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

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

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.

Early Hanami

Encouraged by the sunshine and clear skies, we set out on the first official day of Spring break to have a little early hanami (flower gazing) picnic. Under the partially pink sakura trees, we spread our plastic sheets and feasted on inari sushi and norimaki sushi. It was still a little chilly and the cherry blossoms were only about 30% open, but it was a good start to the vacation. And afterward why, we played of course.

Happy Spring, ya'll.

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...

Mistakes are really discoveries

Nico's really into making things with paper. Origami, paper cuts, boxes, birds, you name it and it will be in paper form in a matter of minutes. (As I type this Jason is trying to convince Nico to delay the tape-box he's making for me until after dinner. It's like water off a stone with our determined boy.)

A few weeks ago, I taught Nico how to make snowflakes. A thousand snowflakes later and I am prepared to declare him an addict. Now and then though, he makes a mistake. I say mistake only because that is how he perceives them. I am not sure if his idea of perfection is rooted in nature or nurture but I do know that I want him to relinquish the negativity he associates with mistakes and see them for what they really are: learning opportunities. Thomas Edison said regarding his failed lightbulbs "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work".

Mistakes can also be a source of discovery, as Nico found out today. 

A broken snowflake is really just a pair of wings.


And once one person has a pair of wings...



Colette was happy to be a choucho (butterfly) and immediately jumped off the couch with great hopes. Landing with a thud, she said あれ (Japanese for 'huh?'). I love that she believed she could fly.


I also love that when Sebastian return from playing with friends, Nico asked him if he wanted a pair of wings too. 

 I love that Sebastian said of course.

How does your garden grow

It has only been a couple of weeks since we started our gardening venture. I am so glad to have brought this into our lives. We all get so much pleasure in watering the plants and watching them thrive. Colette is the Queen of the Watering Can so I have to get out there before she does in the morning to make sure all the plants get watered. And she has learned the valuable lesson of not crushing the plants, or plucking them out of the ground. Now she is very careful and hardly ever plays with their dirt. Sebastian is pleased because the sunflower seeds that he planted, most of the twenty(!) seeds, sprouted and are zooming up in all directions right now. Jason even contributed to the mix by adding that lovely little hydrangea with the perfect antique blue tiny blossoms.

It is an addictive habit, this gardening stuff. This weekend we plan to add eggplant, shiso, rosemary, and salad greens. And we will be starting a little compost container to use all of our kitchen scraps, perhaps using the bokashi method. It is part of my goal of cutting our garbage production in half.

The best thing about this experience has been involving the kids in every step. They already have a natural interest in all things growing (and all things in general, of course) and the boys get to do a little gardening at both of their schools. Colette is happiest when she is digging and using her hands so this new routine of ours is perfect for her. I do worry about their attitude towards the natural world living in a human curated city that is heavy on the concrete and light on the green. This balcony garden of ours has given us a tiny corner of botany and ecology, of responsibility and togetherness. I just wish we had started it sooner.

(19)

Thinking, thinking, and thinking some more.
Trying to stay on top of everything.
Trying to learn how to cut myself some slack.

Working on some new projects...
Learning from mistakes, and learning to value those lessons instead of discarding them in frustration...

Belated

In one of my discussion classes at the college where I teach, we were talking about the kanji of the year for 2011. One of the students asked the question, what is your personal kanji of the year and this was met with the silence of contemplation (a special Japanese silence that gets some getting used to). Following this hushed lull in the discussion, most of the students said that they agree with the selected kanji, which means bonds. One student offered that she would choose the kanji for 'tear' as she can't remember a year when she cried so much. Naturally this made the rest of us rather sad so we came to the consensus that 'bonds' was the best way to sum up 2011.

After a few days of passive consideration, I have decided that my kanji would be something like this: 手後れ [ておくれ]. It isn't so great since there are two kanji and the hiragana 're' there but it is the rough translation of my word for the year: belated.
2011 has been nothing but a race against the clock. And not just one single race, but multiple races sometimes held simultaneously. We have a poor record this year, I'm afraid. We lost the first one back in January when we forgot to renew Colette's visa on time. Since then, it has really been a struggle.

Take the back-to-back birthdays last month. We are simply lucky that Nico is super understanding and that Colette is too young to complain. We did eventually make it up to them but it was not within the week of their official birthdays.

This is Nico at his school birthday party with the beloved Doraemon birthday crown.

And this is Nico with his girlfriend Miyu-chan. Though don't tell him I called her that. He considers himself simply tolerant of Miyu-chan's exuberant affections.

So, as much as belated is perhaps a less positive way to describe a year, I consider it to be an honest and rather malleable term. It doesn't equate failure but signifies the effort to catch up, despite the odds of winning. We leave this year tired of always being behind but feeling stronger for the effort it took to continue. I hope that next year I will get to choose a better word like 'amazing' or 'crazy successful' but knowing that 76 percent of Americans (according to a recent NBC/WSJ poll) consider 2011 to be either below average or one of the worst years of their lives, I think belated isn't such a bad term to own.