Mainly, a month and a half ago I moved to my fourth and last host family! It's a really good family, and I'm glad I have a relatively long stay with them. It's even closer to school than my last one, about a ten minute bike ride. I have a middle school brother who also goes to Kenmei and a 16-year-old sister who goes to a different high school. My host dad is a policeman, so like most of my host dads he comes home for dinner and is generally around, unlike the typical salaryman. My host mom and grandma teach the tea ceremony to high schoolers and perform at various venues. This is great because when I am free I receive the benefit of free tea ceremonies in beautiful temples ;) The house is relatively big for Japan but still comfortable, in a complex with the grandparents' house. My grandpa used to be a policeman but now he is a farmer, so we always have fresh vegetables from our giant garden and whatever else he brings home. My family strangely doesn't like sweets or snacks, and I am thankful for that.
One of my favorite things about this family is how my mom and siblings somehow have a more worldly view than most people I meet. It's hard to explain but many people tend to make these big generalizations about Japan versus America and other countries, and I spend a lot of time trying to clear this ignorance. I do my best to be patient, but I find myself needing more and more deep breaths before responding to things like, "That massage chair feels good to you?? I thought only Japanese people got sore shoulders!" *facepalm* So it is wonderful now that when my grandparents or someone ask a question like, "Everyone in America has little square gardens, right?" I can sit back and let my host mom, who seems to have endless patience with these things, be the one to say, "No, there are in fact a variety of gardens in America and not everyone even has them." So everything is good on the host family front.
Along with changing families, the other challenge I was preparing for was changing classes in the beginning of April with the start of a new school year. But on arriving to school, my sensei directed me to the shoes area of my same class, now HIIIG instead of HIIG, and told me I am here to stay until the end. I am so happy!! So it's very comfortable but at the same time kind of boring. I was ready for change but everything is the same, the students, classroom, and even sensei, who usually changes. I am glad though, I was not looking forward to being with even younger students. I have been paying more attention in class this term, trying to actually follow along, and it's getting easier. PE is fun, we're preparing for the big sports festival in June. We've been working on marching in formation, surprisingly difficult but fun, and a dance routine.
Something that was interesting was a school day devoted to physical check-ups. We were separated by girls in the morning and boys in the afternoon. They tested height, weight, sitting height, eyes, ears, and some organ test where we had to remove all upper clothing. The week before, everyone (except me ;)) had to collect urine samples as well, and apparently in elementary school they also had stool samples. They were all surprised and jealous when I told them I'd done nothing of the sort in America.
Last month, Easter happened! Thanks to a dye kit sent from home, I introduced egg dyeing to my family and they loved it! They even saved the dyes so they could do another batch. On Easter morning, I hid chocolate and jelly belly filled plastic eggs (curtesy of said care package) around the living room and had fun with my confused family ("What bunny came? Do you mean the dog?? What??"). Once they caught on they really enjoyed it, and afterwards especially liked trying the variety of jelly belly flavors. Actually the next day in school a girl in my class somehow had a bag of Tabasco flavored jelly bellies and was offering the "apple" beans to whatever poor person passed. The taste was surprisingly accurate.
Last month I also went to Kyoto for a day with my Rotary district, where I met other districts for the first time! There were 15 new exchange students, which was kind of overwhelming after barely meeting any new ones this whole year. We were divided into teams of 5 or 6 with Japanese Outbounds and Rotex included, given bus passes, a map, and a location. Once we got to our location, we sent the Rotex coordinators a picture of us at the goal and received a new location, with the winning team going the most places the fastest. We went to some beautiful temples and shrines, which are everywhere in Kyoto, and since we never bothered to eat lunch, we got first place!! I got a pair of awesome chopsticks with a spoon and fork on the handle ends as a prize and it was exciting. I'm not sure if I'll be able to meet those other students again, but it was a fun day.
Just two days after the Rotary Kyoto trip, I found myself back in the same place where we had gathered but under completely different circumstances, wearing my uniform and sitting in rows with the entire Kenmei third grade on a field trip. A week before, we had been split into small groups and told to make a plan, being allowed to go anywhere in Kyoto as long as we had lunch at Kyoto University. After taking attendance at the Kyoto train station, we were set loose, an amount of freedom which surprised me. We got the all day bus pass again, so by now I am practically an expert on Kyoto buses. It's a good system with many buses so it's a very doable city. Again we went to a number of shrines and temples, all of which were new to me, and it was funny because I was the one showing my friends the way to wash their hands and bow and clap properly, having gone to many more of these places than they have recently. I wanted to tour Kyoto University to see what a Japanese college is like, but none of my friends were interested so we just went to the cafeteria and left. It was a clean and pretty cafeteria though, with a good selection of Japanese food. Far better than most American dorm food in my opinion.
Soon after that, Golden Week began, a time around the beginning of May when a number of Japanese holidays are bunched together, so I had six days off of school. The break mindset is very different here. In America I wasn't allowed to have homework over school breaks and used them as the name suggests, "breaks from school." Here students are piled with homework and the senseis tell them "the fear is that you will forget your study habits. While there is time to play, and that's good, make sure you use this time to study a lot too." It was only a six day break! Over the slightly longer two week spring break between terms my friend was like, "I'm going to forget how to hold a pencil!!" (Although they had plenty of homework over that one too). They can't even comprehend our several month summer break.
Anyway, over this break, along with some good sleeping, friend-seeing, takoyaki-making, and an interesting Cinco de Mayo celebration, I harvested takenoko (bamboo shoots)! My host family owns a small area of mountain to the south of Osaka (apparently fairly cheap since there is so much mountain here) with a bamboo grove. The edible shoot is a brown cone-shaped plant rising several inches to a little over a foot straight up from the ground, which if let be will grow into full bamboo. To harvest it we used pick-like tools to clear away the dirt around the base then chop it at the roots. The hardest part was moving around the grove because the mountainside was so steep. After harvesting, we peeled their husks off and boiled the takenoko in a large pot over a fire for about an hour. After this they are nice and tender but still slightly crunchy and ready to be used in rice, other dishes, or just as is with some flavoring, my favorite. The takenoko season is about a month long and my grandpa went to harvest it nearly every day, so for a time there was almost always takenoko at dinner. I never got tired of it :)
I just came back from a one-night weekend Rotary trip to Hiroshima. I'm disappointed that we don't have any longer trips, I love my group. I was excited to ride the Shinkansen (bullet train) for the first time, and it was amazingly fast and smooth but I found the pressure on my eardrums from the number of mountain tunnels that we sped through very unpleasant, like what happens on an airplane but more frequent. Hiroshima is an incredibly beautiful city, full of trees and grass and flowers. We had perfect weather, warm with a slight breeze, and somehow standing there on the banks of a beautiful sparkling river, birds chirping and music from a small band drifting across the water, made it even worse to look at the shell of the Hiroshima Dome building and hear about the atrocities of the atomic bomb. We went to the museum and it was sickening, but I think the worst part was learning about how much nuclear activity there still is. I don't think most people, especially the post-Cold War generations, realize how serious and horrifying the possibilities are, affecting literally all human beings. The next day was a happier day, with a visit to Itsukushima Shrine on the island of Miyajima. The shrine is mostly built over water with bright orange-red wooden walkways, and there is an iconic orange-red gateway standing alone in the bay. It's classified as one of the three most beautiful places in Japan. We had a delicious oyster lunch and a short visit to Hiroshima Castle before heading back to Osaka. Happily we don't have to say goodbye for long because we have a Rotary conference in Fukushima this coming weekend!
Last Friday I gave a speech to a hundred cram school teachers who came to visit Kenmei, beginning my season of speech-making as my time here reaches it's end (nooo). I think I'm getting better though, so I am glad for the experience.
I am going through so many emotions right now, with only a month and a half left in my exchange, which I'm sure is going to fly by like the rest has. My flight back is Monday, July 7. With the Fukushima trip and a few other Rotary meetings, my free weekends are scarce so I'm feeling stressed about fitting in seeing everyone I know and doing everything that needs to be done before I leave. There is too much to do still but no time! Everything is so normal now that it's hard to accept that this won't be my life anymore. At the same time, I do miss home of course and friends and family, so I'm excited to go back to America. I miss diversity and especially ethnic foods, because while I seriously love Japanese food, I was brought up with a wide variety of flavors and Japanese cooking uses a relatively limited palate. But I do love it so I'm really not looking forward to leaving it behind! There is soo much I'm going to miss about Japan, including of course all the amazing friends I've made and people who have taken care of me. I'm going to miss the general Japanese mindset, which is what drew me here in the first place. I know I'll come back, but probably not for years and it won't be the same. I am however getting tired of being in high school and am really excited for college. But I love my school friends and don't want to leave them! So basically, there are all these conflicting emotions running around and it's very confusing.
I have an exciting and busy time ahead, with presentations to make and places to go and people to see (oh hey my parents are visiting next week). We'll see how much blogging happens, but I'll try not to make it as long as this time!
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