End-of-November Observations

Today I went downtown to have lunch with a friend from Cameroon, and in between that and church at 6 I had about three hours of downtime. I spent a little time engaged in one of my favorite hobbies: wandering through one of Sendai's many extremely expensive shopping malls. I like to watch the panic in the salesgirls' eyes recede as they size up my $19 shoulder bag and $12 sneakers and determine that there is no possible way I am going to buy anything and require them to actually interact with my Western self. It's almost as much fun as the day my family inspired great relief in the concierge of the Chateau Frontenac, by leaving his lobby. I think that life for people who actually have money must be quite dull.

But anyway, I also spent quite a bit of time simply wandering and reflecting on life at present in Japan. And I came to two realizations, both of which are comparisons.

1.) In New England, home of (and inventor of the phrase) leaf-peeping, fall is about a two-week-long party. In the middle of October, every single leaf changes color. Everything is completely stunning for about two weeks, then there is an icy-cold, day-long downpour that knocks off every leaf and heralds the beginning of late fall and winter. (And, if you're me, you always forget that this is going to happen and get super-depressed when it does.)

In Japan, people also plan trips around going to see the leaves change. But the whole process has been much longer and more drawn-out than I'm used to. My friend Taylor, who is from Connecticut, said that he has found it somewhat anti-climactic. The first trees started to change color in mid-October -- and they are still at it! We've had a couple of icy-cold, day-long downpours which have knocked down a good many leaves, but when I look up at the hillside it is still red and orange and yellow and even green in patches.

It's odd, especially since the reason that the Japanese people like to watch the leaves change is that it offers an opportunity to reflect on the impermanence of life. I would like to tell them that things are way more Buddhist-y in New England.

(This park is in the middle of downtown. It has a lot of statues of semi-nude people. Also late fall foliage. Also homeless people.)


2.) In the States (and, from what other ALTs tell me, most of the West), people think that, overall, winter sucks. Consequently, there are jobs, products, and entire industries devoted to making it suck somewhat less.

In Japan, people also think that winter sucks. But there are markedly fewer such jobs and products. Central heating does not exist -- and my teachers have needed to get special permission to turn on the kerosene heaters in the classrooms, even when the students are avoiding doing in-class work because they don't want to take their hands out of their pockets. Insulation barely exists. High-school girls are still biking to school in mini-skirts. Regular people are still biking around with no gloves on. I just learned that they won't use salt on the roads or on our steps.

I am not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it seems very silly to suffer for half the year, especially when you don't really have to. On the other, it is certainly more environmentally friendly, and possibly more psychologically healthy, to just accept the seasons for what they are. I am trying to recognize that the first hand is probably very Western. I am trying to be philosophical and open and accepting.

But it is easier to be these things when I am not scared of killing myself on my stairs.

N is for Nikko

A is for America, which has both a North and a South part.
Taylor and I met a couple of guys from Nicaragua and Argentina, who had been invited to Japan to take part in a conference in Tokyo about global warming and how developing nations (such as theirs) could play a role in enacting and promoting the mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol.
When we first said hello, they asked us where we were from and we said, “America.” This is the response Japanese people expect; they do not understand either an individual state name or “the United States.” It is, however, a politically-incorrect response to give to people from Nicaragua and Argentina, who informed us that we were from North America and that South America is also America. Oops.

B is for the red-lacquered Shinkyo Bridge.
According to the legends, a famous Buddhist priest named Shodo Shonin and his retinue were attempting to explore the Nikko mountain area in 767 when they were halted by the then-bridgeless Deiwa River. Shodo Shonin prayed, and the god Jinja Daio appeared with two snakes that he used to create a bridge for the priest and company to cross. No word on how they got back across the river when they were done with the mountain.
Anyway, in 1636, they built a bridge that looks like this:

It’s been maintained since then, and was just rebuilt in 2005. Back in the day, only the emperor and the local shogun were allowed to cross it (a separate, much less fancy, bridge was maintained for regular people), but today you can pay 300 yen for the privilege of crossing.

C is for Curfew.
Our first choice for a hostel was full, probably because of the long weekend. Our second choice was very clean and very nice, but also a very Do-It-Yourself affair (they handed us sheets when we checked in, and towels for the communal bath could be rented). It also had a 10 pm curfew, which we were initially somewhat upset about. However, upon arrival at 8.30 to discover a ghost town of dark shop windows and closed restaurants, it ceased to seem like such a drag.

D is for Deer.
The hostel was situated partway up a hill, and the row of windows made it look, in Cinderellan terms, “like a lovely diamond necklace in the dark.” It was very welcoming and very, very pretty.
Then, just to seal the deal of the hostel as a good omen for a good trip, two deer, one male and one female, ran across the front yard and into the woods just as we approached.

E is for Ebisu.
At the first temple we visited, I bought a good luck charm for 200 yen. It was like a vending machine except for trustworthy people: you dropped in your money and then reached through a hole in the glass to select a little plastic-wrapped packet that includes a written prophecy (which I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true) and a little gold-colored metal charm.
I pulled out Ebisu, who is “loved as one of the notable blessing deities. He is also known as a deity of bringing laughter, the source of good luck and the wellspring of happiness” (according to the little informative slip of paper).

F is for First Instance of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys.
The Toshogu Shrine is the exception that proves the rule in terms of Shinto shrines being austere and unadorned. Every surface that could possibly bear a carving does, but many of them are relatively incomprehensible to the Westerner who does not have a solid grasp of Japanese, Buddhist, and/or Shinto mythology.
This one isn’t.

Recognize them? The concept of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” is the central principle of Tendai Buddhism. It has been adopted, with basically no attention paid to its actual meaning, into Western culture, and monkeys covering their eyes, ears, and mouths are freakin’ everywhere. [insert Orientalist rant]
I actually have a lot of problems with the political apathy apparently promoted by the monkeys, but I am pretty pleased and excited to have seen the very first instance, from the 17^th century, of representing “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” with monkeys.

G is for Gaijin.
[Gaijin in Japanese means “foreigner,” but it’s not a very polite term; it’s relatively the same as calling someone a “wetback” instead of an “illegal immigrant.” It has been adopted by foreigners for ironic self-identification much the same way “band geek” is now a term of affection and belonging.]
Nikko is a tourist town, which meant that it was filled with foreigners of all stripes, all of whom were extremely friendly. We met the two South Americans at a random waterfall, and had a several-hours-long chat with them, before they had to catch their train back to Tokyo, without ever even exchanging names. We then met a gay couple, Christian and Nigel, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, when two seats at their table were the only ones available in the restaurant we went into. They were staying at our hostel, so we walked back together, showed them how to set up a futon, and made plans to go to Lake Chuzenji together the next day.
I was also offered 200 yen to rent a towel by a random guy at the vending machine (Taylor had the room key, where my wallet was, but they lent me the towel on credit), and we met an Australian student on the train back.
Fleeting connections, but very genuine.
The proliferation of foreigners also meant a proliferation of English in the street signs, explanatory placards, maps, and tourist information centres, which was very helpful.

H is for Horse of the Sacred Variety.
The building adorned by the monkey carvings was actually a stable, which houses the Sacred Horse.
This is the Sacred Horse:

His name is Koha. He was a gift from New Zealand (see “Z”). He is the only foreign horse currently serving as a Sacred Horse in Japan.
I have no idea why Koha is a Sacred Horse, or why it is necessary for Toshogu to have a Sacred Horse. I’m afraid I have no further information at all. The whole thing seemed rather surreal and bizarre to me.
Incidentally, Koha has a pretty sweet life. He “works” for four hours every day, when the door is open and hundreds of people take his picture. The rest of the day he spends in a pasture. I think I want to be reborn as a Sacred Horse.

I is for Ieyasu Tokugawa.
Ieyasu Tokugawa was a shogun who died in the early years of the 1600s and requested that a shrine be built in his honor. This was done, and everyone was happy.
At least, they were happy for about two generations. Ieyasu Tokugawa’s grandson, Iemitsu Tokugawa, decided that the shrine was nowhere near elaborate or impressive enough. Toshogu Shrine is the result of his vision, and his sub-lords’ tax dollars (which kept them from rising up against him!). It is visually overwhelming almost to the point of exhaustion.

J is for Jakukou Falls.
On Sunday afternoon, Taylor and I had planned to take a bus up to Lake Chuzenji. Traffic, however, meant that a trip usually lasting less than an hour would have taken two and half hours. So instead we decided to check out a nearby park (see “P”), one stop away on the train. We came back to town about an hour and a half before dark, and decided to try to make it to a nearby waterfall.
About two kilometres later, we did make it -- just barely. There is very little photographic evidence of the waterfalls, both because it was already too dark for my camera to cope and because they were nowhere near impressive enough to justify an hour-and-a-half-long walk.
We did, however, meet the South Americans at Jakukou. Chatting with them was worth the walk.

K is for Kegon Falls.
This waterfall, ironically, would have been worth the walk and yet required almost no walking at all. We rode a very spiffy elevator 100 metres through the bedrock then walked out through a tunnel onto a three-story observation platform with incredible views not only of the waterfall proper but also of large amounts of water flowing from all kinds of other streams and fissures in the rock.

L is for Lake Chuzenji.
On Monday morning, Taylor and I joined Christian and Nigel and the four of us caught a bus that went up to Lake Chuzenji, which is nestled in a valley partway up the mountains. Our maps and information led me to believe that it was a national park, which I envisioned a bunch of hiking trails with a rustic sort of visitors’ centre, but instead we found a bustling small town with a rather built-up lakeside. I’m sure there was hiking available -- somewhere -- but most people seemed to be choosing to explore the lake via animal-shaped paddleboats.
After admiring the Falls, we meandered along the side of the lake admiring the views until lunchtime, after which we headed back into town to catch our train.

M is for Monkeys!
When I came to Japan, I had two goals. One was to stay at a Buddhist temple and eat their vegan cooking called shojin ryori. The other was to see wild monkeys. One of those goals has now been realized, on the shores of Lake Chuzenji:

None of us had yet seen Japanese monkeys, and we were all pretty excited. There were three, two adults and a baby, who scampered away along a chain-link fence by the river before we could get very many pictures.
Monkeys!

N is for Nemuri Neko.
Very little of Nikko is overrated or overpriced. The Nemuri Neko (Sleeping Cat in English) is both.
The admission price for Toshogu does not include the Nemuri Neko, for which you have to pay an extra 520 yen. From there, you join the throng of people and push through a small gate, directly above which is a wooden carving maybe 12 inches long.

I honestly would have missed it if everyone in line ahead of us hadn’t been taking pictures. We could not figure out what the big deal was. I was convinced it must have some kind of massive symbolic or spiritual meaning, so Taylor (who speaks Japanese) asked one of the assistants selling worship aids. Her response, according to his translation, was: “It’s old and it’s cute.” Leave it to the Japanese to put that much emphasis on something’s being cute.
Ironically, not that many people were interested in climbing the approximately 800 steps that followed the cat-adorned gate, at the top of which was the actual tomb of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the reason the whole place was built.

O is for Onsen.
The hostel came equipped with a traditional Japanese communal bath, in which you remove your clothing in an outer room, wash and rinse sitting on small wooden stools at half-height showers with detachable showerheads, and then soak in extremely hot water. I am actually not a big fan of hot water, and my favourite part of the bath was getting out and rinsing off with cool water -- but it sure was a good way to relax after a long day of tramping around.
The baths were particularly nice in our place -- wooden walls, granite tile. That was included in the price of the room. But you had to pay 200 yen for a towel.

P is for the Park in Imaichi that featured cedars and waterwheels.
On Sunday afternoon, when we discovered that we couldn’t make it to Lake Chuzenji, we were advised to ride the train one stop west, to a pretty little park. The tourist information lady told us that it had a lot of cedars that were planted 300-400 years ago. She did not tell us that it also heavily featured wooden waterwheels and funky stone carvings.

We couldn’t figure out if the waterwheels were actually accomplishing anything (don’t waterwheels have the ability to produce power?), or whether they were just there for show.
Incidentally, Nikko and its environs are absolutely flooded with waterways. This park had at least four different streams running through it (at one of which I insisted that Taylor play Poohsticks with me, at which point his regard for my intelligence may have dropped considerably). The town proper, entirely aside from the two sets of waterfalls, had rivers and streams everywhere, including along the sides of the roads. I’m astonished that Shodo Shonin only needed to magically acquire one bridge in order to make his way around.

Q is for Quiet, which we found at Futarasan-jinja.
As we walked along the shores of Lake Chuzenji, we encountered yet another shrine. This one, however, was nearly devoid of tourists. The few people who were there were mostly praying or standing quietly taking in the scenery. It was a pretty welcome relief to the senses, after the crowded and almost-overstimulating chaos of Toshogu the day before.

R is for Rinno-ji.
This temple, which was founded by Shodo Shonin, of Shinkyo Bridge fame, was our first stop on Sunday morning. The outside was relatively unimpressive, as Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (the two religions were merged at one point, and ever since have been divided only with very fuzzy and permeable lines -- most Japanese people consider themselves to belong to both traditions) usually are.
But inside, we found three ten-foot-high statues: the thousand-headed Kannon, the Amida Buddha, and the horse-headed Kannon. The first and third looked more like demons than like what I think of as gods -- I find the most interesting difference between Eastern and Western religions to be the Asian expectation that their gods will fight tooth and nail for them. Life of Pi describes the disappointment and scorn of the narrator (a Hindu) when he discovers the passivity of Jesus’ “passion.”

S is for Shinkansen.
We took the shinkansen to get there, but left undecided our methods for getting back -- the “bullet train” is very expensive, but much faster than local trains. When we discovered that our trip back would be 6 hours long and only $25 cheaper than the one-hour-long shinkansen trip, we got back on the shink.
It was my first time travelling on the shinkansen since we came to Sendai from Tokyo. I was again underwhelmed. It just doesn’t feel like you’re travelling 300 kilometers/188 miles an hour.

T is for Taylor, my travelling partner.
Here we are, by the Kegon Falls:

He was extremely patient with both my cheapskate tendencies and my affection for kitschy souvenirs.

U is for Up the side of a mountain.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that most roads that lead cars up the sides of mountains wind long distances around the mountains, so that the grade is relatively low and the trip is relatively long.
The road up Lake Chuzenji does not follow this rule. Instead, hairpin turns and a very, very steep road mean that at any one time you can look out the window of the bus and look out over a many-foot drop, crossed with about four levels of road that you just came up -- or you can be looking up at a cliff criss-crossed with four levels of road that you’re about to be on.
It was an experience, but I kept my eyes closed on the way down.

V is for Vegetarianism.
Even by American standards, I ate well this trip -- which means that by Japanese standards, I ate spectacularly. Not only is the regional speciality made out of tofu (see “Y”), but the restaurants in town are well-used to dealing with Western tourists and their weird dietary requirements. (People actually knew the meaning of the word “vegetarian”!!)
We found an Indian restaurant, whose owner opened the door while we were examining the menu and beckoned us in with “Indian food! Very delicious! Come in!”, which featured a vegetarian spread of two curries, naan, saffron rice, a samosa, salad, and lussi. I had forgotten how much I love Indian food.
Taylor spotted this sign that evening:

The menu had about six vegetarian Japanese options, clearly labelled with neat little green Vs. I ordered yakisoba, which is kind of like fried rice except with buckwheat noodles instead of rice. Usually it involves little pieces of fish, ground beef, or pork, so I was pretty excited to not have to pick anything out of it before eating it. The food was as wonderful as the atmosphere: the walls inside were plastered with little notes and business cards in many languages from people through the years who have approved of the place as much as we did.
We met Christian and Nigel here, and spent enough time talking that eventually the waitress kicked us out, telling us that she was sorry but this was a restaurant and not a coffeehouse.

W is for Woodcarving Exhibition.
When we got off the train at Kami-imaichi, looking for the cedars-and-waterwheels park, we noticed a group of people sitting in a little hall attached to the station. They waved us in most enthusiastically, so we decided to check out what was happening. It turned out to be an exhibition of local woodcarving, including some pieces by schoolkids. Some of them were just your basic woodcarving, but others were truly spectacular. My favourites were the chests of drawers that were so heavily carved with intricate leaf-and-flower designs that it was hard to find the drawer handles. I like utilitarian art. We wandered through the little exhibition hall, Taylor asked questions about the pieces and translated the answers for me, and we signed our names in the guestbook (Taylor can do his in kanji, but I had to rely on katakana).
Later, when we were waiting for the train to go back to Nikko proper, one of the ladies came running out and presented us with tangerines, muffins, and rice crackers -- “to eat on the train,” she explained.

X is for X-rated antiques.
Nikko is full of antiques shops. On our way into town from the temples, we window-shopped and occasionally wandered through one that seemed interesting.
In one, I found a stack of off-center prints of birds and other animals that I would have bought if I hadn’t been sure that carting them around in a backpack for the rest of the day would ruin them. Next to that stack was a white sheet of paper hand-printed (in English): “Pornography. Adult only.”
Pornography not usually being something you find in a rather dusty antiques shop run by a little old Japanese lady, I called Taylor over and we investigated. It was indeed antique pornography -- on sale because it was off-center, like the birds and animals. It was also very weird -- very difficult to decipher what was supposed to be happening.

Y is for Yuba-ryori.
The speciality of the region, yuba-ryori is tofu that has been flattened into thin strips and then rolled or squished into various shapes. We found a small café-and-gift-shop that served us just enough to try two varieties. One was wheel-shaped and tasted like intriguely-textured tofu. The other was vaguely round and flat, and was called sashimi yuba. It had the texture, and to an astonishing degree the taste, of fish sashimi. I don’t know how they did that, but I definitely prefer it to real sashimi.

Z is for New Zealand, giver of the Sacred Horse.
Koha (see “H”), whose name means “gift” in Maori, was given to Japan by the government of New Zealand “as a token of goodwill and friendship between the two countries” (according to the placard on his stall).
Taylor was intrigued at how easy a gesture this was for New Zealand to make. “Here’s a horse, now we’re friends!”
I was more interested in what would happen if the ship carrying the Sacred Horse from New Zealand sank. “Oh well, I guess we weren’t meant to be friends.”
We both found the Sacred Horse to be a bit of a weird idea.

What's wrong with this scene?

Scene: Last night, around 9 pm. A knock on the door.

JENN opens the door to find a SALESMAN who is visibly thrown to be facing a foreigner.

SALESMAN: Nihongo? ("Japanese?")

JENN: Wakarimasen. ("I don't understand [Japanese].")

SALESMAN forcibly removes the door from JENN and shuts it in her face.


I had my own door shut in my face!

This is such a weird land.

Hiraizumi (busy weekend part 2)

Ages ago before I discovered the novels hiding under my desk at school, I was reading a Japan guidebook and discovered the existence of this extremely historical little town, currently housing only 9000 residents but once a cultural capital of over 100,000 people, widely accepted to have rivaled Kyoto for culture during its height. That height was even earlier than Sendai's: about 1100-1200, although at least one temple may have existed as early as 850. Astonishingly, some of the buildings and more of the artwork and artifacts have survived in Hiraizumi than in Sendai.

I boarded a Japan Railways train at 9.01 am from Sendai, and quickly discovered that traveling on an older JR train without a Japanese speaker is quite a stressful experience. The newer trains have things like bilingual maps, LED displays of upcoming stations, and pre-recorded English messages; this train had nothing but the conductor occasionally saying "garblegarble Ichinoseki [my station] garblegarble desu." I had to just hope that he was saying "This train is bound for Ichinoseki" and not "If you wanted to go to Ichinoseki, you should have gotten off at the last station; this train is bound for Tokyo/Hokkaido/the seventh circle of hell." At one point, I was shuffled, by a kind conductor who made the correct assumption that blonde hair meant I had no idea what was going on, to the front car of the train -- at which point we continued on our way and left the rest of the train behind! Very scary stuff, traveling in a foreign language.

I did, however, make it to Ichinoseki with no problems, where I boarded, for the last eight miles of the trip to Hiraizumi, the most quintessentially Japanese train that could possibly exist:
That is a train car with tatami flooring, kotatsu tables, legless chairs, and karaoke at one end. We all say "Only in Japan" quite a lot, but I am pretty sure that this is REALLY only in Japan.

Incidentally, those old women yelled at me because I changed into the slippers that were provided at the entrance and walked onto the tatami with them. This was, sadly, only the first instance of the day in which I proved to elderly Japanese people that all Westerners were raised in barns. I still don't know where you were supposed to go with the slippers.

Upon arrival in Hiraizumi, I spurned bus tours, bike rentals, and the tourist information centre in favour of saving money and being independent. Why I felt that it would be weak to visit the info centre, I don't know. But instead I struck out, on foot, for Chusonji Temple, about a 25-minute walk from the station.

Chusonji was founded in either 850 or 1100, depending on who you ask. It stands at the top of a hill, which means that to reach it you have to climb a cypress-lined gravel path. Much of the temple as it exists today is a series of relatively small shrines. Monks still live and worship there and the Hondo, or Main Hall, still houses religious rituals. As such, it provided a rather odd atmosphere that was half-touristy and half-religious-pilgrimagey. Some people prayed and lit incense; other people (and not just foreigners!) took pictures. Some stalls sold beautifully handcrafted articles for worship; others sold cell phone charms featuring Hello Kitty, Doraemon, and Stitch.

Two of its original buildings, from the 12th century, still stand. The Konjikido, or Golden Hall, is a 5.5-square-meter sculpture of the Western Paradise of Pure Land Buddhism. It looks much like a very elaborate and detailed shrine, with the Amida Buddha in the centre, surrounded by bodhissatvas -- except that it is covered inside and out with pure gold leaf and inlay work of ivory (from Africa) and mother-of-pearl (from Southeast Asia). It is stunning and breathtaking in its beauty and scope.

It is protected behind plate glass, and photographs are strictly prohibited. It defies written description, though, so I stole this from the Visit Hiraizumi website:

The Kyozo, the other remaining building, was the sutra repository and is now much less impressive than the Konjikido. But you can also see the sutras in an on-site museum. They were written with gold ink on dark blue paper; all are beautiful even for those who don't read Japanese, but one in particular was written so that the characters created the image of a many-storied pagoda. From a distance, it looked like a very detailed painting with slightly fuzzy lines; only close-up did you realize that the lines were actually made up of tiny, perfect kanji. I found the sutras, and also the many large Buddha sculptures, each carefully covered with gold leaf and adorned with jewels, as spellbinding in their own way as the Konjikido.

On my way back to the path down the hill, I happened to be walking by the Hondo just in time for a demonstration of Kawanishi Nenbutsu Kenbai dancing by local school kids. It involved some pretty intricate fan work and a good deal of stomping, turning, and rotating in a circle. It also involved extremely elaborate costumes, topped off with feathered headdresses.
There were three costumed adults standing near me, and a tour guide offered to approach them and ask them to take a picture with me. She asked one, and he brought his buddies with him:
She also wrote down the name of the dance style in romaji (Western characters) for me. I love Japanese people.

Motsuji Temple also dates from the 12th century, but all its buildings have been destroyed by fire (some more than once) and it is now best known for its garden, which does still exist in more or less its original form. The garden is dominated by a large man-made pond, which was designed to suggest several different geographic conditions found in Japan. This is mountains:
The pond is fed by a feeder stream that was excavated in nearly-perfect condition in the early 20th century and has been flowing for over eight hundred years. It is quite awe-inspiring to stand beside it and know that you are standing where monks used to stand and meditate, looking at the same rocks, smoothed by hand to be perfectly round, that they did.
You can circle the pond in two ways. The first I took is maybe ten yards back from the pond and takes you past the sites of all the burned buildings. The second is right at the water's edge and points out the different geographic conditions created by the rocks and water. Neither lets you forget that you are essentially visiting a ruin -- although Motsuji, like Chusonji, is still fully operational. By this point, all threat of rain was gone and it was a perfect, sunny fall afternoon. I had already learned a lot and been thoroughly overwhelmed, and it was great to quietly take in the colored leaves and the sunshine in an ancient temple garden.

I didn't stay in town for dinner; by that time, I was very tired and ready enough to go home that I didn't want to wait around until I got hungry. So I ate the peanut butter sandwich I'd packed for lunch and never bothered to eat, while sitting on the train wondering all the same things I'd wondered on the way there.

Sendai Castle and a Haunted House (busy weekend part 1)

Last weekend was very busy. I mean not the weekend that is just ending, but November 1-3, the Monday of which was Culture Day. I am behind in my blogging -- I blame it on the election, which I continue to find unbelievably distracting. (Speaking of which, I have been watching the Daily Show at comedycentral.com and I don't know what Jon Stewart is going to do with himself for the next four -- eight! -- years. Obama is not very good fodder for ridicule. Hooray!)

Anyway, on Saturday of last week, I went to visit Sendai Castle. Sendai used to be quite the metropolis back in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, when Date Masamune, one of the many warlords of the period, decided to make it the seat of his power. In fact, I just read on the official come-visit-Sendai website (which might be a little biased) that the Spanish Ambassador in 1600 said that Sendai was a busier city than Tokyo.

Anyway, he built a very big castle on a cliff just to the south of what is now city centre, 115 meters above sea level. I took the Loople Sendai to get there, a really cool set of buses painted to look like oldschool streetcars that run in a loop to eleven of Sendai's major attractions. They were intended for out-of-town visitors, but they are cheaper than the city buses, so they are usually very crowded with Sendai residents who may or may not be using them to get to the sites in their own city.

The castle itself was destroyed by fire and the nearly constant civil wars of the period. One small segment of the wall still exists, and they have rebuilt the guardhouse. It houses the most famous statue of Sendai, the one that graces almost every brochure about the city:
While I was admiring the statue, I heard a Japanese couple saying "Sumimasen" (Excuse me), so I said "Hai?" (Yes?). They were quite upset to have attracted the attention of someone with blonde hair, but once I proved my understanding of what they wanted (a photo with both of them in it) and how to use their cell phone camera, they let me take their picture. And then I asked them to take mine too. Unfortunately, I had left my camera at school on Friday, so I will have to return to get a better version of the iconic I-Visited-Sendai picture:

The courtyard also provided gorgeous panoramic views of the city, but those photos aren't even worth keeping. As an aside, you'd think a $400 cell phone would be able to take a decent photograph.

Inside, they had the typical assortment of coffee shops, omiyage shops filled with boxes of cookies featuring Date Masamune and his weird hat, and gift shops with things like pens and cell phone charms featuring Hello Kitty dressed up as Date. I bought a pen -- I have a weird affection for kitschy tourist souvenirs...

They also had a museum, which featured artifacts from the period (samurai armor, several letters written by Date, tea sets and small tables) and a miniature model of the whole castle. They also had a film about the history of the castle. The Japanese narration was apparently amusing, but the English that came through the special earphones the staff kindly supplied me was pretty bland and didn't do much to un-complicate the bad computer-generated reconstructions on the screen. I didn't understand much except that there were rooms and platforms and chairs specially set aside for the Emperor, even though he never came and was really never expected to come, and there was a very large Noh stage.

One final note on Date Masamune. This is onigiri, made of rice and nori (seaweed sheets):
And this is the face of the Visit Sendai campaign:
Why they choose to represent their city with an onigiri dressed up as a 16th-century war hero and ruler is beyond me. Isn't he cute (kawai), though?

On Sunday, I went through a haunted house for the very first time! My friend Kristin had been invited to the Miyagi University of Education fall festival and didn't want to go alone. Before her friend showed up, we braved the carnie-like food vendors ("Japanese food!!" "Oishi desu ne?!?!" "Iraisshimase!!"), helped to judge a photo contest without being able to read the names or the titles, and admired some rocks and some monk-made handicrafts from Mongolia. After her friend arrived, we also acquired three of her students, two 1nensei boys and a 3nensei girl, and went together to brave the haunted house. Only three people were allowed in at once, which meant that we had to wait for quite a while before our turn. This meant that we got to see everyone else's reactions: some, reassuringly, came out laughing, but an awful lot of girls ran out shrieking...

My experience with haunted houses is nonexistent, so I can't compare -- but I thought this one was pretty creepy. It was only one room, but they had done it up as a maze. You had to go through a variety of doors that opened onto hanging headless Barbie dolls or tableaus of murder scenes. They also had a variety of tasks, communicated entirely in Japanese -- luckily, the kids knew what was going on -- the completion of which usually resulted in masked and costumed actors jumping out and shooing you along. I wasn't really scared, but I had no desire to stay in there any longer than necessary.

Getting through, and out, though, was complicated by the girl. She had been looking not-so-good while we were waiting, and as soon as we got inside she was utterly terrified. Terrified in a I-am-going-to-cling-full-strength-to-the-waist-of-this-person-I-barely-
know-and-refuse-to-move kind of way. (She did keep apologizing the entire way through, though.) I had to literally haul her through the entire thing, especially when we had to go through a door. Left to her own devices, I'm not sure she'd ever have gotten out. Once she did, she collapsed onto the floor in hysterics. It was both awkward and very funny.

Possible plans are in the works for an ALT-run haunted house next year. Maybe we'll have two paths -- one scary and one not-so-scary...

"It's a great day in the morning, people...

... victory is mine!"
--Joshua Lyman, The West Wing

I remember the first time I felt like I had to apologize for my nationality. I was fourteen years old, in ninth-grade World Geography, in early November 2000. Mr. Wingard had arranged for some people from Central America to come and speak with our class, and at one point one of them asked: "What do you think of your President?"

"We don't have a President," said the class clown. (Remember 2000? Doesn't it seem like a long and painful time ago?)

When the laughter subsided, the Central Americans persisted -- they meant, what did we think of Bill Clinton? Being white, middle-class kids in a New England school, we said we thought he had done all right. I remember their looks of disapproval and disappointment, and I remember the foot-shuffling, shame-faced quiet that fell over the class. Clearly they knew something we did not. Clearly there was another side of the story, one that we all felt we needed to, but couldn't, apologize for.

In the intervening years, I have wondered many times whether the apology of a citizen can help atone for the sins of the leader, and whether the apology of one person can atone for the monumental apathy or simple stupidity of an entire nation. I went to school in Canada for reasons beyond competitive tuition. I have never gone so far as to put a Canadian flag on my backpack -- but there has certainly never been an American one there, either. I was pleased when our (Canadian) adviser here told me that I was the most Canadian-sounding American he'd ever met, and when a friend told me that I spoke with such an odd accent that she hadn't believed at first that I was American.

I have come of age under the Bush Presidency. And so ever since I was old enough to know better, being American has not been something to shout from the rooftops.

That changed this afternoon. At exactly 1.01 pm Tokyo Standard Time, I became proud to be an American for the first time in my adult life.

People told me I'd remember 9/11 for the rest of my life, but I prefer these moments, as they were jotted down on the first piece of scrap paper I could find:

13.01: I have just watched the BBC election tracker color California, Oregon, Washington, and Virginia blue, and rack Obama's electoral college score up to 297. I am in disbelief. I am waiting for something to go wrong.
13.24: McCain is conceding. I am marking quizzes.
13.26: Sarah Palin looks like she has half a head. The woman can't find her light, but she wanted us to elect her Vice President?
14:01: Obama is making his victory speech. I am ignoring class notebooks.
14.05: I have to go supervise cleaning time. Damned cleaning time.
14.12: McCain had one flag. Obama has like eight.

What I wouldn't give to have been in America for the past two days -- hell, the past three months -- hell, the past two years. I thought it was bad to miss the 2004 election. I can't believe I've missed this one too.

This is so big, and so wonderful. I feel like I am flying.

In more local, but equally joyous, news, a 25-year-old whose prior political experience was with the Maine People's Alliance (which is just as Birkenstocks-y as it sounds) managed to clinch 72% of the vote and is headed to Augusta as the District 15 State Representative. I am as proud and happy as if I'd gone to school with him instead of his kid sister. Congratulations, Adam!

And congratulations to everyone who considers "liberal" or "progressive" or "socialist" to be a badge of honor rather than an insult. It has been a long and painful road, but it's our time in the sun.