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Floating Papers on the Sea of Japanby Keith FenskeAugust to October 2001Copyright (c) 2001 by Keith Fenske. All rights reserved. |
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Friday, August 3rd. Another teacher came looking for the plan book for my Monday children's classes. I had been the only teacher for 22 months. In fact, I was the only teacher from our school who had ever taught those classes because they are a contract that began at a different private after-hours school soon after I arrived in Japan. My expectation was that my successor would take over the classes in two months. The children will now have two new teachers in two months, that is, two complete disruptions of the classroom routine.
This illustrates several things about working in Japan.
First, if there is a problem, you will be the last to know. My replacement was contacted and the situation was explained to her even before I was told that there was a problem.
Similarly, don't expect to be consulted before a decision is made, even when doing so is in everyone's best interests. For example, you may be the most knowledgeable person in an area, or the decision may have the greatest impact on your work. There is a tradition that higher-ups make decisions and lower ranks obey. The decisions may be based on incomplete or incorrect information; however, asking questions would be an admission of ignorance, and no boss is ever going to admit to that!
Second, nobody says anything directly to your face. They smile and tell you how much they like you; then they go behind your back and complain. You are never told the true nature of the complaint. Japanese people speaking with Japanese people tend to believe their words more so than the words of a foreigner, so lies become the truth. Should you somehow do the impossible and successfully defend yourself against accusations that are vague or unfounded, or if it becomes abundantly clear that someone else is to blame, there will be no apology. Japanese people say "sumimasen" often throughout the day to mean "excuse me", but they don't know the words for "I'm sorry, I made a mistake." One reason for not talking directly to you is so that later they feel no need to apologize, even if they indirectly cause a great deal of trouble. A similar situation occurred last October.
Playing the role of a good teacher, I asked about the problem at the other school. I was expecting something major which would justify changing teachers. The manager of the other school told my boss that some students had difficulty understanding the lessons. Isn't this what a teacher would like to know so that the teacher can alter the lessons to meet the needs of the students? Maybe Japanese teachers never change their lessons, and always teach exactly what they want to teach without any regard for the well-being of the students -- a blatantly stupid statement that does not correspond to any Japanese teachers that I have met. I spent three or four hours every Monday making up whatever extra materials would help best in that day's lessons: activities, exercises, worksheets, games, etc.
Continuing to act the part of a good teacher, I asked which students were having difficulty. The names given were the names of the best students in the class. This makes no sense at all. Those students never had difficulty doing the lessons, and were in fact slightly bored because the lessons weren't moving quickly enough for them. My boss didn't know the students and was surprised when I explained who they were. In other words, the reason given to my boss was an excuse -- a lie -- and there is little chance of me ever finding out the truth.
Third, everybody wants a kick at the cat before it goes out the door. The other manager was told that a new teacher would arrive in two months. After having me for 22 months, waiting two more months does not seem a long time. Then we all could have pretended that we had a great time working together. This was not soon enough for the other manager: the telephone call came into our office on Thursday with a demand for a new teacher by Monday. My boss had no choice but to replace me since the contract requires us to supply teachers to the other school. This did not put my boss in a good mood because she must now pay for a replacement teacher while also paying me to do nothing on Monday until a 7:30 PM adult class. My boss is well aware of the additional effort I put into these classes -- something that she can not ask of the replacement teacher. I am on salary; the replacement teacher is part-time and only paid for classroom hours, and so does zero minutes of preparation. My eventual successor has never taught children before. Yeah, my kids are in good hands. Oh, yeah.
Once the other manager knew that I was leaving, it was time to take revenge for any real or imagined slights. There is no need to be nice to someone you will never see again, and you want them to know exactly how you feel before they are gone. The polite fiction of Japanese society ends when you are no longer perceived to be useful.
I don't know how the children will react. They were probably told that I went back to Canada. (Amazing how the lies build up when you can't tell the truth.) I should be happy to have so much free time on Mondays. I'm not. I'm angry. Those students were my students. I didn't share those classes with anyone else. If they learned, then that was my success. If they didn't, then that was my failure. When I started, they knew almost nothing, courtesy of their previous teacher who played unproductive games while pretending to do the textbook. I took them through the alphabet, numbers, simple vocabulary, spelling, and simple substitution dialogs. In my opinion, they were all doing reasonably well, with the usual spread between students who are diligent and those who are attending to keep their parents happy. They may find that they don't like their new teacher, that they miss the activities we used to do together. Learning can be fun. It doesn't have to be memorizing pages in a book, doing a few exercises, and then turning the page.
I was also criticized for not finishing the textbook sooner. Two years for a book that has only 80 pages? Well, you see, there is a choice between learning the material or turning the pages.... Finishing the book sooner and understanding the lessons better are two contradictory goals. The previous teacher didn't teach the book, so I had to. You can't start the next textbook in a series until you learn what's in the previous book. We were only a few pages from the end of the first book. They should be able to get halfway through the second book before the class stalls again (as explained in my December 1999 notes). I taught the "Let's Go" series for five hours a day in Korea, and know how the series progresses. My Japanese school didn't even have copies of books four through six until Squid Lady the Fukui-ken CIR/ALT finally returned my Korean desk copies.
Knowing something of Japan before I came, I have walked the moral high road during my whole time here. I have done everything as best as I can, recognizing that I am not a saint and that I am far from perfect. Even in small matters, I have used my available time to do things correctly. This has kept me busy, sometimes for a purpose that seems unimportant, but has left me without regrets. I don't feel fault for anything that I have done in Japan. My sudden replacement as a teacher is a cultural learning experience. After due consideration, the words will go on my web page to share with others, but I am not going to carry this as negative emotional baggage. I have imagined what I would say if this replacement was a mistake, and if I were asked to go back into the classroom. I don't think I would. Insult should not be met with cooperation.
I had hoped to finish out my last two months in Japan quietly without incident....
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Sunday, August 5th. It took me a while before I could write about the past few days. I didn't write much but spent five hours doing so because of a bizarre personal notion that I should be fair and accurate even when I'm in a bad mood (not that I'm doing so well lately). I finished just as the crowds were going to the Hanagasa parade, the biggest annual event in Yamagata. I went the other way. I had no interest in seeing it again this year.
Monday, August 6th. My intention had been to goof off all day, and to show up for work just before my evening class. That didn't happen. I was able to wake up at 8:30 instead of the usual 7 o'clock. I did putter around the apartment until 10:30. However, by then, I had packages to mail at the post office, and needed to go to the bank to get some cash. Maybe I'll spend the afternoon buying souvenirs for people back home.
Tuesday, August 7th. I see from the attendance sheets that the student who was most responsible for getting the teachers changed (that is, the other school manager's son) didn't come to his class yesterday. He also didn't attend last week. I think one little boy wanted a summer holiday and told a convenient story, which was then blown out of proportion by his mother. If the school can convince some of the missing students to return to class, that will be evidence of a problem with the previous teacher. If none of those students return, then the opposite is demonstrated: that they are absent for other reasons.
The hard truth is that some children do not want to learn English. The parents can force them to attend, but they can not force them to cooperate or to participate. The students act out their resentment in class, and report back to their parents a story that their parents are willing to hear. Saying "I don't want to go to English school" is not one of the acceptable answers. Should the parents react to these stories without confirming the details, there will be a conflict between the parents and the teacher (and possibly the school). That is why it is so important to go to those tedious parent-teacher interviews at your child's school: to make sure that everyone is getting the same story without the message being filtered by the students (who are usually the only source of communication between the teacher and the parents). Some students have reasons for distorting or altering the message, particularly if they know that their actions are incorrect.
On my way to Kentucky Fried Chicken for a late breakfast and lunch at one o'clock (guess whose stomach is twisted in knots lately?), I met the mother and sister of my youngest student from the other school. The same mother and sister often come to class. (All my classes are open to visitors.) Two weeks ago, the mother was quite impressed by how well her son was doing and how much he enjoyed his class. The little sister likes to come play in English even if she is too young to understand the lesson. The brother helps her, which helps him too, because he learns by teaching her the lesson, albeit mostly in Japanese.
They say that he came home in tears yesterday. Little children get very upset when their teacher changes. In less than two months, he will face this once again. Had I been there to introduce the new teacher, we could have said good-bye properly, and he wouldn't have felt that I had abandoned him. Twenty-two months is a long time in the life of a seven-year-old child. I apologized and explained that there was nothing I could do. The manager of the other school may find that her decision only pleases people who are gone and have no intention of returning.
Wednesday, August 8th. My nephew Christopher is into spicy snack food lately. He tries some, burns out his taste buds, waits a few days, and then tries some more. So I sent him a can of the "Ass Kickin' Peanuts". Y500 for the peanuts and Y1200 for the postage. The mailman delivered them one hour before the family went on vacation. Hum, a teenager in a van with a can of peanuts that made my stomach explode, along with a younger brother and sister who have heard stories about these peanuts. I know that I couldn't wait. This will be an interesting trip report. I wonder whether I will hear it from Chris, or from his parents. I may have to hide out in Japan for a month or two longer, until it's safe to go home again.
What do you do when you need 250 sheets of American-sized paper, 8.5 inches (216 mm) by 11 inches (279 mm)? Outside of North America, the international standard paper sizes are called A4 and B5. B5 paper is too small, being 182 mm or 7.17 inches wide, and 257 mm or 10.12 inches long. A4 paper is long enough at 297 mm (11.69") but too narrow at 210 mm (8.27"). The answer is to buy B4 paper, which is double the size of B5 paper at 257 mm (10.12") wide by 364 mm (14.33") long, and spend an hour with the paper cutter, cutting five sheets at a time.
Now you know why the design size for computer printers and scanners is 216 mm wide by 297 mm high. It's the width of the wider American paper and the length of the longer A4 paper.
Thursday, August 9th. There are fewer dead insects littering the hallway floor of my apartment building this year. Some grumpy foreigner doesn't care if the hallway windows are open or closed, but keeps putting the bug screens back into place. Where did the ridiculous idea come from that windows aren't really open unless the bug screens are pushed aside? Does this increase the flow of fresh air through the window? Some of those flying insects are big, especially the cicadas.
Saturday, August 11th. There is an explanation for the lack of photos in the last few chapters of these Japan notes. Many pictures and links are backward looking in that they were added months after the story itself was written. This journal was not crafted as a single story from beginning to end, so the earlier chapters are not linked forward to the later chapters, because at the time I wrote the beginning, I did not know what would be in the end. Backward links serve to explain things that were already discussed without needing to repeat the same words again.
Sunday, August 12th. I've worn out a third pair of shoes. I never found a brand that I liked in Japan (at a price that I was willing to pay), so I will probably go home in these shoes. Rainy days like today will be a challenge.
Monday, August 13th. I've been using the air conditioner almost every night so that I can sleep better. It doesn't add much to my electricity bill, only ten or twenty dollars a month, which is small compared to my LP gas bill last winter for heating!
Tuesday, August 14th. I find it harder and harder to write these notes. I'm not talking about current events anymore; I'm writing the summary that will become the ending. Unreported details get compressed into facts and spun into sentences. For example, I've been meaning for over a year to say something about the car drivers who use side streets as an express highway to avoid traffic lights. I did talk about red light runners and quick turn artists, but never about drivers who are so intent on getting to their destination that they drive on the wrong side of the road to go around pedestrians (who may be trying to cross the road), and who aggressively push their way though uncontrolled intersections expecting other cars to stop because they don't want to be in an accident. My words are definitely colored by how often I've almost been run over, once in front of a courtesy parking guard at the local grocery store. I have no sense of humor when it comes to things that endanger my life. While such driving is not unique to Japan -- many similar drivers exist in any country -- these drivers are representative of a portion of Japanese society that knowingly exhibits anti-social behavior on the assumption that other people will be too polite to react and will automatically acquiesce. In North America, we would call them a**holes. (Note the asterisk correction by Politeness Raccoon.) In Japan, young males sometimes call this expressing their individualism. Only, they don't quite understand the word. It's about standing up for what you believe in (definitely not encouraged in Japan). It doesn't mean deliberately provoking others to force them to notice you, and thereby making yourself feel important in your own mind. These people would not be happy to be on the receiving end of similar behavior, so their actions fail the test of being socially acceptable.
On a brighter note, tonight I will watch the fireworks from the outdoor terrace on the fourth floor of Kajo Central Building.
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Friday, August 17th. If you think you read my July notes, then look again. I edited the notes so that my words would not affect the hiring of a new teacher. Now that Andrew has signed his contract, I can post the unedited notes, and you can read what I really wanted to say.
However, something is wrong. The new teacher will come to Japan on August 31st. My contract ends on September 29th or October 3rd depending upon how you read the renewal dates. One week of overlap is helpful in training a new teacher; one month means that we have one teacher too many. Will the school attempt to fire me in my second last month so that they don't have to pay my return airfare? (My contract has a 30-day termination notice ... with cause.) I thought we had agreed on a flexible date at the end of September or the beginning of October. I told everyone to expect my return in late September or early October. I made all my arrangements for September and October. Pushing the date forward one month extends the idea of "flexible" past the breaking point. Once again, poor communication is becoming a real problem around here.
Saturday, August 18th. I will be taking home 19 unused rolls of film: 10 rolls of regular film, 3 rolls of high-speed film, and 6 rolls of portrait film. The unused portrait film saddens me the most because it sat in my fridge for 20 months waiting for ... anyone.
The staff at Strawberry Cones pizza knows my name. I only gave it to them once, but they have faithfully written it on my take-out orders ever since: Kiisu-san. "Kiisu" is the closest that you can come to saying "Keith" in Japanese, and "-san" is an honorific meaning "Mr." or "Mrs."
Monday, August 20th. Looks like I was being unnecessarily paranoid. The school really does want one month of overlap with the new teacher. I will work until the end of September, and the school will buy my return airplane ticket. Two major contract classes finish in September, and Andrew will start teaching those classes with new students in October.
Tuesday, August 21st. I see from yesterday's attendance sheets that certain children didn't come to their English class again. That's the second class in a row (August 6th and 20th, since the 13th was an O-Bon holiday). Ask for a new teacher, insist on a new teacher, but don't attend when the new teacher is there? Pointless.
Thursday, August 23rd. The sixth surface parcel has 6.13 kg (13.5 pounds) of photo albums at a cost of Y5100 (US$42.35 or Cdn$65.35). Why not remove the photos from the albums and send only the photos, you say? That would reduce the weight of the package to about six kilograms. The albums themselves weigh almost nothing because they are cheap plastic albums that I bought only to protect the photos until I got home. All of the weight is in the photos. Photos are plastic-coated paper. How much does a box of paper weigh? Well, a box of photos weighs the same!
Monday, August 27th. So far this summer, there haven't been any of the painfully hot days of 37 or 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). There have been many days of 33 and 34 degrees. The extra four degrees may not seem like much but the shift is from slightly below body temperature to slightly above. People talk about humidity being worse than the heat. Yamagata isn't so bad since it is separated from the ocean by two small mountain ranges. A city on the Great Lakes such as Toronto can be much more uncomfortable even at a lower temperature.
The manager at the school for lost children is avoiding talking to my replacement. It must be difficult to justify changing teachers when the manager's own son chooses to watch TV instead of going to class.
Mr. Kuroki reads my web page and was the first student to ask about my departure. I wish more students were like Mr. Kuroki. He has been a careful reader, first in Japanese, then in English.
Tuesday, August 28th. Mrs. Oshima also reads my Japan story and organized a small party at a restaurant after our class in Yonezawa. We sat her daughter across from the eligible Mr. Takano. Somebody is playing matchmaker....
Wednesday, August 29th. My other boss said how helpful it would be if I continued teaching classes at the community center until the end of September. This will make it easier to renew the contract in September. Then the same boss announced to an adult class last week that I was leaving. They know me but they don't know the new teacher yet so today they had many questions and concerns. The most likely time to lose students is when you change teachers. The worst time to lose students is when you are renegotiating a contract where the price is based on the number of students. A complete lack of business sense.
The animals are going home. At this very moment, Owen Junior is working as a deckhand on a cargo ship to earn some more yennies. His reasoning is that if one Yen is about equal to a penny, then many Yen are yennies. Obeara invited Petiracco along on a romantic cruise ship. He said no, he wanted to stay and fly the airplane. She just smiled sweetly and suggested that she should go home early and get a few things ready. He hasn't a clue that one of those things is their wedding. Yup, my little boy has grown up.
Saturday, September 1st. My last class with the Yamagata prefectural office English conversation society. Miss Satoh gave me a card aquarium with many origami fish.
Back to the school office to drop off my books, and to record my voice as a sample for a student who will be giving the same speech in a contest. Take a taxi out to the undeveloped wilds of south Jusco. Join a party in progress to celebrate the completion of Ponta's new house. We sat in the backyard -- a really big backyard, since there aren't any neighbors yet. We ate great food, some barbecued by Ponta and some prepared in the kitchen by his wife. We talked throughout the afternoon. Upon hearing the news that I would be leaving, the immediate reaction was, "Let's have another party, a going-away party!" I gave Ponta's children two-dollar coins from Canada, which have a polar bear on one side. His son, who is only four years old, played with the coin, carried it around while hunting dragonflies, and still had it at the end of the day. (I thought he would lose it in half an hour.) His dog adopted me and sat on my lap. White dogs instinctively seek out people who are wearing black pants. We got a tour of the house.
The new teacher, Andrew, missed a good opportunity to meet some of the adult students outside of the classroom.
Sunday, September 2nd. In the morning, I helped the owner of Watanabe Hardware pick up fallen apples under his apple tree. One tree has been grafted with five types of apples and they all should be ready for eating in a month. The tree will probably survive the widening of the Jounan-machi street; his store won't.
I tried posting these updated notes on my web page but found that the modem was not working on the Windows PC computer that I normally connect to the internet with. I will continue typing on the Macintosh. You will hear from me again when the modem gets fixed.
Andrew arrived in the afternoon and I showed him the neighborhood. He would have been here sooner, but his first plane was grounded in Calgary and he missed his connecting overseas flight.
Monday, September 3rd. I sent seven boxes by surface mail with a total shipping weight of 34.1 kg (75.2 pounds), at a cost of Y29,650 (US$249.71 or Cdn$387.42). I can't believe I once thought that I would somehow cram all this stuff into my travel bags! Delivery time is a consistent four weeks and, so far, there has been no damage.
I walked Andrew over to the school for lost children. While waiting, I talked to the manager for a while about her son. He is having trouble at regular school because of a teacher with a difficult personality. (My Japanese is not good enough to understand exactly what is wrong.) Her son has reacted by losing interest in all school related activities, including his once favorite kendo sports club. Changing English teachers was an irrational attempt to revive his interest in the after-school English program. The net result is a failure in many ways. Her son has not returned to the English class, other students are missing, and the classroom routine has been disrupted because there was no continuity between teachers. After saying good-bye to the remaining students (and dispelling any notions that I was already in Canada), I decided that it's not a good idea to observe another teacher teaching a class that you once taught.
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Thursday, September 6th. Andrew and I take the bus to Tsuruoka, where I introduce him to the bus terminal, shopping centers, company class organizer, and train station. Then I send him back to Yamagata on the second last bus and I stay to teach the classes -- and party with the students after class. Being my last trip to Tsuruoka, I will give away almond brittle (candy) to the people I regularly meet: the ladies at the bus ticket office, the bus driver, the company security guards, etc. The candy is individually wrapped, which is very handy for a day like today.
There are stories about former teachers. Some of the stories are larger than life. I added a new story tonight. First we partied at an izakaya, which translates as a "bar" or "pub" but you have to imagine a pub that has separate dining rooms and a lengthly menu with a wide selection of good food. Then we went upstairs to a karaoke lounge. After enough beer, everyone can sing well, even foreign teachers in Japanese! (The correct lyrics were "Ashita ga aru, ashita ga aru, ashita ga aru sa" meaning "There will be a tomorrow." I was singing "ashi ga aru" meaning "I have feet.") One student took the last train home. Another student used a "daikosha": a taxi with two drivers, where one driver drives your car home and the other driver drives you home and picks up the first driver. Everyone else left their cars at the izakaya and took a regular taxi home. The only place to catch a taxi was at the train station, even though the last train was hours ago. (The taxis have to wait somewhere, so they may as well wait at the taxi stand by the train station until they get a radio call from the dispatcher.) Yes, many hours ago. There are no trains past one o'clock in the morning in Tsuruoka! And in my pocket, there was no hotel key.
I had introduced Andrew to the hotel manager in the afternoon. I didn't pick up the key then. I should have. The hotel is a small, family run business. The family sleeps at night, as most families do. They didn't answer the bell at the front desk. Drunk but not sleepy, I thought about waking up the manager. I did look behind the front desk for the key to my regular room. (No luck.) I thought about going to another hotel. I thought about sitting down and thinking about what to do. If I sat in the lobby for five hours, that would be the same time as I normally got up and went to the bus. Absurd ideas can seem quite normal late at night. They are also a challenge. I discovered that gerbils don't sleep through the night: they nap briefly, run on the treadmills in their cages, and nap again. I discovered that certain insects can make loud screeching noises which explains why their terrariums were in the front entrance separated from the lobby by heavy glass doors. (I did say this was a family hotel, didn't I? The lobby is their living room!) Fish really don't make a sound. Nobody came in or out of the hotel from 1 AM to 5 AM, at which time I got bored and went outside to watch a pretty sunrise where the sun lit up the clouds from underneath. I was nodding off by the time my bus came (7:02). I did snore a few times on the way home -- a sitting snore that is so annoying it wakes me up. My thoughts alternated between fantasies about (oops, can't say that here) and trying to explain to my boss why I didn't have a hotel receipt. Too bad the first didn't explain the second. I finally decided to tell the truth. The story quickly made the rounds.
In time, the story will change, becoming another larger than life story about former teachers at this school. Instead of sitting in a hotel lobby, I will be sleeping outside on the bench at the bus stop. Instead of watching gerbils, rodents of another kind will crawl over my drunken body. Instead of listening to screeching insects, I will eat them for breakfast. For proof, they will show pictures of a homeless man who really was sleeping that night in the pedestrian walkway under the train station. Philosophically, what is the difference between a homeless man in a train station, and an English teacher in a hotel lobby? One has nowhere to go; the other chooses not to go anywhere.
Monday, September 10th. As Andrew takes over my classes, I have more and more time to do less and less: here begins the thumb twiddling stage of my job. The weather has another typhoon dumping steady rain on Yamagata. Typhoons are numbered (today's is the 15th for this season), unlike American hurricanes which get named.
Saturday, September 15th. Respect-for-the-Aged Day (Keiro no Hi) in Japan ... and I have the day off. Is somebody trying to tell me something?
Tuesday, September 18th. Now that the computer modem has been fixed, I can get back on-line. Did you miss me? Of course you did! The office computers have been a great free benefit for e-mail and my web page, so I am paying for the new modem to say thank-you. Soon I must start removing my personal files from these computers. The final edition of this journal will be completed after I return to Canada.
Wednesday, September 19th. A major cleaning of the apartment with toxic chemicals (mostly to kill mold, the most disgusting place was inside the housing of the spin dryer for the clothes washing machine), to be followed next week by a minor cleaning with soap and water. A slight delay between the two seems prudent considering all the warnings on the containers about not mixing chemicals. The new teacher may not notice when he moves in. Like many other things, I am doing this because I think it should be done, not because someone else will notice or appreciate what was done.
Saturday, September 22nd. The housewarming barbecue party reconvenes at the "Juventus" restaurant as a good-bye party.
Sunday, September 23rd. One week to go. There are only two more classes to teach. My vacation time is being paid out as a greatly reduced work schedule for the last two weeks.
Monday, September 24th. The Friday adult students in Tendo get together on a Monday because they can start to party earlier on a holiday (Autumnal Equinox Day). I surprised them by recognizing the "Seoul" Korean restaurant. It's on a side street near my business class, and one day I was there both early and hungry.
Tuesday, September 25th. I close my bank account and convert everything to US$ traveler's checks. Lunch at the school office is pizza ... bought with bonus coupons from my regular Saturday night pizzas. Mrs. Oshima is planning a farewell party in Yonezawa that includes former students who completed the company class last year.
Wednesday, September 26th. Petiracco bought himself a souvenir: a raccoon 6-pack of beer. I told him that there is beer in Canada and that my bags are already full, full, full. He said, no problem, he'll just throw away a few things that I don't need. Then it occurred to me that there are no raccoon beer stores. Where did he find a carton with six 135 mL (4.6 fl.oz.) cans of beer?
Thursday, September 27th. My two travel bags go to Tokyo/Narita airport by express truck. For less than Y2000 (twenty dollars) a bag, the trucking company picks up the bags at my apartment and I collect the bags at the airport terminal. This saves me the trouble of getting the bags to Yamagata station, onto the train, off the regular train in Tokyo, onto an airport shuttle train, off the shuttle train, and into the airport terminal. At 25 kg (55 pounds) each, only a bodybuilder or weight lifter would enjoy the exercise.
Sunday, September 30th. I walk to the train station by myself: a fitting end to my time in Yamagata. Ponta, Mrs. Yuki, and Mr. Takeda are at the station to say good-bye. I take the "Tsubasa" mini shinkansen (bullet train) from Yamagata to Tokyo station, the "Narita Express" shuttle train to the airport, find my travel bags, and board the plane for home. Three hours on the train, four hours until the flight, ten hours on the overseas plane, two hours for customs and immigration in Vancouver, and two more hours on a domestic flight to Edmonton. Twenty-one hours. Crossing the international date line going backwards through a 15-hour time zone change, I will arrive on the same day I leave. Two years and two days. I left Edmonton on the 28th of September 1999, arriving in Japan on the 29th and starting work on the 30th, and I will return home on the 30th of September 2001.
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PS: This internet web page has been your letter from Japan.
Copyright (c) 2001 by Keith Fenske. All rights reserved.
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