Thursday, July 31, 2008

Arakawa-machi! (荒川町!)

Greetings from western Japan! The silence wasn't as long as I feared it might be, and I'm back in business after only a couple of days. A lot has happened since then, though, so you may want to grab some coffee or something before you read this post.

That said, here goes.

We arrived in Niigata-shi (Niigata's prefectural capital: the "-shi" suffix designates a decent-sized city) at about noon, with adrenaline running high, and were greeted by our supervisors and by an English teacher from Arakawa middle school (presumably there to help translate). The other two Murakami-shi (Arakawa and the surrounding environs were recently integrated into the city of Murakami- a town of about 60,000) JETs speak passable Japanese, and were able to converse a little with their supervisors. I do not, so my supervisor and I launched into what has become the standard way for us to communicate- an awkward kind of Japanese-English creole (which I like to to think of as either Eihongo or Nihonglish).

They took us out to a sushi restaurant of the conveyor belt variety, and we sat and spoke little as we watched the plates of sushi slide by on the conveyor belt. The highlight of the experience was almost certainly the hamburger nigiiri sushi, which I would have tried on principle except that it looked absolutely unpalatable.
We were also served the equivalent of Japanese truckstop green tea, which was far and away better than any green tea I've ever had in America.

Following this, we were taken up to the village of Asahi where the head of...something was. I don't know if he was the regional governor, or the head of the board of education, or what, but he was obviously THE MAN in charge. I showed my respect by butchering my Japanese and giving too shallow a bow, then listening intently to his Japanese welcome speech. I couldn't understand much if any of it (Naomi- one of the other JETs, graciously translated for me), but I listened so intently that a clap or a firecracker would have sent me through the concrete in the ceiling.

After this, I was taken to the office where I was to work (and from which I am writing this post), and introduced to everyone, then taken shopping, and finally shown my apartment. After all of this began the cultural exchange in earnest, with a trip with my new boss, supervisor, and office staff to a local restaurant. Some of the offerings were familiar: Sapporo (which really helped to put my new, non-English speaking boss and I on more comfortable social footing), and rice. Niigata is famous for its rice, although prior to going to this restaurant I didn't see what all the fuss was about. How much can you improve on an essentially flavorless little starch packet? This question was answered with a bowl of easily the best rice I have ever tasted- subtle, sweet, almost pillow-y texture, and cooked just right. I could happily sit and eat the stuff out of a pot for a week. The other offerings were less familiar, and required more of an open mind. Cow tongue, grilled, was actually quite delicious. Raw ground beef with vegetables and a raw egg on top didn't taste half-bad, but persuading myself to dig in took some doing. Same for the slices of raw cow liver. Cow stomach, cooked, was odd if not necessarily disagreeable. Cow uterus was probably the strangest offering, even though it was cooked- it had a consistency like lumpy elastic.

After eating, I got a short night of sleep (not because I had trouble falling asleep, but because my jet-lagged body refuses to sleep much past 5:00 a.m.), I was taken on a whirlwind tour of the three schools where I would be teaching, and introduced to the staff at all of those schools as well. Everyone was very friendly and went out of their way to put me at ease (I think that Homasan, my superior who was driving me, noticed I was starting to flag a bit- I found iced coffee in front of me rather than green tea at the last elementary school), but my nerves were still pretty much frayed by the end of it all. Come to that, my nerves are still frayed. Jumping into a fairly professional office environment, as someone who learned how to tie a tie the night before departure, in a field I am not formally trained for, in another (difficult) language, is a crazy mind detonating egg plant with volcano-sauce supernovas on LSD in Jupiter's Red Eye surfing wearing a radioactive moo-moo overload. My brain is currently one of those loading hourglasses without the cursor attached- the one that says the computer is busy, and please come back in a minute. When I finally have some time to myself, I will probably collapse in a pile of gelatinous goo on my apartment floor for a bit. I also helped to allay some of the tension last night by with a good game of Moonbase Commander.

I'll wrap this up with some words about "rural Japan." I use quotation marks, because rural Japan is densely populated, making Newton Kansas look very small and remote by comparison, even though in terms of population Newton is bigger than the town where I now reside. Arakawa also has a gaming and media store downtown, which makes it seem bigger to my American eyes (sayonara paycheck...). In any event, the difference between towns here in one of the most rural parts of Japan are more akin to the differences between Newton and North Newton (Kansas readers), or between Denver and Golden (Colorado readers), than to what we would normally think of as distinct little rural hamlets.

In between the clumps of houses that comprise the individual towns are smallish rice fields and gardens. Everyone here seems to be an avid vegetable gardener, whether they actually farm or not, so the whole district is almost stupidly picturesque- topped off with traditional Japanese roofs on all of the houses (except on my apartment building, which came out of the concrete block school of architecture).

I'll end with a plea to the good people of Newton and Kansas in general- I'm realizing (now that I'm here) that the locals would probably be intrigued to see pictures of a place more inaki (rural) than where they live, and of rural America in general. If anyone should feel inclined to send me some pics, I would be most appreciative (jesswrem@gmail.com - send big attachments- the only way to fill a gmail inbox is by sending a feature-length movie every day).

P.S. I'm at work right now, and my camera is not along. The next post I place will just be pics and captions of Arakawa-machi, so that you can see what its like.

6 comments:

Cilla said...

YAY ! You update so fast !

Unknown said...

"good game of Moonbase Commander. "
Hell yeah!

Allison said...

I was just talking about eating cow uterus at lunch today! Seriously! We wondered if people ate it and what it tasted like. I just told my coworkers that you had some, and now they want to know how it was cooked.

Cilla said...

Lots of chinese people cook uteruses.
I had pig uterus soup before. Really didn't taste all that weird.
they are quite a delicacy...people spend a lot of money for fresh ones

Jessu said...

The cow uterus was cooked over a grill-mabob in the middle of the table we were all sitting around. It didn't have any seasoning- we just dipped it in a sauce before we ate it. (How did that subject come up, anyhow? Prior to coming here I had no idea...)

irismother said...

That's a lot of unusual food for a jet lagged stomach! Where do their cows come from? I'm having a hard time imagining grazing land...