it's not life that matters but the journey...

Note to myself:  I've decided that I really am eating too much these days.  I eat even if I'm not hungry - a lot like my cat!  It will have to stop soon . . .

Okay – I can finally get caught up again before the craziness starts again next week.  I had today to relax, and then tomorrow night I will meet some former students for dinner (and possibly one of the teachers I used to work with at the high school) in Fuji.  I haven’t seen them for five years, so it will be interesting.  Then I have Monday off and will teach from Tuesday to Friday!  Next Saturday afternoon, Masahiko and I will go to a place called Asagiri, right at the foot of Mt. Fuji, for a barbeque party with some local musicians, including a great harmonica player he met and played with last month.  It will be fun! 

So, to catch up on my latest activities, I got back from my little trip on Wednesday and had a little rest before going to work for two days.  Thursday’s classes were easy, but on Friday afternoon I had to teach three kids’ classes in a row, and it left me incredibly exhausted!  If you think it seems easy, just try to imagine how much energy you need to teach English to three 5-year-olds who are full of energy – they are on summer vacation – and basically still learning to speak their own language.  One of the classes was supposed to have four students, but only one showed up – so Naoko joined the class, which made me a little nervous, and which was annoying because she kept translating everything into Japanese and not letting me teach!  I got through it, but I have the same classes next Friday.  The hardest part is that these kids are accustomed to the “regular” teacher, a young girl from Australia named Ailsa.  When they saw me, they were asking “where’s Ailsa?” and looking at me like I was the devil or something!  I would prefer if Naoko had just canceled these classes while Ailsa was gone – they like her so much, and are used to her way of teaching.  Oh well!  After the classes Friday, I took the train to my old home town, Kambara, and met my friend Naomi for dinner.  We drove out to the nearby town of Fujinomiya and ate at a little pasta place and then went to hear Masahiko play at a little jazz club in that town.  He played only two hours, and then we talked to the other musicians for awhile and got home by midnight.  It was fun!  He is enjoying his new challenge of playing jazz, and while it’s not nearly as exciting as playing in blues clubs in Chicago, he is learning new music and having a new experience.  And they love him since he is so good!  I wish I could get him to record with someone – maybe this piano player he is performing with.  Masahiko is even singing now, which is great!  Wish you all could see it!

To backtrack, I will finish writing about my trip up to visit the Yoshinos.  I already wrote about Monday – I visited three museums, plus a dam, and spent an interesting day talking with Mr. Yoshino (Katsu) about Japanese history, politics, business, Chinese culture and history, and many other issues related to the world.  He is such an interesting person, fluent in English, has traveled the world (for business mostly), and knows so much about almost any topic that you could think of.  Even though he officially retired from his company last year, he signed on for an additional two-year commitment as a translator.  He works for a company called WABCO (part of American Standard), which manufactures air brakes for cars and trains.  Originally, the company was started just for the railway, but then they extended to the automobile industry, which is what Mr. Yoshino specifically worked with.  I’m not quite sure what his position was with the company before his retirement, but his current position requires him to travel to the factories abroad (China, Poland, Germany, America) and act as a translator for the independent consultants who are hired by his company to improve the company performance.  These consultants are all Japanese (all independent contractors), and they are basically what we might call “efficiency experts” who look very carefully at every little detail of how a company is run, and they make suggestions for improvement, such as moving the location of machines, increasing the workload that workers must produce, etc…. It all sounds extremely difficult on the workers, since they are constantly under a microscope, every little aspect of their movements and performance is scrutinized meticulously.  But Katsu really enjoys his job and loves the idea of the ”continuous improvement,” which is the catch phrase (though I can’t remember what it is in Japanese).  He is full of energy, and still wants to go to America to get his MBA, perhaps after this contract is finished!  Mr. and Mrs. Yoshino are such polar opposites to Masahiko’s parents, who can’t speak a word of English (and don’t want to learn), have NEVER traveled outside of Japan, and hardly even outside of Honshu, which is the main island in Japan - Japan having three islands, plus Okinawa – (and they don’t want to travel, didn’t go to our wedding, and never intend to go abroad – for that matter, neither does Masahiko’s sister), and who are basically clueless about any food, religion, culture, language, or experience that is not Japanese.  It’s sad! 

So, after a busy day on Monday, Tuesday was a little less hectic, but nonetheless it was a full day.  Katsu had to go back to work, but Fujiko accompanied me into Tokyo for the day.  First we took the subway from Kawaguchi (where they live) into Tokyo, where we caught a little street car (like the cable cars in San Francisco, but not open).  It was raining a bit, so I didn’t have such a great view, but we went to a little covered shopping area in a part of Tokyo called Minowabashi.  There we walked a bit and had lunch in a little restaurant.  It was there, in that restaurant, while the owner was preparing our yaki-niku (grilled pork) and miso soup that we experienced the earthquake.  After lunch we caught the little street car back to another part of Tokyo where we could get the subway to the National Museum of Modern Art (in a part of Tokyo called Chiyoda-ku, right across the street from the Emperor’s palace).  The view from the museum was beautiful, but I couldn’t get a picture since we were indoors.  The exhibit which I wanted to see was “Cubism in Asia” – paintings from all over Asia including Japan, China, Korea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and India.  For those of you who don’t know, Cubism is the movement inspired by Picasso, very abstract and modern.  The paintings were fascinating (I love art), very colorful, and often even reflective of the cultures from which they came.  There were several renditions of the traditional “mother and child” as well as a lot of “still life.” 

We spent several hours at the museum, because in addition to the Cubism, there were two whole floors of Japanese modern art, from the beginning of the 1900s up to the 1970s.  It was tiring, but only cost the equivalent of about $7.00 so it was a bargain!

At 4:30, Fujiko and I took the subway to Roppongi-Ichome station to meet Masami, her daughter, who took me back to her home for dinner while Fujiko and Katsu went to visit their other daughter, Mariko, and her husband’s family.  Masami just got married about two years ago, and has a little boy who is 1 ½ named Yuki.  They live just about 5 minutes from Mr. and Mrs. Yoshino in Kawaguchi, so it was about a 45-minute ride on the subway back to her place.  Her husband cooked a terrific dinner of stir fried beef, lamb and vegetables and salad, and I had a lot of fun playing with Yuki, who is a beautiful child, and very pleasant (except when he wants to do something by himself, he gets very stubborn and fussy – just like a near 2-year-old!).  Masami took me back to her parents’ by 9 and the next morning I left early since Fujiko was going to have to babysit Yuki since he might have the chicken pox.   It was a great trip, and I wasn’t really exhausted when I returned.  Except that Masahiko had not done any cleaning while I was gone, so on Thursday morning, I had to spend a couple hours vacuuming, cleaning the cat’s box, washing clothes, and dusting before I went to work.  And tonight I’m planning to organize the Cds and DVD’s which are getting unruly and other things.  I’m in that kind of mood right now, the mood to organize my life.