Days 13-17: 楽になる (Becoming comfortable)

ひさしぶりですね！(It's been a while, hasn't it!) Here I am again playing catch-up. I apologize, dear readers (all four of you) – although, didn't we know this was going to happen anyway? At any rate, I'll give you some highlights and thoughts from last week (yes I know)… In general, over the course of the week I began to feel more comfortably settled into the environment here as I explored around even more.

On Monday, I had lunch by the dock, right at the bottom of the hill our school is on, and it was incredibly refreshing. Imagine this beauty right at my fingertips every day.

On the tram ride home, sitting among the Hakodate-ans, listening to music with my headphones on, I felt comfortable, not lost, part of the small city's flow, like I was transitioning out of being merely a foreign visitor and into being an inhabitant of this place, even if for a short time. At home, while Nick and I were studying after dinner, Okaasan surprised us each with a chocolate bar. I'm being well taken care of, that is for sure!

On Tuesday, I decided to ride my bike to school for the first time – largely because this was the first time I didn't have any more homework/studying to finish in the morning before school. The route is pretty easy, I just have to follow the streetcar path that I usually take. So, I was riding along, imagining what people were thinking (Westerner on a bicycle - look out!) and singing India.Arie's "I Am Not My Hair" to myself… then I looked over and the streetcar tracks were no longer there. It had turned somewhere a while back. Oops. I had no idea where I was, and I had about 20 minutes until class. So, I just headed in the general direction of Mount Hakodate, hoping I would find my way somehow. I briefly thought about how I'd probably rather spend three hours exploring the city than go to class anyway… but I soon found the streetcar again, and made it in time, barely.

Oh, and at one point the bicycle seat came off since I had raised it as high as it could go. Thankfully it was easily fixable. An adventurous commute, no?

Notice anything?

After class on Tuesday, I had my first shamisen lesson – for my independent study, I ended up deciding to learn about a traditional Japanese instrument, and the HIF staff set up weekly lessons for me and two other interested students. The shamisen is a three-stringed instrument, sort of like a banjo. We went to the Japanese-style room and began to learn Soran Bushi, a traditional song.

On my bike ride home, as I turned on to the block where I'm staying, I had a rush of peace – there was a deep quiet as I rode down the block into the breeze. Then, later that evening I read about the death of a friend of mine's father – killed while riding his bicycle in St. Louis, and was saddened. I felt the distance between this side of the world and home.

Wednesday brought a new day, and I once again biked to school – now paying more attention to follow the streetcar path when it turned. After class, we had a lecture from a visiting professor from Princeton (who happened to write the textbook we're using in my class). He talked "crossing the border" between native language and foreign language, and how that crossing changes not only your perception of the foreign language but also of your own. His focus was on writers who were approaching the Japanese language from outside, as a second language, and showed how these authors have even helped shape the understanding of the language itself. It was encouraging – the sense that there could actually be an impact to make as the result of these studies, in whatever field we were each in. It was especially encouraging since I had been coping with the fact that I was not going to become a native-fluency speaker in the course of a year (sigh…). But, that doesn't invalidate my language study or mean this experience is not worth it.

My piece-meal lunch from the grocery store:
sushi, edamame, red-bean covered rice balls, and a yogurt drink

On my way home, I decided to explore a little bit – not exactly sure where I was going – and I ended up riding around Goryokaku Park near my home. It was quite the scenic ride, circling the outside of the moat that surrounded the star-shaped park. Later in the evening, after dinner, the three of us tried out another onsen, and it helped me to relax. And, in a huge discovery that evening, I became aware of a BRILLIANT flash-card computer program called Anki. I had been struggling to successfully absorb my class material using my handmade flash cards, and this intelligent program (it's great… look it up!) took a lot of the burden of feeling personally responsible for learning, well, the entire vocabulary of the Japanese language. (Electronic flash cards… my trip abroad is really note-worthy, huh).

The perimeter of Goryokaku

Ok, let's see if I can think of something actually interesting to tell you about Thursday… After a so-so test in the morning, after class I went to a conversation-time with volunteers from the community, who come a couple days a week to talk with anyone who's interested. The few of us there did origami together, which we hung on a small tree, which is done for Tanabata, a holiday on July 7. People, little kids especially, also usually write out their wishes on slips of paper and hang them up.

Before going home for the day, I stopped in a little きっさてん (coffee/tea-shop) and did my homework. Dinner that night was すきやき (sukiyaki) – you take a piece of meat or vegetables simmering in the pot, dip it in the raw egg, and eat it right away.

Friday's cultural experience was a visit to Lucky Pierrot – a very popular local chain of restaurants featuring "hamburgers," fries, ice cream, etc. I use the quotation marks because these are not what many of us would probably consider hamburgers; often other meats are used (chicken, pork), as well as some interesting sauces and toppings. I got the popular Chinese Chicken burger, which was something like General Tso's chicken on a bun, and some cheese fries. Let's say that one trip to Lucky Pierrot's is probably enough for a while...

Lucky Pierrot

That's all for this post, but be not worried, updates on this most recent week are coming soon! If you actually made it this far without falling asleep, thank you! Leave a comment, ask me a question, or harass me to keep updating the blog more often!