While it remains to be seen if Obama will be an effective president, he is already having a profound effect in my small community here in Japan. Instead of asking in class “People who understand, raise your hands”, Rockstar-sensei now says “Yes We Can people…?” and arms shoot enthusiastically into the air. The English teachers aren’t the only ones who are jumping on the band-wagon. The Japanese teacher also took in a translation of Obama’s speech to study with his class this week.

As for the two of us? The night of Obama’s victory we went out to carouse, euphoric on an election high (just like the rest of y’all, apparently). I wanted to run like crazy through streets packed to the gills with humanity, but this being Tohoku, I had to settle for something a little more modest in scale. Eager to share our good cheer with someone, we headed to a familiar restaurant where we know the folks who run the joint. We shared the room with one other Japanese couple. The TV was on, rehashing election results, mostly just showing clips from Obama’s acceptance speech. As the Japanese translation scrolled by on the screen, we could hear the general consensus in the room: “Dude, I totally can’t understand him but he’s SO COOL!”

We knew, all of us, that despite the excitement, that despite all the hype, he’s not the ultimate solution to all things. He’s not our fairy godmother. Of course he’ll make mistakes. But for that moment, we allowed ourselves the luxury of basking happily and without reservation in the election afterglow, drinking beer, feeling that all was right with the world, even if it’s not. At the end of the night, making our way out the door, we congratulated the two lingering couples on Obama’s victory. In return, their cheers ushered us out into the night, all of us flushed with mutual good feeling (and, let’s be honest, alcohol).

I’m not sure how election night unfolded for you, where you were, what you felt, when you heard. But that’s how it all went down here, in the boondocks of Japan.

After two years of living in the same small community, it can sometimes feel like I’ve exhausted everything there is to do in Akita. The seasons may shift, the tides ebb and flow, I change my clothes every once in a while. But I still can’t shake this feeling of repetition, like I’m condemned to bike the same roads, wave to the same children, and teach the same classes over and over and over again. Which is why I’m always thrilled whenever I discover something that is genuinely new to me.

Take, for example, the main bridge in town, which crosses the Yoneshiro river. I bike over this guy all the time. I’ve watched sunsets and fireworks from this span. I drive over it on my way to onsens, to schools, to Aomori. But I’d never actually been under it before, until last week, when curiosity seized me, and I ducked under its low 4-foot clearance. Here, I found ample evidence that English is alive and well Noshiro, as well as graffiti, which has always been eerily absent in town, with the exception of this one scrawl by the river. Apparently high school students are incredibly motivated by the topic of sex (shocker!) and want nothing more than to tell you all about it in English. On the far side of the bridge, you can find a lovely “Welcome Motherfucker” salutation. This wasn’t the first thing I saw when I moved to Noshiro, but I kind of wish it had been.

Another recent eye-opener involves these discrete black, white and yellow signs that are posted throughout the countryside. They’re so discrete, in fact, that I didn’t really even notice them until a few months ago. Then I began to see them everywhere… the distinctive color scheme and the concise, clean design kept catching my eye. Last weekend, I went on a quest to photograph as many of these signs as I could find, and translate them when I had some free time. On a 20 km bike ride between Noshiro and the neighboring town of Futatsui, I found 11 specimens, often on old neglected buildings covered with corrugated metal, or next to these red and white “Orion*” signs which advertise the availability of “life loans”. What did it all mean?

Herein lies the beauty of the foreign language: when you first see signs in a language you don’t know, everything looks romantic and foreign and lovely. When I moved to Japan two years ago, I was thrilled to ride my bike down streets chock-full of atmospheric signs declaring: タバコ、お酒、おもしろ館. Now that I’ve become more proficient in Japanese, I know better: these signs are just hawking cigarettes, alcohol, and porn, just like everywhere else in the world. Comprehension is great, but sometimes, you lose a little innocence when you translate.

Such is the case with my mystery signs, because I found to my surprise when I translated them that they were advocating Christianity. Which is fine in and of itself, but some of the messages were a little pointed for my taste, including “Sin’s reward is death” and “Make up for adultery. Jesus Christ“. Before, these signs were just part of the scenery in the Japanese countryside, but now every time I see one, I feel like I’m being asked to consider my status as a sinner. It’s a little unnerving.

So, yes, there’s a slight loss of innocence there. But being able to understand these signs brings up a whole new intriguing set of questions. Christianity was banned in Japan until the Meiji era, and Christians (according to Wikipedia ;) ) make up about 1% of the population here today. Consider for a moment that the average frequency of these signs in my neighborhood is 1 every 2 kilometers. Where do they all come from? A little internet research reveals that these signs are not just in Akita, or even Tohoku, but that they can be found all over Japan.

As an outside observer with little emotional investment in the signs’ message itself, I’m fascinated by this phenomenon. Who put these signs here? Are the owners of all these buildings Christian? Or are they indicative of a vigorous canvassing campaign? Why do I see these signs mostly in the countryside, but not so much in big cities? Discuss potential scenarios amongst yourselves, and let me know what you come up with… in the meantime, I’ll be out cruising the country roads, looking for another sign from (or at least about) God.

*FYI, while this company’s name originally appeared to be “Orion” in a funky English font, upon closer inspection it is actually “マルフク” in a funky Japanese font. Go figure.

Even though in your heart of hearts, you want to travel all 280 km from Noshiro to Aomori City by pedal power alone, do take a car along on your first long-distance bike trek. Do bring friends and travel in packs, terrorizing innocent bystanders in narrow countryside streets with your badass gaijin bicycle gang. Do stop for ice cream at every opportunity, even if the only available flavor is carrot. Do keep an eye out for monkeys crossing the street, and continue to stare in awe as they nonchalantly disappear with a rustle into the trees.

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I like to bike through the Buddhist temple district on the way to school. The road is lined with trees, and the temples add an air of serenity. The path is generally free of students, which means I don’t have to fight my way upstream against an onslaught of preteen boys fiddling with their cellphones on their way to the junior high by my house.

But today, the atmosphere had changed. (more…)