AUGUST IN KASEDA

AUGUST IN KASEDA

The flight from Tokyo Haneda to Kagoshima took a couple of hours and went very smoothly.  I got off the plane to find 3 people waving a sign with my name on it, the office lady, Tomomi san, who could speak really good English, the English teacher coordinator, Ishizono san, who did not speak much English, and Tanaka san, who came along to offer a smile and support to his co-workers and to me. They whisked me away for the hour plus drive to my apartment.  It was dark so I couldn’t see much along the way.  

 

Ishizono San, my immediate supervisor, close to my age, yet father-like in caring, alternately stern, kind and not always sure what to do with me!   And beautiful, smart and English speaking Tomomi san, a life saver for all of us with her skills and poise in tough situations.

 

 

 

Tanaka san was later voted by Brian and me as having the most formal bow.  He had a boyish smile that lit up the room, and played a mean game of volleyball.

 My apartment overlooked a pretty street lined with various shops.  It was fairly new, on the second floor, very open, had wood flooring in the kitchen with table and chairs, lots of windows, and straw tatami mats for the living room and bedroom floors.  There was a large bath with soaking tub, and as is customary there, the toilet was in its own little closet with a window.    

The kitchen had a small fridge, sink, 2 burner cooktop, also usual at that time in Japan, and an electric rice cooker and toaster oven.  Most at that time did not have our large built in ovens.  That was going to be a major adjustment for me.  A dead plant sat on the window sill. 

There was a small apartment-sized washer, again common to most households that I saw, that were what I had had 20 years earlier, the kind that you filled with water from a hose, then ran it through the wash cycle and refilled it for the rinse.  Draining it was also done by a hose.  Drying was solar and wind power on the balconies on racks, or inside if it rained. (Japan has a rainy season, but I had missed it for that year.  I would later learn that mothers often dried the clothes with hair dryers for school in the morning if they were still damp.)

The living room was quite large by Japanese standards, maybe 15x12 feet, with an old TV, one real chair and a small center table called a kotatsu for eating and entertaining.   One comfy cushioned seat with a back could be opened to lie flat on the floor was  next to the table and there were several  floor cushions.  Later I would learn that a kotatsu has a small electric heater on the underside so that you can sit with your legs under the table.  A quilted comforter lies over the table and then a flat separate cover goes over the comforter for a regular table surface.  Tucking the nice, snug comforter around you over your legs to stay warm in the cold winter was one way to stay warm as most places in the area didn’t have any kind of central heating.  But I had a kerosene heater I would also learn to use later.   

Sliding doors called fusuma opened into a bedroom that held large closets for clothes and futons.  It was also large, about the same size as the living room.  But I had a double sized mattress on the floor so I did not have to pull out futons unless I had company. Both the living room and bedroom had sliding doors overlooking the street below.  There was a large window in the living room as well.  Overall, it had lots of natural light, was open and welcoming.

It was meagerly but fully furnished with linens, dishes, cookware and utensils.  I realized I had been given the best of the 3 apartments for ALTs in the city, probably by seniority which was turning out to be a plus.  I would also find out it was the closest to the bus station, about 2 blocks around the corner, the taxi stand just one block, and 4 blocks to the office. 

After leaving my bags, they took me out for something Western to eat, hamburgers.  Well, almost Western.  They were cooked more like small meatloaves but with soy sauce flavored gravy, rice on the side, a couple of green beans, and no ketchup, mustard or buns.  It was not very tasty to me, but I did my best to eat some of it and pleaded being too tired to finish.

To my great discomfort there was no air conditioning in my apartment.  This was nearly disastrous since we were at the end of August and Kagoshima is about par to northern Florida.  It was hot and humid and near 100 degrees for the next several weeks.  I was about to meet some seriously hard times.

Although JET teachers, called ALTs (assistant language teachers), were assigned to arrive in summer, schools were on vacation for the month of August.  We were scheduled to arrive on the American system to coordinate with college graduations, but the Japanese system, which is completely nationalized, runs from April 1 to March 1.  ALTs were assigned to their local board of education offices for the month and one or more days a week during the school year when we were not assigned to specific schools. 

So I got up and went to work the next day, and by the time I got to the office, I needed a shower from the walk.  The sun was relentless, and I noticed that women driving and riding bicycles wore gloves to protect their hands and wrists and often walked about during the day with umbrellas when it was sunny.   I never got the gloves, probably should have but I did use a hat and umbrella if I walked.

Since Tomomi san was the only one who spoke English and one of two assigned office ladies, I sat quietly at my desk, smiled and greeted each of about 12 people also with desks spaced in a basic U shape in the open office.  The supervisor had a separate office and formally  came out and bowed with spoken greetings and disappeared.  The office ladies took green tea around to everyone, and then Tomomi had some time to speak with me.  Apparently the desk next to mine would be occupied by Brian from Ireland.  But he wasn’t due to arrive until next week.  Apparently, there were so many ALTs coming into the start of the year that we were arriving in waves. 

After about 3 days of the heat and walking to the office with no one to talk to, doodling on some paper and writing seriously long letters about the heat, and sweating from every pore of my body, I was anxious to meet this Brian.  And I prayed he and I would get along.  I needed someone to talk to!  I also found out that Nancy would be arriving from New Orleans, but she was assigned to the City office, was fluent in Japanese and would be assigned  to junior high schools in the city.  Brian and I worked for the school district office.  At least we three would have each other to talk to and find our way around.

I was taking 3 showers a day, when I woke up, when I went home for lunch, and when I got home.  Thankfully, the office was air conditioned.  I wasn’t feeling well. I couldn’t eat and mainly drank cold, cold anything, water, juice, soda, or oolong tea.  There was a lovely ramen shop below my apartment, and alongside it a dry cleaners.  Next to that was a model toy shop and a nice Japanese cake shop.  But the ramen shop was always draining the pork fat off into a sewer drain when I got home at 5, and I would go by as quickly as possible without taking a breath until I got past.  I found that even smells were making me nauseous, and I needed some food I could recognize.   It would take me months to realize I was living above the best ramen shop in the city.  And they would deliver to me upstairs!

I went to the nearby grocery, just 3 or so blocks over and picked out what I thought was sugar, or was it salt?  Oh, right, you have now guessed.  I didn’t know enough Japanese to shop for food either.  AND I couldn’t read their symbols so there was no way to use a dictionary.  I bought ground meat that was called minchi, which made everyone there laugh because my last name sounded the same since Japanese words end in vowel sounds.  But I didn’t find it funny because the meat didn’t taste like meat I was used to eating.  I found out later that was because you can buy beef or a mix of beef and pork, and I had been buying the mix.  Life was very interesting but difficult.  Eventually Nancy and I would do some shopping together and I would get the basics under control.

After a very long week good things happened.  Brian arrived, tall, good looking, blue eyes, winning smile and just an all-around great guy.  We hit it off, and things were immensely better.  Nancy arrived also, winning smile, ,and we had someone who could speak Japanese.  We had a threesome to get out a bit, sit around and talk.  None of us had ventured from our little town, and it was so hot we couldn’t get outside for very long to enjoy ourselves either.  Basically, we now were a trio of unhappy, homesick souls, and we commiserated with each other.

Then an angel called Tazuko san came into our lives.  She was Brian’s neighbor, and she and her husband had an optometrist’s shop near my grocery store.  She came to the apartment, could speak a little English and never went out without her electronic English dictionary.  She saw my problem with the intense heat, second floor above the dry cleaners, and within two days had found a used air conditioner that I could buy.  She arranged to have it installed in my living room and I began to feel better immediately.  I slept in the living room and closed it off to the bedroom and the kitchen.  One night I would cook for two meals after work in the hot kitchen, and the second night I would do the dishes.

 

Sand Craft Festival, photo from info on the Internet on the 2018 Festival on FukiageHama (Hama is beach).

 

Next Tazuko explained that Kaseda was famous in Japan for its SandCraft Festival and she wanted to take the three of us there to see it.  Of course, we went and were completely surprised to find out we were only a few miles from the East China Sea and a huge, beautiful park called Kai Hin Koen (Sea Side Park).  Things were looking up, perhaps we weren’t stranded on the moon after all.