The past month has been a mix, a chyampuru. School has been busy, I was a bit under the weather for a while, and the weekends, short as they are, fill up quickly.

At the end of May, a friend from Minnesota was in town. Heidi's visit was a great excuse to revisit those things that were at first quite novel and have since become regular ingredients in my life this year. A visit to the neighborhood izakaya, 居酒屋, for the island's local beer and some kimchi yakisoba and edamame (a popular and tasty soybean appetizer). A bus ride to the enormous aquarium housing whale sharks and manta rays and turtles and dolphins and an amazing botanical garden halfway up the island, Churaumi. Chura, beautiful in the old Okinawan dialect, and umi, ocean. Those, and other things. It was lovely to spend some time with her and also be reminded of the special things, be they Japanese, Okinawan, or just exactly what they are, that surround me while I live and work here.



A week and a half ago, I spent several days, along with one of my coworkers, preparing ten students chosen to attend the G8 Summit's Science and Technology Minister's meeting discussion of current Environmental Issues. After long days at school, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes draining, and usually with the first and second year students that I primarily work with this semester who are still trudging through early levels of English conversation ability, it was an enjoyable challenge to work through a topic of interest to me and some students I've known for many months now. Students who constantly try and ask and invest energy in growing and stumbling and making great advances in their journey of learning. With nerves, last Monday, we reviewed major topics and points of individual interests. Nao asked me, just before leaving, what I would ask if I were in her position. I was caught a bit off guard, but I said I'd inquire about the next plan of action. Of true motion toward change.

Several of the students came up to me on Tuesday, after attending the meeting, slightly disappointed but extremely thankful. They were proud to have been part of the “discussion” and happy to have become more aware of topics that they had only heard bits of, whether in their native language or English. Only two had the opportunity to ask questions and it was perhaps more of a practice in listening than discussion. There was much less participation on part of the students than they had hoped. While Nao and I were conversing about the results of the experience (she was one of the two students from our school who was allowed to ask questions), she said somewhat disappointedly, “I asked your question, Grace”, but she and the other students weren't particularly impressed with the response of their nation's minister. “What matters is what is in your heart” was the translation. Not moments later, I was talking to Arisa, who told me that this experience had made her even more sure that her minor in college will be Environmental Studies.

Amidst all this, I also took the opportunity to see the cliffs on the northern edge of the island during a rare two-day weekend. Cape Hedo on a cloudy day was perfect. The heat and humidity, the high and hot sun, which are inescapable at this time of year, were staved off for a a refreshingly less-hot (although I wouldn't say cool) weekend. Mushiatsui (humid-hot) has been the favorite word of many these days. Although a bike ride around the island would be ideal, time doesn't allow it at the moment. A friend and I rented a car and drove up the east side of the island on slow and winding roads. It was a strange feeling to be in control of my own motion on the road again. We stopped by a coffee farm and walked around the cliffs of Hedo, peering down to the aquamarine blue splashes below white crashing waves.



A splurge on a Japanese hotel (ryokan) was a very good choice (yay! public baths!). Although finding the road that climbed up Nikijin, a small mountain/big hill halfway down the west side of the island, was not easy, it was entirely worth it. As the little Toyota purred up the path, all we could see ahead of us was misty fog. By the time we made it to the top and exited the car, we were heading toward a ryokan in the clouds. After dropping my bag in our entryway and I walked through the small and comfortable tatami room to the big window facing the edge of the mountain. I opened it wide. Thankfully it had no screen. I sat on the sill and watched as the clouds moved, revealing bits of farm here and ocean there, islands and lower hills, each being ever-so-slowly exposed and covered, hidden for minutes by unhurried soft white until another scene was to be divulged. All the while, the rolling green hills, covered with thick brush and trees below, buzzed with sounds of life. Not the sounds I've become accustomed to in Naha: the twittering of the crosswalk safety beep, cars zooming, motorcycles roaring, or campaign buses announcing. Instead, it was a buzz of green. Tiny legged and winged and small and large and hidden in the thick rolling foliage like I was hidden, sitting in the thick rolling clouds.



More recent photos at the end of this photo album.

After a couple weeks teeming with tests, the students are exhausted and everyone is back on schedule.

Yay. I'm kind of tired, too, so I'm not going to say anything of much consequence today.

In lieu of photographs of school hallways and student uniforms, the images that fill a good part of my days but usually not my camera, I will give you a sampling from recent excursions.

First, a few weeks ago we celebrated ensoku, a school 'picnic' day where everyone goes to a giant park and plays games, sports, and otherwise runs around for hours on end--a change of pace much needed for the students. There were spandex/masked soccer games, intense volleyball matches, dangerous bicycle races, and all sorts of shenanigans that are made available when walls and notebooks are absent.



Second, a long weekend trip to a small, sub-tropical island within ferry distance some friends and I took over Golden Week (camping, swimming, jellyfishing and so on).





味の素=ajinomoto=MSG
I think I eat it often.

My chair guffaws.
One of my laughs is inaudible, but with this one my upper body moves. My desk chair squeaks in joyous communion as my shoulders silently rise and fall.

I've been collecting things.
Mochi in my belly, moments, skills, songs, uncertainty, words, sunsets, convictions (of the non-felonious type), ants, calluses, rainwater.....and in this manner I hope to continue.

Following a very busy collection of weeks, a long-awaited week of travel bridged the third and fourth months of the year.

I caught an early flight to Kyushu and a train ride to Karatsu to start.
A friend, Jon, showed Mary and I a lovely time around his part of the world. He's a potter and has developed many relationships with other artists in the area, which has a long history of ceramic wares. He kindly introduced us to some of his favorite studios and the work of some amazing potters (and on the rare occasion, a potter him/herself), amidst showing us the popular historical sights, catching an onsen or two, and hanging out in his countryside village outside of Karatsu.

An old kiln at the Nakazato studio, now on the thirteenth generation of potters in the family.

Personally, visiting these places was a convergence of a couple worlds. I was moving backwards from work and theories I identified with in MN toward the land, the lifestyles, and the teachers that inspired it. Forms and methods were familiar, not only because I've seen where they have been brought and built upon in the United States, but also because they themselves are individuals in a long line of slow and careful development of techniques and ideas, originating hundreds of years ago in Korea.
I could go on. Let me know if you have questions.


I was lucky enough to then spend some time with a friend from college who is working in Akita, an area in the northwest mountains of the island of Honshu (what I often refer to as "mainland"). After a short stop in Tokyo, where the cherry blossoms were blooming in full and the elephants and panda bears of Ueno Zoo were frolicking in the sun, I took a lengthy and enjoyable shinkansen (bullet train) due north. An immediate sense of comfort and familiarity struck me as I entered the hinterlands, as quickly as my eyes caught the lingering patches of snow on the tree covered mountains and the voice of a child sitting behind me rang "YUKI!". Dan has made a lovely home for himself in the small town of Yuzawa and he makes a mean kimchi nabe to boot. Snow-coverd mountains, deep lapping lakes blue and sulfuric above active calderas, streets lined with well-maintained samurai homes, and a unbelievably tasty au gratin sandwich (seriously!) later and there is still much to be said about the few days we wandered together.

A very large, old tree nestled between the homes and businesses of Yuzawa.

You'll have to wait on most of the Akita photos, though. They're stuck, helplessly imprisoned, in my camera.

More photos from my spring break excursion can be found here.
Updated images of my life in Okinawa are at the end of this album.

Having a two-day weekend is very holiday-like these days, let alone an entire week. My time with friends, on trains, in mountains, beside waterfalls, they are vacuum-packed into intense and quick excursions filled with more that one would think time would allow and I treasure them as additionally amazing moments amidst my everyday work as a teacher which is never quite everyday-ish. I can learn things from my students that I could never learn romping across landmasses, and I do...almost every day. Great things come in big and small packages. Fancy and homely. Shiny and dull. It's not always a matter of going out and finding those things that spark excitement, joy, imagination...life. It's a matter of being aware that they're always there. Perhaps not of the dimensions you expected. Maybe not in those conventionally "beautiful" or "convenient" ways. It's highly possible your sparks are all kinds of scuffed-up. But that doesn't mean they aren't waiting for you. With you.

Nine Days. Eight Nights. A bunch of Junior High school students.




What sounds like a recipe for disaster was actually pretty great. It started out with three girls and eight boys. Two lovely and official ESL teachers from the States were flown in to Okinawa for the students' morning classes. Every other moment they were ours (Mary and I were everyone's “camp counselors”). We helped them make breakfast in the morning (pancakes anyone? scrambled eggs with vegetables? FRENCH TOAST?), get off to school on time, and then all afternoon we facilitated outdoor activities (Nature walk? Soccer? Kickball? Icebreaker games? We even kayaked in the mangroves one day!) and after dinner we taught them night games in English (which after much explanation and animation, often ended up having relatively close Japanese equivalents), played cards or board games, or had bon fires (fire safety was a problem, s'mores were beloved by all). And then it was time to help them with homework and get them all tucked into bed for the next early morning. We created a comfortable routine and became a happy ESL camp family. For the last three days, an additional six girls and two boys joined us.



Overall, it was a wonderful change of pace. I had the mornings to read or take walks (sans Naha's concrete, thank goodness) and the rest of the time I played. I had the pleasure to get to know these students personally, answer their questions without being rushed by jam-packed class schedules, and ask them questions that arose as we hung out together. We all came out of it having learned a lot about each other and our languages and cultures, through multiple long days together and small group/one-on-one connections. Genuine communication takes time, persistence, and focus.

As much as the internet provides me a forum for communicating with people around the world, I sincerely hope to see you soon.

About a month ago, back in early/mid-March, we gave ourselves a few weeks to prepare after learning about the upcoming friendship and knowledge exchange. An intensive week and a half preceding the arrival of the visiting Vietnamese students, I worked closely with two small groups of students from my high school gathering and arranging data for a presentation they would eventually combine with information shared by the Vietnamese students and give the presentations, together, in English, to the entire high school. Really long sentence. Gomen. Having little or no experience creating research projects of their own, let alone in English, we had a lot of work to do and each of my students put in a lot of time and effort to be ready for the arrival of the visiting students.

When they came the following four days were a rush, as if a great gale blew in through every window of a house and you had to hold on to the furniture to make sure it didn't fly to the other side of the room. We had no idea what resources the Vietnamese students had back at home, so we were prepared for a whole variety of things, but as they filed into the classroom in their uniforms, after touring the school in traditional dress, the speed of their English, the depth of their research, and comfort with active learning blew both me and my students away. Our major obstacle was removing me as a translator and creating a level of sincere communication between very different types of students.

I must say, over the next few days while we concentrated on getting to know each other, having fun, and finalizing the projects, I was extremely impressed with everyone's work. In addition, both the Japanese and Vietnamese students involved performed beautiful examples of traditional music and dance from each of their cultures, a feat that led me to wondering what I would have done with my high school classmates in the same position.
After hours of running between groups of students, plugging away at connecting the students despite their different levels and backgrounds and constantly correcting and revising everything from organization to layout to pronunciation, watching them present their projects on subjects from Asia's Role in the Modern World to Population Issues was a great grand finale to all of their hard work.



The exchange was not only of cultural ideas and traditions, of semi-prepared projects and time, but of students learning about what it is to be students. There are so many ways to teach, so many different education systems, so many ways to learn. Careful listening, patient problem solving, and articulation of resolutions was the meeting point for everyone—the way to step through differences and into a middle ground of growth. And questions. Questions are the seeds to the water of consideration, the sunlight of patience, and the nutrients of perspective. I am lucky enough to be one who is able to watch them grow.

Plant seeds.

The people of Okinawa are well known for living the longest, healthiest lives of any single group in the world (the most prevalent amount of centenarians on earth!). It has often been attributed to their diets. Fish, vegetables, legumes (lots of tofu!), lean meats (pork is popular), sweet potatoes (imo is a big deal here), and spices from all over the world (garlic, ginger, turmeric, etc.) are common ingredients in an Okinawan meal, along with white rice. Add active social lives and regular exercise and you have an effective mix for a long, healthy life. Although these impressive stats are changing due to more western influence in diet and lifestyle, I still like to think the health and vibrancy at the heart of this island rubs off on everyone, including visitors and temporary residents.

That said, I see a lot of old people.

I also see whales. Last weekend, some friends and I went to Naminoe port and took an enjoyable boat ride outside of the harbor and toward the East China Sea, where in late winter and early spring many humpback whales make their way form the Northern Seas to the nearby Kerama Islands during breeding season.

On another note, I went to a play a few weeks ago. Okinawa's relatively recent addition to the nation of Japan is obvious in many ways here. The food has remained somewhat different from mainland Japan. The arts are similar, but certainly not the same. In fact, most parts of life have retained some flavor of the separate island culture that Okinawa once was, as the helm of the Ryukyu Empire. The play was interesting in two ways (probably more). First, popular and ancient Japanese theater, such as kabuki, is not present here. However, there are a few rare Okinawan-style theater arts that have survived the repeated takeovers of the small island chain. Secondly, the play itself centered around a creative retelling of the history of Okinawa, particularly during the time, about five hundred years ago, when Japan and China, two trade-partners of the Ryukyu Kingdom, wanted more control. It's a rather sad history of a peaceful island often taken advantage of, not to mention the complete decimation of most architecture and nearly every part of life during the second world war. A note on current Okinawan affairs: Did you know that nearly 75% of USFJ military bases are located in Okinawa prefecture? Sadly, a number of young women have been raped by servicemen, particularly gaining attention are one case in 1995 and another series just last month. These crimes have obviously created tension between the islanders and the strong military presence. I'm not usually affected by it firsthand, nor do I have much to do with the bases, but it is part of Okinawan life thesedays.

Anyway. February and March are transition months at Okisho. The official new academic year starts at the beginning of April. As stated earlier, the seniors graduated in mid-February. So for about seven weeks, teachers have 2/3 the class-load (even less, usually). However, as often happens in busy lives, when a moment of free time comes up there are about twelve million things that have been waiting on the back burner to get done. So although these weeks are lighter on regular classes, we have many additional projects going on, including the preparation for a friendly cultural/intellectual exchange with nearly thirty visiting Vietnamese students mid-March and an ESL camp at the end of the month.

Whatever you're doing, keep it up. And take a few moments to realize you are in the midst of the life you are choosing to make for yourself. That's a gift not everyone possesses. And this is not a test. There is no right answer.
I know many friends are going through awkward post-college transitions, and I, of course, am not exempt from this group. Migrating not through the East China Sea, but through a plethora of possibilities. Of confusions. Of frustrations. Of young adulthood. I'm guessing life is a series of awkward transitions. So whatever your situation is, I hope a few words from Trappist monk Thomas Merton, care of a friend, help you along on your journey:

"Advice? I would say there is one basic idea that should be kept in
mind in all the exchanges we make in life, whether of career or
anything else. We should decide not in view of better pay, higher
rank, 'getting ahead', but in view of becoming more real, entering
more authentically into direct contact with life, living as a free and
mature human person, able to give myself more to others, able to
understand myself and the world better. I hope that these few notes
may be of some use."

A busy weekend...


High School Graduation was highly anticipated by all of the third year students. After an arduous few months of testing, this ceremony marked the end of their high school experience. The ceremony itself wasn't too unlike an American one. There were numerous speeches given, diplomas were handed to each of the students, and family came to watch. Underclassmen sang and played in the award-winning band.
The stage was overflowing with flowers, many of them arranged by an Ikebana-certified staff member.
Okisho students have created their own version of the cap-toss. At the end of all of the formalities, they throw up their blazers in what is called the "buleza nage".



These are a few of my former third year students post-graduation. Every student wears a corsage from his or her parent(s).


There was a huge student/faculty party the evening following the graduation ceremony. For the students, it is much like prom, without the dancing. Many go over the edge with fashionable self-expression as this is their first time to do so after years of uniforms and grooming guidelines. It's a rather expensive and formal affair. It was great to see the no-longer-students relax and have fun.


Some friends and I went up to the northern part of the island to see the Cherry Blossoms. Okinawa is the first place for the sakura trees to bloom...over the next few months, hundreds of buds will burst open further up the island chain and attract throngs of hanami (flower viewing) participants.


Aquarium Fun!!! This Whale Shark is a member of the largest living fish species.


More new photos from graduation, parties, and northernly adventures can be found here.


Changes for the students.
Changes for the trees.
Everything is fluid. Swimming, churning, rushing around the aquarium of life. Was that transition cheesy enough? Hold on to what you love and ride the rest of the waves. Complete the metaphor.
Happy Tell People You Care with Pink Cards and Chocolate Day.
Happy You are an Important Part of My So-called Life Every Day.

Keep on swimming. Swimming. Swimming.

School!

Winter in Okinawa is chilly, overcast, and drizzly. Sometimes we get a slice of sun. It simmers through the cool dampness, the concrete dries up and it feels like summer again.

It's transition time at Okisho. My teaching schedule has experienced a shake-up, but the changes will be a nice variation of the never-quite-routine routine. The third years (high school seniors) are graduating next weekend. The second years are taking hundreds of tests, as usual, and preparing to make the move to the third year schedule. The first years (10th graders) are still plugging away at English oral communication with me. And I get to work with some really interesting adults twice a week at an affiliated school through the month of February.

One of our third year classes.


Many of our students are pretty great cartoonists.


World Karate Championships back in Okinawa, the home of karate.


Our baseball team rocks. This is the field on campus.


Junior High students practicing karate in the gym.


It's already sakura time in Okinawa.


Rough translation: "Please be nice to me when I'm a third year!" alongside drawings of a couple of the teachers in the English department.

I've been pretty dumb lately.

Generally, I'm not verbally verbose anyway, but intense experiences, new adventures, particularly emotive moments, awe-inspiring visions, these things have a certain power. They cause immediate sensory overload and it takes me quite a bit of time to process everything and recuperate. I need to seep. In the meantime, I'm often dumbstruck. It was not unusual for me to be quiet in India.
My personal muteness was in direct contrast to everything else around me. Bright sari colors draped across women's bodies. Rickshaws, trucks, and cars sped and swerved through every centimeter of street. Dogs, cows, and pigs rooted along sidewalks. Vendors called from every corner, pleading for your attention and business. Dust drifted and blew, haze settled across each vista. Horns honked constantly, politely notifying everyone and everything to move or be struck. Hungry children tapped on windows and pulled on shirttails, motioning a request for food or money with their hands at their mouths. Lights shone. Hues soaked. Sounds resonated. There were peaceful moments a plenty, too. Below the beauty of the Taj Mahal with wide eyes. Among the ruins behind Fatehpur Sikri. On the rocking bunk of a sleeper train crossing the Indian plains.

People, history, culture, art, life, religion, etc. These things are really big and small and old and new and ungeneralizable. Nothing I write will capture what India is if that's what you're hoping to read. Nor can one ever attain that understanding over a visit of less than two weeks, however well planned and executed those weeks are (THANKS BRIAN, for the gazillionth time...the future Mr. Rani Mukherjee did an amazing job as trip coach/team leader), nor do I think you would want to try. So we'll take this slowly, piecemeal style.

Additionally, in the week since I've been back I've either been teaching or totally zonked out in my apartment. Maybe it's exhaustion, maybe it's pneumonia finally catching up to me, maybe it's that nine days with Team India was not enough.
Needless to say, it's been kind of strange. A week has gone by and as immediate as the adventure still feels, the distinct oppositeness of everything I've recently experienced also makes it all seem very far away or perhaps just a figment of my overzealous imagination.



So we'll start things off simply with the general agenda of the leg of the trip I was present for, into which, hopefully, I will delve as time goes on. You have to frame a house first, anyway. Please feel free to ask questions or share comments, as usual. And corrections are welcome, Team members. It was a bit of a whirlwind.

December 28th: Arrive 5:30pm at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, India. Holiday greetings, fine rooftop dinner, sleep in Hotel Relax.

December 29th: Morning train ride to Agra. Brunch. Agra Fort. Taj Mahal. Rooftop Dinner.

December 30th: Explore Fahetepur Sikri and other parts of Agra town. Train ride back to Delhi in the evening.

December 31st: Red Fort. Jama Masjid Mosque. Humayun's Tomb. Dehlihad Market. Catch the evening train to be ridden overnight across the Gangetic plains to Durgapur.

January 1st: Conclusion of train ride. Three hour taxi from train station in Durgapur to Brian's current home, the village of Katna in Murshidabad, West Bengal. Stop by Jagriti Public School. Meet teachers and see the beautiful, small campus. Settle in to our great accommodations for the evening. Head into nearby town to lunch at Brian's regular afternoon eating establishment, purchase sweets for the teachers at school, and buy vegetables to make dinner at Brian's apartment. Stop back at school. Eat sweets. Play cricket till sunset. Walk home. Music. Dinner. Music. I obviously enjoyed this part of the trip in a special way. I'm not even at the delving stage yet.

January 2nd: Visit the students, see the schoolyard in action. Barber in town. “Computer” with Class 4 back at school. Lunch. Walk into Village Katna. Train to Kolkata. Settle into Brian's former flat.

January 3rd: Visit Victoria Memorial and the cultural/arts neighborhood. Visit the young people at Loreto School, where Brian worked in 2005, in the evening. Explore New Market. Enjoy another dinner on another rooftop. Go to Hindi movie “Welcome”.

January 4th: Kali Temple. Dakshewar and Belur Math. Boat ride on the Ganges to Belur. Ramakrishna. Late lunch at the Mitras'.

January 5th: Easy morning. One more visit to Loreto after lunch. Catch overnight train back to Delhi.

January 6th: Back in Delhi. Lunch at the Golden Cafe in the neighborhood of Hotel Relax. Taxi to airport. Farewell.

Just before departing from Okinawa I was finally able to get ahold of an old friend who had been in Europe for the past month. We had a great dinner at the airport before my flight to Tokyo. She's a really wonderful young woman, stuck between three cultures, which makes life that much more confusing. It was great to mull over the complications and simple bits of life with her again. Sometimes good conversation and a smile can lighten the emotional loads life doles out, even if it doesn't particularly make it easier.

Between the evening of Saturday December 22nd and the morning of Friday, December 28th (and most of January 7th during a layover), I spent my time exploring the Greater Tokyo Area, the largest metropolitan area in the world with a population exceeding 35 million people. Days were filled with the buzzing, looping mazes of the train and subway system shooting my friends and I from one borough to the next, each with its own personality, temples, restaurants, and shopping destinations. Daylight glittered on hoards of my-sized people moving from this place to the next amid shiny tall buildings and old cedar tori. Evenings were ablaze with thousands of tiny colored lights illuminating the holiday season. The first two nights were spent at Ayumu's family home in Chiba, the second at Atsumi's family home in Saitama, and the final two were spent in the country home (chickens, rabbits, and all) of Rika, just outside of Narita in Tako. Christmas Eve was highlighted with a German choir caroling in the ritzy Roppongi Hills neighborhood and Christmas Day concluded with a home-cooked meal including a full chicken and fixings in addition to roll-it-yourself-sushi and a phone call from home. The whole experience was an impressive mixture of family (lots of mothers, fathers, and grandmothers), friends (new and old), and the electrically throbbing heart of Japan, the Eastern cultural hub, steel, concrete, neon, and koi pond, Tokyo.



More Tokyo photos here!

On the morning of Friday, December 28th, I departed for India, where I remained until the night of January 6th. I need to wait a few more days to decompress, to let the events and images and everything wash through me a bit more, to miss the warm, red dirt of Katna under my fingernails, the constant honking of Agra's rickshaw horns, the towering architectural beauty of the Mughal Empire, the pleading faces of children begging for money, the energy of young, brightly uniformed students, and the company of my travel companions before I can say much of anything. But it will come soon. Many pictures, too.