Re-entry essay

My visit to Japan was simultaneously one of the easiest, hardest, most frustrating, most educational, and strangest experiences of my life. It was easy because I'd traveled before, so I didn't have as much trouble with packing, jet lag, etc as some of my peers; hard because I was completely out of my cultural comfort zone; frustrating because I didn't speak any Japanese; educational because of the dozens of cultural details I picked up; and strange because a lot of the experiences were completely unexpected. It's very easy, living in America, to forget that the rest of the world exists. We eat our McDonalds and play with our iPhones and assume everyone lives the same way. Well, in Japan they have McDonalds and iPhones too, thanks to us, but they also have Torii gates and three alphabets and respect for their elders. They have a different attitude and different traditional values, yet welcome us rude, fat Americans with smiles and polite bows.

I'm not completely sure why I'm fascinated by cultural 'quirks,' the little habits that one has to pick up to assimilate, but they were very enjoyable to observe in Japan. Placing the money on the counter when making a purchase instead of handing it straight to the cashier was one of the most predominant things, as I observed my peers ignoring the tray on the counter and holding the money out while all the natives looked confused. I'm not sure why money is exchanged this way, but now I know it is, and this became second nature to me. For the few days I've been back in America, I've been placing cash on the counter, getting irritated looks from cashiers as they have to make the extra effort of picking it up. There was also a set of etiquette surrounding chopsticks that I wasn't expecting, everything from not stabbing meat, to not inserting the chopsticks vertically in rice, to not passing food from your chopsticks to someone else's. These were a little more easy to explain than the money-on-the-counter thing, because chopsticks are placed vertically in bowls of rice for traditional Japanese funeral rites, so doing this in a restaurant is implying that the food is fit for dead people. Still, the eating etiquette we have in America is only used at formal dinners and cotillions, so remembering details while eating in Japan was something we weren't used to.

One of the things that has changed about myself from this adventure is the desire to be aware of what's going on in the world: yes, I have always known that an awareness of foreign affairs is important to the modern adult, but I had avoided it like the plague. Politics have always seemed sticky and irritating to me, and I'd pretty much lumped all international news under the 'politics' category. But after having experienced Japan (I did go abroad when I was younger, but this was my first time abroad where I felt like an adult) I am truly, sincerely aware that there are other countries out there with different cultures and different values. Re-reading this paragraph it sounds insanely stupid, but basically this trip has made me want to read the news and know what's going on in the world.

Japan also taught me courtesy. I had thought that I was a relatively polite person, but when compared to your average Japanese ten year old, I am still rude and uneducated. Being respectful not only of others' cultures, beliefs and traditions, but also of their personhood and opinions, is something I will be certain to focus on in the future.

If you're reading this on my blog, thanks for reading. If you're reading this because you're my teacher, thanks for taking me to Japan. I will never forget those three weeks.

Japan Journal Entry 12

Entry #12: Koya-San

“Everything around me seems so different than where I'm from..."
The song is called 'Homesick' and while I wasn't homesick while riding the funicular, the lyrics resonated. You don't see things like this in Tennessee or Chicago- the mountains completely shrouded in mist, the palm-like trees right next to pine-like trees. It felt otherworldly and I was certain that this would be one of the highlights of the trip. I was right.
Staying overnight at the temple was unlike anything I'd ever done in my life. I was surprisingly okay with the unusual rooming situation and found the tofu dinner rather tasty. The language barrier made me feel slightly lost at some points, but in general the monks got their points across as far as how things would work. The schedule was a little more strict and defined than it had been most of the trip, but I got the feeling that is how things work for these monks. A bath before dinner, tofu dinner, and then they probably go to bed so they can wake up early for chanting and meditation.
The chanting was also a unique experience, mostly because I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I was reminded of a time my parents and I went to Mass while we were in Italy: the only words I caught were 'panne et pesce,' so I knew it was the Gospel about loaves and fishes. But sitting in an incense-heavy room, with unknown iconography all around, listening to foreign, incomprehensible words was a surprisingly familiar difference. The difference between a Catholic Mass in Italian and a Buddhist chanting ritual in Japanese, however, was that I know the parts of a Catholic mass, I know when to stand and sit and I know, in general, how things go. With a Buddhist morning chant? I was clueless. I didn't know if we were supposed to stand when the monk did or chant along with him or bow or clap at certain times. Luckily for me, our role in the chanting was extremely passive: we sat quietly in the back of the room. That was pretty much it.
The breakfast was, again, tofu-based, and then it was time to shoulder our backpacks and continue what by then was starting to feel like a pilgrimage. It was raining and miserable but we trekked through a Buddhist mausoleum to see Okunoin, the burial place of Kukai. While the mausoleum was beautiful and it was an honor to be able to see Kukai's importance, it was wet and cold. So I was very relieved to get back on the funicular headed towards society.
Now I'm sitting in the Narita airport hotel and this adventure is winding down. I think these journals could have been better-written, but I don't have time to fix them. Seeing the western-style bathtub in this hotel reminded me that in 24 hours I'll be back in my own apartment in Nashville, able to read every sign and understand every conversation I overhear. It's kind of a sad feeling, for some reason...

Brief reactions to Hiroshima

I'm not sure if I have time for a polished blog post before going off on adventures (today is a free day and my friends have planned to visit Osaka, Nara and a fantastic store in Kyoto, it's gonna be pretty busy!) but I figured while I have a moment I'll jot down/ copy out of my paper journals some reactions to our visit to Hiroshima yesterday. You'd have to be blind or shockingly uneducated to not be aware that Hiroshima is the city where the United States dropped the first Atomic bomb back in 1945, and that the destruction was complete, brutal, and terrifying. It was a pretty emotionally traumatic day, and here are the notes I jotted down while visiting:

After seeing the A-Bomb Dome:

I've seen ruins before. I've seen Pompeii, which was destroyed by a volcano, and the Coliseum which was destroyed by time. I've seen the effects of flood and hurricanes. I've seen buildings left to crumble because their repairs couldn't be afforded. But I had never seen the direct results of war until today. Even the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC is just a replica, not real like this. The A-bomb dome, a building hollowed out close to the epicenter of the explosion, (#), is a real building where real people worked and died, incinerated by the blast less than 500 feet away. It's one of a handful of buildings that was still standing in downtown Hiroshima. According to Wikipedia, the radius of total destruction was one mile, with fires spreading 4 more miles, decimating about 70% of the city's structures in one fells swoop. This is a reminder of an atrocity that my country committed against this one, of how evil humans are with no thought for the humanity of others. I am ashamed to be the same species and nationality as the people that did something like this.

Between the A-Bomb Dome and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum there were two or three monuments to children who were killed in the blast or from resulting radiation sicknesses. They featured millions of paper cranes (#). Inspired by a belief that folding 1,000 of these cranes would make a wish come true, Sadako Sasaki (main character of the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes) and other leukemia patients began to fold thousands of them, their only wish being to live. To this day (# these were dated the day of our visit) students fold thousands of cranes and hang them in these memorials, as a way of honoring those innocent lives. There is also an eternal flame that will burn until all nuclear weapons are disarmed, which my friends and I could only shake our heads at, hoping and praying that it would be extinguished in our lifetime, but knowing that is unlikely.

Written just outside of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum:

I knew it wouldn't be fun. I wasn't expecting a particularly happy scene. I've been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, but that is thousands of miles from the tragedy it represents. This museum is less than a mile from the epicenter of the bombing. Seeing the charred school uniforms of children killed by the bomb, the pieces of buildings burnt and melted, while standing where these things were found was unbelievably difficult. Reading testimonies of people, many of them my age or younger, who saw their whole families suffer and die from the explosion and radiation, made me break down in tears. A whole exhibition of these stories and the items that accompanied them was the most painful thing I've seen in a very long time, if not my whole life. I can't begin to fathom a piece of a burnt school uniform or a lock of charred hair (or the bicycle a young boy was riding when he was incinerated, #) being the only token I have to remember my whole family by. The suffering, the agony these people went through.... One of the predominant thoughts in my mind was "I hate being American, I feel like a monster." However, this museum thankfully wasn't aimed at vilifying Americans, it was aimed at exposing the horrors of nuclear war and encouraging visitors to fight for disarmament.

Written the day after the visit:

Although seeing Hiroshima and especially the artifacts from the victims was incredibly, unbelievably painful, I understand why this visit was necessary. I find it difficult to believe that anyone with a soul, after seeing these kind of things, could ever make or support the decision to drop another nuclear bomb. Over 53 million people have seen the museum since its' founding in 1955, and while I wouldn't exactly hop on the train to go see it again today, I am glad I went.

Here's a thought.... can we just send the presidents/ rulers of the US, India, Pakistan, Russia, France, the UK, China, and North Korea (I think that's all the countries with nuclear weapons) to this museum together? And then at the end, have a treaty for disarmament ready for them to sign.... If it weren't for how complicated and messy politics are, if it was only based on the humanity of the leaders, I'd be certain it would work.

The Sand Garden, reactions to "The Sand Garden" by Italo Calvino, and the most painful anime.

I'm not sure these entries are properly numbered anymore. This covers 5/25 and class on 5/26.

"These 'instructions for use'... seem perfectly plausible and immediately applicable, without effort, provided one is really sure of having a personality to shed, of looking at the world from inside an ego that can be dissolved, to become only a gaze."- Calvino

The rocks rose up from the carefully raked sand like harsh islands from the sea. I squinted against the glare of the sun and didn't understand what I was looking at. There was some sand. Some rocks. I didn't get it. It was too harsh and bright, and the most peaceful moments on this trip for me were in shaded, green forests, surrounded by natural and animal noises, not groups of schoolkids. That was yesterday, when I spent no more than a minute looking at the rock garden before moving on to the moss garden and the landscapes around the temple. I just snapped a picture (#) and moved on. Today in class, after reading "The Sand Garden" by Italo Calvino, I realized where I went wrong in my experience. Not only did I not sit down to contemplate the rock garden, but I was too concerned with my own personality and ego. I just went through a breakup, I wasn't feeling well, I was tired and stressed. I was focusing on myself. I was thinking that serenity or enlightenment would hit me in the face, and I didn't take the time to 'become only a gaze' as Calvino puts it. What a silly mistake. Here are pictures of the moss garden (#) and surrounding landscape (#) that I took much more time to ponder. Also, I touched a tree that didn't want to be touched (#).

Luckily, the 88 Temple Pilgrimage was much more satisfying. We hiked up this incredible mountain, (#) polishing our Japanese-number-reading skills ("San Ju Hachi... temple thirty eight! We're almost halfway there!") by counting the temples. The 88 Temple Pilgrimage was modeled on a pilgrimage on a different island that takes months and months to complete, but this one can be done in less than an hour if you're in decent shape. For some reason, I think because my friends were taking a picture of every single temple, I didn't take a picture of a single one. I did, however, try to capture a shot of the view of Kyoto: (#). The whole hike up the mountain I had a mini rosary that my great-uncle gave me in my hand, praying that my knee would be okay (the last time I hiked I blew out my knee pretty badly) and that I wouldn't feel so ill I'd have to turn back. This mini rosary is a metal circle and reminds me very much of the Buddhist prayer beads that pilgrims use on the 'real' 88 temple pilgrimage. I thought that was a cool cross-cultural link.

After returning to Otsu we took some time to rest our feet before all gathering together to watch the animated movie Barefoot Gen. This was a way of preparing us for our impending visit to Hiroshima tomorrow. It's the story of a 6-year-old boy who lived through the atomic bombing, complete with graphic (despite being animated, the fact that it is an autobiography and this really happened made it incredibly painful to watch) details of the bomb's destruction, radiation sickness, and the narrator's baby sister starving to death. More than a few of us were crying and cursing the movie, not to mention the teachers for suggesting/requesting that we watch it. (I know, my teachers will read this, but since it's a journal I think I'm allowed to be honest.) I've been to the Holocaust museum in Washington, DC a few times and have read a few books about the Holocaust, not to mention I've seen Schindler's List, but Barefoot Gen was honestly more painful than those. I'm not sure I'm emotionally prepared to visit Hiroshima, but it's going to happen whether I like it or not.

Dr. Paine said, "You will not be the same after you have been to Hiroshima, but let it happen." in class today, and I'll admit to being afraid. The things that humans have done to other humans are truly unthinkable, terrifying, and disheartening.

Reading Response: Reactions to Basho

We learned in class today that our class journals are expected to be mostly responses to the reading, which I've been doing very few entries about. So I'll post a catch-up sightseeing entry later, but here's a reading response for now. Not very fascinating, unless you like American teenagers parodying Great Poets.

5.23

I'm somehow struck with the sinking feeling I'm going to be the only person in my class that isn't head over heels in love with Matsuo Basho. I've seen a couple of facebook statuses so far tonight "oh man, Basho is like the Japanese Robert Frost" or "Haiku are so much cooler than the whiny Gossamer Years." But I'll be honest: I don't get it. Maybe I'm not in the right mood for it but seriously? The guy's chosen penname means 'banana'. And to me, his writing style seems like this:

"We left on the such-and-such road heading south. We hiked up the such-and-such mountain and saw the such-and-such temple. So-and-so the famous poet once wrote this haiku there:

I am at / a temple / the wind blows.

So I sat and wrote this haiku.

The wind blowing/ reminds me that/ the seasons change.

On our way down the mountain, so-and-so who once knew so-and-so asked me to write a haiku on a card for him. I thought that was very classy of him, so I wrote,

I have hiked/ to the temple/ where the seasons change.

We then went into town and stayed at an inn. The innkeeper was very nice. I wrote him a haiku."

I'm sorry... I just don't get it. I'll try to look at it again in the morning, maybe meditate on one of the haikus, but I read a few chapters and I still don't understand why this is considered one of the greatest works of world literature.

Journal Entry 9

Journal Nine, in which our heroine befriends a flock of deer.

5/21/2011

The town of Nara, Japan is known for being Japan's capitol from 710 to 784; for being the capitol of the Nara prefecture; for having the largest wooden building in the world; and for having herds of relatively tame deer that wander around, harassing tourists for food. The reason for the deer is that according to ancient beliefs, the city's guardian god rode into town on a white-tailed deer; so Nara's residents treat deer the same way that citizens of India treats cows: letting them wander around wherever they want. Street vendors sell stacks of 'shika sembai,' deer crackers, and the deer know the ritual: As soon as you walk towards the vendor with your￥150 (about $2) the deer start following you, waiting for their handouts. And they're rather pushy about it, too! One of the bigger males kept trying to steal the crackers I was trying to give to the females and little fawns. After visiting the deer, we trekked to one of the other tourist attractions, the world's largest wooden building.

Todai-ji temple, in addition to being the world's largest wooden building, is the home of the largest copper Daibutsu, or giant Buddha sculpture. The daibutsu was truly massive, I would easily fit in his hand. There's also a hole/tunnel in one of the building's support pillars that's supposedly the same size as the Buddha sculpture's nostril: a foot to a foot and a half tall and maybe eight or ten inches wide. For some reason that my research didn't identify, crawling through this hole means you will gain enlightenment. Of course, I wasn't going to turn that down! While standing in line, we realized most of the people attempting this task were small children, as in, under six years old. We weren't phased at all, even when the parents in line behind us started pointing and saying something that sounded suspiciously like 'stuck'. I was the first of my friends to attempt it and went through without a problem. I didn't feel particularly enlightened, but maybe it's a slow growing kind of thing. My two friends also succeeded, much to the entertainment of the other visitors. The last thing that happened at the temple was my good karma for the day: because the temple is constantly being restored, visitors can donate a roof tile for ￥1000. What piqued my interest was the ability to write your name, home country, and a wish on the tile. Of course, my tile read "Dorothy & Belmont Group, 5/21/2011, Peace & Love foREVer." I love that a piece of me will be on this historic temple for years to come. (The reason forever is styled that way is because the drummer for a band I love very much passed a way two years ago, his stage name was The Rev and fans believe that his legacy will stay with us foREVer.)

Journal Entries 7 and 8

I know I've been behind on posting these but we've really been moving all the time recently. So here's to playing catch-up!

Journal Entry 7 or, The Mountain of the Warrior Monks

5/18/11

Once upon a time, a temple was built on the top of Mt. Hiei, to protect Kyoto from evil spirits. For some reason, this new sect of Buddhism wasn't quite as peaceful as most, and initiates did rigorous physical training like running up and down the mountain in straw sandals, meditating in the rain without much dinner, and sleeping for only an hour a day. No soldiers were allowed on temple grounds, but that's okay because the temple trained its own soldiers- the "warrior monks." We visited Enryaku-ji, the warrior monks' temple, today.

Originally, there had been talk about climbing up the mountain, but when we arrived the group decided that it would be best to take a cable car (funicular) up instead, and anyone who was craving hiking could hike back down. Here's the view from the top of the cable car track, if you squint you can see Kyoto down in the distance: (#) We hiked up to the temple (it was still a little trek from the cable car station, including some awkwardly spaced stairs) and held our class in a little corner of the temple grounds. I think that was probably the first time a Belmont class was held at a Buddhist temple!

There were a variety of other temples in the area, and I went to take pictures and ring a couple of big gongs during our free period. I particularly enjoyed the temples that showed signs of age: (#) and secluded, beautiful areas: (#) This one specifically is an example of one of our class keywords, syncretism. Syncretism is when two things that, in theory, shouldn't go together, end up together and are just fine. The most common example we've been seeing is Buddhism and Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan. The Torii gate (wooden arch-thingy) in that picture is a sign of Shinto, yet it was only a few steps away from another Buddhist temple. Despite the fact that Shinto seems to worship everything (spirits in nature, spirits of ancestors, specific rituals involving clapping and bowing to shrines) and Buddhism doesn't really worship much, many Japanese pick and choose from the two religions, births being celebrated at Shinto shrines and deaths at Buddhist temples.

Here's another pretty temple. (#) After wandering around and finding a real rock garden (#) by the founder of Tendai Buddhism's memorial, we began the hike down the mountain. It was interesting, to say the least, without a real path for most of the way down: (#). I have an old knee injury and it flared up during the trek, but luckily I had a bandage with me, wrapped my knee, and made it down. The hike was stunning, as most things here have been, with random unidentified spots to worship or meditate: (#). We took the train back to Otsu and I propped up my knee and rested for the remainder of the day.

Journal Entry 8: 10,000 Torii gates and Uji, the land of tea.

5/19 and 5/20

On 5/19, we visited Fushimi Inari Shrine, a Shinto site in southern Kyoto. This place is known for its' 10,000 Torii gates, all right next to each other creating a huge tunnel. For an unknown reason, I didn't take a picture of the gates, but here's a photo from one of my friends: (#) Thanks Rainu! I was feeling under the weather thanks to my knee blowing out coming down the mountain the day before, so I didn't hike the Torii gates' path, leaving the group to go sit in this gorgeous, secluded woods: (#) and write in my journal. It was kind of a slow day for me, I bought some candy and went back to my room to do homework once we got back to Otsu. A group of us went to an arcade that evening, which was enjoyable, with a friend and I spending about ten dollars worth of yen on a Jurassic Park shooting game (he thoroughly beat me, earning about 500 points every time I earned 100, but I saved him from almost getting eaten by a t-rex!) and a dollar on a ridiculous kids' game that had me jumping on a platform as if it was a pogo stick, guiding a cartoon bunny around a Mario-Kart esque track. All in all, not a bad way to spend an evening!

5/20 was spent in Uji, a part of town famous for its' tea. It is also the site of a famous bridge where battles in the Genpei war took place: (#) After putting our feet in the Uji river (#) and looking at a statue of the author of the Tale of Genji (#) we ventured onward to Byodo-in, a temple we'd already been seeing all week: on the back of our 10-yen coins! It was pretty interesting and of course, very beautiful, as everything else has been. (#) and (#) don't really capture its' beauty. Being a huge, huge dork, I'd looked up the places in Japan that the towns from the game Pokemon are based off of, and it turns out that one of the plot points in Pokemon is centered around a bird statue on the top of a building, and that statue is based off the phoenixes in this temple. I loved the phoenix artwork and sculpture in the temple's museum, but sadly I couldn't take pictures. I've always thought phoenixes were cool (if a bit creepy, considering they're reborn from their own ashes) and this was a beautiful temple.

After getting out of phoenix-land, we crossed the street into tea-land! Everything you can imagine with tea in it is served in Uji! The first thing we sampled was green tea ice cream with matcha powder on top, a far cry from the tea ceremonies we'd discussed in class with their refined sipping. The ice creams were quite tasty though! With the help of a translator from Switzerland, we went to another shop to sample green tea chocolates, candies, sweets and creams. They were fantastic. The next stop was a local artisan's shop featuring beautiful fabric paintings (you thought I was going to say something tea-related!) where many people found gifts for friends. I was reminded of the batik projects we did in middle school, that's not to say these pieces looked like they were done by 10 year olds, just saying the more traditional styles of art reminded me that I'd been exposed to some facets of this culture long ago.

The day was topped off by an adventure to Otsu-Kyo, the older side of Otsu, to try and recover my friend Kyle's lost rail pass. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found, but we found a lot of evidence of just how polite and helpful Japanese policemen really are. Two of them accompanied us back to the train station (after we visited their Koban, the police boxes that are on pretty much every corner here) to help translate and fill out forms with the rail office. We also passed a store called Liquor Mountain, which should entertain both my alcohol -and Internet- savvy friends: surely some of you remember that video with the unicorns saying "It's candy mountain, Charlie, caaaaaandy mounnntain!" So of course, many "liquor mountain" jokes were made as we walked by. We were more interested in the used game and collectable store across the street, though, because my friends were able to find some rare Dragonball Z toys and some Nintendo 64 games in Japanese. If only we had found Kyle's rail pass, it would have been a perfect day....