As I sit at my staff room desk, writing this blog and sipping
iced coffee, throngs of school children bottleneck at thresholds in their
eagerness to die in the summer heat and have their corpses carried away by suzumebachi
(Japanese hornets, or, literally translated, sparrow bee, because, you know,
their size). Really, though, they’re preparing for sports day.
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| View of Gotsu from the aquarium |
As a sidenote, these hornets, which I have had multiple
pleasures of seeing, murder 40 people in Japan each year, and they hospitalise
far more. So, I’ve no idea why these children are so eager. But this is a
sidenote.
Today is my first day; I taught my first class; and I write
for the first time on this blog in two years. I don’t mean to remain
on this blog (a new site is in the works), but I can no longer not write. I’ve been itching to write – and yet not writing – for five weeks! Why would anyone do this to themselves? It’d be like, I dunno, having a hot
coffee instead of an iced coffee right now. The word is masochistic.
Well, not all the time. This room, for instance, is air
conditioned. As is every room. They can’t not be; we’d all be dead. Here in mid-year Japan, air-conditioned spaces are like bubbles of
life, and venturing outdoors is a mission of negotiation – that is, negotiating
one’s way to the next nearest bubble. Cars are moving bubbles: we thank God for
moving bubbles.
Fortunately, the teachers here are lovely. They showed me
the fridge, the iced coffee inside the fridge, the glasses in which to pour the
iced coffee inside the fridge – for, as well as life bubbles, a man needs his
coffee.
“Kohi-ga daisuki-desu.” This means I love coffee. I say it
when introducing myself. There have been a lot of introductions; and afterwards
a lot of people asking me what my hobbies are. I lie: I say writing, movies, and making strange decisions like going to Japan to teach kids how to English. My actual hobbies are bowing and yoroshiku
onegaishimasing (nice to meet you, ing). Here’s a fact: everyone in Japan has
the same two hobbies.
And there seems to be an art to bowing – a technique, like nailing
a harmony, or knowing how far to turn the steering wheel so as to remain on the
road yet not converge with that obnoxious cyclist. There’s a sense of pride
when you do so successfully. A bloody mess when you don’t.
In my apartment, which is large in width but small in depth, much bowing
has been had. A refusal to bow means a head-butt to the doorframe. But what my
apartment lacks in height it more than compensates in square metres and cheap rent. Just one of the perks of rural Japan.
But rural Japan isn’t like rural New Zealand. New Zealand’s
towns and small cities are devoid of life, their deathly silence broken only by
the occasional baaing of a sheep. Japan has – how do I word this – people.
Moving figures. These moving figures have jobs, drive cars, occupy aisles at
grocery stores. They unload coinage at vending machines and make pedestrian crossings relevant again.
The highways in between cities are also different. Unlike
New Zealand’s vast spaces of nothingness where featureless hills fold over each other
like golden oceans caught in a frame (okay, when I put it like that, it doesn’t
sound so bad), Japan has variety. Countryside and civilisation are unified;
townships are spread out; nature is lush and diverse. And the ever-changing
terrain necessitates extravagant infrastructure. Countless mountains mean
countless tunnels, and countless rivers mean countless bridges. Simultaneously,
Japan is both city and wild.
Also countless are the aforementioned vending machines. Ah, but
I’ll save food for next time; the kids are going to the gym for a lecture on
school cleaning. And I’ve a mind to follow them.
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