Kanazawa and School

Tomorrow marks the end of my first month here, and the daily highs are still in the 80s. Seriously, what gives?

Several people have asked what it's like to be tall in Japan. It's actually not that weird. I have to duck when entering rooms and packed trains (I told my host mother I like bowing a lot), but I'm not the only one - there are a decent number of young Japanese men who are approaching six feet thanks to Western food. On the flip side, this also means there is increasing number of overweight youth in Japan, which surprised me at first.

Last Saturday, the IES students loaded onto a bus and spent the weekend in Kanazawa, a city on the Sea of Japan. My favorite sight was Kenroku-en, a beautiful garden that was teeming with Chinese tourist groups - Japan is 99% homogeneous, which makes moments like this memorable. I have a feeling the garden would have been a bit more tranquil without the hundreds of tourists, but then I suppose I wouldn't have been there, either ...


School is going pretty well. The hard part of college in Japan is getting in, so you aren't expected to bust your butt for grades like in America. It's a nice break from Northwestern. The classes I'm taking are:

• Intensive Japanese
  
• Japanese Religions
• Japanese Literature
  
• Seminar on War and Peace: A Transnational Perspective

The latter two are my favorites. Lit is taught entirely in Japanese and we read short stories and excerpts of novels in the original Japanese, so I spent a lot of time reading with my electronic dictionary. For this week, we were assigned a 19th century story called "The Spider's Thread" that turned out to be nearly identical to "The Onion" from the Brothers Karamazov. No one in my class has read any Dostoevsky (thank you, Morson!), so I get to present about that next week.

The seminar is taught in English and covers the atomic bombings of 1945 and the pacifist clause of the Japanese Constitution. What makes the class interesting is that it is divided almost equally between Japanese and Americans and the format is open-forum discussions with short presentations. We may even go on a field trip to Hiroshima - if we do, I'm sure I'll write about it here.


Edit: Something I keep forgetting to mention: the guy with all the hair and the beard is Benjamin, a Grinnell student in my program and Japanese class. It turns out we met last summer while he was interning at Reba Place in Evanston. Small world, huh?

Shanghai and stuff

This weekend, under the cover of tourism, I went to Shanghai to apply for a new passport at the US Consulate, as my previous one was stolen on a crowded bus here while returning home one day. Shanghai was pretty cool - I really liked the architecture, and it was especially neat to come in during the night on a train to see all of the buildings lit up. I think Shanghai is the largest city I've ever really visited. There were towers everywhere. If it wasn't an all-out skyscraper, it was a 40 story apartment building. And I don't really feel like Nanjing is crowded anymore. I went with some friends from my study abroad program, and we witnessed a true spectacle of crowdedness on the subway. There were about 700 or so people waiting to get onto a train as it pulled up to our stop, and they all tried to push and shove their way onto the already-packed train. At this point the station officers lent a hand... or rather, a foot. One lady was trying to tuck herself onto the train, but the doors were getting stuck on her bottom, so the train couldn't quite go yet. So one of the officers came over and shoved her in with his foot until the doors could close.

Yeah, Shanghai's pretty cool. :)

Also, be cautious about Chinese massages, because they will rearrange the tendons around your spinal cord.

Other than that, classes here are still going well, I'm settling in with my host family, becoming more comfortable in the culture, and so on.

I am a little disconcerted by the treatment that they give to white people here. Especially me, as a young white man - I receive celebrity treatment here. People don't quite stare, but I always draw attention to myself everywhere I go, because I am tall and white. I had three girls approach me together on Friday to ask me if they could take their picture with me, and on subways I am ogled at and giggled at; I can walk through lines to the front and I get first-class treatment everywhere I go.

But I suppose it's not that different from American racism - all I have to do there is dress nicely and be polite to people, because the white man ticket is still working pretty well there, too.

I don't have to try to live well; I don't have to struggle for my livelihood; I don't have to fight for anything. Everything comes to me on a silver platter, and I waltz about as I please.

In my homestay, my host mom makes two meals a day for me. She also brings fruit to me in the afternoons and evenings. My host brother gave me their router and only uses the internet while I'm not here, and he sleeps on a mat in his parent's room because I have his bedroom to myself.

When I went to Shanghai this weekend, I spent around 550 kuai. That included a hotel fee which I ended up not needing, several very expensive dinners, the train fare both ways (and it was the fastest train), a massage, frequent cab fares, and probably some other things I don't remember. To me, this trip was about $60-70. I had a conversation with my language tutor this past week in which I mentioned I was going to Shanghai, so I asked her if she had ever gone. She said she hadn't, which kind of surprised me since Shanghai is two hours away by train. So I asked her why not, and she said "I have no money!" Somehow I keep forgetting that my money is worth 5-7 times as much here.

My life is so privileged.

Here are some pictures from Shanghai (and other places):This is me, with some Chinese people, and behind us is a very dirty river and the Pudong District of Shanghai. The building with the big pink ball things is the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is currently the tallest thingy in China. And the two tall towers just right of center are the Jin Mao tower and behind it, the World Financial Center (still under construction, but already at its maximum height. When it's finished, it will be the tallest completed skyscraper in the world until that crazy thing in Dubai is done). If you want more information about those, you can wiki them. The golden tower to the right... I don't actually know what that is (just called the "Aurora" building, I think), but it's indicative of the love that Chinese people have for buildings with golden windows. I've seen several around here. I kind of like them too, but they do have a bit of a tacky feel.Mom, you are going to love the video version of this. They even played a rendition of "Jingle Bells." This was at the house of 99 1/2 rooms (or something like that - it was a field trip we went on the other day). There was a regulation at the time that no one except the ruling dude could have a house with 100 rooms or more, so these rich people decided to build a house that came as close as possible to breaking the regulation (it actually has more than 100 rooms, but they designed it so that those extra rooms would be counted as like... 1 room). Anyway, it wasn't really that exciting, but this Chinese symphony we ran across was pretty cool.

... and a bottle of ラム

Today (September 19th) is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Let's make it truly international.

本日（９月１９日）は「国際的な海賊のように喋る日」です。実際に国際的にしましょう！

Shaken, not Stirred

Friday I went to Verona. It was mostly a bunch of people visiting Juliet's house from Shakespeare's play. I still don't understand what the big deal is about some immaginary person's pretend house, but okay cool.

The next day I went to Montagnana, a tiny little city about an hour outside of Padova, more or less on the other side of the Euganei hills. Cool thing is that it's surrounded by a huge wall built in the middle ages.

I promise I'll upload pictures. Sometime.

By then I was really tired and ate leftovers with my host mom, who will henceforth be called Nonna, which is Italian for grandma. Then we watched James Bond: Goldeneye. She laughed through all the explosions and killings, but also at the sex scenes. She also makes comments like, "Che tigre!" (what a tiger) and, "È come la tua ragazza?" (is she like your girlfriend?).

She also likes saying English words. Like "striptease."

Anyway, she's like my favorite.

Watching TV is really hard. Most of the films are dubbed, and anything actually in Italian uses a lot of idiomatic expressions and hand motions, like everybody else here. It takes a lot of practice, but I'm starting to follow things really well, even if I understand very little.

So after James Bond (or, as the Italians say, "James Bon-duh") she tried to explain what a martini "ascolata, non miscolata" meant. I never have it in my heart to tell her I already know. I think she likes talking, anyway, and it's good for my comprehension.

The wine here is abundant. Alcohol costs as much as water, so it's like with every meal/social event.

As Nonna would say, "No martini, no party."

Cultural Collision

It's been a full week, with a billion orientations in classic Japanese style and the beginning of classes.

Over the weekend I met Saori-san, who is the host sister of one of the IES students. She is fluent in German after spending a year studying in Vienna and speaks English with a German accent. Whenever she tried to tell something to her host brother, she'd start in English, get confused, mutter to herself in rapid German, and then give up and continue in Japanese. I feel a little bad for laughing at that, but it's an amusing sign of this century, and it made me think of David.

I already feel a little bit of homesickness and cultural friction, and I have the sneaking suspicion that it's going to get worse before it gets better. The three biggest issues for me are:

Gender roles. My host parents' daughter brought her family over for dinner, including the 6-year old daughter, Mei-chan (so cute!), and the 7-year son, Kei-kun. When we were setting up for dinner, Mei's mother had her help out while Kei just sat on his butt watching TV. What really got to me was how they were talking up Kei, telling him he was going to Tokyo University (the best in Japan), while my host father, almost as an afterthought said, "Mei, you're going to college, too, right?" To what extent should I consider Asian gender roles as simply different, and to what extent should I judge it as unfair? It seems that the concepts of fair and unfair aren't the same here.

Polytheism. It feels weird to call Shinto that, there's no way around it. In the back of my mind, polytheism is something that only existed thousands of years ago, even though I know it's practiced in quite a few places today. Most Japanese people are relatively agnostic, but there's a shrine to a mountain god in my house. Given all the strong pronouncements against idolatry and polytheism in the Hebrew Scriptures, it makes me uncomfortable.

Not fitting in. I'm fine in the city, but as soon as I take the train out to the boonies, I get self-conscious that I'm not Japanese. There's no possible way for me to blend in with commuters, and moreover, my face carries with me all the stereotypes (good, bad, and weird) of Americans. This is just for a semester - I can't imagine how hard it would be for someone to pick up everything and go to a completely different culture. And I think I'm beginning to understand why minorities in America tend to group off from the majority population, it's tempting to spend all my time online or with the other Americans.

These are all hard to deal, but I'd much rather face them than having to go to middle school again, as Luke mentioned.

On a less serious note, I really like the trash cans here. There are typically four in close proximity: two for burnable and non-burnable trash, and two recycling cans. Overall, Japan is much more into conservation than the States - you don't heat or cool rooms you're not using, and you don't keep them at the temperature extremes we do. If I was a sea turtle, I would live around here!


P.S. Does the sun ever really set (ala the British Empire) on the four of us and Steve? I think it must somewhere over the Pacific.

Not Like the Others

Study abroad is a lot like middle school. You have no idea what's going on, people are mean to you, and you can't stop thinking about your "changing self."

Last night my friend and I were sitting in the Piazza delle Erbe (which means Herb Plaza . . . ironically, it's where all the drug addicts do their thing) having our pre-dinner apperitivo. She recounted with clear indignance her experience at the Venice Film Festival the afternoon before, and how when one of our friends refused to be pushed out of the way, an Italian girl turned to her friend and said, "Americani sono merdi," which means, "Americans are s---."

One would take offence immediately at the condemnation of an entire country based on one person refusing to be pushed around, but after living here for a week, I've noticed that it's not so much that we're Americans as much as we're not Italian. And in a world where each country is fighting to maintain its cultural identity, we're a threat.

Italian culture is at once friendly and passionate. Every time someone treats us as their friends, we become included in this world of cheerful kindness and honesty. But we're constantly aware that sometimes we might as well wear Mickey Mouse ears and strap on a fanny pack, the way people pick up right away that we're not from around here.

Navigating unwritten rules is hard when you aren't even confident in your communication skills. No matter how much I tried to get across that I wanted to visit my family's church, they pulled out a phonebook and said, "Methodist is like Anglican, right?" and made sure to personally accompany me there to make sure I went to a Protestant church. We're caught in a delicate dance of exploring each others boundaries and establishing our own.

I figured that at least I'd be more comfortable in a Protestant service, but even then, since I'm always introduced as "the American boy" people put me with the other foreigners and just kind of watch me to see how much Italian I know. Of course, it didn't help that I fell off the pew and hurt myself and kept mispronouncing all the words in the hymns because I was nervous, and a little sore from a long day in Venice (or evening, ahem).

Getting to know Italians is great, but what I really want is to become a part of the famiglia. Reaching that point of understanding and accepting means a long ride on a bumpy road, however. And sometimes that includes falling off pews and getting called names. I suppose that builds character or something.

Last few days of freedom

I apologize for cluttering this blog. I have broadband in my room and a weekend to kill before registration and classes start.

Typhoon No. 9 just grazed Nagoya, giving us some rain and wind. Tokyo got the brunt of it, messing up travel for a lot of people there. It's still hot and humid here, and I look forward for the heat to break.

I have spent one week in Japan and a half a week at the Suzuki household, although it feels longer (in a good way). My host family, a retired couple in their 60s, is great. The father, who is constantly joking, spends a good deal of his time making and selling pottery – "his hobby" – while the mother volunteers at local schools to talk about drug prevention. They have three children out of their house, all married and in their thirties.

I'm constantly amazed by how much Japanese was lurking in my head! I can carry long conversations with my host parents, although it’s a little draining and takes some time. We’ve talked some about North Korea, Iraq, and all the different international people in the area (I might write more on that later). I found that after a few days here, I can understand quite a bit if people speak a little slowly. It aggravates me, however, when people speak to me like I'm dumb. Now I know how some people in America feel.

I do get stared at from time to time – young children don’t try to hide it. When the group of us exchange students was walking to Inuyama Castle, a kid passing by saw us and exclaimed "nan da kore wa?", which translates to something like "what the hell is this?" That was pretty amusing.

Orientation has been going on at Nanzan for the past few days, and from day one I had to figure out the commute on my own (gulp). It's a short bike ride, followed by two train rides and a short walk – a little more than an hour in total. That sounds long, but it’s quite normal by Japanese standards. I've been spending most of the ride in Berlin, 1943 by reading Bonhoeffer’s letters from prison, which are quite moving, especially the correspondence with Eberhard Bethge.

For Mom and Dad: I found out last night that the Suzukis are big fans of Agatha Christie, both Miss Marple and Poirot. I think the books and television programs are quite popular here. I wish I had read/seen more of them.

And for Allie: I thought you might appreciate the book I bought from the Nanzan bookstore. I’m going to make a stab at reading it.


Mata ne.

Chevalier Mal Fet

Another cultural difference - there is little to no chivalry in Japan. A student here told me that guys don't hold doors, pay for dates, or anything of the sort. Berto would not be pleased.

There's a typhoon coming over the next few days! I'm not sure what to expect, it seems to be something like a hurricane, but no one's really worried.

Thanks for all the comments and e-mails thus far. I do read them all, and give me a little time to respond.

Jungle Hijinx

[Note: please don't forget to read James's and David's posts! They are the first posts for both of them in their respective countries.]

[Edit: Yes, I do read comments, and I enjoy them muchly. Please do comment.]

So at the request of some peoples, I have decided to write a bit about this weekend and put up some pictures and things. The program I am participating in went to Lianyungang, a coastal city, to enjoy the coast. I did, in fact, encounter the fabled Monkey King on Huaguo Shan (Flowers and Fruits Mountain), but he was slightly less imposing than I could've hoped for:

His elegant bearer is another student in the Nanjing program by the name of Jackie. The people in the background are also from the program, as you may have already guessed by the non-Chinese-ish-ness of most of them. (I have yet to see a Chinese person with red hair).

It rained the entire time we were in Lianyungang. I actually kind of enjoyed it, because I like the rain when I'm not getting wet or when I don't care, and it meant a break from the heat. But some other people in the program thought it was the most depressing place they'd ever been. The actual city itself was pretty gray and drab, and like every other place in China, had the usual ubiquitous cranes, since the Chinese enjoy building things. We went to this mountain to visit the Monkey King in the morning, and I didn't get many pictures after that first one I put up here, because my lens got rained on and fogged over. But later that day we also went on a boat ride (it was really just a boat ride - we went out to the edge of the bay and turned around and came back - I think some of the students were expecting that we were actually going somewhere and were rather disappointed). And it rained while we were on the boat, too, so once again I have no pictures. By that point, despite our five kuai (a little less than a dollar) ponchos, we were all pretty soaked, so we went to the beach and jumped in, lemming style.

After we managed to soak every last article of clothing we were wearing, Tang Laoshi* (the program director) decided we should go back to the bus before someone drowned (someone had been pulled under by the riptide the day before and drowned), so chaos ensued. No one ever really knows what's going on when you're in China. One group went back to the bus to see how much water the seats could handle (and during which time I tried to get someone's phone to play Mario for their ringtone), another group played soccer on the beach, and another group went with Ping Ping, the program assistant, to play mahjong at a local restaurant. And then I got to eat hotpot that night! at a super sketchy place in downtown Lianyungang with lots of shirtless sweaty Chinese men smoking and shouting (except for the deaf man and his friends). Tres picturesque.

The next day we went to a valley (Yu Wan, I think) and climbed up various paths and things. And I hiked down half the mountain and across this...... in my bare feet (couldn't get my shoes wet...). The Chinese aren't really big on safety. They are, after all, trying to reduce the size of their population. This shows in places like this park, where you have a rickety chain and a few posts as your only support to keep you from getting washed off of a boulder and down onto some rocks. While I and some of the other students were deciding whether or not we wanted to cross this obstacle, we saw a man grab his screaming five-year-old daughter and hoist her above the rushing water, since she didn't manage to keep hold of the chain. But we didn't see anyone die, so we went across. (It wasn't really that bad).

For your edification, a pretty waterfall from Yu Wan:

Since our weekend adventure, I have switched into the next highest difficulty level Chinese class, because my first one was too easy (I probably should've reviewed a bit more than I did before the placement test). So now I have an essay and a speech to write for tomorrow, and a hundred some characters to memorize.

Which I will attend to now.

The original Jungle Hijinx.

*Her actual name is Tang Shuxia; we call her Tang Laoshi; Laoshi means "teacher."

Tsukimashita. I've arrived.

Greetings from Japan! For many of you, I am writing this entry from 14 hours in the future. Sugoi, ne?

After arriving in Nagoya by plane, the IES group spent four days at a ryokan in Inuyama ("dog mountain"), which is basically a traditional Japanese inn/resort. It was a really nice way to get to know Japan, the people in the study abroad group, and to deal with the horrid jetlag.

I have been relatively adventurous so far, starting by watching a chick flick on the plane ride over. At the ryokan, we were served a lot of traditional Japanese food I hadn't had before, including sea snail, whole cooked fish (head and tail included), and an assortment of other things I didn't recognize and thought best not to inquire about.

Trips included going to the Inuyama Castle, which is one of the oldest remaining in Japan - most were destroyed by fire or bombs. We also got to see cormorant fishing, where they leash birds to boats and use them to catch fish. The trick is how you tie off their necks - you want them to be able to swallow the small fish, but have the large fish get stuck in their craw, so you can force it out. No PETA here, it seems.

The best experience so far is the hot springs, which is something like a glorified bath - and a lot more public. The Japanese really know how to relax.

I just arrived at my host family's house and have a placement exam tomorrow. More later ...

Ich bin ein Blogger!

This is the first time I have ever blogged in my life. That isn't a disclaimer, just a fact. I think I'll take to blogging like a fish to water.

I am in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, for those of you out of the loop. The city where Friedrich Hölderlin lived after he went crazy. What? You haven't heard of it?

Things are pretty normal in Germany, with only a few exceptions. First of all, the windows open in two directions. Right now, my window is open in a way I had never dreamed of in the US. Second of all, Germans butter everything. Even pretzels. Third of all, the weather is miserable all the time.

I will blog again soon, because I'm a blogger now, and that's what we bloggers do.

Also, I have Skype, and my user name is davideleib. Friend me on Facebook, and write on my wall too. I don't look nearly popular enough.

Tschüs!

Bathroom Manual Needed

Does anyone know how to use a bidet? Because my host mom's adult daughter pointed at it during my tour of the apartment and was like, "You probably don't use these, do you?" And I was like, not in America. Then she was all awkward. Anyway, it looks like a sink for your butt. And it smells like garlic.

Ahh, Italy.

Oh yeah, I'm here, in case you didn't figure it out. I feel like it's Wednesday, but apparently it's already Saturday and I got here yesterday. I'm living with a grandma who loves talking, but can't speak English, so the immersion thing is definitely there.

One of my most pressing questions was answered shortly after my arrival. Yes, the spaghetti sauce is similar to my mother's. Now I can die in peace.