Readers beware: this entry may be long and badly composed. It’s been over a month since I’ve posted anything and there has been so much happen in that time it is difficult to know where to begin. I take it as a good sign overall; in the days when I kept a diary things tended to go quieter during the happier times in my life.

 So undoubtedly the most exciting event of April was the descent of my sister Alison and brother-in-law Roland on old Nihon. There was a lot of laughing, a lot of driving (mainly around Kyushu) and alot of cavorting. The details of where we went and what we did I will leave to them to write up and will post a link to it when they do, mainly because I’m too lazy to do it myself and because I’m far too self-obsessed to be recounting amazing sights and sounds when there’s me to write about.  

 One of the most wonderful things about Alison and Roland’s visit was seeing Japan through fresh eyes. I always knew it would be in an interesting experience, but the actual subjects of amusement and intrigue did surprise me somewhat, the main culprit being the Japanese Gait. In Alison’s words - and I hadn’t noticed until she flagged it up - ‘Heel to toe does not seem to be standard practice’. Said gaits were a source of mirth throughout their trip, and a moment of hysteria in the dark resulted in Alison and I shouting at Roland to ’sort his gait out’ as it was ‘looking a bit weird’, only to discover that the object of our admonitions wasn’t Roland at all but an unsuspecting Japanese sightseer at Miyajima.

My kinfolk’s take on Engrish also took up many hours of hilarity; again, I feel the details of this is for them to recount as Alison in particular put alot of time and effort into compiling her Engrish poem, which rumour has it her band may be utilising lyrically…

 Aside from outright laughing at the Japanese (albeit in a benign way), Alison and Roland’s visit reminded me once again of the grace and kindness of Japanese people - ’such courteous people’, as my mother once said.

The day they left was far more difficult than I had ever anticipated, rendering me unable to go to work or do anything much.  I spoke to my friend Phoebe about it and we concluded that while we have made wonderful friends here in Japan, both Japanese and gaikokujin, having people - and especially family - come and visit does transport one’s whole self back to a more ‘real’ state of being, one that comes from having a shared history. Here in Japan we are so radically removed from that history, it doesn’t seem like a part of you but as some kind of exogenic text about you. So while I only have 3 months to go until my return to the UK, the transition back from UK Lucy to Japan Lucy did at first seem too difficult a challenge to surmount.

 Luckily said challenge was very quickly overturned, thanks to a series of happy occurrences since the start of the new school year. Thew new 1-nenseis (Year 7s) are an absolute delight to teach, if incredibly noisey. The big changes in staffing which take place in April every year in Japanese public services have meant that I am now working with a fantastic new teacher at my rather rougher junior high school and have been granted a wonderful new supervisor at the school which has up to now caused me quite a bit of head and heartache. I’m teaching regularly, and frequently alone. It’s reminded me just how much I love working in schools.

Socially my life has been picking up pace too, and so the combination of all these things and the lovely weather is once again making me hurt at the idea of going home in August. Even in the bleak chill of January when I handed in my decision not to recontract I was slightly disbelieving of what I was doing; it was a very painful day which I won’t forget for a long time.

 It’s difficult to convey to people who have never lived in Japan just what a difference a second year could make. The first year here is about making mistake after mistake and about getting to grips with the language and culture. The second year is about truly living here and starting to feel part of things (although a foreigner is always first and foremost foreign in Japan). Most importantly, as I’ve been told by various JET-veterans and am coming to understand myself, Japanese shyness and reserve is such that friendships take much longer to form here than they would in the UK, for example. There’s no denying there have been lonely times during this past few months, but more recently I have developed closer relationships with many of the Japanese people I know. It’s so sad to think that just as they’re starting to blossom I will be leaving.

HOWEVER, I still feel both logically and instinctively that I have made the right decision. All the Japanese friends and job satisfaction in the world could not compensate for potentially losing Fran, and for the heartache that we would have to endure for yet another year.

I think I will just have to make as many Japanese friends as possible in England and hopefully return to Japanese people some of the kindness that’s been shown to me on this strange adventure.

But this is all sounding laced with sayonara and finality, when in fact I have three months left to pull out all my ganbatte and make it special. I have no doubt that it will be.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 7:14 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.