Emails from Kirsten and Naoto
November 2004

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 22:18:52 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Autumn tidbits

Dear Friends and Family

As I write this, the news from the U.S. says that Bush won Florida and the outlook is not good.

My condolences.

Maybe we should stay in Japan for another 4 years? yikes.

Autumn Tidbits

Halloween and Mia's birthday were the two big events of this month. Mia's birthday was great. We had a Jack o Lantern pinata and many children over to our apartment. (andit took all 12 of the children to actually break open the Pinata. Finally Naoto had to cheat and tear it open with his hands)

Halloween was not so great. Mia got freaked out by the older children's scary costumes and screamed to go home. We had gone to the local U.S. military base and were in base housing. She was okay for the first two houses. Then some rubber masked boys came by. Even when they took their masks off so she could see they were boys underneath she wailed.

Ah well, there's always next year.

On Monday, I went to Tama Midori kindergarten to put in an application for Mia for next spring. I went to the front hall, handed in my application, bowed to the vice-principal (who's married to the principal), paid my 35 dollars, and received a receipt for Mia's interview time.

Yes, she (and I) will be interviewed for kindergarten. Then they will let us know by mail if we are accepted or not. The odds are good we will be accepted, but I am still making Naoto practice questions like "What is your name" and "where do you live" and "what is your favorite color" in Japanese with Mia this week. She can answer all those in English fairly well, but I am worried about her Japanese.

I am also worried about MY Japanese. What do I do if they ask me something like "so please explain in detail your methods of child rearing so far and how your goals relate to Tama Midori's goals for students" or even "what will your child bring to the Tama Midori family?" or what if they ask "name your and your husband's entire scholastic history"?

What am I going to wear? What should Mia wear? Please don't let me forget to bring her "inside shoes" for the school! What if Mia spontaneously gets Japanese Amnesia and throws up on the Vice Principal?

Ye gods, what am I getting myself into?

The kindergarten saga begins. And Kindergarten doesn't actually start until next April!

I am currently addicted to two Autumn treats (meaning they come out in autumn and are seasonal) here in Japan: white coffee and marinated pork buns.

"White Coffee" is the brand name of a milk coffee product from Yakult. I quote from the bottle "tasty coffee and smooth milk. A great combination. Enjoy your WHITE COFFEE." On the side of the can is a Starbuck's inspired checklist of things including "coffee", "decaf", "milk", and "topping."

Of course you can't really put a topping in a can, and neither can you actually buy decaf coffee in Japan (other than at rare specialty stores.) So of course only the "milk" and "coffee" are checked. In case you were confused by "white coffee" and weren't sure what you were actually getting. But you have to speak English in order to figure all this stuff out.

Marinated pork buns are this year's marketing twist on the chinese-style steamed buns that appear on schedule in Autumn at convenience stores everywhere in Japan. They are sold in these little, glass cases that keep them warmed and gooey.

Also available are pizza steamed buns, cheese steamed buns, seafood gratin and chocolate steamed buns.

But the marinated pork are the best!

love and light,
kirsten

p.s. on the way home from an amusement park outing, I saw this space-age umbrella vending machine

p.s.s. on the writing front, a story of mine titled "The Wind Knew Her Name" is currently being published in the paper 'zine "Flytrap #3". http://www.tropismpress.com/subscribe.html

It is a story about an ESL teacher married to a Japanese guy in Chiba, Japan. She finds herself helping an ancient spirit court one of her surfer students who has a terrible secret.

Click on Mia or an umbrella to enlarge.

a link to more photos from recent events here in Japan: mia's birthday, halloween, unesco mura amusement park kirsten
http://community.webshots.com/user/kblincolnsuzuki
go see "october 2004"

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 00:03:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Religious Observances

Dear Friends and Family

Well, we just returned from Mia's shichi go san (7 5 3) celebration. All the other 7 and 3 year old girls has beautiful hair pieces as well as the traditional kimono.

I could barely get Mia into the kimono (only achieved after commenting that it was a "princess dress.") She wouldn't let me get close to her hair.

But she did sit quietly through the short service the shinto priest did for all the celebrants.

It looked like exactly the same service as the priest did for Maika's first shrine visit 5 months ago.

Religious Observances

Anyway, although I consider myself a Lutheran with Unitarian tendencies (and a dash of Quakerism), I still find it difficult to feel the same reverence and comfort I get with the Lutheran liturgy with other religion's services.

Everyone else in their robes and set patterns of walking and offerings and chanting looks somewhat whimsical to me (no offense is meant here, I have only respect for most religions).

Yet when a Lutheran priest in his robe walks down the aisle to the music and chants and prays, it doesn't seem weird to me. It's a big old cultural difference, I guess.

Which makes it hard for me to understand people (and I am not condemning them here, just stating my own point of view) who sincerely identify themselves with religions not of their culture. (for example Japanese Christians or U.S. WASP Buddhists)

While I have felt "spiritual" at shrines and mountain tops and other places besides Lutheran Churches before, I never get the same, comforting, almost physical sense of worship I get in the Church service of my youth.

How do you get that feeling for a religion based on a culture very different from yours?

It is an interesting topic of discussion. Not that I want to discuss it with Japanese Christians, mind you. The Japanese Christians I tend to come into contact with are the ones with tracts who come to your door. Usually they are easy to get rid of when they see my face and I tell them I am Lutheran (although I may not have the correct Katakana accent for "lutheran" because they often seem confused).

I believe that God doesn't really care how he is worshipped, as long as the intent is true, but I can't help wondering what kind of Japanese person (in a culture so self-congratulatingly homogeneous- even though that's an erroneous stereotype) wants to stick out of the crowd by identifying themselves to multiple strangers as Christian.

hmmm.

On a different note, Mia got her kindergarten acceptance letter yesterday. I was very leery of the whole interview process, but Mia went with the teacher and the other kids without a peep, leaving me alone to answer a questionnaire.

Which indeed had the question "why did you choose this school" on it.

Now we have to go on Monday and pay the school about a thousand dollars as an "entrance fee" and uniform fee.

love and light,
kirsten

p.s. Picture from mia's shichi go san

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 23:10:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Meditations on Home

So we went to Guam last weekend. Despite feeling vaguely uneasy about being the capitalist pig paying for overpriced guava juice in the hotel, I had me a good old time.

The beach does wonders for the soul. Mia had a good time, too. It is most excellent to be the main focus of parents, grandparents, and an Aunt who is good with children (as I can personally attest to.)

The in laws had a good time because everybody spoke Japanese. I seriously (and am NOT exaggerating, the lifeguard told me so) was the only Westerner at the hotel, everyone else was Korean or Japanese.

I like Naoto's sister more the longer I am with her. Not only does she have that special patience/willingness to be silly/safeness about her that Naoto has with children, but she also is willing to be decisive. I didn't want to take responsibility for restaurant choices, so I would say something like "I was thinking we should eat at Friday's or the Japanese restaurant in the hotel." Naoto's parents would say "whatever" (and be prepared to suffer in the name of holidays) and then his sister would say "fridays!". I was happy to enforce her choices.

Meditations on Home

So go read what Pico Ayer, the great travel writer (and he has a decent book about Japan, too if you're interested, great observations without too many stereotypes/cliches "The Lady and the Monk: Four seasons in kyoto") says about "home" for Asians at http://www.time.com/time/asia/2003/journey/story.html

But if you don't have time to read it, and truthfully, I don't expect you to, let me quote:

"When, some years ago, my family home suddenly burned to the ground in a forest fire, and all my photos, mementos and notes were reduced to ash, I was reminded forcibly again that home nowadays has nothing to do with a piece of soil and everything to do with something I carry around inside me. "

and

"Yet one by-product of this rotating sense of home is that those of us who are multicultures within may often feel a small kinship with others in the same position. The half-Thai, half-German living in Los Angeles finds that she has a lot in common with the half-Swede, half-Japanese based in Kuala Lumpur. More and more of us belong to a new community that could be called the deracination state, the spiritual home of many in the new century (whose actual location may be in such mongrel cities as Sydney or Paris or Vancouver). "

He says it more eloquently than I ever could, but what he is getting at is that "home" for the ever growing number of multicultured people (people in international marriages like me and Naoto, international adoptees, children with U.S. parents but who grew up in Tokyo, or whatever) is not so easily defined by fours walls or a city name anymore.

Answer these questions: "Where do you come from?" or "Where do you call home?"

Those questions were easily answered by my grandparents and parents. Many of my friends can answer those questions monosyllabically, too. Not me. They involve lengthy explanation. I might say "Well, I grew up in Cleveland, but spent formative years in California, and now I live in Tokyo."

Yes, Cleveland was my home for many years, but in many ways San Francisco feels more "homelike" to me than Ohio.

I used to think in my heart of hearts that "home" meant Cleveland. It doesn't anymore, though. To paraphrase a line from the Beatles, there are places I remember, but in my life, I love my family more. It was a slightly painful line to cut. I felt much easier with a readily identifiable geographic center to my life. However, I must admit, Cleveland no longer defines my experience enough to be called "home."

I must confess that "home" for me is wherever certain groups of loved ones are gathered. Seattle was home for a while, because of my brother, but now he's moved to Wichita, and so, in one sense, my home has moved there, too.

I feel right at home in Tokyo with Naoto and my girls, or visiting my Earlham friend, Susan's house in Setagaya.

So, along with Pico Ayer, I think "home" has come to mean a variety of different places, or a variety of different groups of people with whom I interlap enough of the disparate parts of my life to feel comfortable.

And, I wonder, what or where my girls will call home. Will Naoto and I be able to find a place in the states to stay for a long time? Will Maika and Mia feel that the U.S. is a place they can call home? Or will they always feel caught between two cultures and two countries?

I imagine a spiderweb strung between two bushes over a path. I see the web, impossibly fragile and strong, holding the two bushes together, while the spider scurries back and forth.

I wonder if Naoto and I can build a web strong enough for our girls. Or maybe they will end up doing it themselves.

love and light,
kirsten

Click on picture to enlarge.

Link to a new batch of photos from Guam and friends here in Higashimurayama:
http://community.webshots.com/user/kblincolnsuzuki
(look at album called "guam and stuff")

More emails from Kirsten & Naoto