Goodbye Golden Week.

It's the end of Golden Week, the late Spring bank of national holidays that we are lucky to get here in Japan. It is rainy and cold outside but inside we are baking cookies and finishing up homework. It has been a good holiday week, low-key but enjoyable.

We went to nearby Miyajima twice (seven tram stops away): once in the evening when the shops were shuttered and we saw the main hall of a Buddhist temple packed with a silent audience watching a priest retell a parable in song; again yesterday for kodomonohi (children's day) but to the other side of the island where it is crowded with trees and deer and we feel decidedly more at home.

I also managed to make tracks on my new project and clean my bedroom, banishing the cardboard boxes that had been lining the walls since the move.

It has been the first proper time off since starting this new job. I was on probation for the initial six months and was not privileged to have any paid leave during that time. Most weeks I work Monday through Saturday. This means that I have not had much time to really think about what I am doing, where I am headed. In some ways, this has been nice as it has meant just following a routine, sinking into the moment rather than overthinking things like usual. 

And yet this Golden Week has given me the time I really needed to reflect and consider. And what I realised, well, that will have to be saved for another post. 

Hope you all are well. 

Take care.

Scenes from the week

-The first week back from Golden Week is always a bit vicious but I survived somehow. 

-It was a week without any mishaps (lost paperwork, forgotten homework, teachers calling- well, S's teacher called twice but that is better than everyday).

-This was also the week when we mad cleaned the house since we were due our annual home visits from the teachers. I like the tradition and having a nice clean house at the end of the week is a bonus. Essentially, the teachers drop by for about ten minutes to get an insight into their students' home life and to talk about their progress so far. I am pleased to report that this year's visits went off without a hitch. The kids, it turns out, are indeed alright. (N needs to master long division and C is really slow with her classwork still but she's always the first the raise her hand in class now so that's an improvement).

-That tall gangly kid up there got his head shaved today for kendo (by moi, of course) so this is probably the last picture we will have of him with hair for a long time, since he is really into kendo now. (Did I mention the everyday thing? Everyday he has kendo. E.v.e.r.y.d.a.y..)

-The week saw the start of the 50 day countdown to my Japanese language proficiency exam. It is hard work, my dears. Grammar at one in the morning is not ideal but I need to pass this test. It gets easier the more I study and I actually have gotten to the point where I look forward to my nightly study sessions and have become utterly boring. But July 2 will be here too soon so I must straighten my nerd cap and go forth.

-We had a wild storm hit us today, lightning, flooding, the works. And it is still going. 

-Speaking of storms, oh my, America. Can't you give a gal some rest? Seriously. You know it is bad when American political news gets into the elementary school newspaper. My, oh my.

-I'm going to get some more coffee and return to my studies. Hope you all are well. 

xo

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Golden Week

Everything has been a mad whirlwind of activity since school started back up. It turns out that junior high school is intense. And then there is still elementary school matters and kindergarten matters and work matters and studying for the big Japanese test matters and scheming to move matters. I get dizzy just thinking about my to-do lists.

So it was a great relief to have a proper sunny Golden Week last week, a bank holiday of three days wedged up against the weekend to make five solid days of no work or school. We didn't travel off the island (Sebastian has kendo club everyday which makes it hard to go anywhere) but managed to enjoy ourselves all the same.

Golden Week from Tiffany Key on Vimeo.

xo

お散歩

Today, as I was leaving the school for my post-lunch break, a parent of one of my students stopped and offered me a lift. I politely refused, explaining that I was taking a little 散歩 (osampo- leisurely walk) which made the mother raise her eyebrows before she drove on. Twice a week I indulge in this small pleasure, to walk from the school to the shopping center where I study kanji with a cup of coffee then slowly walk back to work, stopping occasionally to study a vegetable garden or watch the crows.

Taking the same walk twice a week for over two years means I am an expert on a very small section of the planet. I watch the color of the mountains and fields shift through greens and browns. I know the succession of wildflowers and anticipate each of their arrivals.

Sounds rotate as well, the bird songs, the croaking frogs and chanting cicadas, the wind across an emerald green rice field versus a barren field in winter. Then there are the smells. The slightly sour smell around harvest time as vegetables ripen before they can be picked by the elderly farmers. The rich perfume of the sultry vines and bushes that take over the mountainsides in the summer.

In order to increase my focus during these walks, I have begun engaging in a simple drawing habit. I find a spot and for at least five minutes, I surrender to whatever I am drawing. The drawings are not beautiful and they are not meant to be: they are a form of meditation that includes my eyes and my hand while suspending my Self. To see what is there, not what I perceive to be there.

It is a privilege, I realize, to be able to meander through the Japanese countryside with a pen and notebook at hand. And yet it is also my way of reacting to the madness of this world.

I am painfully aware of all the turmoil and strife and have spent many, many, too many hours worrying about the cruel absurdities that we are all facing. And yet, I am on a small island in the middle of the sea. I can only balance the scales in my own limited fashion and this, my dears, is how I like to do it. Paper rather than screen, the music of the physical world rather than the curated inner world that I sometimes still create through my headphones.

I want to be as much here as I can be while I am here.
It will not stop nuclear war or rampant bigotry. But if I surrender my attention completely to the ceaselessly dispiriting news, then they win, those sad souls who wish to serve their own greed by doing harm to everyone else. In order to keep that from happening, I watch the dragonflies dance over the parking lot, I stop and talk to the old woman pruning her plum tree, I sit down in a cemetery and draw Jizo, the protector of children and travelers.

I go on お散歩。

久しぶりな

And that is what we call a blog break.

So, yes, we made it back to Japan. We are now beginning our third year on Gotou Island.

Right now, Colette is busy copying kanji into her daily practice notebook. She's a new 2nd grader.

Luca is washing chocolate ice cream off his face and reading a book about fruit. He's in his second year of youchien and can read in both hiragana and katakana.

Sebastian just came in at 7:30 from kendo and is eating a giant bowl of spaghetti. Because he's almost fourteen. And he's taller than me. And a new first grader in junior high school.

And Nicolai? He's got all his stuff ready for tomorrow and put the futons down and is currently playing his 3DS under the covers. He's in fourth grade now. And also does kendo though not everyday like Sebastian.

So, yeah, it's been a while. After a little bit elsewhere, I have decided to return to this space. Because across the entire internet, this little corner feels the most like home.

Hope you have all been well. xo

Giving Thanks

The dinner is finished. It was a small affair consisting of just me and the kids. Our menu was good for us: a tofurky, Syracuse salt potatoes, blanched green beans with a shoyu butter sauce, matcha ice cream, and persimmons. Now the kids are before the television, finishing up the Star Wars trilogy that they borrowed from their grandmother.

Since we are international nomads, our traditions for holidays like today are not like our neighbours'. We only do two things the same every year on Thanksgiving, here and in Japan. We talk about what we are happy for (a little bit easier of a concept for the younger two) and we collect our centrepiece from around the neighbourhood before we eat. It is a very small tradition but it is one we enjoy very much.

Among the many things listed during our gratitude rundown (including being able to live here with support from our family) was a shared excitement for the move ahead of us. For those of you who have not yet heard, we are moving back to Japan at the end of March. To be exact, we are moving back to Goto. We are definitely grateful to have this opportunity as we really feel it will be the best for everyone in our family.
Another thing we are grateful for that follows the move to Goto is that we are ever so appreciative of all those who support this move both morally and financially. Due to the short amount of time we have to raise funds for the event, we have had to start a little crowdsourcing endeavour (seen up on the right there). The response has been really amazing and we are both humbled and encouraged by everyone's support.
And last but not least, I am grateful for you, my darling reader(s). I am so glad you stick by me and my words and random thoughts. It truly means a lot and I will do my best to make this place worthy of your attention. Like by writing a little more often than every four months...

I hope you American readers are having a warm and safe holiday with your loved ones. And for the rest of you, I hope you are also warm and safe with your loved ones at hand, wherever you may be.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Homesickness Defined

Since I have become an official adult, I have moved house eleven times. And that is not counting the little transitional moves when I was just waiting for a lease agreement or a roommate or money. Eleven major moves in sixteen years. Moving with children is no easy feat and we seemed to add on an extra one in-between each move in the past few years.

Being such a pro, I know now that there is a natural process your mind needs to embark on. Feeling nostalgic for what you left behind is part of it, despite being annoying to everyone around you in the new place. When we moved to Gotou, we missed Nara. When we moved to Nagoya, we missed Gotou. When we moved here, we missed Nagoya. It is natural to long for the place you so recently called home, for your old neighbors and students. We know that no place is a utopia. It is all about what you do while you are there.

Here in Florida we are trying our best. We are job-hunting (still) and homeschooling and gardening and raising chickens and canoeing and swimming and drawing and having an all-around good experience.

The thing is, in the past decade, seven of those years were spent in Japan. We began to be shaped by Japan, in our tastes, in our outlook. Our language learning was halting but solid and ever-evolving and this too affected our minds and hearts.

I was a professional language teacher in Japan. I was qualified and connected. I knew about my students' strengths and weaknesses and talked for hours with other teachers about these things, things that would bore anyone who is not a teacher, things that bored Jason before he became a teacher. Here I teach part time at best. This last semester I felt grateful just to have a classroom, even if the registered students exceeded the capacity of the room by fifteen. I am on sabbatical from that position now, home with my kids like any working mother ever dreams about, though being fantastically broke as a trade-off.


To be broke with four kids at the age of 34 really makes you think about things. Like how up until recently we all had good health insurance. Health insurance that allowed us to walk into any doctor's office and receive treatment. Health insurance that didn't make me worried or frustrated, just grateful because I rarely ever thought about health insurance except for making sure my card was in my wallet when I went to the doctors'.

I think about how up until recently the kids went to neighborhood schools where I did not have to worry about them being bullied or eating junk food in the cafeteria. Or shot, or stabbed, or kidnapped. Where they were supported not just academically but mentally and physically as well through plenty of recess, PE, art, and music classes. Not to mention the healthy school lunches and sense of cooperation they gained by cleaning the school and serving those healthy lunches to each other.

Up until recently we had bicycles and trains and buses. We had large parks and playgrounds within minutes of our house. We had a castle with golden orcas on the roof. We had a Pokemon center and an organic farmers' market where Jason's student's grandfather sold us rice he had grown and harvested. We had a tiny bright apartment teeming with children, our children, our neighbors' children, random school mates and their siblings. We had fireworks and barbecues in the summer on the street below, we had dance festivals in the school yard behind our house with red lanterns that swayed in the evening breeze. We had our life.

We still do, of course. I am very grateful to be where we are now. To be working on our own projects instead of having to put them off until the weekend or holidays that would go by too quickly. I am able to spend my days with my kids while they are young, while they want to hang out with us still. While they believe in kobito (little people) and explain to us how to trap them (meat and whiskey works well, according to Sebastian). We get to grow an entire vegetable garden that we have to fence in, instead of a little balcony container garden tucked away from the clothes line. We get to watch our chickens devour watermelon then take the remaining rinds to the compost pile. The beach is ten minutes away and the sand is just like white sugar. We are grateful that when the grandparents were in the hospital, we were about to worry about them from the waiting room instead of the other side of the world. When we want to teach the kids about astronomy, we simply walk outside after sunset and the stars are all there.
The thing is, this life we have right now, it is meant to be just a temporary reprieve while we get back on our feet. Yet doing the latter is proving to be harder than anyone ever thought. I have a degree in a field that is very specific and considered to be basically volunteer work in the States. My resume is full of experience that makes me overqualified and under-qualified for even the most menial positions.
I try not to be disheartened by this employment drought. Instead we head out to the garden or take the dog for a walk and hunt for blackberries and fireflies.

Ten years ago we were preparing to move to Japan for the first time. We had no idea what was waiting for us there. Last year we were selling off our worldly possessions. We had no idea what was waiting for us here.

We've been told by well-meaning souls that we need to get over Japan. That that chapter in our lives in over. That our life is here now. That is easily said (and kindly meant) but there is another possibility. There is the possibility that it is not that we are not meant to get over Japan. That it wasn't just about living abroad but about living. About finding a place where two dreamers were able to take care of their kids without being completely broke. And without having to stop dreaming. Where those kids could thrive because even though their biological family was a day away by airplane, they had family in the neighbors and teachers and friends that surrounded them. Where we adults could thrive because we had resources and constant inspiration. Some people are lucky to find that in their hometowns or in a city a few states away. We just happened to find it on the other side of the planet.

So when I say I am homesick, it is not said lightly or with any disrespect for the place where we are or the people who helped get us here. We are not giving up in anyway on our life here in America but all the same, we cannot just get over Japan. It does not work like that.

Japanese Saturday School // 日本語土曜日学校

節分祭：アメリカンスタイル

Last week, Kayla of Kayla June told us about the Japanese Saturday School at the university where she teaches. I knew of Saturday schools, a popular way for expat Japanese families to keep their kids up-to-speed with Japanese culture and academics. I just did not realize that there was one in Jacksonville, our nearest city. The school started in 2011 and now serves over 50 families from the area. Starting from preschool and extending to the sixth grade, it is run by volunteer parents who use the official Japanese public school textbooks and curriculum as a guide. They are so above board that they anticipate to be recognized by the Japanese government in the coming year. Pretty rad, ne?

We attended their open house this past Saturday and were really impressed. For three hours every Saturday, Sebastian and Nico can study kanji, mathematics, and reading while making friends with other bicultural kids. Every other Saturday, Colette can join the preschool class where they sing songs, make crafts, and learn to read and write in hiragana. 

Being there amongst a crowd of bilingual/bicultural families was such a wonderful thing. We all felt it, a sense of belonging, a sense of relief. To be able to hear Japanese all around us, to be able to laugh at the same jokes, to hold our cameras high as the children threw beans at the demons: I cannot express completely what a fantastic occasion this was for all of us. You can take the family out of Japan, but you can't take Japan out of the family. 

The change in Sebastian and Nicolai was immediate. They walked differently back to the car, tall from their proud, straight spines. They stopped bickering and started helping each other, taking turns carrying their heavy bags across the campus. I knew that they had been frustrated that their bilingual/bicultural needs were not being met in the past few months, but it was not until after Saturday school that I saw what a toll it had been taking on them. It was as if the sun had been covered with clouds for the past seven months and suddenly a clear wind blew them away. 

We will definitely be going again. 

Home

Home is such a strange term for expats and travelers. Is it where you are from or where you are going? In this house we have multiple definitions for the term, multiple places that qualify. For the kids, Japan is home. Where they were born, learned to walk and talk, learned how to handle chopsticks. Even the oldest two with Florida printed on their birth certificates only really know Japan.

Japan is my adulthood, where I have given birth to two kids and raised the whole lot of them in a tiny apartment. Where I have overcome personal reservations for the good of the whole. Where I came to value precision as much as innovation. Japan suits me in many ways, the wabi sabi aesthetics, the quiet, the appreciation for nature.

Our time in Japan, five years this time, has come to a close. After losing one lackluster job and refusing a few others, I came to the realization that we have outgrown Japan. For now at least. For the way we have been here. Jason and I have figured out the work we need to do in this life and are no longer to delay or sacrifice for a petty security. I cannot justify it any longer. The distractions of being an immigrant are too severe. We need a true stability, a place where we can work on our projects and provide a healthy, loving environment for our kids.

Next month, a few days before Sebastian turns ten, we will fly home. It is to a home that I associate with childhood, a home my children will now include in their memories. We go home to family and friends, to a space large enough to contain us. We go back knowing there is a recession and determined to work and support ourselves by our own wits and hands. Frankly, as much as we love Japan, it is a relief. Jason and I are creatives with four children. Having to worry about visas and language barriers when we just want to get our work done has become frustrating. And the kids are a bit relieved too. They are relieved because we will be homeschooling them so their time will be less regimented. They are sad to lose their friends, sad to leave what they know. They are also excited about the adventure that they consider America to be. They look forward to the strange wilds of Florida, the diversity of people, the chance to play soccer and learn how to surf.

It is a huge change but it feels really right. We are ready to get on with our next chapter. Home is, after all, where the heart is. Home is my family, my work, my friends. These things are not anchored to place. Japan is home, Florida is home, this whole beautiful messed up planet is home. As we progress, humanity will eventually cease to insist on so many boundaries of perceived space. Already many of us consider ourselves to be global citizens, sharing an internationality. For our kids, I have no doubt that they will benefit from a freer world but in the end, I bet they will realize that it is not where you are but what you do while you are there that matters.

Where It's At

So despite my best intentions, I ducked away for what I thought would be a second and turned out to be three weeks. Sorry.

I have been lost in the confusion of job-hunting. The weekend before Nico started school, I lost my job. Or more accurately, I was squeezed out. It is for the best but it has left us scrambling to figure out lots of boring but important things. Like how to stay in Japan or how to pay the electricity bill. We are still working on it and I think I have it almost figured out. It is tricky though because I am sorta getting what I want. I want to work for myself, as a writer and craftsperson. I just didn't plan on it happening so soon. Puts a lot of pressure on my fledgling talents/business. I actually want a day job for a bit longer but I can't seem to find one that wants me.

You see, when a population shrinks that means there are less students and less students means less teachers are needed. Things were different a few years ago when I started my MATESOL, having the degree plus experience was the ticket to a somewhat plush university job. Now those jobs are few and far between and demand publications and Ph. D.s, for a salary that is just a bit above what I made on the JET Program. I've always considered teaching my day job so putting so much into something that would leave me too exhausted to do much more than lay on the tatami when I come home is not ideal. So I already started looking for a new path but I am also in a country where my skills are limited to the classroom. Like many other underemployed/unemployed people, I am overqualified for most jobs and under-qualified for jobs that would have been mine a few years ago. I am obsessively looking for a position and open to moving, though that is not really ideal for us right now. I have actually been job-hunting since August, to be honest. I was more discriminating then but now even the corporate chatty-chat boxes could have me.

It is frustrating but also liberating. I have figured out a way to extend my visa, get unemployment, and insurance to cover us. That is the good thing about living in a country with a social safety net (aka nanny state for my more cynical readers). I'll have three months to push harder than I have ever done before. Haru Aki will be busy, with new designs and pieces added daily. And I also have a list of articles to be written alongside my weekly short story. Now it may seem crazy but really, if anyone is going to pull this off, it is going to be me. You know why? Because this is the challenge I have been given and I don't like the alternatives. So, yeah, that's where it's at.

Wish me luck.
xo

And, like that, Nicolai entered elementary school.

We not only made it to the highly anticipated entrance ceremony, somehow it is already over. I'm pretty sure we just did this ordeal with Sebastian yesterday and yet he tells me that tomorrow he starts as a fourth grader. Though sometimes a little sneaky, he is fairly honest so I guess I have to believe him.

 

For the first time in years there will be two first grade classes at the neighborhood elementary school. Both of them have 30 plus students. In America, I am sure this would not be something to be celebrated but in a country suffering from a rapidly declining population, it is a good sign.

 

Nicolai's new teacher's name is Ruriko-sensei and she is new to the school. Luckily, Sebastian's old teacher who speaks excellent English, will be around to help Nicolai transition to elementary school life. Though his Japanese is good, it is still developing so knowing he will have a little extra support is comforting for everyone (including his new sensei, I suspect).

 

At the entrance ceremony, the sixth grade students led the first graders in which is just so utterly symbolic that you can't miss it. This year, we know quite a few of the sixth graders because when Sebastian started they were just third graders. The benefit of staying in one place for a while has been the honor of watching the neighborhood kids unfold. It all happens so quick, too quick. You can watch it but in one blink they go from babes in arms to thriving, independent adolescents, showing the new class the way.

Kakuozan Nittaiji Kobasan (Temple Market)

Today we ventured out in the surprisingly brisk March cold to the monthly temple market at Kakuozan here in Nagoya.




We were hoping it was more like a junky flea market but instead we found lots of fresh food and flowers and gardening plants and tools. Lovely to look at but not the weird cheap stuff Jason was after.
The story behind the temple is really interesting (read about it here) and the neighborhood is rather hip and full of enviable shops (wholegrain bread shop next to a Buddhist alter shop next to a chocolatier! next to a grave stone cutter next to a breakfast diner). One of the shops we visited was this fantastic European and natural toy shop called Yuubo. Such a sweet place where the kids (minus Sebastian who was still at school) played happily for about 30 minutes.

And despite the freezing temperatures and gale winds, Spring is coming. The cherry trees guarantee it...

The Graduate

With much ado and fanfare, this boy graduated from kindergarten last week. Two years vanished in a poof and now here we are with a genki, semi-literate, functionally bilingual Nicolai. Japanese kindergarten is not for the faint of heart. In which I mean lazy. It is a full-time job keeping up with all the events and activities that go on in a regular school year and before you know it, your kid is bowing to his sensei and singing sayonara to kindergarten. Literally...



We were lucky to be able to send both of the boys to private kindergartens, both valuing that critical stage of childhood by creating an environment that encouraged creativity, cooperation, and social awareness. Academic prowess is not central in the Japanese kindergarten; it is more about cultivating experiences that the child can carry with them through life. Sebastian's kindergarten followed a Piaget approach, granting the children lots of freedom and space for discovery. Nico's kindergarten was a Buddhist school so regular lessons in manners, sensitivity, and compassion were taught in the week.




All in all, it has been a very wonderful experience for our family and I know Nicolai is ready to start school in April. We'll have a year off from kindergarten until Colette starts (we like them to have 4 years at home in English) which will be a good chance to catch up on other aspects of our life.
Then we'll be ready to start round three.

It will be hard at first to get used to this guy being a first grader.

Making a wish

Yesterday we went to Sakura Tenjin Jinga, a little shrine in central Nagoya that has a very special feature. Wedged between high rises, this tiny jinga houses not only kamisama but a wishing cow.


Most jingas have some specific purpose like wishing for romance or academic success. This one lets you choose anything you want but you have to pour water over the cow as many times as your age.

We have something to wish for right now so we headed there yesterday in the wet snow. There was something really beautiful about pouring a ladle of water for each of my years. I hope it did the trick.

It was super cold so afterward we headed to a sweet little soba restaurant to warm up.


And some of us slept through the entire journey.

Home Study Days

One of the challenges of raising bilingual kids is helping them to learn in both languages. For the most part we are more concerned with their childhood experience, encouraging exploration and acts of empathy/sympathy. We try to let them have as much free time as possible in the afternoons so they can play with friends or each other. For the most part, they determine how their time is spent, an element that is crucial as they step closer day by day toward adulthood.



I do want them to be scholastically well-equipped to support their journey through this world. So this year while I have been on maternity leave, we have started doing home study days. We sit down twice a week and do some formalized lessons, either with paper worksheets or more tactile materials. As you may remember, I try to incorporate Montessori methods in our home whenever possible. Colette is using the sandpaper letters and metal insets in preparation for writing. She is super alert to finding her "w's" as she refers to the alphabet whenever we are out and about. During the day I do more practical Montessori activities with her like pouring rice and dressing frames to learn how to use buttons and laces.



Nicolai is into Bob books, the movable alphabet, and math. Yep, math. He walks around counting by threes and fours and loves the hundreds board app on the iPad. The boy sits down and writes out addition problems, filling out the entire page with sums.

For Sebastian, I just try to supplement his school work to help him in what his teacher considers to be his weaker areas. I personally abide by the theories of multiple intelligences and various learning styles. I do not think Sebastian's weaker areas are truly weak but since the school wants well-rounded students, I try to help him to feel more confident in areas that he is not so interested in. I also work with him on his English reading which was really slow going until recently when we switched from phonics to sight words. And he is such a rabid reader in Japanese that I do not worry about his abilities.

We are still smoothing out some of the kinks of home study time (and by kinks I mean resolving disputes sparked by having three very determined and different learners at one table) but that is all part of the journey.

My Lovely Nippon

So, I realize my last post was a little bleak and despairing. That nuclear contamination sign is not exactly eye candy. The truth is that the facts are bleak and despairing. There is rampant corruption, media censorship, and terrible consequences of Fukushima Daichi's meltdown arising daily. (And yes, it was a meltdown and terribly enough it will be worse before it gets better.)
I have a hard time living in negativity. I have been naive in my assessment of how the government and TEPCO would handle their responsibilities. This doesn't mean I am in any way forsaking Japan. No, not my lovely Japan.
There are a lot of terrible truths that the country must deal with but one truth that will pull us through is the Japan of Japan. The soul of the country will survive this awful catastrophe. Of that I am certain.
It may be that we have to leave Honshu or return to the States for a bit. This bothers me but I want to respond to my fears with something more positive. Something that showcases my unwavering affection for these islands. So I started a new photography blog on Tumblr called My Lovely Nippon. It is an ever-increasing collection of images old and new that I believe capture a bit of that je ne sais quoi that keeps Japan in my heart. As the new reality unfolds, Japan will seem tainted but the true beauty cannot be contaminated.



xoxo