It’s a Miles Davis kind of day – a day off, with a light rain rain falling and a wintry chill in the air. It’s the kind of day for curling up in a warm dressing gown with a cup of tea in hand and no plans, listening to the laid-back stylings of Kind of Blue (Kind of Blue is also good for heartbreaks and hangovers, neither of which I am presently experiencing – just a recommendation). Listening to the CD also carries me back on a wave of nostalgia to my days at the National Theatre School, where I first heard it when my classmate Nobi chose it for the music for Measure for Measure, one of his sound design projects.

My lunch today is leftovers – rice still hot from the rice cooker, and last night’s reheated nabe, a kind of Japanese stew. Mine is loaded with vegetables (cabbage, onions, daikon, garlic – I wish I had had some shiitake to throw in too), plus a little pork, cubed tofu and some pickled ginger. It’s hot and nourishing on this cold day. I’ve said before I’ve learned to eat soup with chopsticks – a useful skill. Living alone means eating a lot of leftovers, I find. I’ll make a stew or spaghetti sauce, and eat it for two or three meals. It’s convenient but boring.

I’m on my second cold of the season, though it’s been pretty tame – just a runny nose and sore throat. Miyuki, my manager, had been much sicker – she took a day and a half off, which is practically unheard of for a manager of a Japanese company, so I knew she was really sick. And Machiko, the assistant manager, caught it at the end of the week. The school has looked a little like a hospital with our management staff in white masks. I can’t teach in a mask, so I didn’t wear one. I’ve had eye trouble for the last month, too, as we started to use the heaters; the air is very dry. So my eyes have been red and terribly bloodshot. I joked that I look like a vampire librarian – the librarian part is from the fact that I’ve had to shun my contacts and wear my glasses for two weeks. My eyes are finally improving, but with that problem, the colds, my dry skin and my hair – ah, my hair! – I’ve felt pretty unattractive for the last little bit. I need an event to dress up for. And new clothes. I’ve started to get into the Christmas spirit – which, at least in Japan, seems to mean shopping. I have to stay away from SATY. “Stay away from SATY, stay away from SATY…”

My apartment is a mess. I keep looking at it, but I’m enjoying this lazy morning, so I’ve made no cleaning efforts yet. I’ll be doing a big clean up before New Year’s. It’s a custom in Japan to thoroughly clean everything before the change of the year – emptying closets, dusting and sweeping behind the appliances, washing and airing out all the bedding. There’s a certain religion to the cleaning fervour, a kind of sanctifying of the home. But then, on New Year’s Day, there is no work to be done – not even cooking. The traditional New Year’s Day food is o-sechi. This is served in a large, attractive lacquered wooden box with four stacked containers, each containing several dishes with different meanings. For example, black beans represent health and tai, or sea bream (a kind of fish), symbolizes an auspicious event. Some people still make their own o-sechi, but you can order it now (for a hefty price) in supermarkets. As for me, my hope for the New Year is to track down and watch a dragon dance at a shrine. I mentioned it to Mayumi-sensei, but she’s not sure where I can see one. Our oldest student, dear Mister Oshima, a cute little man in his late seventies, lamented that the dragon dance has become scarce since he was younger.

Last week I wrote the JLPT, or Japanese Language Proficiency Test, in Hiroshima. Originally my friend Martin was going to write it with me, but he’s been distracted by his preparations for finishing work, so he regretfully backed out. But I teamed up with Luiz Fukushiro, a Brazilian journalist of Japanese heritage, to organize our trip. I was writing sankyuu, or third level, and Luiz was writing nikyuu (second level), which is much harder. He has tried twice before to pass nikyuu and failed – a very common experience. The lowest level is yonkyuu (fourth), which I knew I could pass, but I decided to challenge myself. Sankyuu requires the knowledge of about 300 kanji and a vocabulary of about 1,500 Japanese words, plus a lot of grammar. There is also a listening test. Fortunately, I knew the whole test was multiple choice, so I didn’t have to write anything.

My study habits were anything but consistent or devoted, as those who know me well will not be surprised to know. I have a tutor. I inherited my tutor from Neal, the previous AEON teacher whom I replaced. Her name is Masami Fujii, and she’s a housewife in her early thirties with a part-time job at the art museum and a handful of foreign students like me. Fujii-san’s lessons are very cheap, which unfortunately seems to mean that she’s always late. We were going through my textbook at a leisurely pace until I told her I was thinking of doing the JLPT. Then she speeded up the process, so we were doing a chapter a week. Each chapter introduces several grammar points, so my mind was whirling, and the new information seemed just to be falling out of the back of my head.

At home I found some study pages for the JLPT on the Internet. I did some practice tests about three weeks prior to my exam, and they proved that my kanji and vocabulary were good enough to pass, and my particles (the Japanese equivalent of ‘the,’ ‘a,’ ‘to,’ ‘at,’ et cetera) were okay too. But my grammar – specifically verb and sentence endings - were a mess. Then, the Tuesday before the exam, Fujii-san gave me some pages from a previous JLPT. Once again, okay on vocab and particles. But on the grammar page, I scored 2 out of 15! Fujii-san must have seen my hair standing up in horror, because she pointed out that most of the mistakes I made were, in fact, things I had never studied. They were all in the seven remaining chapters of the textbook that I hadn’t studied yet. So I went home after work that night, tucked myself into my warm kotatsu/study nest with hot tea and mandarin oranges close at hand, and went through the rest of the text. For good measure, I wrote out all the grammar points of the previous 43 chapters too. Then I wrote examples. I gave myself a headache. I got up in the morning and continued, all the while a little voice in the back of my head going, “Why didn’t you do this a month ago? You twit. You could pass if you had done this then.”

(Another aside about kotatsu. Since I arrived, I have been saying “sit at the kotatsu” to describe the action associated with kotatsu, thinking of it as a kind of coffee table first and foremost, with a thick blanket and heater included. But many of my students choose “get into the kotatsu,” thinking of it as more of a bed/blanket thing. I finally halted a class to discuss it, and my students convinced me that “get into the kotatsu” is the right terminology. End of aside.)

I remained in study mode for the rest of the week, and resented my job for taking me away from my studies. I resented eating, too, and taking time out to pick up the bus tickets, then change them, since I’d made a mistake the first time. My friend Jun, who happens to work at the bus ticket centre, sorted it out for me.

On Saturday, the day before the test I took a half-day off, leaving the school near the university at 2pm. Machiko wished me luck. I was feeling pretty fatalistic by this point, which was much better than the tension and stress from earlier in the week. After telling many of my students about the test, it had finally occurred to me: what kind of example will I set them if I fail? Perhaps it would have been better not to talk about it. But I share a lot with my students; it would have felt like a huge gap in our relations not to share my excitement and worry about this test with them, especially since I witness and encourage them through their English test woes with the TOEIC and the STEP Test.

I packed up my notes and a few of my textbooks, plus my travel basics for an overnight stay, and headed for Mister Donut and my rendez-vous with Luiz. I had just ordered a coffee and a chocolate donut when he arrived, a tall, scruffy, rather handsome Brazilian with a glum disposition, bundled up against the cold. He grabbed a coffee, too, and we chatted a little while we waited. Luiz was leaving a few days after this test for Brazil, having finished a six-month contract with a Japanese newspaper.

When we got on the bus, I warned Luiz I was not going to be good company. I went through my notes and textbook until I got drowsy. In fact, I spent the whole three and a half hour bus ride in a haze of sleeping and studying, sparing a little glance once in a while out the window at the darkness, noting the piles of snow as we got into the mountains. I barely noticed the accident that stopped our progress for about fifteen minutes. Luiz was moved by my studiousness to pull out his own textbook and leaf through it, before he took out his iphone and started playing with it. At the rest stop, I stretched my legs (Luiz had a cigarette) and admired the big, fluffy snowflakes drifting down like feathers in the amber lights of the streetlamps. A perfect Christmas scene. I got myself a bottle of hot tea from the long row of vending machines, and listened to another machine in the row greeting a woman as she got her drink, then thanking her and wishing her a good day.

We got out at the bus centre (ba-su se-n-ta, in Japanese) at 8:30, and after a moment of disorientation, jumped a streetcar to the train station. The streetcar was packed with Christmas shoppers and young people heading for a night out. I remembered my sense of Hiroshima from previous visits, as a young, vital, energetic city. I wished I were staying longer. At Hiroshima Station, we checked the train times. We were heading to Higashi (East) Hiroshima, the site of Hiroshima University and our test. We had a little over an hour to kill, and we were hungry, so we went out to the street searching for a place to eat. It didn’t take us long to find an unpretentious okonomiyaki shop with plastic-covered tables and florescent lights, just off the beaten path. It looked authentic, so we decided to stay. The menu choices and ads were plastered all over the wals in Japanese (under an autographed picture of the Hiroshima Carps, the city’s professional baseball team). I opted for the special, and Luiz got the soba, and we each ordered a beer and toasted each other. The okonomiyaki was great. Hiroshima okonomiyaki is different from Matsue’s in that the ingredients are layered instead of mixed, and Hiroshima okonomiyaki uses noodles. Luiz and I liberally doused our dishes with the mysterious sweet, savory brown sauce provided. Mine came with succulent shrimp on top, pork, and a white, slightly chewy substance that Luiz identified as squid. Sated and happy, we headed back to the station and caught our train.

It was a forty-minute train ride to Higashi Hiroshima, and we had to stand most of the way. In Higashi Hiroshima, we walked to our hotel. After missing our turn-off, we had some misgivings, but Luiz checked the GPS on his iphone (good old iphone!) and got us back on track. It was a cold, cold night, a little below zero, unusual at this time of year. It’s been unusually cold this year – many of my friends and students have remarked on it. There was a sudden freeze and flurry of snow in mid –November (which killed all but the toughest of the big spiders). I was worse than my students in my whining and whimpering about the cold then. But by December, I was getting my Canadian winter vigour back. I made a note that I need a winter hat, though. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. I was comforted to see Orion above me, a constellation I have always associated with courage and strength. I silently asked for his help the next day.

Our hotel, Hotel Eagle, was an old business hotel. Luiz wondered aloud why it was so far from the station in this rather small town. I noticed it was on a busy highway and guessed it was the first hotel travellers from out of town encountered on their way. Anyway, the décor was from the late seventies, and two gentlemen waited at the counter to sort us out and give us our keys. We asked for breakfast, and of the two choices picked the Japanese over the Western. Up the stairs and down ill-lit corridors, we found our single rooms side by side and said good night.

The room smelled of smoke. I had not thought to request a non-smoking room, if they even had such a thing. The console with the radio and light switches was laughably ancient, but the bed was comfortable. I was pleased to see a cotton yukata at the head of the bed, and a quilted sort of dressing gown hanging at the door. I had a vague idea of studying but as soon as I put on my jammies I was out. I slept very poorly, with smoke in my nostrils and the exam occupying my mind.

Out the door at 8am, I tapped on Luiz’ door, and he called out that he’d join me soon. In the lobby, the same men from the night before (when do they sleep?) directed me up to the Gu-ri-ru (Grill, or hotel restaurant). I was greeted by two older women in the kitchen as I entered. The Grill was on the second floor, overlooking a street of secondhand shops and concrete. A TV was broadcasting unintelligible news, and a couple of businessmen were reading newspapers. The tables and chairs were a little baroque; the high-backed chairs were covered with jacquarded crimson velvet. One of the kitchen women approached my table and put a heavy tray down before me. Rather tentatively, she pointed at one of the objects on the tray and said “ii desu ka” (“Is this good?”) She was pointing at a sealed Styrofoam container of the sort I recognized. Natto. I debated with myself a second, and decided to give it another try. “Dai jo bou” (It’s okay.).

Natto is a dish of fermented soybeans, notorious for its pungent, old sneaker-y odor. The only comparisons I can make, although the smells are quite different, are blue cheese and Vegemite. Natto looks like baked beans, except they are covered in a stringy, mucus-like coating, that is, let us say, somewhat unappealing. I stirred it up, and added hot mustard and soy sauce. And despite that slight whiff, it was fine. It tasted like beans. It was okay. With the natto I got a heaping bowl of hot, fluffy rice, hot green tea, miso soup, a tiny little pork chop, some boiled spinach, fish sausage and a little dish of yellow pickled radish. A typical Japanese breakfast. I had a vague idea that eating a genuine Japanese breakfast would help me with the exam. Luiz joined me and ate quickly.

We caught a bus to the university. On the bus, I expected a lot of foreigners. At first glance, I was mistaken, until we realized as we chatted to our neighbours that most of the people on the bus were Chinese or Koreans also taking the test. In fact, the nice young man Luiz was talking to seemed affronted when Luiz asked where he was from. “China” was the reply, as if it was obvious. The response flustered Luiz, but I asked him, “Can you tell the difference at a glance between an Englishman and an Australian?” I don’t know if my comparison was apt, but it seemed to make Luiz feel better.

There was a moment of confusion as we got off the bus and Luiz headed in one direction to take his test, and I was directed the other way. I strained to listen to the uniformed man near the bus. I gleaned the information that the place of the third-level test was down the hill at the second traffic lights and set off with another girl in tow. She followed me blindly, since I had seemed to understand the directions. I was much less certain, but apparently, I had understood enough to get us to the site. Our conversation along the way went something like this:

Woman: “Nihongo wa jyozu desu!” (Your Japanese is good!)

Me: “Iie, heta desu.” (No, it’s very bad.)

Woman: “Nankyuu?” (What level?)

Me: “Sankyuu. Anata wa?” (Third. And you?)

Woman: “Watashi mo! Dochira kara kimashita?” (Me too! Where are you from?)

Me: “Kanada kara kimashita. Dochira kara kimashita?” (I’m from Canada. Where are you from?)

Woman: “Chugoku kara kimashita.” (I’m from China.)

Me. “Watashi wa eikaiwa no kyoshi desu. Anata wa gakusei desu ka?” (I’m a teacher at an English conversation school. Are you a student?)

Woman: “Iie, shufu desu. Watashi no shujin wa kaisha-in desu. Hiroshima Eki no chikaku sunde imasu.” (No, I’m a housewife. My husband is a company worker. We live near Hiroshima Station.”)

Me: “Go-shujin wa Nihonjin desu ka?” (Is your husband Japanese?)

Woman: “Iie, Chugokujin desu.” (No, he’s Chinese.)

And so on, as we walked down the street, speaking our simple, fragmented Japanese together. Her name was Ko, I think, and she pointed out the building where I was taking my test before she disappeared into the throng of people. I found my classroom, then my desk, and sat down. It smelled like a classroom. The test was starting in about ten minutes. This room had about seventy people in it. Three Japanese women of varying ages in black suits and nametags waited at the front and watched us enter. The head examiner reminded me of Ryoko a bit with her buxomness and ‘take charge’ attitude. I put my pencil, eraser, JLPT test voucher and passport on the table as directed. We were warned in Japanese what behaviour would result in a warning (yellow card) or a dismissal (red card). I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I had read the instructions in the guidebook, so I wasn’t worried. I was maintaining a resigned sort of calm – everything’s okay, since I can’t actually pass this test. It occurred to me at that moment that in the confusion at the bus Luiz and I had failed to make plans to meet after the test. Whoops.

The test was divided into three sections with breaks between each. First was Writing/Vocabulary. Kanji has been my main interest in the study of Japanese, so this section was not so hard. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I remembered. I think I did well. It was only thirty-five minutes, and I stepped out in the break, thinking, “If only it were all that easy!” Then the Listening section. I had spent exactly zero time preparing for this section, preoccupied as I was by grammar. But I’ve been speaking Japanese with friends a lot, on and off. Looking at the pictures and listening to the diologues, I felt my heart lift with a touch of exultation. “You can pass this,” a tiny voice whispered. The guy sitting behind me got a yellow card, possibly from looking over my shoulder. Lotsa luck to him if he was. On my break, wandering through the crowds of people, I wondered to myself why so many of the Western guys living in Japan seem so arrogant. I don’t notice it in the women, but these guys seem so high on themselves. Where do they get that from? Bolstered by a dose of coffee-in-a-can, I began the Grammar section. And yeah, I’m sure I made a lot of mistakes. But I understood a lot of it. I finished the test with the hazy realization that I might in fact have passed the JLPT. It’s a big ‘might,’ and I won’t know until February!

I went back to the bus stop where I was pleased to find a bus ready to take us back to the station. Luiz finished his test five minutes after me, so I waited. The other second-level examinees appeared and took their places on the bus. It left and another one appeared in its place. No scruffy Brazilian. I waited half an hour, then began to get worried about catching the train. I got on the bus. I was trying to decide if I was mad or worried. I veered towards mad. Then back to worried. What if he missed the bus back to Matsue? But he was a big boy, and used to travelling, so I told myself not to worry.

A nice gentleman at the train station helped me buy my ticket and directed me to the train. Another glance around – still no Luiz. I took a seat in a train compartment flooded with the blinding amber light of the setting sun. I admired a handsome man dozing on his feet by the entrance.

Back at the train station, I felt like treating myself. Despite the abundant choices of Japanese cuisine, I made a beeline for McDonald’s and pigged out on a BLT Burger and French fries (no pop, though; I had an oolong tea. I hate pop.) Then I got on the streetcar again and made my way back to the bus centre. I saw the handsome man from the train and smiled at him. He gave me a strange look, and I caught a glance of myself in a mirror. Red-eyed, fatigued, blotchy, with careless hair and rumpled clothes – no wonder he looked so…unimpressed. I wandered around for half an hour, getting a coffee and some snacks for the bus, then went back to the bus where – wonder of wonders! “ Luiz was there with a slow smile growing on his face! He had got lost on campus – I imagined he fell behind the others to have a cigarette – and found another bus stop, following a little later than me. I was so happy I hugged him.

The ride back was pretty relaxed, and I slept as we zipped through tunnels and over snow-covered mountains. I played Kind of Blue again. We got back to Matsue at 9pm and stepped out in front of the station. I was weary, but we had made dinner plans as Luiz’s farwell party. The glass-walled Terrsa building was lit up with a Christmas tree picked out in blue and green lights. High up on the fourth floor was a floodlit Santa with his foot on the rail, looking just as if he were ready to jump to his death far below. Disquieting.

So, I have to wait for the test score, but overall, despite the stress and sleep deprivation, writing the JLPT was a good experience. The review reminded me how much I have learned (and forgotten) already, and at present my Japanese is as good as it ever has been. (My French is probably at its worst, since every time I try to think of a French word, my brain substitutes a Japanese one – this little mind can only acquire one new language at a time, apparently.) I also have a much better sense of what my students experience when studying and writing tests, so I can give them better advice. Now I have to practice, study and maintain what I’ve learned.

This is overlong, but I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Soon I’ll have some more free time, so I’ll catch you up on some old news! Talk to you soon!