my little angels

"Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."" Luke 10:38-42

After I said goodbye to my little 4 and 5 year olds last week, I grabbed a broom and began sweeping out the classrooms like I always do. There are normally a handful of kids who stay a few hours longer waiting for a parent to get off work, and they normally play in the gym. Well, on this particular day two little girls decided they were going to play in whatever classroom I happened to be trying to clean. They came in giggling, eyes shining, long hair streaming behind them as they ran across the floor and slid right in front of me, scattering my nice little piles of dirt back across the room. They didn't look where they slid, they just looked at me and each other and giggled like it was the best thing ever. I haven't seen them act that way with any of the other teachers. Maybe it's because I'm a foreigner. Or maybe it's because they can see right through me with their pure child-hearts; perhaps they could see that I'm not so different from them, that I still love playing dress-up just like they do, that I sleep with a teddy bear close by and eat dessert before dinner. It was then that I gained a bit more insight into the Martha and Mary story, which I think is full of different lessons. I was Martha that day, busily trying to do what I was "supposed" to be doing, not looking up or around to see or enjoy that which God had put around me. The two little girls were Mary, unconcerned with where they "should" be or what they "should" be doing. They were just enjoying the moment God gave them, and what God made them--girls, feminine, pure-hearted. They haven't yet been corrupted by the world into thinking that to be feminine is to be "too much," "not enough," and hardened, that beauty comes from what you wear and a coating of makeup. They still know God's truths, that to be feminine is good, that they deserve to be delighted in, that beauty shines from the inside out. They soon had me transformed into a Mary as well, pushing them across the room on my broom and giggling along with them. Little girls are good for that.

i've gone mad

Just so yous know, it's official: I've gone mad. Let me explain.

On Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat, and as the day progressed it turned into a huge headache. So most of the day I wasn't able to think straight at all. I left work at my official time (4:55) and walked to a place where I meet a lady from church because she drives me to Japanese class on Tuesdays. I waited for her for a half an hour but she didn't show up, so I just figured something came up and I walked home with my pounding head. Upon arriving in my apartment I glance at my rice cooker. The time on it said 5:00. What?? So I look at my alarm clock. It too said 5:00. At this point I'm so confused and I have no idea what's going on...I just know my head hurts. The only thing that could have happended is that I left work an entire hour early. But it was completely not on purpose--I definitely thought the clock said 4:55, I can still see it in my head. And as I was leaving everyone said goodbye just like they always do; I even walked right past my principal and he said bye like he does every other day. Yesterday I was at my other school and today I have to go back to my main school...I really hope they don't say anthing because all I can tell them is the truth, which sounds like a lie. Sigh. I really have gone mad.

Stay…or go to who knows where

I came knowing I would stay here for two years, and I haven’t questioned that even once until today. Now I’m not so sure.

I’ve been trying for a couple weeks now to “be allowed” to buy my plane ticket for Christmas to visit my family. I have my eye on two different tickets, and I noticed this morning that one of them went up by about $200. Now before I continue, I must explain the way things work:

Status is extremely important in Japan. At school, I’m the absolute bottom of the rung. I can’t just go to my principal or vice principal to ask something; I have to go first through the head English teacher who will go through somebody else who will finally go to the principle or vice principle.

So I’ve been telling my head English teacher the dates I’d like be gone for Christmas these past few weeks, but she hasn’t passed anything along. Long story somewhat shorted: I keep asking today without getting answers, so finally right before I leave school I tell my English teacher I’m going to buy my ticket. She says I should wait for the vice principal to come back from a meeting he was at, which would mean I’d have to wait at work for half an hour after I should be gone. So I wait because I didn’t want my ticket to go up by like $500 before I’m finally “allowed” to buy it. So I wait and wait for an hour, he finally comes back, and he tells me to wait until Thursday. It took everything in me not to do something emotional—throw the nearest object out the window, run out screaming, start sobbing. But I couldn’t do anything at all but walk home in the dark, missing my Japanese class yet again because I had to wait so long.

I have never been more frustrated in my life. The reason I have to wait two more days is because I’d be missing 2 ½ days of “teaching” class over my Christmas break and he wanted to talk that over with the principal, who won’t be back until Thursday. It makes me so angry that everything is a double-standard when it comes to me. They have a lot of rules: “leave a room better than it was when you came” unless that room is the English room, then you can hold meetings in there without letting Kristin know, you can leave whatever you want in there, and don’t worry about putting things back where you found them. “When you go on vacation, bring back present for all the other teachers” except for Kristin, let’s leave nice wrapped presents on everybody’s desk except hers so that when she’s sad coming back from her fabulous trip to Malaysia and is really missing her friends she’ll know how much she’s valued here. And my favorite double-standard of all: cancelling class. All my classes so far this week have been cancelled. But did anybody bother telling me that? No, not until after the fact. They did that to me all the time last semester too. And yet they don’t want me to miss 2 ½ days for Christmas break? Last semester they cancelled classes the entire last half of the semester so the kids could go swimming! And you’re seriously thinking about not letting me go for 2 ½ days??

Maybe I’m being too dramatic about this. It's difficult being “the new girl” again. I was spoiled in Oklahoma. I was able to stay there for 4 ½ years, which for me is nearly forever, and I was actually able to make real friends. And oh do I miss them all.

I hope this isn’t too depressing; I may come back through later and delete it, but for now I just want all of you who actually read this to know how I’m really doing and to pray for me for guidance.

Trust

Thus far, my faithful readers, I have really only relayed to you "the good" concerning my time here. In this entry I'd like to go a bit deeper and show you "the bad and the ugly" which, you will see, is mainly caused by myself.

First, though, another observation. It's been my experience that when a person is acting overly cheerful, that person is covering up for something (depression, eating disorder, some kind of addiction). Japan is the same way. On the outside it's bright pink, laughing, even pooping out smiley faces, but in reality it's terribly sad. It has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Tragic.

If there's one thing God is trying to teach me here it's trust. I wake up every morning wondering why I'm here, stepping into yet another day where 90% of the time I won't know what's going on. God just says "Trust Me." All I can say is "OK."

It's been 5 months now, and I'm finding it hard to attach myself fully. I'm not entirely sure why. I'm sure language and the lack of diversity have something to do with it. By this point I should be able to read Hiragana and Katakana like nothing, but I'm not. I feel really out of place with the international group at church because everyone is North American. I can't fully explain it but I always feel out of place in groups of North Americans unless they're also TCKs. Simple solution--learn Japanese! Okay, give me 6 years...

It's a little rough having so little independence and being treated like I'm some strange mix of celebrity and second-class citizen. It's strange to have your eyes brim with tears when you look in your mailbox and find a letter not only in English but written by someone who cares and not Sallie Mae.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad I'm here and I am having fun. I just want to also share that life isn't a picnic and that I'm not one of those people hiding behind a colorful and happy façade.

Clearly you've never been to Singapore

As most of you who read this probably know, I just got back from a 2 week vacation in Malaysia and Singapore. It was so great! I'm not going to give you a day-by-day recollection of my trip because that would be boring and take far too much time. Instead I'll give you a quick overview, and if you want more details just ask me. My time in Malaysia was spent in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. Since I came to hang out with this guy,I didn't really do anything touristy, which was great--my experience was far richer that way and that's exactly what I wanted. I got to know a lot of different people which was quite nice. According to Mark, the Malaysian motto is "Live to eat, not eat to live" and I believe it. The food is so cheap and so good! The markets and real street food and music from the mosques were all beautiful reminders of pieces of my childhood that I haven't been able to re-visit. I'm far more interested in people than things, so for me, being non-touristy with Mark, his family, and friends was the perfect vacation. In Singapore, the gold called to me...

...and fortunately for me I ran into no other pirates. Since we were only there for 3 days, we didn't even scratch the surface of what Singapore's really all about--I'd like to find out one day.

You can see more pics here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027487&l=a25ad&id=168302105

a bit of this and a bit of that

Japan is extremely random, to me. I've got a few more random things to add to the list from my last post:

• Every school has its own chickens. And by chickens I also mean one rooster. It's always funny hearing the rooster crow and the chickens cluck as I walk into school each morning.
• There's a big mirror randomly in the middle of a wall near the entry to the school. I asked about it and they told me basically that it's specifically for checking yourself out.
• I mentioned in my last post that Japan is really cute and everything is happy; well at school during lunch they even play J-Pop--just incase you aren't feeling genki enough.

And now for other thoughts: I have no idea why God put me here instead of Northern Ireland, why that whole thing didn't work out. It's my first time not being there this time of the year and I didn't realize it would suck so badly. I miss everyone and I wish I was there. I was reading a bit about TCKs on the internet the other day (because, let's face it, us Third Culture Kids are pretty fascinating) and I came across this:

"On the surface, most adult TCKs conform to what is going on around them in such a way that attention is not drawn to them. As they meet new people and situations, they are slow to commit themselves until they have observed what is expected behavior. If what is expected is unacceptable or incomprehensible, they will quietly withdraw rather than make fools of themselves or hurt the feelings of others. They are extremely complex people who are weaving together their memories in a rapidly changing present for an uncertain future."

Veeery interesting indeed. I definitely can't do this AET thing forever (but then I doubt I can do any one job forever). It's not that I don't like it...I love working with the kids, and the adults aren't bad either but they sure make it stressful (cancelling class without telling me, uncancelling class without telling me, throwing stuff at me last minute--and then of course there's the culture stress that must be dealt with everyday). They're all really nice though. I'm thinking of looking into travel journalism, or just photography, or maybe writing books on travel with my own pictures included. All I know is I must travel and I can't have a desk job or I'll die. But the whole AET thing has such good benefits, like 20 paid days of vacation a year plus 5 extra for summer (not including weekends or national holidays), a big chunk of my housing paid by the government, and a far higher salary than I could get at this age in the states. So, just pray for me. Thanks! ~me

observations

Rejoice with me, everyone, for I have my own internet connection. It brings me great joy to be able to communicate with the outside world whenever I want to. Wonderful. Anyway this entry is about random observations (from a western viewpoint) from my 10 weeks in Japan so far. As with any country, there are some very interesting people here. I would like to start with the business man.

Business Man

The business man is up all hours of the day and night. He always wears a black suit and tie and walks extremely fast at all times. You will see him hurrying down the sidewalk, briefcase in hand, everywhere and all the time-whether it's 1pm or 2am.

The Grass and Dirt Sweepers

There I was, the first day at my second kindergarten before the kids came. I was outside; I was handed a broom and told to sweep. Naturally I went to the walkway and began sweeping dutifully but was soon informed that I was doing it wrong. My principal took my broom and demonstrated the right way to sweep--in the grass and dirt. Apparently they don't sweep the walkways, just the grass and dirt. This broom, mind you, is made of a bamboo stick and twigs which break off into the grass and dirt-so not only am I just making lines in the dirt, I'm leaving twigs all over the place. And it's not just at my kindergarten; you'll see grass and dirt sweepers all over the place here.

The maskers

They are everywhere-the maskers, or "day-time ninjas" as some call them. They wear a white mask which covers their mouth and nose, a bit like a surgeon's mask. I have yet to see a martial arts fight break out, so I doubt they're ninjas--perhaps instead they are prophets of doom, protecting themselves from the insuing plague. Really though people just wear the masks when they are sick or afraid of getting sick, and it's perfectly normal-people even teach with their masks on.

The Loud Gang

No really, there are little "loud gangs" whose only purpose is to drive around on their motorcycles and scooters as loudly as possible. I guess you've got to stand out and rebel somehow...

The Man-Woman and the Woman-Man

I must start this section by saying that Japan is full of very good looking people. That being said, it also has more than its share of women who look like men and men who look like women. Never before in any other country have I mistaken so many for the wrong sex. There's a teacher at my school that I was sure was a man only later to find out he's actually a woman. The gender line seems quite a bit more blurred here than in the western world. (The picture...is a guy).

CUTE

Everything in Japan is cute. There are cute cartoon characters everywhere. Really happy music plays at the train station. The kids are adorable and I'm pretty sure they train them to be as cute as possible. Some teens and young adults dress like they're baby dolls. They've even made the poop cute: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitty80/2443421974 and potty training: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=QFVoLz88hiUI .

That's all for now. Later! ~kris