The Japan Saga, Part I: Crisis at the Airport, and Kyoto

With a place as fabled as Japan, having been romanticized for years in American film and TV, always shrouded in the mystery of the orient’s  impenetrable cloak, it’s difficult not to fall into the trap of building up unrealistic expectations.  At the risk of sounding foolish, I’ll share with you the idealized image I had created in my mind of what my first night in Japan would consist of.  Since I knew I would have to kill several hours after my arrival waiting for my friend to get off work, I had pictured myself finding a charming little back alley tea house with paper partition walls and a low ceiling where I would sit on the floor and drink in the richness of an ancient culture, preferably while snow falls softly outside.  Silly, right?  Of course, I knew that realizing such a perfect picture would be unlikely, but I certainly didn’t imagine that I would spend my first 4 hours in Japan stuck in Nagoya-Chubu airport frantically making expensive international phone calls, running from one information stand to another, and generally in a state of utter panic – but that’s exactly what happened.

The very first thing I did when I passed through customs was to seek out an ATM.  I needed to book a train ticket to Toyohashi where my friend lives, and I also needed some cash to pay for my libations in the charming little tea house when I found it.  I came upon a 7-11 ATM – perfect, I thought.  I had read that these ATMs always accepted foreign cards (not all Japanese ATMs do).  When the machine rejected my card twice, I swallowed the sense of alarm that began to surge up from my stomach and moved on to a Citi-Bank ATM that was labeled “Global ATM.”  That one rejected my card too, as did every other ATM I tried (I now know that the card and account that I have with my Korean bank CANNOT be used abroad, even though I had gone to my bank earlier in the week to ask this very question and was told that it would work).  By then, there was no suppressing the dread that was quickly overtaking my brain.  What was I going to do?  I couldn’t use my American credit card to purchase a train ticket, because they can only be paid for with cash; and I had not had enough foresight to bring extra cash – I only had about 1300 yen worth, which wasn’t even enough to get me to Toyohashi.  Compounding my panic was the thought that, even if I did figure out a way to get to Toyohashi, I would still need to survive 10 days in Japan while I apparently didn’t have any access to money. 

My iphone can’t be used to make regular calls in Japan, but it didn’t take me long to realize that if I could find Wi-Fi, I could use Skype to call my American bank, which I did.  I wanted to know if I could use my American credit card to get a cash advance at an ATM.  Their answer was complicated and unhelpful.  I won’t bore you with the details;  I’ll just say the phone call got me nowhere.  I was still 300 yen short of the cost of a ticket to Toyohashi. 

Fortunately there was a young girl working for the rail company who had a good command of English, and she was my savior on this fateful night.  She showed me how to obtain a certain kind of ticket that would allow me to pay the fare upon my arrival in Toyohashi rather than beforehand.  So I took the ticket, ran back to the wireless hotspot, and used Skype to call my friend in Toyohashi.  Since he was working, it took me a few tries to get through to him, but I eventually did.  After I explained the whole situation, he agreed to meet me at the station in Toyohashi and cover the extra 300 yen I needed to be able to pay for the ticket.

And that, patient reader, is how my adventure in Japan began – with chaos and panic.  I ended up having to borrow money from my friend to pay for my expenses during the trip – to the tune of $700.  Now, THAT’S a good friend.  I don’t know what I would have done if I’d gone to Japan completely on my own with no one to bail me out.  I’d figure out later how to pay him back.  For the moment, the crisis had been averted.

The friend I was meeting up with in Toyohashi – Micah – is an old friend from my teenage years.  He and I used to hang out and play music together back when we were in high school.  I had seen him only once or twice in the last 7 years or so, but thanks to the magic of Facebook I knew that he was living and teaching in Japan.  It wasn’t long after my arrival in Korea that he and I began throwing around the idea of me visiting him there.  Traveling in Japan is expensive, but having a friend to crash with would significantly reduce costs;  plus, how often in life does one get to reunite with an old friend a world away from the place where we’d known each other before, in a country where he knows the language, the ins-and-outs of the transportation network, the meaning behind certain cultural customs and idiosyncrasies?  This needed to happen.  It would’ve been foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity.  If I was ever going to visit Japan, I would never again encounter such a perfect set of circumstances. 

My first proper Japanese sashimi:  Salmon, 

tuna, and salmon eggs.  Mmmm.

The day after my arrival was a Saturday.  Since Micah doesn’t have to work on weekends, he accompanied me to Kyoto – Japan’s ancient capital, a city renowned for being a bastion of “old Japan.”  To a greater extent than the other major Japanese cities, Kyoto has managed to retain a lot of the traditional flavor.  We arrived mid-afternoon, checked into our hostel, and set off under the assault of a steady rain to explore the city’s charms.  Micah knew this place well.  During his first trip to Japan in 2008, he’d stayed here for a month.  He took me to a tiny hole-in-the-wall eatery where we dined on some excellent sashimi.  We then proceeded to just wander around.  At one point, we veered into a narrow alley paved with flagstones that immediately brought to mind scenes from Memoirs of a Geisha.  And then, as if they were taking a cue from my thoughts, two genuine painted-up maikos (geisha in training) came waddling past us with their paper umbrellas and iconic get-ups.  The coolest thing about this chance encounter was that it was the real thing – these girls weren’t wearing a costume for the tourists; they were going to work. 

A side street in Kyoto

Later, we met up with some friends of Micah’s for dinner.  His friend Yui, her brother, and her awesome parents joined us at a curry house (one of Kyoto’s oldest) and for drinks at a nearby bar afterwards.  We whiled away several hours drinking and snacking on oysters and potato wedges.  Yui’s father is a Buddhist monk who’s skilled at playing the shakuhachi (traditional Japanese bamboo flute), and I had a very lively conversation with him about music, traveling, Japanese and American culture, and our respective personal histories.  I felt perfectly at home with these amazingly open, welcoming people.  This is the best way to travel – engaging and learning from the locals who have far more insight to share than any tourist guide book could possibly offer.  I began to relax and truly enjoy myself, the crisis of the previous night fading further into memory.

Micah and Yui on the left.  On the right, Yui's mother,brother, and father.

When we finally left the bar, the rain had abated.  Feeling too tipsy and tired to endure the long walk back to the hostel, Micah and I opted to take a taxi.  It wasn’t until we had stepped out on a dark street and the taxi had driven away that we realized that we weren’t at our hostel.  I heard Micah utter the dreaded words one hopes never to hear from a guide: “Hmm.  This doesn’t look right at all.”

We were in a residential neighborhood, a labyrinth of crooked, narrow streets and alleys.  We managed to find our way to a main road and a convenience store where we could ask directions – thank goodness Micah speaks Japanese.  Too bad the directions we received didn’t lead us to the hostel.  But we knew we were close.  After wandering around for about an hour and stopping numerous times in the glow of a streetlamp to scrutinize our map, we found ourselves in familiar territory.  It was with exhaustion and tremendous relief that we finally ascended the steps to our hostel, quietly celebrating our triumph over the maze of that Kyoto neighborhood.  I fished the key out of my pocket – a tag on the key ring displayed a numerical code that we needed to punch in to get the door to open:  #01090*.  It didn’t work.  I tried again.  It didn’t work the second time, and our premature celebration was immediately brought to a halt.

We looked at each other with incredulity.  Seriously?  After our unplanned hour-long moonlight stroll we wanted so badly to just be able to go to bed, and now there was another obstacle standing in our way.  We stood there in silence for a few moments, contemplating our next move.  Micah asked to see the key. 

Then, incredibly, he started to laugh.  Holding the key ring up for me to see, he slowly turned it upside down.  The code now read *06010#.  We knew before we even punched the numbers in that it would work, and that I was an idiot.

In the morning we checked out of the hostel and strolled down the now familiar neighborhood lanes to another hostel owned by the same folks as the one we’d just left.  We sat down for a breakfast of toast, coffee, and orange juice and hatched out our plan for the day.  We decided to head to the Fushimi Inari shrine in the south-eastern part of the city – really, it was a series of Shinto shrines spanning an entire mountainside which were connected by wandering paths that passed through colonnades of bright orange torii (a stylized Japanese gate usually found at the entrance of Shinto shrines which symbolically mark the transition from the profane to the sacred). 

A fountain for purifying one's hands

before entering the shrine

The first thing we did when we arrived at the main shrine – an impressive tiered pagoda structure of gleaming white and orange –  was to purify our hands by ladling water out of a fountain-trough.  The gateway to the shrine was guarded on either side by imposing fox statues.  The fox is believed to be the messenger of the Inari gods and is regarded as a highly spiritual animal capable of possessing humans (the preferred way of entering the body is under the fingernails).  We observed people walking up to a certain part of the shine and engaging in a prayer ritual in which they would toss in a coin, ring a bell (to get the gods’ attention, according to Micah), clap their hands twice, then bring their hands together in prayer.

The Fushimi Inari Shinto shrine

A statue of a fox -- messenger of the Inari

Before long, we continued up the mountain under the paradoxically luminescent shadow of the torii, investigating the smaller, cruder shrines along the way.  We eventually came to a point far up the hillside where we found tea houses overlooking the surrounding forests.  There were many junctions in the trail, and I had planned a specific route that would take us over the other side of the mountain, passed a Buddhist temple (Tofukuji), and deposit us near a train station.  Though my directions were carefully taken down from a guide book, following them explicitly proved to be impossible.  But by instead relying on instinctual sense of direction, we managed to find our way.

The bright orange torii of the Fushimi Inari Shrine

After lunch, we spent the rest of the day straining our already overworked leg muscles walking around the heart of Kyoto, picking up a few souvenirs.  By that evening we were back at Micah’s apartment in Toyohashi, unwinding with some tea and a card game with a few of Micah’s American friends.  All in all, it was a fun weekend and a very promising start to my trip.

So ends part 1 of the Japan saga.  Part 2 soon to come.

Tofukuji Buddhist Temple

One Semester Down

Unlike most schools in western countries, where December marks the half-way point of the school year, the end of the calendar year also means the end of the school year here in Korea.  And the end of the school year is an exciting time at Chungnam Foreign Language High School.  After enduring a solid year of masochistic study routines, the students are finally finished with exams and are permitted a little breathing room and a chance to cut loose.  At this school, final exams and grade calculations are completed a full two weeks before the break actually starts, leaving a lot of time at the end for bullshit.  This was a welcome reprieve for me, the teacher; I can only imagine how the students must’ve felt. 

Since the other teachers didn’t seem to be doing anything productive in their classes, I didn’t feel any guilt over showing Christmas movies for the entire week after finals.  We watched Elf, and it was a big hit.  I’ve never been much of a Will Ferrell fan, but his role in that particular movie easily transcends all language barriers.  To be honest, I really enjoyed being able to spend time with the students without the pressure of trying to teach them, trying to force participation, or giving them feedback on their pronunciation and grammar.  I adore my students – they are, after all, the reason I went into education in the first place – and my Korean students are sweethearts.  I treasured the opportunity to just hang out and build better relationships with them. 

There was another fun activity I cooked up for them at the end of the year, and it ended up being one of my most successful lessons to date.  I’m not sure they learned much, but they had fun and got a chance to practice their English.   That’s all that matters, right?

Like normal teenagers the world over, Korean teens love music.   They’ve known since I arrived that I play guitar and they’re always asking me to bring it in to play for them.  So I had the inspired idea to have each of my culture classes help me write a blues song.  To start things off, I gave them a brief history of the blues – how the genre developed historically, what makes a blues song a blues song, etc. – and I played a few YouTube videos of some of the greats, like John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, and Mississippi John Hurt.  I then taught them about the concept of “end rhyme” and had them come up with a few examples.  I also very briefly reviewed metaphors, similes, and imagery, explaining that these techniques are often employed in songwriting to make the lyrics more interesting and intuitive.  Finally, we decided on the subject matter of our class song.  I suggested that since blues songs often incorporate themes of “hard times” (poverty, lost love, hard work, addiction, death), that we could write a song about the “hard life” of the average Korean high school student.  They LOVED the idea – they don’t often get opportunities to vent their frustrations on this subject. 

I divided the class into pairs and had each set of partners come up with a rhyming couplet – just two lines per pair of students.  Here’s a few examples of what they came up with:

“My head’s going to blow from the insanity

of always worrying about university.”

“Can’t you see me living life without fun?

Can’t remember when I last saw the sun.”

“I don’t want to study, but I don’t have a choice.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a voice.”

“We always study for 14 hours

But there’s no guarantee that success will be ours”

“I’m so sick of this school,

But at least teacher Kevin is cool”    **(Those kids should’ve gotten extra credit)

Once all the students had contributed some lyrics to the project, I took them home, fitted them together, and reworked them slightly so they would fit with the music (I used the tune for Pride and Joy because it’s simple and flexible).  On the last week of classes I went in to each class with copies of the lyrics, passed them out, and performed the song for them.  I think they really enjoyed it. 

The hosts of the Golden Bell game show make their entrance 

onto the set.

The very last week before the break was a whirlwind of activity.  The students were really excited about the fact that Golden Bell – a nationally broadcast Korean quiz show for students – was filming an episode at our school with select students as the contestants.  The elaborate set was erected in the auditorium of a nearby university, and the entire staff and student body were present for the game.  Filming dragged on all day, and the whole thing was obviously conducted in Korean, so it got a bit boring for me at times, since I wasn’t able to understand what was going on.  But it was still exciting overall.  Several student groups got to perform traditional music for the show’s opening, and later in the program there were more performances by the dance club and the cheerleading squad.  It was a great reminder for me that there’s a lot more to these students than relentless studying, and I was very impressed with their talents. 

A student playing a gayageum, a traditional
harp-like instrument.

Oh, did I mention that I got to participate as well?  One of the questions for the game was an English conversation question, and it’s customary for an English speaking staff member to read the question.  So I was paired with a third year student who has excellent pronunciation, and together we read a short scripted conversation.  The question was about budae jjigae, a spicy soup that has its origins in the time immediately following the Korean War when, due to a food shortage, Koreans began utilizing surplus foods from US Army bases (read: hot dogs and Spam) and incorporating them into a soup with more traditional ingredients like kimchi and gochujang (red chili paste).  We really do export the best of our culture to other countries, don’t we? :-P  Budae jjigae (literally, “army base stew”) is still popular today. So anyway, I’ve had my one minute of fame – or I will on February 5^th when the show airs. 

"Teacher, I'm hungry.  Do you have anything to eat?"

The show actually had a rather sensational conclusion.  It came down to two students who battled it out with each other round after round after round.  It’s rare for contestants to get beyond 30 or so questions, but these guys fought each other all the way up to the final 50^th question.  Our principal was thrilled, because it made the school look really good.  Winning the game is a big deal – the winner gets a scholarship and a trip to America, or something like that.  Unfortunately, in the end there could only be one winner, but the runner up got a pretty stellar consolation prize – a trip to Europe. 

The final two contestants battling for first place.

Students playing Jenga at the 'cafe' 

during the school festival.

The final day of the semester was the day of the school festival.  Since Korean students don’t have the traditions of a homecoming dance or prom, the school festival is what they look forward to all semester.  I had been looking forward to it as well.  The day started off with students setting up “stations” all over the school – there was face painting, organized games, a mock casino, puzzles and trivia, and an imitation café.  They had a lot of fun with it.  I spent the morning bouncing around from station to station, ending up in the café playing cards and Jenga with a group of students while other students served us drinks, chips, and choco pies.  There were even a few student guitarists who served up some live coffeeshop-style entertainment for the rest of us. 

Two students perform a pop duet for a captive 

audience at the school festival.

After lunch, the students piled into the auditorium for the main event – student performances on the big stage.  The acts ranged from singing pop songs and choreographed dances to performances of classical guitar or the traditional gayageum.  Again, I was amazed by the depth of talent the students possess.  These performances went on for the rest of the day and into the night.  The students never tired of it, and considering how hard they worked during the rest of the semester, I think they deserved all the fun and recreation they could handle. 

So now the school year is over and I can officially say that I survived my first semester in a Korean high school.  No sweat.  Over the break, I’m still required to come in to school every day even though there are no classes for me to teach.  This pointless practice is called “desk warming.”  The Korean teachers don’t have to be here, but my contract is different.  So basically, I sit in my office and waste away hour after hour on facebook, searching for the end of the Internet, studying Korean (I am now a boss at reading Hangeul), reading, napping, playing games, watching movies...and getting paid for it.  I’m also doing some lesson planning for next semester, but it’s hard to stay motivated with this much time on my hands.  Anyways, I’ll soon be busting out for 10 days to visit an old friend in Japan.  I leave next week and couldn’t be more excited.  Kyoto, Tokyo, and Hiroshima are on the agenda, and hopefully a few other places, time permitting.  So my next blog post will likely be about my adventures in the land of the rising sun.  Until then, take care all!

Me posing with the two most promising members of my lunch-time guitar club on their last day of Grade 1

So This is Christmas?

I’ve been slacking. When I started this blog, I had intended to update it on a consistent basis, but I’ve now let more than a month pass without posting anything here.  I wish I could say my neglect was due to my being too busy adventuring and doing outrageously exciting things to spend time writing.  But the truth is I had a very low-key, uneventful December.  In an effort to save money for an upcoming trip to Japan, I’ve been going out less on the weekends and spending more time at home.  As a result, I just haven’t had much to write about.  Toward the end of December, however, the holidays and end-of-the-school-year activities did provide some stories that are worth telling.

A lot of folks back home have been asking whether or not Koreans celebrate Christmas.  The short, not-so-simple answer is: sort of. I mean, department stores decorate and coffee shops play Christmas music (usually remixed with electronic dance beats).  But people don’t travel to visit family, stores stay open, and hardly anyone gets extra time off work or school.  It’s like they adopt the seasonal themes superficially but don’t really practice the traditions.

Still, I got many wishes of “Merry Christmas” from my students and co-workers who recognize how important this holiday is to westerners.  On the Friday before Christmas weekend, a student gave me a strawberry cupcake as a Christmas present.  It was one of only two presents that I received this year, and it totally made my day.

Luckily, I have plenty of foreign friends here who wanted to do something special to celebrate.  And after a month of not doing much socially, I really needed to get out.

A white Christmas in Korea!

I awoke on the morning of December 24^th to bright blue skies and a fresh layer of snow on the ground.  Perfect – a white Christmas.  It was a good start.  The weather had been rather cold and dreary in the preceding weeks, so the delightful wintery scene from my balcony of snow-covered hills combined with the pungent, comforting aroma of wood smoke was very welcome indeed.  Despite the cold, I bundled up and sat on my balcony for a while, contentedly sipping a steaming cup of freshly-brewed java and enjoying the clear morning. 

The girls -- Asanda, Kira, Lauren,
 and Jenji -- with our lovely Christmas cake

Later that day, I met some friends at Cheonan Station and boarded a train bound for Seoul.  Another friend was apartment-sitting in the capital and had invited us to spend Christmas there – a prospect far more enticing than remaining in our usual stomping grounds.  After we arrived, we decided to go out for dinner.  Then, we stopped by a supermarket and bought a cake and some wine.  I also decided to splurge on a bottle of bourbon and justified the expense by saying that it was a Christmas present to myself.  It’s the little things that make the holidays special.

N Seoul Tower

We made a brief stop back at the apartment, ate the cake (after singing happy birthday to Jesus), had a quick drink, then went out again.  In an effort to do something more momentous and memorable, we resolved to go to Namsung Tower (also called N Seoul Tower), which sits atop a prominent hill in the heart of Seoul.  It’s a 777 ft. tall communication and observation structure – think of it as a Korean version of the Seattle Space Needle.  Equally touristy too.  We were able to take a cable car up to the top of Namsung Hill – a slightly uncomfortable, but mercifully quick ride.  I’m sure it sounds like a rather romantic notion to be sailing over the lights of Seoul in a cable car, but true to Koreans’ customary disregard for the concept of “personal space,” they had so many of us crammed into the car that you couldn’t have fit another person in with a shoe horn.  Stuck somewhere in the middle of the pack, I didn’t have much of a view outside.

Once at the top of the hill, we circled the base of the tower to check everything out.  There was a whole pavilion up there with souvenir shops, restaurants, and even a teddy bear museum.  The only thing of real interest, if only for its humorous quirkiness, was a viewing platform on which all the rails were adorned with “love padlocks.”  This is a custom by which sweethearts come together and affix a padlock on the railing and throw away the key, thereby creating a symbol of their everlasting love for each other.  A quick google search has shown me that this custom did not originate in Korea, but its cheesy cutesiness seems perfectly suited for this country and its sappy take on romantic relationships.

Love Padlocks at the pavilion atop Namsung Hill

The real attraction up here was the tower itself and the panoramic views from the top.  A 9000₩ elevator ride, complete with an intense 3D animation on the ceiling that simulated blasting off in a rocket, took us to the observation deck at the top of the tower.  The observation deck was completely enclosed, which kept everyone warm, but was nonetheless a little disappointing for me, since it’s difficult to take good photos through dirty glass.  Still, the view is easily the best and most prominent in the city.  Due to the tower’s central location, one is able to see the bright lights of the world’s second largest metropolis spreading out as far as the eye can see in all directions – no other view goes so far in helping one to appreciate the immensity of this city.  Another neat feature was that the names of the great cities of the world were printed near the tops of the glass window panes, with an indication of in which direction they lay and how far distant they are.  It turns out that my beloved Seattle is 8,331.88 km away.  (I returned to N Seoul Tower a couple weeks later, this time during daylight, with hopes of snapping some good photos – but alas, the forecasted clear skies didn’t materialize, resulting in less-than-ideal photographing conditions.  Still, a sample photo can be seen below this post)

A view of Seoul from N Seoul Tower on Christmas Eve

The remainder of our Christmas Eve was spent back at the apartment cozily watching Christmas movies and drinking in holiday cheer (with a splash of alcohol).  The following day was more of the same.  Two of my friends graciously prepared us a very delicious albeit non-traditional Christmas feast and we all eventually returned to Cheonan that evening very satisfied with how we’d spent the holiday weekend.  Ultimately, my Christmas ended up bearing many similarities to my Thanksgiving this year– characterized by westerners coming together and, in the absence of family and the comforts of home, consciously trying to recreate something of the ambiance and tradition we’re used to.  It's like we know the recipe by heart, so we do what we can despite lacking a few ingredients.  Like Thanksgiving, my Christmas in Korea was not quite typical, but still familiar enough to keep loneliness and homesickness at bay.

I’m a couple weeks late getting this posted, but I’d still like to wish you all happy holidays and the best of luck in the new year.  Here’s to a 2012 filled with even more adventure, fun, and self-discovery!  If the Mayans were right, this could be our last chance to make the best of things, so make sure you take advantage of what precious little time you have left! (That was a joke.  But seriously though, Carpe Diem!)

A daytime view of Seoul from the top of N Seoul Tower