Adventures in Japan no. 27

Hungry and tired, I pulled into the Lawson parking lot. I hadn't ate since lunch, and smoked salmon onigiri sounded intoxicating.

Removing my security pass from teaching at the military base, I got out of my car and met the glance of a Japanese man getting out of his car. He smiled and waved. Pleased to see a friendly face, I waved back at the stranger.

Looking through the convenience store aisles, I found my onigiri and again bumped into the stranger.

Once back in my car I put my seatbelt on and the stranger walks by. He waves. I wave back – this time a little confused.

I leave the Lawson parking lot and head toward my next class at Yawata Bussan. “I hope he doesn't follow me”, I think to myself.

I arrived at Yawata Bussan 30 minutes early and sat in my car eating my onigiri. Seaweed, rice and salty smoked salmon is a fantastic combination. After I'm done eating I pick the remnants of seaweed out of my teeth in the rear view mirror and pull out my date book to look at my classes for the week.

I hear a tap-tap on the window.

I look over and there's a large white car parked next to me – the stranger smiling through the glass.

He rolls down his window. With hesitation, I roll mine down too. He begins talking to me in rapid-fire Japanese. Wakarimasen nihon-go, I say. He mentions Yamaguchi – the place my license plates are from. No, Yonago, I say in English. I glance back down at my date book, thinking our conversation is over. Anata wa kawaii desu, he says through his window pointing at his face. I thank him for the compliment. I think I'm cute too.

He realized this was going nowhere and waved goodbye. I didn't wave back this time.

Adventures in Japan no. 26

From the rooftop of Tenmaya I have the perfect view of Yonago. The peninsula is laid out before me, and I can see the ocean on both sides of me. It's dusk and overcast, and the air is humid. I smell the faint aroma of incense – lingering around me from teaching at Mrs. Ikuta's house – her family alter alive with offerings of incense.

The beginnings of summer are all around me – familiar sounds of the returning cicadas, the hot salty air.

Adventures in Japan no. 25

16 May 07 | 9:55a

Nice English – like Happy Teriyaki and Beauty Nails, it's another casualty of the English language in East Asia. It's also one of the classrooms I teach in --- and it's haunted!

The Nice English building sits on a busy street overlooking Yonago. It was a small hospital earlier in the century and was only recently changed into an English school. “Nobody died here.”, my manager reassures me.

With the old operating room changed into an office – no longer sterile white tiles turned gray, it looks like something taken from Silent Hill. The spiral staircase leads to a grizzly, abandoned 3^rd and 4^th floor – the ceiling reminiscent of a dead plantation home with brown swirls of water damage rippling through the paisley pattern.

I'm always alone in this building – waiting patiently for my perpetually late students – hoping I'm really alone.

Last night I taught an English class there to a small group of 8 and 9 year olds. The humid beginnings of summer have left a dank odor in the building, so I had the classroom door carefully propped open to filter out the rotting air. Without a gust of wind the door slams itself shut. My students were alarmed and looked at me for a reason. I shrugged my head and continued the lesson – once again propping open the door, but this time moving the white board in front of it. Again the door slams shut, the white board moved aside.

“Ghost house!”, 8 year-old Takashi shouts. The other 4 students agreed and continued repeating their English definition of what happened. “Yes, it's a ghost house.”, I casually said.

As soon as the children packed up and left for the evening I jolted out of there. I've always thought the old Nice English building was haunted, but now I have confirmation.

Adventures in Japan no. 24

The sky turned black at 5 o'clock. We knew a storm was coming. Sitting in class with a student, the room went dark. No lights. He quickly left the building and I followed not far behind him.

The rain fell like the ocean was emptying into the street and I had forgotten my umbrella in the car. I grabbed a spare from the downtown classroom as I fled out the door where the water was making its way up.

I dashed down the deserted sidewalk, my heels filling with water, and took a shortcut through a back-alley – rapidly being filled-up with water by the overflowing storm drain.

Once in my car I turn on the heat – it's a humid evening, but I needed to dry my clothes.

The only sounds back at home are the thunder and rain shattering against the clay-tiled roof. The shoji light up from the illuminated dragon that darts across the sky. The thunder shakes the house. I wonder how long it will last.

Mizu Shōbai

Just a few days ago an English teacher was murdered. She was smart, attractive, Western and my age. She'd only been in Japan for a short time – a place I was in not too long ago. It's a vulnerable place and sadly, she didn't make it through.


The Japanese man views a woman differently then a Western man. She was put on this earth to service him. Nothing more. This murder reeks of sexual aggression and Japan's gender issues.

Her murder has brought up thoughts of another murder of a Western girl, Lucie Blackman. But Lucie wasn't an English teacher. She came to Japan in search of wealth – working as a hostess in a hostess bar.

Since I first arrived in Japan 10 months ago, I've been fascinated by this strange sexual counterculture. You can't escape it – the Mizu Shōbai - it's everywhere.

Adventures in Japan no. 23

I went to a party last night that was one part casual dinner party, one part guitar jam session, and one part college kegger.

Here the French speak English, the Irish speak French and the British speak Japanese. How did we fit into this mix? Perfectly.

After ordering about 8 pizzas (Japanese sized pizza, not American) we settled in with the vino, made some new friends and listened to the best cover of Jimi Hendrix by a Japanese man that could be done.

Though he said tonight he would speak Japanese only, after a few beers his English was impeccable.

Adventures in Japan no. 22

Yesterday I noticed two paper lanterns next door. Giant lanterns leading down the path to the home on our right. Have these always been here and am I just noticing them? Couldn't be – they are too massive, to magnificent, too reminiscent of old world Japan.

My first thought was, “They're building a restaurant next door!”. But that's not the case. These lanterns have a special significance. They are symbolic of the funerary proceedings in the house on our right.

It is very common to see these lanterns around neighborhoods this time of year. As one of my students put it, this is a common time for death. The changing seasons must be too much for these ancient bodies to handle.

Funeral ceremonies in Japan are a very sacred time, and the families stay in mourning until the New Year. This is a time to release the spirit of their deceased to the ancestor world. Once dead, their ancestors become spirits and gods. They will never be forgotten and will be prayed to and cared for after death.

Two major chopsticks faux-pas come from this ceremony. During the funeral, the bones of the deceased are passed through a line of chopsticks-wielding family members and bowls of rice with chopsticks vertically stuck in the middle are placed at an alter to the deceased. It's considered unforgivable to pass food from one set of chopsticks to the other, and also to stick your chopsticks vertical into the center of your rice.