when it's over
weill in japan: day 45
The summer course has ended. Please deposit 250,000 yen to continue.
As I write this at 7:30 PM on Friday, I am less than 12 hours away from
the moment I'll leave this house for the last time. While I had a lot of
fun in Japan, I am happy to be returning home after six weeks.
The course I took was underwhelming to say the least, underscored by our
terrible culture-related skits today at the end-of-summer party. Nevertheless,
the less-than-enjoyable class situation brought the students closer together
towards the end of the class. Only six people out of our class's 13 were
in their seats at 8:30 AM today, although two more joined us late. Four of the
five students who didn't show today likely failed the course, but they
don't care. As long as they had fun, their summer was not lost. Our
evaluations, handed out on Thursday, included a sheet intended specifically
for our class alone. Hopefully our constructive criticisms will improve
the program next summer.
It has been a fantastic six-plus weeks here in Japan. The weather has been
scorching hot every day with high humidity, but these are the sort of
conditions that I'm used to from summers in New York and Pittsburgh. The food,
capped off by a dinner of unagi (broiled eel) tonight, has been good
for the most part, although it had its moments. Among the more unusual foods
that I've eaten -- and liked -- during my stay here are takoyaki
(octopus cooked and served inside dough) and nankotsu (chicken breast
cartilage breaded and deep-fried). There have been uneasy nights when I
disliked the food that my host mother made, but I worked with her to decide
what foods I would like and not like to eat.
Life at home has been very quiet and relaxing. Nearly all the time, I have
enjoyed privacy and enough personal space to be comfortable. My two older
brothers who share a room at home have been out of the picture due to late
nights of work and study, but my relationship with my host family parents has
been very good. My host mother and I talked about anything and everything,
while discussions with my host father have centered around sports (Japanese
and otherwise) and technology. My host father is 60 years old, but is still
fascinated by computers and technology. He has printed around 30 photos from
his digital camera using his new inkjet printer. I helped him pick out both
the camera and the printer, deciphering the sales spin-doctoring across a huge
language barrier.
Life on campus was easy-going, due to the fact that International Christian
University is not ostensibly international or Christian. While I met people
from all over the world, the majority of students in the summer courses are
from the U.S. English became the dominant language of conversation between
the summer course students I met, but there were also a large number of
students who conversed in Cantonese. I was very apprehensive about applying
to a school with "Christian" in the name due to my Jewish upbringing, but there
was very little that is outwardly Christian on campus. At the opening meeting,
campus minister Rev. Paul Johnson led the students in a non-denominational
saying of grace. After that, I never saw Rev. Johnson or was exposed to
anything religious as part of daily activities. Of course, ICU's
centrally-located church is highly visible as a sign of the Christian
principles on which the university was founded. Bilingual religious services
are held every Sunday. I sometimes saw posters promoting religious seminars
and lectures around campus, but they were not at all mandatory. I even met a
few openly anti-Christian students in the summer course, and there was no
hostility associated with discussing and questioning Christianity in the
dining hall over lunch. During the regular academic year, more than 95% of
the student body is native Japanese. Christians make up less than 1% of
Japan's population, so I would suspect that religious activities are also
low-key during the regular academic year.
I think Tokyo is a wonderful city where I would not like to live full-time.
Coming from New York and having visited Manhattan on many occasions, it was
very easy for me to adjust to the blistering pace of life in Tokyo. While
I do not enjoy being smashed into impossibly-crowded subway trains,
I felt that Tokyo has a little bit of everything. Very friendly towards the
large numbers of foreigners who visit for business and/or pleasure, Tokyo has
more restaurants than any other city in the world (more than 50,000 in total)
and imports everything from perfumes to motion pictures. This makes the city
the most expensive in the world in which to live, beating out second-place
New York City. Public transportation, while extremely convenient, is
managed by several private corporations. Some students, myself among them,
had to purchase passes for different bus and train companies rather than a
single transportation pass that would have saved us even more money. In
any case, it's better than driving in Tokyo. When the traffic isn't
bumper-to-bumper, I am still terrified by the prospect of driving on the left
on impossibly narrow residential streets and understanding traffic patterns
on the major roads.
I would not rule out the possibility of returning to Japan. Because I
still had homework and projects to do, I didn't get to have as much fun as
I would have liked. I still want to do a lot of traveling around, to places
like Kyoto and Osaka. In retrospect, I might have preferred to travel in the
one month before coming to Tokyo, but the World Cup made travel plans
expensive or outright impossible in most cases. Although it is very difficult
for foreigners to secure full-time employment and residency in Japan, I would
be interested in a job with a company that has offices in both the U.S. and
Japan. In this job market, it's hard for me to wish for anything.
My week ahead will be filled with sleep to relieve previously-unseen
jet lag, unpacking, repacking, traveling around the New York region, and
otherwise preparing for my seventh and final semester at Carnegie Mellon.
I am glad that ICU provides students with public computers to check e-mail and
otherwise stay in touch, since I have become dependent on those means of
communication.
It's not the flight that I'm worried about tomorrow, but rather getting to
the airport on time. I have two legs of transit, with my host mother
accompanying me to Shinjuku before I take the Narita Express solo to the
airport. I'm down to my last 3,000 yen and change, which should last me until
I arrive in New York. It's an early start, and I say my last goodbye to Japan
at 12:00 PM tomorrow -- unless oncoming Typhoon 13 sidelines my plans.