Friday, June 21st 2013 - part 2, The N Family

When I moved to Japan to teach English with the JET program, the school administration assigned S, the art teacher, the glamorous duty of making sure I understood how to function in my new town. I assume they picked S because she was about my age, also single, and lived relatively close to the apartment they chose for me. They did not seem concerned with the fact that S did not speak English. If S was put out by any of this, you would never have known, she was always laughing and easy-going about everything.

S went so far above and beyond whatever the school had told her to do. On one of my first nights in Japan, she made me dinner and handed me Aquarius (Japanese sports drink) just I was contemplating passing out on the floor from heat exhaustion. She showed me how to get to two grocery stores from my apartment. She showed me where the video rental store was (yes, video rental, shut up) and then after that she took me to a restaurant. She sat me down, ordered two beers and what I learned was okonomiyaki, took out a spiral notepad and a pen, and we started talking. We used lots of hand gestures (think Charades) and any time we got stuck, the ingenious art teacher would draw a picture on the notepad and understanding was restored. (S said something about taco, and I got excited and drew a picture of a taco and asked, "Taco?" S looked at my picture and laughed. She pointed to it and said, "Tacosu." Then she drew a picture of an octopus and said, "Tako." My disappointment was vastly overshadowed by the fun of our conversation AND I was learning important and easy to remember nouns.) The more beer we had, the better our communication skills got until our friendship was permanently sealed.

I have such fond memories of S. She took me to my first cherry blossom viewing picnic in Omiya park. I took her on her first all-night clubbing experience in Roppongi. She would have little dinner parties with 2 other teachers from our school and taught me about holidays like Girl's Day and Japanese Valentine's Day. I took her to the Air Force base in Yokota to visit my friends and taught her about Taco Bell (she was pretty impressed with the size of the soda pop cup and kept it as a souvenir). When I was hit by a car, she was the only one who visited me and she brought me dinner and we played games. I would not have thought, logically, that two people who did not speak each other's language could become real friends - friendly acquaintances perhaps, sharing wacky exchanges once in a while, but not true friends. However, S stayed in touch even after I had to change schools my 2nd year in Japan. And then after I came home, we continued to communicate a few times every year with letters and packages. A few years after I left Japan, S got married. I actually knew her husband; she married the PE teacher at the school we taught at. I was very happy for her because he was extremely nice (and very good-looking!) and they had 2 boys, so she hasn't had a chance to visit me yet. Every time she had a big life event, she would send me pictures and a long letter, and I would do the same for her (except she is way ahead of me in the game of Life). S has always had a special place in my heart and I was so excited to see her again and for her to meet my husband.

When we met S at the train station, she looked exactly the same. I always forget how small she is (she only comes up to my shoulder) and she was stylishly dressed and still beautiful. She had brought her oldest, A-kun who is 5, with her and he looks just like her. When we arrived at her house, her husband N-sensei met us at the door carrying Y-chan, who is 2, with big smiles and warm handshakes. S has such a happy, warm family. They gave us a tour of their lovely home and we gave out our American omiyage (step 1 in winning over the kids). Then S sat us down for dinner while the boys decided that the best thing to do would be to open and try all the candy at once. S told us that she had a friend who was a tour guide and had asked him what Japanese food foreigners liked the most and then had made that. She made two kinds of katsu (S is an amazing cook and taught me everything I know about cooking Japanese food) and rice, salad, fish tubes stuffed with cheese, and so many other things I cannot remember them all. Dinner was a lot of fun and although N-sensei's English is limited, S did a great job translating (her English was actually quite good by the time I left Japan. I had assumed it was because she was just rusty at first and it had improved with practice. However, she told Mc that she wasn't interested in English before she met me, so it's possible that she studied) and N-sensei's smartphone had an app he could talk into and it would translate simple words and phrases. And of course Mc had listened to the language CDs and knew enough words to impress.

At dinner N-sensei asked Mc if he would like whiskey or beer. Mc chose beer and when N-sensei asked if he'd like another, he said yes because it was just beer and we were having good times with new friends. What he didn't realize was that the question wasn't "beer or whiskey" it was "which one first?" After dinner, whiskey came in large glasses with ice. S and I were chatting and when I glanced over at Mc I was a little surprised how red he'd gotten. He leaned over and whispered, "They stop asking if you want more! I just looked over and my glass was full again!"

*SuperNova Travel Tip: Japanese people generally love to drink, especially the men. If you are at a party, there will likely be one huge bottle of beer on the table and you will have a small juice-sized glass. The custom is that if you see someone's glass getting low, you grab the bottle and fill their glass for them. It's actually a great tradition, because then you can grab a bottle and go pour for people and chat with different guests at the party. If you want more drink, you cannot pour for yourself, so what you do is you find someone at the table near you and fill up your glass and then they will say thank you, notice your glass, and do the same for you (although people get a tad less meticulous the more alcohol that gets poured). This is important: If you don't want more, leave your glass full. It seems like a waste, but if there's any room at the top of your glass, you're getting more.

After dinner, Mc taught the boys how to use the remote control car and played with them till they were screaming with laughter and 100% won over. Around 11pm Satoko showed us to our room where she had laid out 2 futons with matching comforters, taught us how to use the electronic blinds and our air conditioner, and we slept like rocks.