My twenty-sixth birthday in Japan was great!

I am growing closer to and becoming good friends with a few of my neighbors.  They are making me at ease in this new place.  I often spend the evenings at their homes, learning how to cook Japanese cuisine, eating the delicious results, and drinking ocha (green tea) or biru (beer).  Between the food and the tea, we share stories about Japan and the United States, speak a little English and a little Japanese, and always fill the room with laughter because of our strange sentence structure, our incorrect grammar or word choice, and our bizarre pronunciation.

It is in the private space that I learn the most about Japanese culture.  Behind closed doors, and out of the public eye, it is more acceptable for many, but not all Japanese, to bend the rules and speak about topics that go unmentioned in the public.  In private space, I also feel more at ease.  I can make mistakes with the Japanese language and cultural etiquette, and I can ask my hosts to slow their rate of speech or clarify a statement.  In between the walls of a host’s home, I see a detailed piece of the mosaic that is Japan.

I spend many evenings next door with my neighbors Kiyotaka and Hiroe Sakou.  Kiyotaka, a thin man in his fifties with splashes of gray around his ears, is the junior high school principal.  He has a great sense of humor and loves to talk about cars and airplanes.  When he is driving, his idiosyncrasies unfold before his passengers.  He likes to point out every Mercedes Benz slyly as if he were trying to point out an attractive woman at an adjacent table in an elbow-to-elbow, overflowing restaurant.  Upon seeing a Benz, his posture will stiffen, arms will lock, eyes will shoot forward, and muscles will ready for full command of the vehicle.  Under his breath, however, he will slip a nervous sentence, lips stretched and unmoving, and say, “The car to the left is a Mercedes Benz.”  I play along and look.  Trying not to be obvious, I nod and slowly look to my left to let him know that I see it too.

Hiroe is a piano instructor and music teacher at a University in Kagoshima city.  She enjoys talking about her daughters, Japanese cooking, and California.  She has a subtle appeal.  Her fashion sense is very elegant yet simple. Her cloths are not loud, but are finely finished.  Her scant jewelry does not adorn large gems but are crafted with pleasant and minute details.  Giving her opinion with acute precision, she sits at the table reserved.  At the same time, she always controls the direction and topic of the evening’s conversation.  Like a surgeon, her few but calculated movements cut into the body of the dialogue like incisions.  I may be mistaken, but I think she is the decision maker in the household.

They are openhanded and share much with me.  Since I have arrived, they have bought me new bedding, cleaned my bathroom, brought me food, and cooked me many meals.  We now have a cycle of gift exchange: I bring them food such as, wine, coffee, or fruit; they ask me over for dinner, or take me to see new places in Japan.  They often tell me that they enjoy being my Japanese parents.

My birthday is a great example of their generosity.  When they discovered the date of my birthday, they asked me to stay a weekend at their home Kagoshima city and to go to their friend’s Chinese food restaurant, to go to a couple of onsens (natural hot spring or bathhouse), and to go shopping.  (They have two homes for a couple reasons: 1) In Japan, teachers, administrators, and nurses stay at a school anywhere between two to five years then relocate to another school.  This is very troublesome for many, but it is the protocol in Japan.  As a result, Sakou-sensei lives in a school-subsidized apartment next to me; 2) Hiroe teaches in Kagoshima, so she lives there four days a week.)  The above pictures highlight the weekend in the city.