Emails from Kirsten and Naoto
July 2004

Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 22:59:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: No Smorking

Friends and Family:

Maika now has her Japanese passport, so we can officially travel. We are still waiting on the U.S. one, but as long as she has one, we're mobile!

(not that we are actually going anywhere until September, it's just the feeling that we could)

Naoto observed to me on the train ride home that he (as the official handler of important documents on any trip) will have 7 passports to take care of on our next international jaunt. That's 7 passports for 4 people. (3 american, 3 japanese, 1 reentry permit/passport for the U.S.). Crazy, eh?

Maika had gained 1000 grams (that's grams, not pounds) at her one month check up, and got high scores on everything else. She is continuing her "easy baby" ness (luckily) by sleeping most of the day and only getting crabby at night when naoto is home to help.

Was Mia this easy at one month? I don't know. She might have been and I was just too uptight/worried/hormone-crazed/crabby to notice.

Mia has had three dry naps (no diaper) in a row, followed by 2 wet naps. We'll see how it goes today. But she continually reminds me that she isn't a baby anymore and that she is entering "kidhood". She can do lots of things on her own now (washing her hands, putting on pants, etc.) She wants to be held a lot now, but that's understandable as mommy is frequently breastfeeding.

No Smorking

Today we went to a largish department store in the same building as the passport authority in Tachikawa. I went to the "baby rest" room to nurse Maika while Naoto and Mia went to graze at the Sanrio/Disney Character store. (Which for some reason, along with pooh, aristocats, pink panther, and some Japanese characters also sells Playboy merchandise. According to Naoto, Playboy merchandise is very chic among the middle school girls right now. Weird, eh?)

I noticed a sign in the nursing room with a ciggerate X'ed out. Under it was the slogan "No Smorking" (as if even an idiot would consider Smorking around babies.)

:)

Which reminds me that I keep meaning to write down the name of weird apartment house names. Because of the lack of logic in addresses here, often people tell eachother where they live by apartment complex name. We live in "Plan Doru" (which is a katakana version of some language, don't ask me what). Mia's best toddler friend lives in "Excelente, Tia." (I mean, can you imagine telling someone you live at 303 Excelente Tia?)

I've also walked past "Highhome Kumegawa" (only two stories) and "Maison Home." There are many others that I am forgetting. It's just a hoot that they mostly use French, Spanish and English names because they sound "cool." The funniest ones for me are the mix of French and Japanese like "Mont du Kumegawa." (because the French sounds so hoity toity but Kumegawa is just urban jungle)

love and light,
Kirsten

Click on picture to enlarge

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 01:15:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Outsider

Dear Friends and Family

Well, Mia has decided she is now afraid of all slides, even ones she has gone down a zillion times before.

However, she is going to sleep by herself, accident-and-diaper-free at nap-time, which I consider a major triumph.

Recently I explained to her at our friend, Terry's house that the man taking a picture was "Terry's husband." Mia looked at me with a grin and said "Mia wa Mommy no husband." (which in her mix of English and Japanese means- Mia is Mommy's husband.)

Mia seems to be at a language stage incomprehensible to non bilinguals. I am always having to translate for Baba and Jiji- and sometimes Naoto, too.

Which leads me to my new slogan. "If you aren't bicultural, then you're half" (in response to the Japanese use of the word "half" to designate multiracial or multicultural people).

Maika continues to be easy-baby-from-heaven. She mostly sleeps in the stroller when we're out. Her really upset cry (when either she hasn't eaten in a long time or is on the verge of sleeping) lasts about 2 minutes and is mostly a cute "ah" uttered at short intervals.

Maika definitely smiles now. In fact she is a smile slut. She will smile at anything that moves.

Outsider

I was recently pondering why certain Western women seem to do well in Japan and why certain women do not.

I think part of the equation lies with how those women view themselves in terms of their own culture.

The biggest hurdle here is that no matter how much Japanese you learn, how many years you've lived here, or how many stupid, beautiful, exasperating Kanji you know, you are always going to be perceived as an illiterate, ignorant, English-only speaking foreigner by people when they first encounter you.

Every shop clerk, salesman, street walker, nosy old neighbor, bald salaryman, smiling kid, helpful post office guy, delivery girl, and well-meaning but annoying senior citizen with time on their hands will assume these things about you.

And because they can see you coming from miles away due to hair color, posture, clothing choice, etc., you can not escape these assumptions.

It makes a girl tired, I tell you.

It makes a girl tired in a way that Naoto will never truly experience. He CAN blend in to the background in the States. He isn't on parade all the time. (although walking around the neighborhood here with a biracial child may have given him a taste.)

So you take this fact that you are constantly perceived as an outsider here and you match it up to how the woman viewed herself in her own home country.

Take example A. A is from California. A likes science fiction and is very liberally progressive. She self-identifies as a pagan. This identity is one on the "outside" of the U.S. mainstream. This person probably had an "outsider" identity in her own country, thus making the transition to outsider here fairly easy. In fact, it is an important part of A's self-identity to be outsider.

Take example B. B is from London. She is white, upper class, and politically conservative. Her identity is fairly well congealed in the jello of Englishness. This person probably will find it hard to be considered an "outsider" when she has never experienced this attitude before.

I think that is why some Western women make it here, and some don't.

Now take Kirsten Bird Lincoln. Despite having opinions that differ with most of mainstream U.S. politically, she always hung out with people who thought like her. She never really considered herself an "outsider" (and thus was extremely surprised when Bush was elected) but yet knows intellectually her life is not the norm.

I deal with Japan by either a) "forgetting" I'm here and pretending my little corner of Tokyo where everyone knows me is the norm or b) putting on an observer's superiority and distancing myself from it

Coping mechanism A is my "I'm not an outsider, I'm mainstream" attitude. Coping mechanism B is my "God forbid that I should be part of this (think Sting's "oh, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien)" attitude.

What's your self-identity?

love and light,
Kirsten

p.s. we went to a water park with naoto's family. mia loves water!

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Here are some more pictures from our apartment, the Yasaka shrine festival (where drunken men and women parade "omikoshi" (little temporary shrines) around so the local god can reaffirm his borders, and one shot (naoto is lame with the camera) when Naoto and Mia went to Hello Kitty World.

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