Hello, everybody!

 

Welcome to tsuyu, or the rainy season, in Matsue. Last week it rained for almost a week straight. Even on the sunny days, a thick haze sits on the mountains and shimmers on the horizon. Dampness pervades everything. If I sleep with the windows open, I wake up sticky, on an unpleasantly dewy futon. I have discovered the quiet joy of the ‘dry’ function on my air conditioner. I never liked air conditioners and I’m annoyed that I have to depend on them for comfort now. I’ve heard the weather will remain like this until late July, when the humidity drops. August is just hot. To paraphrase one of the books I read, the Japanese endure summer rather than enjoy it, suffering through, waiting for the pleasant days of autumn and thinking back to the beautiful spring. I’m looking forward to going to the beach!

 

I went for a jog (a rare thing, these days) at 8am one fine morning, but it was already too hot to enjoy it. At traffic lights and intersections, I ducked into the shade to wait for the lights to change, following the habits of the people around me. I reached the lake early enough to see dozens of shijimi clam fishermen at work in their small boats, scraping and working at the bottom of the lake with their long poles. In deeper waters, they did this standing in their boats, but nearer to the shore some were standing chest-deep in water. On shore, a couple of old men were sitting watching the water and talking, while their dogs sniffed and explored the park nearby. I said hello again to the statue of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi; he is part of my jogging ritual. On my way home, I ducked into the relative coolness of a small park. The trees seemed to breathe out a cool, reviving air. I began to understand better why the Japanese love their green spaces.

 

Despite the heat and dampness, there are many moments of beauty. Crossing the Kunibiki Bridge at night, I pause to look as the shimmering pewter-gray water meets the shimmering pewter-gray sky at an almost invisible line, broken by the lights of the other bridges. There are four bridges spanning the Ohashi River, all within sight of each other. The red neon lights of Joyhouse Big, one of the pachinko parlours, look almost lovely reflected in the river, and day or night the fish jump with a splash, leaving expanding circles on the water’s surface. Looking up, I can sometimes see a pale smudge of an oval where the moon might be. And the grasses on the island below Kunibiki Bridge are alive with the clicks and buzzing of unfamiliar insects. The spring peeper chorus has faded, although the bullfrogs remain. In the fog, even the banks of lights on the sports field in Kita Park take on the mysterious glow of a Spielberg-esque alien visitation.

 

My sensitive skin has reacted to the humidity in predictable ways, so I’ve been red, blotchy and itchy for almost two weeks now. Seiji took me to a ‘hospital’ (what Canadians would call a clinic) on Friday to get treated, so hopefully I will soon see an improvement. It’s very embarrassing, so I’ve had to keep my arms and legs covered.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I went back to Gessho-ji Temple in the west of Matsue to see the ajisai, or hydrangeas, growing there. It was a bright sunny morning. The ajisai weren’t all out yet, but the shrubs were lovely. In the late morning, with bright clusters of flowers in many shades of white, blue and purple and many visitors, the temple lost most of the eeriness I remembered from my first visit. I went with Seiji, but we ran into Yumi, who teaches with Seiji, there. Yumi is small and slender and in her mid-thirties, with the poise and self-possession of Audrey Hepburn. She is also a free-lance translator and interpreter. (Yumi and Keith, the English gardener, used to date before I got here, and though they often meet at social occasions, there’s still some awkwardness there.)  We wandered among the tombs of the lords of Matsue and visited the rather fierce-looking giant stone tortoise. Visiting the tomb of the first lord of the Matsudaira, I stopped to observe the turtles basking in the heat in the moat, and the huge, glittering dragonflies skimming the water. All nine of the tombs have old wooden gates, weatherworn but beautifully carved. Seiji was looking up to admire the woodwork when he gave a startled gasp. A cat had suddenly peered out of a small hole high up inside the roof of the gate. Wild and wary, it studied us for a moment before dropping into the beam and drifting away along the wall into the bushes. I also saw one of the long, small lizards that Seiji says will drop their tails to get away if you grab them by the tail. Fun. Matsue reminds me of how much I really like nature and being outside.

 

Work is still busy, but going really well. My classes are really enjoyable, and I’m rising to the challenge to teach as well as I can. It’s a definite, noticeable change, and my co-workers have noticed it too. Ryoko is very pleased, and has thanked me a lot these past few days. I had two interviews on Saturday, and I’ll have a few more this coming week, but I’m enjoying them a lot more now. Even my dreaded lobby talk and pamphleteering has improved. I’m a little uneasy about the assimilation, but work is less of a chore now. I still want more time off though.

 

Many of my students have a lot of trouble pronouncing ‘l’ and ‘r’; they have a sound in the Japanese language like a combination of the two. It reminds me of listening to Nobi at NTS trying to pronounce ‘walk’ and ‘work’ differently, and failing. So I’ve introduced the ‘pirate r’. All of my students know Pirates of the Caribbean, so I say, “Use the pirate r”. They stare at me, so I go on. “You know what pirates say? They say, ‘ARRR, matey!’” And I get the whole class to go, “ARRR!” I don’t know if it works yet, but the students think it’s hilarious.

 

I had some extra work recently, going over the abstract for a report one of my students is writing. Yutaka works for the Shimane Prefectural Office; he studies agricultural pests. So he and I talk about bugs a lot. His particular specialty is mealybugs, and how they affect persimmon crops. (I want to see persimmons growing wild. I also want to go to nearby Tottori to see watermelons growing in fields. Do they grow like pumpkins? Tottori also has sand dunes - and camels! Who knew?) Anyway, I’ve been struggling with scientific technical language and trying to figure out what it means. It’s very difficult to ask Yutaka, because his English is, frankly, pretty poor. He is very conscious of his English, and smacks himself in the forehead a lot when he doesn’t understand, which I think is counterproductive.

 

In some of the classes, we laugh a lot, especially my group lessons; my Thursday night Encounter class is the best. They are pretty advanced students, and they love to talk and ask questions, so I always look forward to the class. My Friday night Discovery class is another story, mostly because of one student: Yuji. Oh, Yuji, Yuji, Yuji. He is a new student, having started in mid-April, and he makes that class really difficult to teach. He spent a year in the States, most of it in the Bronx, hanging out with rap wannabes like himself. His fluency is pretty high, although a little slangy – I spent much of one class trying to get him to say ‘dollars’ instead of ‘bucks’ – but his grammar and listening are terrible. He doesn’t usually do his homework, and – get this – he doesn’t like talking to other Japanese (do I need to stress this is a conversation class?). In fact, he doesn’t really like Japanese. He’s taking this class and studying to be a mechanic, and planning to go back and live in the States forever. I don’t have to heart to tell him that there isn’t a lot of call for immigrant mechanics in America. I don’t dislike Yuji – I actually find him kind of endearing – but he’s throwing the whole class off-kilter, and none of the girls like him. One actually hates him. I want to get him into private lessons, because he seems to like talking to me and I think he’d progress a lot faster, but he says they’re too expensive.

 

Melanie, the other foreign teacher who worked part-time in Yonago and part-time here, finished her contract and left last week. She was always very genki (that is to say, energetic, cheerful, downright Tigger-ish), so her absence is much felt here. I have taken over teaching two of her Saturday classes, so my Saturdays are very busy all of a sudden. There was a farewell party for Melanie two weeks ago at Caprichoza, the same Italian place where my welcome party was held. Great food again – great salads, plates of antipasto, sauce-covered riceballs stuffed with cheese, pizzas and pastas, all placed in the centre of the table so we could serve ourselves, and free drinks. I had a blood-orange juice and some red wine. We kept our speeches short. Melanie got a little teary-eyed a few times, and so did we. About thirty students came to say good-bye, and after the restaurant, we decided to take the traditional ‘second party’ to Kaya. So about fifteen of us trooped down to visit Seiji. My students were agog to discover I had a Japanese boyfriend, and a trio of the university girls kept sneaking peeks at him, which embarrassed him a lot. We continued on to Hydro Reaction, because Chihiro, an AEON student, was DJ-ing, but I was too tired to stay long.  

 

I also had a Canada Day party at my apartment last Sunday. It rained, of course (this being the rainy season), but about fourteen people came. Yuko brought her seventeen-month old son, Akinari, with her, and we all made it our duty to intercept him as he threw himself gamely at anything in the apartment that was remotely dangerous or valuable. Seiji had found pictures of Canada on the Internet to decorate my apartment. I was surprised and delighted to find a picture of Pizza Corner among them! Seiji said it was the third picture to come up when he searched “Canada Nova Scotia”. An unofficial but much beloved tourist destination. He also included pictures of Halifax’s waterfront, the rocks near Peggy’s Cove, Grand Pre Park and some places further afield, like Lake Louise. I was touched. I made three big salads and some chicken drumsticks (cooking chicken for about fifteen people in my tiny broiler was a bit of a feat…). Seiji was on okonomiyaki duty. I’ve mentioned okonomiyaki before; it’s kind of a huge omelet stuffed with all sorts of things, like pork, cabbage, shrimp, et cetera and drizzled with a savoury brown topping. People loved it. The partygoers were a pretty even mix of gaijin and Japanese, and – knock me over with a feather! – Mayumi-sensei came by, though just for about twenty minutes. She seemed very shy among my friends, but had some okonomiyaki and chatted a bit with Ryoko-sensei. John, Melanie’s replacement, came as well; he’s a tall, slow-talking, very calm Texan, and he seems very nice. I’m glad he came; I know how strange and isolating it is to arrive in a foreign country, not knowing anybody.

 

After 10:00, most people left, but Kei and Yukiko and Aki and Junko stayed. It was Kei and Yukiko’s first anniversary, and Kei went back to his house and returned with their wedding video. It was a tape of the second party. Weddings here have three stages: the wedding itself, the first party (which corresponds with our reception), and the second party. Kei and Yukiko’s second party was a costume party, with Aki DJ-ing, and the bride and groom were dressed in traditional ninja costumes. It looked like one helluva party, and I enjoyed seeing many of the people I knew in costume. There was also an air guitar contest, which Seiji’s best friend Reiko won.

 

Having the party was good, but completely exhausting. It’ll be a while before I summon up the energy to throw another party.

 

Seiji finishes teaching at the university this week. He’ll miss it. He really likes teaching, and wants to teach more. He was teaching a summer course for passing the TOEIC (Test Of English for International Communication). Now it’s back to Kaya full-time. But he confided in me that Kaya isn’t doing very well, and he’s thinking of closing it. I know how much he loves Kaya, but Japan has been in kind of a recession the last few years, and not as many people come out to Kaya as in previous years. All of Yusemiya (the restaurant and bar area near the Temple District, between Matsue Bridge and Shin Bridge, where Kaya is located) has been suffering. But Kaya will stay open at least through the summer, and Seiji is trying some new things, like live music on Tuesdays (kind of an open mic).

 

I went to the second live music show last Tuesday. Seiji’s guitar teacher was playing when I arrived. He’s a really good blues guitarist; I was impressed. Seiji has been learning Eric Clapton from him, and wants to learn enka, or traditional Japanese music. Enka is distinctly uncool among the young, but has a very interesting sound. I stuck around for a while and talked with Yoshi, a young farmer who was trying to explain to me what he grows beside rice. I understood that he grew the flowers that the Japanese place on graves at specific times of the year to honour their ancestors, but I couldn’t understand what kind of flower it was. He also grows sunflowers and lilies to sell. I’d like to see his farm, and look at rice fields up close.

 

After listening to some other musicians, I headed home. I walked over Shin Ohashi, looking down at the black water swirling and eddying in pretty whorls and spirals under the bridge, running east from Lake Shinji to Lake Nakaumi and beyond, to the Sea of Japan. Towards the northern bank, I noticed that the water didn’t follow the pattern of the other currents, but had taken on a life of its own. Puzzled, I stopped to observe it. I quickly realized that in the shallow waters, flanked by the bobbing boats of sleeping fishermen, was a swarm of large fish, flashing silver in the streetlights as they flipped and turned, sometimes jumping into the air and dropping back into the water again. I walked down by the boats, to get a closer look, and was eyed uneasily by a large heron briefly disturbed in his hunt. I wished him luck and headed home.

 

So there’s another slice of life. I won’t take so long to write again. Thinking of you all!

 

Love,

 

Sarah