grey
they/them
they/them
Intentions Before the Trip- Friday January 24th, 7:56 pm, CST
Today, as I was discussing this trip with the folks close to me, many of them reminded me a simple, yet important lesson...remember to have fun.
I'll admit, one of the most exciting things about this is blogging, I've always wanted to be apart of a blog, but didn't have the courage to do it yet, now I kind of have to.
Today I took in all the "Americanness" I could. I ate a bean burrito my mom made me (thank you), I got a venti at Starbucks so I could stay up until we leave tomorrow. I didn't go to school, I spent a lot of time outside. It was foggy and rainy, and the sky was the ethereal grey that I named myself after; my favorite weather. I took it all in.
A part of me feels bad about leaving. A lot of my friends are way more excited about this trip than I am. The lack of excitement yet has more to do with my anxiety, and less to do with this experience. It would be easier to stay home because of my fears of staying in a stranger's house, traveling with nineteen other people, or my Japanese not being understood.
This trip for me is as much as overcoming my fears, as much as it is a fun, transformative experience.
Writing this to set some intentions, so I could hold myself to them while on the trip.
On this trip I intend to let go, relax, and to be somewhere far away and to enjoy that distance away from my reality.
I intend to connect with my host family through language.
I intend be present and grounded.
I intend to come back with some stories to tell.
There's something about saying "I'm going to Japan tomorrow"
"You're really going to another country tomorrow"
"Yeah"
Doesn't feel real yet.
~ grey 8:31 CST
Day 1- 6:54 am Tokyo Time
so I didn’t write last night because there wasn’t much to say besides “I’m tired”. Right now I’m significantly less tired. I’m in the hostel right now, we’re chilling. I watch Spirderman on the plane with Asia yesterday, annnd almost drank out of an abandoned day-old Starbucks cup at the airport with Ivette. We went to Japan also. Lots of masks at the airport because of corona virus. Also noticed some folks wearing American baseball caps, New York Yankees and Dodgers, and I the folks wearing it looked super fashionable too, I wonder if American is an aesthetic here. Japan is definitely an aesthetic in the states. The fashion here, I love the long coats everywhere.
I feel like I’m on a different planet. There airport sterile, it in like in a futuristic movie where the robots kill everybody. And the uniforms for everything are different; a lot of plain white shirts, and suit jackets, like people dress here very simple. The police give off different vibes here, and I want to know a little bit more about the history of police in Japan. Also this society has almost no crime.
Also the vending machines everywhere. My card from the last time I was here worked, I bought some tea. I bought 5 おにぎり at the 7/11, and I ate two. I don’t know if the three left are still good. update I ate one, just not the fish part so I should be good.
I ~already~ feel like I’m on a different planet in the U.S., but here I feel like I'm on a different planet in a different way, the difference comes from nationality. I don’t know what’s going on with Japan, I don’t know history or how it is right now on the global context. I was in customs looking at people’s passports and I noticed they were all different colors and remembered there are folks out here living in different worlds (I perceive them as different because in the U.S. our world is considered “normal” and everywhere else is “different"). And I didn’t see anybody fighting or talking loudly in public, which I think happens a lot in American cities.
Going to Tokyo today, probably gonna be late to Breakfest and I’m late to kind of everything. Right now I feel tired. Ready for an adventure as always. Taking it all in. I still don’t know how to intellectualize me going to japan.
Monday January 27th - 11:54pm Tokyo Time
I’m not going to tell y’all what you did. Mostly because anybody could tell you that. I’m not just saying this because sensei said it.
In the morning I remember standing outside the JR ticket buying place in the middle of the street with lots of people walking around us, and that was the start/continuation of being aware of us Americans being disruptive in spaces. (Last night we were not standing in strieght line on an escalator. standing in a row on an escalator is custom in Japan). I also tried to look at people walking around us to find a clear class distinction, I tried to find a clear marker in a change of clothing or some change in a visible difference that would mark the hierarchy of the society (for the U.S. it’s race). I couldn’t find anything. I wonder about how conformity/nonconformity is in Japanese society. I about how disability is seen, both physical and mental disabilities. I saw some folks in wheelchairs, but not a lot of people. I wonder how emotions are expressed here, I notice that no one yells or is aggressive towards us Americans even though we’re being rude and deserve aggression or some expression of anger. Also wondered what would it be like to live in an homogenous society? I’d imagine that looks wouldn’t matter as much and people’s identities would center of off something else. That or, maybe people are more defined by what they have in common then their differences.
On the train ride to the Museum of the Future, I noticed the color pallet was really dull, but consistent. A lot of black, blue, white, pastel colors everywhere. Not a lot of bright colors or loud people. I feel like the indigenous people I descended from wore bright colors and are loud, so I felt that contrast with me being in Japan. The beginning of the day I was trying to determine if I was supposed to be in Japan. Japan is a nation that had very clear boundaries about people entering their country, and the U.S. violated those boundaries, and me being in Japan is a result of that. I wonder if Japanese people worry about being colonized (or some sort of neo-colonization) by the U.S. I see it everywhere. I see it in the Starbucks in the middle of 上野 park, and the Coco-cola Japanese-style vending machines.
In the Museum of the Future, the idea is that the museum is boarderless and unified, and coming from the U.S. at first sounded like a joke. Inside the museum though I thought it was legit. I thought it was a celebration of the sacredness nature, and definitely the sacredness of ancestors, and emphesizing being in the moment. That’s the kind of energy I needed to be centered today. Ivette and I were just kind of wondering around and we went into The Nest which is this suspended trampoline in a dark room we laid on. A movie that showed on the ceiling about space . I wish I knew what it represented or that I took it seriously. I remember the music being really quiet then getting loud all of a sudden and laughing at how dramatic it was. We entered at 11:45 got back by noon, just in time to meet our group. And I got five おにぎり yesterday when sensei only wanted me to get two. World-class finesser, meaning I now finesse in Japan.
Lunch was pancakes. Lunch is when I started to let go and stop taking notes. The mall we went was Roman (I think) artitecture which was strange because we’re in Japan. Also an example of colonization/whiteness.
We went to a shrine, I want to name, I don’t know how to interact with Shinto shrines as a non-Japanese person. I feel the shrine may have never been open if it weren’t for their potential for monetary value in the tourism industry, since only Japanese people can really practice Shinto. I didn't pray at the shrine, and I don’t know what the “right” thing to do is. I don't think I act a fool at the shrine but maybe I did. I bought from the shrine. I bought a talisman for my friend, and one for myself. I want to name I don’t know the cultural significance of Shinto talisman.
For the flower exhibit I remember being cold and enjoying the flowers. I think Japan's reference for nature is beautiful, and reminds me of other indigenous cultures that revere nature.
Yesterday I said that Japan was a different planet. I'm thinking maybe the U.S. is the different planet. Someone told me they saw a Japanese child on a train playing with a toy gun. The toy gun looked real. And the child was “shooting” at people. Here, people getting shot is something that happens in movies.
Later we went to the black market in Tokyo. Drew and I were walking around. So we went into a casino, we thought it was an arcade at first. We looked at all the floors, Drew noticed that the lower floors have a lot brighter lighting than the higher floors and we don’t know why. As we walked around nobody looked at us. They were immersed in the games. It looked addictive. There seemed to be lots of buisness men, and it looked like people came alone, not necessarily with friends. I wonder what brought them there. Also noise from games everywhere.
Also also, I bought a cap. I really like it. On the back it says “Don’t walk, but run”. It was pretty expensive, felt scammed but I felt the money went to a good cause. And got the black market experience.
Dinner got some sobs noodles and just chilling.
By the time I went to Skytree I was falling asleep. I think I drain myself with all these thoughts. I try to turn off thinking too much, but I can't turn it off yet. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.
I want to let y'all know that in addition I'm having fun and connecting with folks traveling with me on this trip, and laughing a lot, and (at least on the outside), not taking this too seriously.
Wednesday Jan 29th, Shinkansen to Aomori 12:56pm JST
So I'm on the Shinkansen, a lot a lot happened yesterday. I think I would've been satisfied with the day even if we went home after we ate lunch. I didn't write last night about it because I needed to rest to process everything before I could write about it publically.
So yesterday we visited Meiji Shrine. I've visited Meiji shrine before, and there I wasn't ~that~ moved, yesterday though I was for multiple reasons. First, it was raining. Meiji shrine is in a forest in the middle of Tokyo. I understand this forest, nature and Shinotism as centering and grounding Japan, it reminds everyone where Japan started. Shinto is Japan's indignious relgion. Ingiineity in Japan shows up everywhere, and that's why I wanted to come here. Shinto is thousands of years old, and there are still Shinto shrines in major cities like Tokyo.
I cannot overstate how remarkable I think that is. This is because the only experience I have with indingious relgions is thinking of them as dead, or something in the past. The relgions of my ancestors, and the indingious relgions of the people indingous to North America shifted, and sometimes died or faded into obsurity because of efforts by colonizers to assimilate black and brown folks. Phrase I've been hearing, and thinking about a lot is "Kill the Indian, Save the Man", meaning it was the intention of colonizers to destory the culture, and hummanity of black/indingous folks, but keep our bodies for free labor. I don't know which indingous people's I decended from because of colonization, thus I cannot really practice a religion ~that~ grounded because I don't even know who I really am yet.
In Japan, Japanese people seem to know who they are, and still practice that. And were able to hold onto it for thousands and thousands of years. I don't think the sacredness of indingous relgions like Shinto can be overstated.
At the shrine itself, I felt a resonsiblity to attempt to go back to the states to learn and to normalize indignous relgions of the Americas, and African traditonal relgions. I wanted to do that before I came, but seeing the shrine and seeing the society that was built off of Shinto reminded me of how important that is.
I liked Emporor Meiji's philophy of interacting with the West to take what Japan wanted from the West, and still maintain Japanese culture. I liked holding the West and Japanese culture at the same time. It reminded me that embracing indingeity, and taking some aspects from industralization/capitalism in order to survive, those aren't mutually exclusive, it seems Japan does both. It doesn't compermise.
[disclaimer: Also want to name I'm not being critical of Japan right now, and that there is a lot to be critical off, especailly considering Japan was/probably is a colonizer.]
Before we entered the shrine, sensei enouraged us to pray at the shrine, I felt more okay about it because I understood that I'm not practicing Shinto (I can't), but I feel like I need to awknowledge this holy places a way that's respectful of the shrine. So I did the Shino ritual for praying out of respect for the place, but I wasn't practicing Shintoism.
[to be continued]
Thursday January 30th 4:33pm JST
so I understand I'm a few days behind, and that's okay. Back at Meiji Shrine, while I was buying some tailsmen, I heard the Taiko drum playing and my friends and I ran over to the main part of the shrine. In the center we saw a lot of men in suits doing the praying ritual, and some priests standing by their side. I don't know who the people in suits were or why they were there, I thought it was really inspiring to see people do this ancient ritual in modern attire. Japan likes keeping it's traditions alive.
After I saw that, I bought some tailsmen, then I went over to the museum by Meiji Shrine with Stephon and Ivette. The museum itself was really pretty. I remember we bought our tickets on a screen for student price, and there was a place to put our umbrellas right outside the museum. The museum had an exhibit called "A Year in the Forest" about the "eternal sacred forest" that is Meiji Shrine. There are so many ancient seasonal ceremonies and traditions, and dances, and poetry, and items that people use for ceremony. I took lots of notes, but I could never understand it all. Shinto like most things is infinitely complex. There's a summer camp at Meiji Shrine which is awesome. Every detail at that shrine is very intentional and done with a sacred purpose. There was also an upstairs with possessions of Emperor Meiji, which included his pencils (imagine being so noteworthy that your pencils are in a museum). There was this painting of a crecent moon and the sun I really liked, I hope I find it somewhere again.
I found Ivette and Stephon after I went to the exhibit. They were looking for me, and asked a person that worked at the museum where I was. She described me as having フワフワ hair, which I don't know what that means. Update, junko sensei told me it means fluffy.
[to be continued]
Friday Jan 31 6:53 am JST
After we went to Takashita Street, we had around an hour, there was a lot of things to buy there. I don’t really care for shopping and folks I was with we didn’t buy a lot of things. The shops were all colorful and interesting. A lot of shops has big name brands like Campion, or Converse, or Playboy. I know someone found some knock off Jordans. There was some grunge shops, and some Hip Hop Shops, we went to the hip hop shop because we heard Cardi B. And a McDonalds. I’m starting to realize these giant corporations are truly international brands and kind of made me realize they’ve kind of achieve world domination, literally. Kind of glad I didn’t buy anything, but I kind of felt bad I didn’t buy and thing at the same time. I wanna get some skincare things while I’m here but don’t know which brands to trust. And some candy for the mailbox for SOAR.
Then we took the train down to somewhere, I don’t remember, this little neighborhood in Tokyo. Neighborhood seemed very out of the way. And we got conveyor belt sushi and it was a lot of fun. I liked that the computer only allowed people to order four items at a time, as to not overwhelm the waitstaff. We ordered so much, the plate stack was almost taller than our heads. And we got matcha ice cream. Jada was adventurous and tried a sea urchin, At the table next to us, Evan’s stack of plates was as tall as our entire table, we ate so much.
After, Samurai Museum. My friend back home Nimkii told me not to go to that museum because it’s a tourist trap so it was funny I ended up going. I really liked the museum, especially the timeline of the eras of Japanese history that was in the handouts, and I liked learning the details of the eras and a little bit about how Japan faithfulness wars. And I liked learning about the countries that Japan traded with, the countries were Hokkaido, South Japan (don’t know the name), Holland, China, and Korea. And and Japan got two guns from the Portuguese. One to shoot with, and one to study how to make guns. And Japan got a daughter of an emperor to marry a royal in Portuguese to get trade secrets about the gun. And Japan avoided getting colonized by Mongolia so many times. All this happened before Columbus slaughtered native people in what we now call the Americas. People haven’t changed that much, that’s why I like history, history is a bunch of wild stories. There was a story about a sword master that never lost in his life, legend has it that he could catch flies with chopsticks.
At the samurai museum we saw a performance, it was a samurai and ninja fighting. Both the samurai and the ninja did a ritual for protection before they taught, and the samurai took a moment to ground before fighting, and in the moment expressed gratitude for the audience. I like that in Japan there seems to be a lot of thought and intention before creating something. Also I learned that ninjas are farmers that would work privately as spies which is cool. Samurai is more of a class, one has to be born a samurai from a line.
After the ninja and samurai fought, they created a fight seen with a child in the audience, and the child fought the ninja and samurai, and it was so sweet.
We went outside and it was rainy, and cold, and pretty with the neon lights. Pretty because we’re a bunch of high school students in a little neighborhood in Tokyo sharing umbrellas. We walked over to the robot restaurant. While waiting for sensei to buy tickets we stood outside of the entrance. It had a giant statue of a robot with a flag of Brazil and a flag of Japan. There was a chair suspended in the air in front of the one could sit on. And there was this woman that worked there holding a sign, and she just bopped to the music like we were in a video game, and she didn’t miss a beat for like the whole 15 minutes we were out there. The people who work in Japan are really something else.
So we get inside the robot restaurant eventually. Not going to give details, but in a word it was very bizarre, and at the same time I’m glad I went because I felt I learned about Japan uses its culture and other people’s cultures for profit.
[to be continued]
Friday Jan 31 12:12pm JST
so after we went to Robot show, we had a meal. I really enjoyed both the meal and the folks I was with. Had tempura. We all ordered in Japanese which was cool.
I think we went to the hotel after that, I do not remember. I remember being very exhausted. After the robot show I started blocking things out, because I was too tired to notice the details like I usually do. I went right to sleep when we got back.
On day three, a couple days ago. We were riding the Shinkansen. Favorite part was buying the bento boxes and buying the capsule toys. In the U.S. bento lunches are an aesthetic, but here they’re really practical. It makes sense that places that sell bento lunches are at train stations, folks could get lunch for the long rides. Also bought a capsule toy, I really like it. It’s a toy bento box with mini おん にぎり. I got some sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves, the leaves really added flavor. Also while waiting in the train station we were talking about how we needed this trip. Being away from school, not being confined to a building is freeing.
On the Shinkansen I slept, and wrote the blog. I was so tired. When we got to the station, it was grey and rainy, still my favorite weather. I ate the bento, and Jada showed me all her pictures from the days prior (they’re so good), and then we slept for like an hour until we got to the hotel.
So this hotel is really really nice, it’s a luxury resort. Initially, the hotel didn’t want us to come, but sensei booked us online and we came anyway. There was a person at the desk that explained to us all the hotel rules and he explained in Japanese per our 先生 request. The person actually wasn’t a native speaker we found out, he grew up in Arizona. “If you live here you can speak that good”.
Got our room keys, went up to our room. Japanese style room with tatami and slippers and bathroom slippers, and had three western beds and a view of the creek with the woods in a background. The general energy was how did we get here, how is this happening. And for me that energy has been pretty consistent the entire trip.
[to be continued]
Friday Jan 31 3:35 pm
So we get to the hotel, and change into a Yukata which are pajamas, and we all wear them to dinner. Dinner was at The Apple Kitchen, the place we are; 青森 (あおもり) (Aomori), is known for its apples. There was a chandelier of red circles resembling apples. We walk in and there’s a gourmet buffet, and the food seemed endless. I remember seeing the spaghetti on a plate next to roe which looks kind of like caviar, next to lots of sashimi, next to curry, next to the best apple juice in the world. Desert was apple pie with soft serve ice cream. Apparently no trip has ever stayed here this nice. I felt like royalty. It was the kind of place that my dad would surprise us with. We walked in and we heard a chorus of greetings and bows by the chefs, and we looked at each other like What is happening. We’re at a resort. A resort. Dinner was delicious. After we went on a tour seeing the illuminations of various ice waterfalls lit up with LED lights, which was cool. The tour was led by Mr. Riverside and the driver was Mr. Rock (literal translations of their names). Since that tour Mr. Riverside has become somewhat of a legend on the trip, we make up so many fictional stories about it. I really really like how even people's names here are related to the land that they live on, and so is the food. Nearly all the food seems to come from here. And the cars. Every car here is a Japanese brand. I remember being so tired after the tour, I fell asleep on the bus, so after dinner I went to sleep.
Yesterday, we had Breakfast at 7am. Same quality meal as the night before. I had an Oreo Scone and some fish, and salad, and rice, and some apple juice. Every morning there was this one brewing apple juice in front of the restaurant and it was so good. That day was snowshoeing day. After breakfast I went upstairs and and called my parents and it felt really good to talk to them. I was in the 10 am snowshoeing group and I ended up being left behind because I was late and got lost, I’m consistently late to everything. The first time I was on time to something on this trip was Breakfast on Day Four, that includes arriving at the airport for this trip (I was late for that). I felt really bad about missing it. I kept looking for the activity center even after I knew they left. I ran into sensei, and I told him about it and I told him I was going to take a walk. “Where?” “I don’t know where I’m going” “Well then you can’t get lost if you don’t know where you’re going”.
And I just walked for a while. I wanted to listen to my emo music but I didn’t have my AirPods. The walk was really beautiful. I beat myself up for being sad because of how beautiful it was. I was in the middle of the woods by this bridge and a creek. I called my dad because we just talked this morning and I didn’t want to feel alone, and that helped a lot. On the bridge I saw a snowman, and I built another one on the other side of the bridge. I walked until there was a dead end then I turned around. Didn’t get lost cause I couldn’t.
I saw Jada and Rho when I was walking back and they made me feel better, just their presence. Jada was trying to throw a snowball at a branch, so the snow from the branch could hit Rho. I walked with them for a minute then turned back to the hotel, cause I wasn’t gonna be late for lunch.
So I had lunch with my roommates and Yokota 先生 and had Apple Curry, and it was so good, and we talked about going to KJ, I’m just starting to realize how soon that is. Yokota 先生 reminded us we have a pretty special experience because we’re in high school and we get to be in the home of a family rather than a dorm like one would be in college. And likely no one in the family will speak English besides the host student, and the host family may have never talked to a non-Japanese person before. I’m intimidated, but I feel like I’m this point in time I could prepare for the experience, and when I’m there I’ll try to just go for it. Also a reminder for myself, the worst thing for a host family is for me to be in my room alone because they feel they’re not doing a good job. I don’t know how I’m going to negotiate that yet because I need space to chill and not talk to people, and I’ll figure it out when we get there.
After lunch we went on a trip to a place where you can ski on this mountain. There was a lot of people in camo gear, we don’t know if they’re ski portal or from the military. I don’t know what it was called. We couldn’t ski so we ended up riding the gondola (a first for me), and on the hill we had a snowball fight, juniors vs. seniors. Had a fun I fell in the snow a lot. Milo got a lot of good pictures of everybody, we took lots of pictures. There were some mountains and some fog in the distance, and it wasn’t that cold but there was lots of snow. The snowballs got bigger and bigger, I remember one had to be carried by two people before it was dumped on someone. I’m not big on like any kind of fighting and it was still fun.
We walked back to the hotel, there was a big mountain in the distance and the sun was almost aligned at its peak as it was behind the clouds.
When I got back, I called my family, my sister wanted to say hi but by the time I called she was already asleep.
So I was trying to get on the next snowshoeing group since I missed mine. I came down at 3 and hoped for the best. 先生 told me if the hotel wouldn’t let me go, he’d give up his spot for me, which was so sweet.
We ended up all going, and had a great time.
[to be continued]
Saturday Febuary 1st, 2020 4:36 am
Hi y'all, so right now we're at the second resort it's the morning of our first day. Also before I get into it, today is the first day of Black History Month. My sister Nora made a playlist for it a couple years ago called "🖤blkswan🖤" and I'm listening to it while I'm writing this.
So something about snowshoeing, I find it really easy to fall in them. I fell into a tree. I really like the trees here. Our tour person told us about Japanese birch trees, their leaves are really hard. I didn't completely understand what the tour guide said about them, but I wanna learn more about them.
So we walked on snow. We saw some rivers and some creeks. It was so pretty. I made a snowball and held on to it to stay grounded because I noticed I was getting worried about the future as I always do. Being in nature, I don't think there's any comparison to the feeling felt in nature. I liked touching all the snow and the trees. Sensei had these gloves that warmed themselves. We took a group photo in front of the creek. We also climbed a really steep hill with snowshoes. It felt so good when we all got to the top. I didn't need help climbing, but Stephon offered to pull me up and like I appriciate that. A lot of the days here and activities fly by, that was one of them.
I went upstairs and I had around an hour before dinner. Had a lot of deep conversations that night, my favorite kind of conversations, the ones about the world and the future, and belief systems, and hopes and dreams. I’m actually starting to love the folks I’m traveling with, which is something I wasn’t expecting. I don’t go to the little get togethers in the hotel rooms, and still I’ve still been able to connect with folks.
After dinner I was sitting in a message chair watching, giving feedback sometimes on folks taking a martial arts assessment, a lot of us take martial arts here. Mr. Villonueva would be so proud, the folks taking the assessment wore 浴衣, which are casual Japanese bathrobes.
So this resort is a bathhouse (kind of like Spirited Away, was getting Spirited Away vibes). So I can’t use the 温泉 （おんせん）(onsen), which are public baths, they’re separated by sex. I fit into the binary...in any way, and there wasn’t a private baths at this resort. I’m not the only one who can’t use them, but the reason why I’m pretty sure is unique to me. Had some more deep convos post-martial arts assessment, we talked pretty much until we were all tapped out, and then I went to sleep at like 9.
So the next day (now yesterday), I got up really early. I made a Google Calendar invite for an event back home at 2am, I miss folks a lot. I got all my luggage packed up, and cleaned out after breakfast. We went on a little tour of the area, saw some waterfalls and parts of the creek, and some little snowman which was pretty. Our tour guide gave us the entire tour in Japanese, we’ve been learning some words. Learned that 滝 （たき）taki, is waterfall. Learned some animal words like 熊 (bear). I vibed with the little exhusertion. Then we took a bus up to the largest mountain in the area.
I was late to the bus, but luckily didn’t get left. I was warned I can’t be late with my host family. Starting to learn more and more people take time literally here. “Late” to me is being like 30 minutes late (depending on the event), not one minute late. Like usually show up to work like 30 minutes late and we’re usually just starting by then, it’s part of the culture. But here “late” is being on time. Even the trains come two minutes early so people can put on their luggage and the train could leave on time. The diffference between the way I (and many African nations, and a lot of black and brown folks in the U.S.) conceptualize time and how Japan does is polychronic time vs. monochronic time if you’re into that. Both Japan and the U.S. are monochronic societies. (Japan is ~more~ punctual than the U.S.).
I'm really trying not to be late anymore, so I'm finishing this blog up for now. We're almost caught up, almost almost.
[to be continued]
Monday February 3rd 2020- JST, sometime when I was about to fall asleep
So this blog is written out of order. At this point I’m relatively behind, so I want to start with my host family. The days before my host fam, the day we went on the mountain, and the next day we went to Hirosaki city, which is a small town with a small castle. I have pondering from those days I’ll write about later. I don’t think it will diminish the quality that much because I remember most things. I was also in my feelings both of those days, mostly feeling confused and nervous. Being around people 24/7 (literally), I’m starting to like people and people are starting to like me, and that’s when my anxiety happens; and I theorize about all these different scenarios of interacting with people. So because I was in my feelings, I felt I was a lot less perceptive than I was in the previous blog entries. I’m trying not to get too much in my own head though.
I think there’s a special feeling getting off a Shinkansen and meeting a crowd of people with welcome signs waiting to take you home. My student’s name is 菜々子 (ななこ) (nanako). I don’t want to put all of her fam’s information on the internet, naming that writing about the home stay I’m trying to find a balance with protecting privacy, and talking about my experience.
So we walked from the train station, I was in the station for around two minutes, I think we were the first to leave. Nanako lives near the train station so we walked to her house, I was so overwhelmed. She asked me what I did yesterday and my mind blanked for a good ten minutes. We had a good conversation though, we talked about Disney princesses, she told me her favorite one is Cinderella and mine is too. We got home and I met the fam, my host fam is my student 菜々子 and her younger sisters 桃子 (ももこ) (momoko) and 璃子 (リコ) (riko). I think 桃子 is in middle school and 璃子 is in elementary school. They told me their ages but I forgot. There’s also an お爺さん (ojiisan) (grandpa) that lives here, but I rarely see him. I gave my family my omiyage and they made me some tea, and the father showed me some pictures from when he visited Chicago which was lovely. Also the father knows a little English which has been helpful for sure. So I get home and we went to ダイソー (Daiso) which is a Japanese dollar store, and I bought some yarn for Drew. (A couple days ago I taught Drew how to knit). On our way to ダイソー we saw a rainbow, and I asked my family what it’s called in Japanese and they said it’s a 虹 (にじ) (niji). I’m learning a lot of Japanese that way. Then we went to the cake shop and I saw Nikki. So my family bought me a cake which was so sweet. And 菜々子 invited her friend 床 (ゆか) (yuka), and Yuka is so good at English I thought she was American for a good minute. So we ate sushi, it was make your own sushi. The mom taught me how to make it after I failed at making it a few times, it was pretty fun. My host fam is so sweet. And I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, they asked how long the flight was, asked about Valentine’s Day in America, they asked about my music and I played them amphetamine by smino because it was the last song I listened to, and I don’t know if they liked it lol. And I showed them my house on downtown evanston and the rocks by northwestern on google maps. And we celebrated 節分 (せつぶん) (setsubun).
節分 is a Japanese holiday that marks the transition from winter to spring. It is a Japanese belief that when the seasons come, demons come, so village people threw beans at the demons to protect themselves. Setsubun is also about bringing in joy and happiness for the new season. So riko was the villager and the rest of us her the demons so basically she threw them a bag of peanuts at us and we caught it all on the floor. There’s also some candy mixed in with the peanuts, still have my bag.
Also side note, in the house there’s a lining room and a dining room with a tv in it. Last night we ate in the dining room on a table sitting on the floor, in that room there’s a traditional Japanese after (I don’t know what it’s called yet). Also before every meal we pray, saying いただきます, I feel like it’s a prayer but I don’t know what or who yet.
I have my own room upstairs too which is nice. There’s also a table that heats up (because the house is cold), and there’s one in the living room and one in my room. Also both rooms are fairly multipurpose it seems like. All the doors are sliding. Within the house there are gendered bathrooms.
After the little celebration my fam gave me a little bath bomb and I took a bath, and they explained how to take it, but luckily we had the home etiquette unit in Japanese class, so I already knew how to do it. It’s strange how abstract something seems in a classroom...and how real it feels when I’m here. I got to apply the knowledge now which is the real test. Bath was nice.
My fam offered me a hair dryer and I was like no, (politely) if I had a diffuser I would but I don’t. also they haven’t seen my hair down yet, and this is intentional since I don’t really want folks to touch my hair, other folks I’m traveling with said they had their hair touched. (As maybe you can tell I’m pretty protective of my hair).
And after the Bath I went to sleep. The transition from Shinkansen to host fam was so sudden. Some minute I’m sleeping on the train and the next minute I’m trying to explain what I’ve been doing these past days in Japanese with someone I have never met, yet am going to be living with which is way more personal than the people I interact with regularly.
I haven’t been that nervous around my fam, they’ve made me feel so welcome, and I’m kind of over my Japanese being pretty bad, it helps that two out of five people speak some English.
This morning I woke up at 6:16, got ready for school, I was ready at like 7:15. I told my host family I’m usually late to things, so I think they may have given me an earlier time then needed, because school at KJ doesn’t start until 8:55. I ate Breakfast was really good. There were some veggies and some fish and rice, miso soup and some tea. Also something else I notice, tea is drunk after meals...I feel tea cleanses the soul, I think that might be the reason why but I don’t know.
I knitted for a little bit before we went to school, I got a backpack, and got little keychains on the backpack, one is the California flag which reminds me of my fam. Nanako visited Los angeles once before. Then we drove to school, it was a pretty quiet ride, I didn’t find it awkward though. Also my family thinks it’s cool I can drive, they asked if I had an international license and I was like no lol. The driving age here is 20 (I think).
We got dropped off at school, I had to find some slippers. I went to the classroom and saw the other trippers. We’ve been spamming our group chat whenever we’re not together. It seems a lot of folks are having these very elaborate/expensive experiences, all of the activities with my family have been at home doing normal things which is what I appreciate the most.
[so I feel asleep in the middle of writing this]
Wednesday February 5th, 2020 7:08pm JST
hi y'all. so overwhelmed isn't really the right word, because this is a pretty good experienced. I guess how I was feeling (especially last night) could be described when I come home in my room and I can still hear noise even though it's quiet, like I can "hear" the silence. When I was in Marching Band after the drums played really loud, I'd enter a quiet room and hear the silence. That's how I feel about this trip, the moments to be and breathe were pretty rare yesterday.
So these past two days I've mostly been at KJ in classes. Something I've realized here, it all moves so fast, I forget things that happened pretty easily, luckily I take/took a lot of notes these days when I wasn't blogging. Right now I'm in my host family's living room. Something to note is that they use their landline, which is pretty cool. It's ringtone is Behtoven. Eurocentrism is so global, I'm starting to realize that more and more.
This isn't necessarily a record of what happened, but rather some contemplations I've been having so far with the trip.
So in Japan, there's Classical Japanese history and Japanese History, I haven't really found a clear distinction between them. Classical Japanese seems to study more old Japanese literature, and Japanese history seems to be more like what happened. So the history book starts in around 700 AD and goes til the present (I think), which is facinating. I've looked through the history book a few times, once in history class, and one the next day in math class. There was this boy, his name is Kentaro, I had him write his name so I wouldn't forget it. So we were in the back of in class in math class yesterday (Tuesday 2/4), and we were talked about how the math cirriculumn in Japan vs. America is a lot different, then he asked me why I came to Japan (a lot of people been asking me), and I talked about wanting to learn about Japanese History. I explained that ETHS has a lot of history classes; American, African American, Chicano, European; but it doesn't have any cirriculumn covering Asia, so I want to learn more. (also kind of ridiculous how the U.S. ignores the most populous contident, but whatever). So Kentaro pulls out the history textbook and starts explaining some history, how Japan had lots of different types of money and the shrines, and showed me a famous Japanes painting (apparently the most famous), with two （かみ）、on opposing ends, I want to put it hear when I find it. I saw the famous Japanese painting of the wave, and I told him a lot of Americans put it on their clothes, and he seemed interested in that, because it doesn't seem like it's a very important painting in Japan. That interaction was easily my favorite moment of the day. Later we were in English class, and Kentaro said he taught me some Japanese history in math class, and the English teacher (湯助 先生）(yusuke sensei), was like "In math class?" and like the class laughed. The math teacher saw us talking though and didn't mind.
The first thing the math teacher said when he walked in is "I don't know how to speak English" beacuse he saw me and Riley in the room.
There seems to be a lot of ways that KJ/my host fam is trying to accomedate English speakers, and some folks seem apologetic when we can't understand things, like it's okay. I know in the U.S. most teachers do not try to accomedate the KJ students outside of the Japanese program.
Also something I noticed about math class is that they use letters for variables like we do, which to me looks kind of out of place in Japan.
Something to note about English, and English class, is that speaking English is really important to people here, and it seems to people in general. In English class myself and a lot of students were asked to speak lists of vocab words and have Japanese students mimic our pronouciation. Today after school I was asked to read a couple pages of a book out loud in English, and as I read it everyone started to stare at me and after I was finished they aplouded, although it wasn't impressive at all. Here, even though we're in Japan there's a lot of channels in English I could watch. Also everyone at this school has to take English, I explained to Kentaro that at ETHS we could take whatever language we want. Nanako was talking to me about how English was the most important language, and I said that even though a lot of people speak it, I don't think it's the most important. I was in a global studies class and we were talking about globalism and they asked me if I thought globalism was good, and I was like yes, and they said Americans think it's bad which is true. Like the U.S. really should not be supreme and be imperialist, etc. etc. I don't know how to talk about imperialism, in an intellectual way, but I can definitely feel it here.
It's starting to dawn on me how the culture of the U.S. is exported, and a lot of media in the U.S. is global. Like Japanese children are growing up with media of white Americans in their homes, which to me is so bizzare. And having U.S. media being exported means that a lot of the time Japanese people might not see themselves in shows (I could be wrong, and and it seems Japanese people aren't represented in shows in a global context). And that means that all the American media, the racism in that media is exported too.
Today, I have mostly been in art class, either drawing or knitting or reading the Hate U Give. (shout out to Em Roth who let me borrow it). This book really helped me today, because it's so dense with references to black american culture, it reminds me of home. A lot of people around me asked me what I was reading, including my host fam, so I showed them the Japanese version of the trailer for The Hate U Give. And here, situations like that; police violence, and shootings in general feel so far away. There's an aura (and reality) of safety here because I think there is such a collective ethnic and national idenity here that violence doesn't make sense; to me it seems people are a lot less divided among themselves (but again I could be wrong). Reading the Hate U Give reminds me of home though, and home for me is violent. My friend texted me this morning and told me her school was on lockdown because of a shooter and at the moment I haven't texted her back, but like the lockdown, and the fear of shootings (and actual shootings) reminded how different it is hear, I know I mentioned this before, but people don't worry about that here.
~The violence~ is such a huge part of people's lives, it's a huge part of my life, and the reasoning behind why I do a lot of the work that I do, and ~the violence~ has a lot to do with how I think. By ~the violence~ I mean the U.S.'s foundation, and it's continued existence as a gun-toting, racist, oppressive place (at least oppressive to me). Here I really don't have to think about that daily. Here, I'm at peace because I know that the ancient history of Japan is still continuous, and that the people still live and thrive here, and it's pretty likely that Japan will continue to exist for another thousand years without it being colonized (because it always has existed that way as far as I know).
Something interesting, in art class today, there were a lot of Japanese girls trying to get with some white boys on the trip, I was a wingman for some folks which felt good. Just a sidenote, white boys here get a lot of attention here, and I hope it doesn't go to their heads.
Some of my favorite moments is when I'm walking home with Nanako. Like both of us, and our families have a lot in common. We both so nervous, don't like talking to a lot of people, and at the same time we're both super sweet. For real, Nanako brings food for her whole class the past two days. Today she said she missed me (and her teachers missed me) because I wasn't in class, and it was so sweet. And like I'm very grateful that I've been able to connect with Nanako and fam, that's what I was the most nervous about.
Yesterday, Nanako and I talked about climate change and activism for a minute yesterday which was cool. I don't know how to talk about my activism in Japanese (and I don't intend to since a lot of it is about race and queer folks), but I hope there's a moment when I'm in Japan, and I speak conversational Japanese, and I could talk with Japanese organizers about the things we care about.
I know it sounds kind of cliche, but this visit to Japan, when I go back home it'll be a beginning, not an ending. This trip really centers me, because Japan itself is centered. This morning on our way to school お父さん (otousan), (the father), we went to a shrine. There was a Buddist and a Shinto shrine right next to each other, and we went to both of them. (also learned my host fam is Buddist). Right next to the Shinto shrine is a graveyard and the お父さん showed me the family grave (and I was kind of like woah, and I was so honored, I don't know if I communicated that to my host fam though). And we went to the Shinto shrine and prayed. Like my host fam lives so close to their family's grave, and the grave itself had a single kanji which is the family name (I actually don't know the family name yet). And I'm trying to find the American equivalent to what I experienced there, but I can't find one outside of ingidenous traditions to the Americas. I was talking to Evan today about assimilation and about how a lot of Americans don't know their own family history. I think the lack of grounding and not knowing a family history I think might partially explain why the United States seems to lack chohesian and generally feels like such a mess.
[this is when I was called to the 風呂 (ふろ）(furo), which is the bath] so I stopped writing for the night]
9:21 (21:21) Friday February 7th, 2020 JST
So today was my last day at school. It hit when I was running up the stairs with nanako to the first last class, English, both nervous because today she’s doing her presentation.
In her presentation I was apart of it for a little bit, her presentations were about reindeers and I translated reindeer in Japanese for the class. Today was really really wholfesome. Most of my days here are, especially today. I still have a lot to be critical of for sure, but for now I’m choosing not to.
This whole trip seemed like a pipe dream, I was talking with other trippers and we were joking that we were really still flying over Alaska right now.
It’s really been an honor to be able to be here. I think the most idea I’ve taken away the most from here, is that it’s possible to be loved for existing. Today every person in my class wrote me a little goodbye note and I still have all of them, and they’re so sweet. And some folks asked me my favorite animals/my favorite foods and drew those on their notes too. I barely did anything the entire week. I spoke really bad Japanese and took a nap in the living room, and ate so much, and sat in class and read The Hate U Give during lectures.
Side note I tried to explain The Hate U Give to Kantaro today, I drew a little diagram with Japanese, of a police shooting a black person. “So in America police kill people?”
“Sometimes”
I kinda realized how ridiculous that sounds and I realized that that’s the world I’m apart of and that’s the world I’m coming back to. Kentaro didn’t talk after that moment, I think i kind of shook him but I don’t know. We’re all good though, I gave him my Line.
The thing is, is that I’m usually hated (or at least treated bogusly) because I exist, to it happens so much that I know exactly how to cope with it.
I don’t know how to cope with people being nice to me for no reason.
[this is where I fell asleep]
1:52PM Saturday February 8th
So I just left my host fam. I've been on the Shinkansen for around 30 minutes. I'm listening to my favorite songs on the Halsey album "Manic" right now, I showed nanako those songs this morning and she said she liked them, so I sent her the song name and title.
How I'm feeling right now. Very drained, liked I've given everything I had, although I've given nothing at all.
The future feels pretty uncertain right now. I don't know how I'll return to school, one thing that's for sure is that I'll be "in it" from the minute I touchdown cause the SOAR conference is in a few days, and I have a lot of unfinished projects, and homework to follow up on.
Yesterday, I called SOAR for our quarterly meeting with Campbell at 2am from Japan.
"Grey's in Japan so he's on the phone"
It was kind of impulsive to call them then, but I missed them, I missed hearing people's voices, I missed people being loud in meetings. As I was on the phone, I started to realize how insignificent my school is, and my world is. In a global context, for in general, the world is so big, and my life and the collective life of those in Evanston/Skokie is such a small part of it.
I feel like in the next few days, or maybe forever (this is kinda how my mind works, all or nothing), I feel my headspace will be in this in-between space between the U.S. and Japan, I feel I can't go back to thinking about my work in a U.S. context, I think I'll probably think about the work more in a global context.
KJ students did these presentations in English about some real issues, the one's that were most interesting to me was the on on racial discrimination, LGBT issues, and there was one on Gender Roles which was my favorite one. The people presenting to us definitely wanted our opinion of the presentations, but I didn't know how to express that in Japanese in the moment. For me it felt, for lack of better word, really funny sitting in those presentations with all the idenities I carry, I'm starting to realize I'm apart of a world that not a lot of folks have access to.
The gender roles group's project was to make a picture book that distrupted current sterotypes and they read it to young children, my sister Nora, and some folks in SOAR are working on a similar project which I'm excited about, I thought it was cool that that idea is a good idea globally.
This is kind of cliche, but I think like much of this trip and for much of my life, I feel like I've been searching for a culture to claim, as if the ones that I'm already apart of aren't enough. Right now, I feel like I don't really have to look anymore, that I have all the culture that I need (and that the cultures I'm apart of are already based in ancient culture in a lot of ways). Like when trying to explain Quince's to my host fam, I was on the Wikipidia page, and Quinces are heavily based in ancient traditions of the indinginous folks of Mesoamerica, and Quinces have been a pretty normal part of my life, I don't usually realize the culture associated with them. Something I've realized that some people in Japan are very eager to claim the aesthetics of african american/chicano culture, and the language, which is appropiative...at the same time, knowing that these two cultures global recongition have kind of helped me stop trying to run away from it. I think some of my intial decision to take Japanese (as like opposed to Spanish), was based in wanting to disaccosiate from my people, and do something (like Japanese) that is considered more challenging and more aethetically pleasing (to Americans).
I'm like really glad about my decision to take Japanese, and I'm very, very thankful for sensei. I've learned a lot about Japan on this trip. A concept I read that I take with me is that whenever you learn about something, you also learn about yourself. This is very true for me.
This will probably not be the last entry, because we got a whole adventure at the airport for the next 48 hours. But ending now because we gotta get off the Shinkansen. vibes.
Airport Adventure- unspecified time on airplane, unspecified timezone
So I’m on the plane. We’re gonna touchdown in L.A. in less than an hour. This whole flight I slept, and ate, listened to music, didn’t do anything “productive” and I’m okay with that.
We were running around Hanada Airport for damn near five hours, and it was perfect. Hanada airport also a mall, and I bought gifts for the fam and friends. Also wondered around, and got some airport sushi, best airport sushi I’ve had. We walked past the Channel and Gucci shops wondering who they’re for. (Who would buy a rolly @ an airport?). Also we wore masks, cause the corona virus is out here. Senseis said we really cannot get sick on the way back because then we’d get quarantined, so we got masks. I think we all look kinda cute in a mask. We went to a store called “Books and Drugs”, and it had exactly that. Also there were grape and melon flavored kit-kats which I didn’t buy because I didn’t want to take a risk on them, might end up ordering them in the states.
I studied with some folks for the Kasajizo tests, it’s funny the senerios we’re in. Studying kasajizo at 7pm at Hanada airport. Also also played some smash, a stranger wanted to play smash with us, and we played for a minute, I won a couple times out of like six times.
Watched milo build a robot, (another one of those situations, building a robot at 1am in Hanada airport, what series of decisions got us here?).
Milo gave some folks a pep talk before we boarded per Aiden’s request. Very basketball locker room-esque.
“We’ve been down before. We know the game and we know the players, now it’s up to us”
We boarded at like 1:40 am.
“Do you think this marks the end of the trip?”
“Maybe”
A short silence before we boarded the plane holding us for around 9 hours, that was 8 hours ago.
For me the trip ends when I’m home. Since I started this at home, I wanna finish it at home. So I’m gonna keep writing until we’re back safe.
Final Entry and Reflections- 11:21 pm CST, Skokie, IL
So airport adventure, let's start there. A robot was built, a negosiation was had, chicken wings were consumed along with a margarita pizza and some mac and cheese and some popeyes. The cupid shuffle and the electric slide were preformed in the hotel lobby. Flights were delayed. Kasajizo tests, taken, robot; nearly complete. Japan was reflected upon.
Some trippers and I were reflecting on how traveling somewhere changes you, and I had a similar conversation with my dad when I got home...I didn't think so when I was in L.A., but now that I'm home, I feel like traveling definitely changed me.
I'm a lot more relaxed here, and I feel like I do things a lot more intentionally. When I got home I unpacked everything, and organized all the gifts I'm giving, and untangled a necklace for a couple hours while watching the Oscars. Something I've learned about myself is that working with my hands helps me stay grounded, and has really become a way of coping for me. I feel I usually disassociate from being around people, or around noise/media by surfing the internet, or distracting myself in some other way so I could be completely absent from what's around me. On this trip, I had to be around people, mostly around people I didn't know well, and I couldn't be completely absent from what was around me...so I learned how to deal with the anxiety that came with that. Mostly by knitting and fidget spinner. I lost the fidget spinner (.-.). I'm starting to realize how much I've experienced on this trip, not read about or talked about, but experienced...and experiencing is so valuable, experiencing is life (literally).
There are many things that I wanna study/continue to study post-trip.
I looked at my intentions, I think I accomplished them.
Finally finally, I made a lot of friends on this trip, I'm the most grateful for that. I really want us to still connect, although we won't be in spaces 24/7 anymore.
Down with Narita Airport <3
vibes.
grey
p.s., I think I'm going to keep blogging elsewhere, stay tuned. once I figure it out I'll post a link here.