Iris – Page 112 – goinggaijin.com

Literary

One of the main reasons for applying for a library card was that I wanted to read Japanese books. I am a very visual person, my preferred approach to learning is by making lists, writing down all the grammar points from the books again, and reading – lots of reading. For me, this is also a way to make learning vocabulary more fun; although I have to admit that by now I don’t look up every single word I come across – as long as I get the gist of the text, and the unknown word does not keep reappearing (in which case I assume that it is important and I look it up after all).

So, I went to the library and borrowed a children’s book in Japanese. The pros are obvious: Easy language and words comprising short sentences, all written in hiragana – and even with spaces between the words! And there are often many cute illustrations to help understanding. If you go that way though, the cons are obvious too: Children’s stories are not meant to teach vocabulary – the kids know what the words mean; so the beginning student of Japanese may find herself with a huge list of vocabulary that may not be immediately useful beyond the book – vocabulary for animals or household things,… For example, how often do you use the word “vase” in your daily life? Hence, a lot of the reading consists of looking up words, which can prove rather tedious. Also, the hiragana sometimes causes more problems than it should. When looking up words, it can happen that you get a very long list of possible translations – and not all can be dismissed immediately. Sometimes it would be much easier just to have the kanji there, to make it easier to find the right meaning – and, of course, to study them as well while reading.

Oh well, I remember I started reading English just like this, albeit with the benefit of a shared alphabet. I hope I will graduate to books for older children soon – which should have some kanji with furigana. And probably more interesting stories too…

Women Power

When I went downstairs about two hours ago, I met on the bottom of the stairs one of our charming house pets – a large spider – obviously on the way upstairs… After a disgusted and somewhat panicked shriek of mine, it changed direction and tried to hide, but I did not move until my housemate (the one who actually likes spiders) came down the stairs behind me and asked what was going on. While I explained, another housemate (who does not like spiders that much) came along too and the three of us, with the guys in front of course, chased the spider into a corner in the corridor leading to the back of the house. We then discussed the further plan of action and we were divided between leaving it be, killing it, and putting it outside (that was my suggestion, actually). Finally, the last two people in the house appeared also, probably alerted by all the noise I was making, the walls here are indeed very thin.

After some more words, all three men disappeared on oh so urgent business; and it was me and our latest arrival, a British woman, who were left in charge. I was stunned when she simply said Let’s just put it outside, went to the kitchen to get a Tupperware box, caught the spider (about half the size of the one pictured) and released it at the bottom of the steps outside the house – all within five minutes. To my question whether she was not afraid, she simply answered I grew up in the Caribbean, we have tarantulas there…

So, once again, it was shown that if you want something done, ask a woman (if you can find one that does not have arachnophobia, that is). The big spider pictured above still lives in the house by the way, but it has been smart enough not to show itself recently. If it ever does so again, I’ll know whom to scream for…

Libraries

About two weeks ago, I decided to get a library card for Kyoto city library. There are many branches around town, and I thought it would be a good idea to be able to lend books, as I love to read, and buying them can get very expensive soon (given the amount of books I tend to read…) So far, I was thinking of English books, of course, and maybe something easy in Japanese for children, with many pictures; but eventually I thought, I would graduate to novels for teens and adults. The Japanese love to read, there are bookstores all over the place, and even in trains there are equally many people staring into a book as staring onto a smartphone…

I have been to Japanese libraries before, in Nagoya and Hiroshima, so my expectations were quite high. Well, it turns out that the quality of Kyoto libraries is rather…underwhelming. It seems – I have seen four so far, so I may be wrong – that not a single one of the libraries has their own building, they are all stashed somewhere in some remote floor of a place that is mainly used for something else. The first library I went to was on top of a daycare facility, so they had mostly children’s (picture) books, which is okay, as I cannot read much more just yet. Another one was similar, and when I asked for English books in a third library, they showed me a tiny shelf with maybe 50 books in English, and barely a third was for adults.

They did send me to the “Chuo Daigo Library”, and told me it was the biggest one in Kyoto, and had the largest selection of English books, so I spent the afternoon there. Daigo is a part of town that I have never been to before, it did not make a very good impression on me to be honest, it looks like all the other busy Japanese towns; there are apartment buildings and a noisy, busy main road. The library is situated on the fourth floor of Daigo subway station, and indeed, it was the largest one I have been to so far. Their English section – still tiny – comprises two large shelves, bottom to top, and they have many English translations of Japanese authors – something I have hoped for. Unfortunately, they have a borrowing period of only two weeks (renewal is possible, but they ask for a single one only), so I only took a single book with me. I did make a list of a number of other books I’d like to read, and it should be possible to lend them at a branch that is closer to my place than Daigo – it took me about an hour to get there by subway.

All in all, I am not happy with Kyoto libraries as they are now. My soroban teacher confirmed that Kyoto’s libraries were not very good, compared to other libraries in Japan, even those in smaller towns around Kyoto. He says it may have to do with the fact that there are so many universities in Kyoto that have their own libraries, which are open to the public (although you cannot borrow books from them unless you are a student or working at that university). I hope that, once I figured out the lending system, I can lend books from libraries outside of Kyoto. It must be possible to get my fix here without spending tons of money, right?

Test, test…

I am only in my third week of my soroban studies – okay, I have gone to class twice a month for much longer than that, but still – but yesterday my sensei has suggested that I’ll take my first test already.

It must have been because I did surprisingly well yesterday in class… Okay, I guess I’ll have to explain how a typical class is conducted: I have a book – level 6 – containing sets of exercises for multiplication, division, and addition and subtraction. Each set of exercises consists of 15 calculations that you have to solve, and you have 7 minutes in total for each set, that is about 30 seconds per calculation. You do as many as you can in the allotted time, and all the correct answers will score you one point. So, essentially what we do is to do all three sets of exercises – first multiplication, probably because it is most difficult, then division and finally the addition/subtraction – for seven minutes each. Then I finish the exercises I could not get to during the 7 minutes, and finally I get to grade myself (the book contains the solutions in the back).

Somehow I had an exceptionally good day yesterday – I could finish almost all the multiplication and addition exercises – and not only did I solve as many exercises as never before, but I even solved most of them correctly! My sensei was quite surprised – as was I – and then he asked me if I wanted to try the test.

There is an official test scheduled every two months, and people can take it in their own school. Sensei will register my name, and on the test day he will receive a test booklet with the exercises I have to solve. It will be the same level of calculations and I’ll have to do them in the same amount of time; and I need to solve more than 10 correctly on each set of exercises to pass the test.

It seems that sensei is hopeful that I can do it, otherwise he would not have asked I am sure, so I will try. There’s nothing lost if I don’t pass – except for 1000 YEN – but it will be fun to try. I just hope I’ll have as good a day as yesterday…

Rude

It is very rare indeed that people in Asia in general, and in Japan in particular are rude to anyone, especially to foreigners. Usually they go out of their way to help you and do so with a smile on their face. Now, what do you think of this:

The other day, when I was in a bookstore browsing the (tiny) English section, a man came straight towards me. Our conversation was very short, I only said a single word in response. In virtually perfect English he said, “Can I ask you a very impolite and personal question? I nodded and he continued, “Are you a native English speaker?” “No.” At which point he raised his hand in a dismissive gesture, turned around on his heels and disappeared without a single further word.

This the first time somebody has been obviously rude to me in Japan (I mean the running away part, not the asking) and it still baffles me. I talked about this incident with a housemate of mine who has been living here for 5 years or so, and he said this might have happened because the man wanted to practise his English, used up all his courage in the first question and then did not know anymore what to say. I doubt that as his English was too good for that, though. My housemate also said similar things have happened to him – he’s a native speaker and gets annoyed when people don’t leave him alone, so it’s the opposite – and I should not take this too seriously. I am still somewhat annoyed by this though, especially as this totally hits my sore ENS spot: English Native Speaker…

Wheels

As you know, I have started my soroban classes last week. The school is about 50 minutes walk away (along very busy roads, the scenic route next to the river takes more than an hour), and I’ll have to go there at least twice a week. The bus prices have just been raised, and although I wouldn’t call 230 YEN for one trip outrageous, it does add up over time. So, I have done the most sensible thing one can do with respect to city mobility:

I finally bought a bicycle.

I went to a tiny little shop that is owned by a very old man with huge, bushy, white eyebrows, and who of course speaks Japanese only. Neither his lack of teeth, nor his apparent hearing loss made conversation any easier, but we managed in the end. And now I am the proud owner of a bicycle, lovely, used, and red, and it cost only 6500 YEN. We adjusted the seat down (I have very short legs), checked the brakes together, and I had to prove by showing him that I understood how to use the attached lock.

Finally, the man’s wife helped me fill in a registration form for my bicycle. A registered bike has a yellow sticker on the frame bearing a number, and I now have written proof – for an extra 500 YEN – that this bicycle indeed belongs to me. In case it is stolen and retrieved by the police, I will get a phone call so I can pick it up again. (Oh, wait, I didn’t provide a phone number… well, they can always send me a letter.)

The only thing I still have to figure out is where to park when I go downtown. On the large streets of city centre it is even forbidden to ride a bike (pushing on the pavements is okay, but difficult especially during the crowded weekends), but in many more places you may not park your bicycle even for a short time. There are special parking lots or garages for bicycles, and they do remind me of the ones in the Netherlands, but you have to pay there (which means I could just as well take the bus) and I am not sure how conveniently they are located, as I only ever found a single one – being a pedestrian and all. I will find out soon.

What I have found out already is that it is not only possible, but quite likely that wrongly parked bicycles are towed and impounded. You have to go somewhere near Kyoto station with your registration card and pay a fine to get your bicycle back. I hope this won’t be happening to me any time soon, but if it does, you will hear all the details.

My action radius has just increased considerably, and I’m looking forward to lots of new and far away adventures…

Refill

The house I live in is a so-called gaijin house: Everybody has a private room, and we share facilities like kitchen, computer room, bathroom… We are also responsible for some house maintenance, meaning that we have to buy necessities like dishwashing liquid, replace broken light bulbs, take out the garbage, and keep the house tidy. Larger repairs are organized and paid for by the landlady and there is a cleaner coming once a week. In a way, it’s like a student’s dorm for adults, and mostly it works rather well.

Mostly. Right now, six of the eight rooms are occupied, that’s the largest amount of people living here since I came here. The house is still very quiet, and I am very grateful for this. Other things have changed though, for example we need a lot more garbage bags and have to take them out almost every collection day, and we seem to run out of toilet paper twice a week.

I had an interesting encounter concerning the latter issue with one of my housemates, a 50-something year old German. Essentially he said: “Oh, we’re out of toilet paper again, I know, but I don’t think I’ll go and get some because I bought the one before and I really think the new person (who moved in last week) should buy some, and besides, I’m leaving on Sunday anyway, so…” I managed to only remark that this is not the way things used to work around here, but I left it (and him) right there. No use making a stink in his last four days.

Inside I was fuming though. I mean, how old is that guy, 12? “But mommy, I did the dishes yesterday already…” I remember him coming in with four (in numbers: 4!) rolls of toilet paper and making a fuss about it as if he had just sponsored a complete bathroom renovation… Tit for tat, quid pro quo, and besides, I think I am perfectly entitled to…

There was something I found terribly obnoxious about Germans. Sheesh, if I could just remember what it was…

Reminiscences

Last week I was very busy. First of all, my soroban lessons started in earnest, we did three classes last week. Right now we are reviewing what I have learnt before, it is going okay, but I still make many mistakes. And that’s although I am not worried about speed at this point…

The big thing was the conference last week at Kyoto University, in my “old” field, so to speak. I went there several times, mainly because colleagues from my last university were attending the conference and they had asked me to do some sightseeing with them. We had lunch together on Monday, and I spent Tuesday afternoon showing them my personal highlights of Kyoto. Those are not that small or unknown places – certainly not for the Japanese – but I don’t think they would make the Top 10 of must-sees in Kyoto. My friends seemed to be very happy about that. On Friday, three of us went out the whole day; I have mentioned that. We went to the Silver Pavillion and the Philosopher’s path, and because of a problem with my watch, we were almost too late for lunch, which was my personal highlight of the day:

We had kaiseki for lunch, Japanese haute cuisine, which is especially renowned in Kyoto. There is a small ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn not far from my place, usually those serve kaiseki, and I had made a reservation the day before. Although only three people, we had our own room with a view onto their perfectly kept Japanese garden. On each of our places (we were sitting on a table, and not on the floor; I was a bit disappointed, but my friends were rather glad about it), lay an old poem, handwritten by the “lady of the house” onto beautiful Japanese handmade paper. Japanese calligraphy is hard to read, even for Japanese, but, as a special extra, there was a small slip with an English translation glued to the back of each poem. Our menu consisted of seven courses, and although you cannot choose what you would like to have – when you make the reservation you state the price only – we were extremely pleased with the food: There was lots of fish and seafood, many vegetables, all in season and from local sources, all cooked to absolute perfection, each bite marvellous. We were served by a woman in Kimono who only spoke Japanese, naturally, and in between the courses we admired the garden and the details and decorations of the room.

After lunch we took a train down to Fushimi Inari shrine, where we… well, let’s be honest, we ran up the hill and through all the torii. This was the main thing my friends wanted to see that day, and it was the most exhausting part of the day; my German friends with their long legs obviously had less of a problem with it than I did. Anyway, it was very nice, and while catching my breath very now and then I could even take a few pictures, chiefly of the red torii, but also some of the many cats that are living around the shrine. Finally, dinner took place in downtown Kyoto, at a simple running sushi place, but nevertheless delicious.

The conference was nice, although I only went to one of the talks. There were a large number of old friends and colleagues, one of whom I hadn’t seen since I did my PhD; students, postdocs, and professors from the various universities I have worked at and with before, my PhD advisor… It was very nice to see them all again and catch up with people. Never before had I had the feeling that so many people were so happy to see me. 😉

What I found most interesting though, is that although I enjoyed going there and meeting all these people, not for a single moment did I feel regret about having left academia. There was nothing pulling me back, nothing at all to trigger regret or to make me reconsider my decision. I guess, it was a good one after all.

Tired

I’m very tired – I’ve just come back from a big tour through Kyoto with two friends of mine from Germany that altogether took about 11 hours… We spent the morning in the area around Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavillion, one of the top 5 sights in Kyoto. Then we had an amazing lunch at a ryokan close to my place, a seven course traditional kaiseki menu, which is essentially haute cuisine from Japan. Afterwards we took the train down to Fushimi Inari Taisha, the main shrine for the god of wealth and business, the one that has thousands of orange torii gates lining the paths up and down a mountain. Finally, I helped a friend buy green tea, and then we had sushi for dinner.

You see, I was very busy today, but we had a lot of fun too. I am especially pleased about lunch, it was my first kaiseki since I came here last year, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was delicious. Anyway, I am dead tired now and I have to see another friend of mine tomorrow morning… Hence, I will not look for a photo anymore, but go straight to bed now.

Fireflies

Last night, after a very busy day (I’ll tell you on Friday), I had my first soroban class that is the requirement for my visa. We have decided that in the beginning, I will join the last class of the day that has only teenagers clicking away, and which lasts for an hour, starting at 7 pm. I haven’t practiced in a long time, so I needed a bit of time to remember how to do division and especially multiplication, and I made many mistakes. Oh well, I have lots of time to improve.

When I finally went home after some extra training and a bit of chatting, it was already 9 in the evening and I took a small road that runs next to a little brook to get to the river and walk home along it. The brook is rather small and it runs through a residential area that is very quiet, with one-way streets left and right. Every now and then there are little bridges crossing the water, and although the night was cool (it had rained shortly before), I could see people standing on the bridges and staring into the dark bed of the brook.

It is often better not to show too much curiosity, but at some point I could not restrain myself any longer and I went onto a bridge myself to look down. It took me a while to find out what the people found so interesting, and I was glad about the Japanese couple next to me who kept staring down so intently, I might have left after all, completely clueless…

There were fireflies! I had never seen fireflies before, they don’t seem to live in the part of Austria I am from, so I was very surprised. They were of the greenish glowing variety, very nice, and very bright for their tiny size. I watched a bit, but left when it got too cold. The most interesting part about this was that the people who watched were doing so in complete silence, which is very unusual.