About the car

So I bought a car. No, wait. I'm going to buy a car. I was supposed to get it yesterday, but they said it won't be ready until today, and now I'm just going to wait until I actually see it and drive it to say that I bought it.

I made a promise to myself a few years ago that I would only ever buy an environmentally friendly car, be it hybrid or electric or whatever. I'm sorry to say that I've broken that promise, as my car requires gas to run. However, since it's teeny tiny and the options are fairly limited in rural Japan, I'm allowing my own personal exception.

About the car:

It's white. It's a Daihatsu Mira. There are many many kilometres already on it. For the price I paid, I had the choice between two white small cars. Seeing as I know nothing about cars, and both required some work before I could actually take it home, I chose the Mira for one arbitrary reason, but as far as arbitrary reasons go, I feel that it's a fairly good one.

The wheel is on the right side, and I am supposed to drive on the left side of the road. On my test drive, I instinctively turned right into the near lane, and almost hit another car. Key word being almost. I'm pretty sure the mechanic told my supervisor, because yesterday when he drove me home he stopped on a narrow side street and made me practive driving his massive van home. Let me tell you, it was not good. For one thing, his car is larger than the car I am used to driving back in Canada. Secondly, the roads are much much much more narrow here, with deep pits on either side that are commonly known as 'Gaijin Traps'. Third, Kagoshima is known to have the highest rate of trafic accidents in Japan (I may be making this up, but I swear I heard this from many people). Fourth, my supervisor is a skinny man that is a more skittish passenger than even my father and has the tendency to let out small shrieks whenever I came close to any objects.

It's not that I drove terribly, exactly. It's more that I drove very slowly and was very nervous. I tried to tell my supervisor that in fact I am a capable driver and have been driving alone for over five years (also a lie...I've been licensed for just under 5 years). He laughed when I said this, shocked that it could possibly be true. Then he made me promise to only drive to work, to school and to the grocery store for the next month. I got him to reluctantly include Kawanabe, the town not 15 minutes away (that took me 2 hours to get to this weekend on bus) since there's both a giant Zellers-type store there and my closest gaijin friend.

Until now I have been both amused and gracious for the overprotective nature of my board of education. There are many things that I could not have had done without the help of the fine people in my office. If I was left alone without any help, I would currently either be squatting underneath some cardboard box or seeking refuge at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo. Nevertheless, there are those things that I am capable of doing, and restricting me in doing so just make me want to pee in spite on the gifts that I am planning on giving these people.*


*Note: I do not actually plan on peeing on any gifts.

Am currently alone in the Board of Education office. I believe everyone else is either at a meeting or at the library. One of my coworkers (that feels strange to say because I am hardly a coworker, more like a deaf and dumb taker of space and waster of time) just told me "It goes to the library" meaning that she is going, not that I should go with her, which I mistakenly thought.

As far as I can tell with my limited knowledge, there are no such things as pronouns in Japanese. Everything translated, be it 'he', 'you', 'I' etc. is "It". Although I can't remember if 'they' is "It" or not. Let's pretend it is for the sake of argument. My third day here I was told, via the ever-reliable Excite internet translator, that "It embarrassed that undergoes complete" or something along those lines, I can't remember the exact phrase. I thought they were rudely bringing up the fact that I cried in front of the whole office on my first day (long story), and I had no idea why they were dredging that up and how I should respond as my face got redder and redder. Turns out they were asking if I needed any help with unpacking my things. I should have known they was no malice intended.

As I was writing this someone from the city hall office just came up and asked me if I wanted to play badminton with her club (?) on Saturday. I was all, Kyu-gattsu? Which means September and she was all, August! And I was all thinking that there are no more Saturdays in August, at least not till 2007 and so looked very confused. After an ordeal of locating and pointing at a calendar I realise that she meant Thursday which is indeed still in August. Yay badminton!

The phone keeps on ringing. One of my coworkers made sure to tell me not to answer it, very useful advice considering all I would say is "Moshi Moshi" and then stare blankly in front of me, an action that does not transfer well over the phone. I guess I could have said 'Nihongo skoshi' or 'wakarimasen' but then why answer the phone at all? I hate talking to strangers on the phone in English, let alone Japanese or Turkish or Farsi.

Eee! I bought a car! Well, I'm buying it tomorrow. Everyone in the office (and in the city hall) seem to know how much I paid (am paying) for it. Then they ask me questions and I mime driving and then stare blankly in front of me when they say anything else. I really need to work on my Japanese.

My shoulders hurt. For some reason, all desk chairs I have found here do not offer adequate back support. I am taking advantage of the empty staff room at the junior high and surfing to my heart's content although it is killer on my back.

There's not much to do here at school. Monday was cleaning day, where all the students come in (although they still had two weeks of summer vacation) and clean the school. Most of the students come in to school anyways to participate in their club activities, which I guess know no break. Anyways, on Monday I had to give a short little speech introducing myself to all the teachers and students. For the last couple of weeks I was being taught Japanese by the staff/teachers at the Chiran community centre, and one of them gave me a little speech to memorize to say in front of the teachers. I tried to translate it into English for my own understanding, which ended up confusing me more.

My speech was:

Watasi ha minasanni eigo o osiemasu
Minasanwa watasini nihongo de hanasite kudasai
hayaku nihongo o oboete otomodatini naritaidesu
Nihon no bunkaya rekisio osietekudasai

When I tried translating it, this is what spewed out:

I give three Ei ending of a word./I teach you its English tail.
Everyone must speak to passing by three harmony in Japanese.
A Japanese tail wants to be remembered and to be made friends early.
Please teach the culture and the history tail of Japan.

Does anyone have any idea what the hell that means? Me neither. I asked my supervisor, and after many blank looks and wild hand gestures, I think I got the basic gist:

I am the new English teacher.
Please speak to me slowly in Japanese.
I really want to learn Japanese.
Please teach me about Japanese culture and history.

I guess I'm the tail?

TYPHOON!

Typhoon? More like ty-fun! No really, there's a typhoon warning in effect. I've haphazardly searched the English language Japanese dailies for information, but all I found was a warning of heavy rains, swollen rivers and landslides in Kyushu and Shikoku. Yesterday afternoon all my office was abuzz with typhoon warnings; they even printed out a diagram of my house to show me exactly where the storm shutters are located, with precise instructions of how to slide them over my windows. This morning every television station had extensive typhoon coverage. I put out the shutters this morning before work, so my little house is a shroud of darkness with no natural light coming in. I'm pretty excited with this being my first ever typhoon.

I'm sitting in the office right now, with a painful shoulder ache, unconsciously ignoring the three men across from me having some sort of conversation in Japanese. I can't tell if anyone actually works here, but maybe that's because I certainly don't. Wait: I keep hearing the words 'shogakko' and 'chugakko' which respectively mean elementary and junior high school, so that must be something.

Yesterday (today?) was (is?) my birthday. I'm really not sure because I received many comments both Monday and Wednesday, but almost none on the actual day itself. I wouldn't be surprised if I am in fact completely wrong and my birthday is really in a couple of weeks.

These past weeks have been, for lack of better words, crazy. There is too much that I want to say but not enough time to write it all. I also lack the energy, to be honest. I guess my actions over the last couple of weeks can be summarized by blank stares, awkward silences, and many cultural faux-pas. However, to say that I am not having an amazing time would be a lie. The people here are incredible generous and kind and the town itself is quite majestic.

It;s Wednesday morning, 7:45, and in an hour I leave Tokyo and head way down south to Chiran. I have mixed feelings; although I am ready to move into my new home and start to get settled, I am very scared too. I met the other JETs in my prefecture, and they seem alright, but I will miss the friends I:ve made in Ottawa. To commemorate our last night, we went to karaoke yesterday. I:ve finally had the chance to belt out what some consider the worst song ever, We Built This City. Consequently, I have no voice this morning and am very, very tired.

Before karaoke, we Canadians had a meeting at our embassy. The cab ride through parts of Tokyo was amazing. I really wish I had more time to explore and see the city. I went into one electronic store, which was the craziest thing Id ever seen. It:s good that I didn:t buy a laptop because the ones here are generations ahead of N America.

I have much more to write, obviously, but there has yet been no time for thinking and I have to go eat breakfast.