Phew

Sunday, August 9, 2009
Phew, what a first week; 3 packed days/nights in Tokyo, and then 5 full days here in Tokushima. I can tell you one thing: being active all day and every day has helped me to get over any potential jet lag, though it has been nice to be around a lot of nice people going through the same thing.

I’ve now met most of the other JETs in my immediate vicinity, and a few others from the prefecture as well. In Awa City (Awa-shi), 3 of the 4 of us are new: John M., who’s an active board member of the Association of JETs (AJET), has been a huge help in getting me situated and answering a lot of questions about living here. He knows a lot more than even he gives himself credit for, as he told me it wasn’t until he was answering all of my questions that he really realized that he’s been here a whole year now and how much he’s learned in the meantime. The two other new JETs around here are Chris and Thad. Thad is a great guy from Iowa, who’s spent the past 3 ½ years teaching abroad in Italy (so we both speak a language that very, very few people in this area apart from the Americans speak haha), and is an active practitioner of Buddhism. This is interesting in that he adheres to the tenets of the religion so far as he doesn’t drink alcohol or eat meat, something that he has been told many “practicing” Buddhists here in Japan have left behind them. It’s interesting to see that Japan, not a particularly religious country, but one that I’ve always assumed followed (at least in practice) what little their religions (Shinto & Buddhism) required of its adherents, is little different in this day and age from many European countries with Catholicism, or even many parts of America. Not that I’m a total cynic and think that tradition/religion/etc. everywhere has been gradually (and completely) abandoned over generations, but it’s interesting to see such widespread and complete disregard for some traditions in a country that is very much attached to its traditions. Chris is a great guy from Dallas who went to Stephen F Austin State University in Nacadoches, Tx and graduated in 2008. I find it funny that I’ve already met 5 Texans that are in this area (Annie & Becky from Austin, Chris & Adam from Dallas, and Sarah from Lubbock), though I guess the Japanese consulate in Houston must get a lot of people applying from our state. Chris came to the Group A orientation, which occurred a week before mine, so that he’s got a much better idea of what’s going on than I do so far.

Yesterday, we went into Tokushima city (the city of 250,000 that’s about an hour to my East on the coast) and met up with a variety of new and old JETs to take a short city tour and go out for the night. The tour was quick and easy, and we were shown the closest store to buy foreign goods (read: peanut butter, taco mix, and funyons haha). Compared to how I’m sure it was 23 years ago (when the JET program began), I’m sure that people in rural places have it much better nowadays: walking through a Japanese grocery store, I find that though the brand names, packaging, and language may be different, you can find a remarkable number of things that one would buy back home: spaghetti & tomato sauce, many types of meat, all kinds of fruits, potato chips, eggs & dairy things, etc. Of course, the majority of items in the grocery store are more along traditional Japanese lines: all types of soba (noodles), ramen, a huge seafood section, miso, natto, and a ton of other things that I haven’t learned to read yet.

On a completely different note, it’s been raining cats and dogs here for the past 36 hours or so. I’m assuming it’s some weather system associated with the massive typhoon that just hit Taiwan (and is hitting mainland China as we speak). On the plus side it’s just warm summer rain, but many of the streets have been flooded in the small towns on either side of the Yoshinogawa (Yoshino river). Driving around, I’ve actually been afraid that one of our little k-cars would get a swamped engine from the foot or so of water we’ve seen on the roads.

In Japan, there are two main types of vehicles: yellow plates & white plates. White plates, with white license plates, are your normal run-of the mill cars- everything from Toyota Corollas to Land Cruisers, etc. K-Cars, or yellow plates, have smaller (650 cc max) engines. To any of you who have seen my beast of a car, it looks like a glorified HotWheels car (but a little bigger). Driving one is a lot like driving a go-cart with the whine of the engine (especially with 4 passengers) and just the small size of it. However, k-cars, we’ve realized, are the best possible thing for a JET to have: the mandatory government insurance (shakken) is much, much cheaper than the white plates, and thus they’re much easier to maintain. Despite appearances, my little car (nickname undetermined as of yet) can comfortably fit 4 people, with plenty of head room to spare- in making their cars look like boxes, the Japanese have crammed as much space into as little as possible (typical).

Anyways, the Tokushima city excursion (and the one to the Naruto City fireworks show the night before) has given me the opportunity to meet more and more JETs from our prefecture. Though Tokushima city is an hour to the west of me (mainly because the two-lane road there has lots of traffic lights), I’ve found that Tokushima JETs hang out with each other quite a bit. Be it through simply friendships & trips or any one of the various (and numerous) events organized by AJET, the JETs in the area seem pretty well connected. One of my main reasons to come to Japan to live here a second time was so that I could continue to develop my Japanese. From experience in Osaka as well as Alicante, I know that in order to vastly improve your language skills, you need to hang out and speak to locals (in that language). So far, I haven’t done a ton of that, but I feel that I’ve been justified in seeing a great deal of my fellow JETs for two main reasons: 1.) there simply just aren’t a lot of people out here, and 2.) getting situated/oriented has been much, much easier with people like John and Balacz (another JET from across the river) around to answer literally every single question that I have. It’s also been nice to hang out with the other new JETs, see how much they know about the Japanese language, people, and culture, and gauge the reasons why they’re here.

The JET program allows you to stay in Japan from 1-5 years, recontracting every year. In telling people how long I would be staying here, I mainly based my estimates off of my life back home (I’d like to go to grad school and start a career at some point) and my limited experience with alumni JET and living in Japan itself. After being here a week (yes, only a week), and speaking to a few of the returning/new JETs (especially the returners), I feel that my estimates of 2-3 years were pretty solid; people come to Japan and do the JET program for various reasons- everything from getting out of the States for a year, to having a new and exciting experience, to being here to catch the latest trend in Anime. A great deal of those people are the ones that stay for one year. After speaking to Balacz (pronounced “Balaj”), who’s been here for two years already, I’m much more confident in my earlier estimates. After telling him about my familiarity with the culture and the reasons why I’ve come back (namely: 1.) work on my Japanese language skills, 2.) get a more in-depth understanding of the culture, 3.) a more in-depth understanding of politics here, 4.) work as a teacher- there are others but those are the main ones), he was fairly confident in his opinion that I was here not only for the right reasons, but those that would keep me here several years. Obviously, time will tell, but it was nice to see that someone who knows a lot more about these things than I do was of the same opinion.