No More Hiroshima

No matter how many times you imagine a scenario happening, none of the things you imagine ever really end up being quite like how things turn out--and not necessarily in a bad way. Just... different.

I've wanted to make a... for lack of a better word, a "pilgrimage" to Hiroshima ever since I was 14. The same summer I fell in love with Japan, I also gained a growing horror at the events of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When I read the story of Sadako Sasaki, a little girl who died from atom bomb disease several years after the atomic bombings, I made her, myself, and God a promise.

Someday, I was going to go to Hiroshima. It was a duty. I had to go. I had to see the atom bomb dome for myself. I had to see the Peace Park with my own eyes. I had to pray at the peace memorial.

Above all else, I had to leave paper cranes at the statue dedicated to children victims of the atomic bombings, depicting Sadako lifting a giant paper crane up to the heavens.

I had to do that, someday. I had to make that pilgrimage. I had to go and pay my respects, and acknowledge the horrors that man had wrought.

I finally made that pilgrimage today.

I woke up this morning at my homestay, with my bag already packed for my two days in Hiroshima and upcoming few days in Tokyo visiting a member of Morningside's board of directors. The trip from Nagao to Osaka went uneventfully, and I was able to get on the shinkansen to Hiroshima without any trouble (or luggage tumbling down escalators, thank goodness).

At Hiroshima Station, I met Ken Tanimoto, a friend and alumnus of Morningside College. If you've ever read John Hersey's landmark 1946 work Hiroshima, you'll recall a Japanese Methodist pastor by the name of Kiyoshi Tanimoto as one of the several people the book focused on. He was Ken Tanimoto's father. Mr. Ken Tanimoto's elder sister, Ms. Koko Kondo, was a young baby at the time of the atomic bombing, and has gone on to be an outspoken peace activist. Hopefully, I will have an opportunity to meet her sometime before I return home to the US.

Mr. Tanimoto showed me around the Peace Museum. In the images of the aftermath, he pointed out his father's church to me. He told me where his mother and Koko were during the bombing, and showed me on a map. He waited patiently, and let me take my time looking at the various exhibits (much fewer than normal currently, as the museum is undergoing earthquake-proofing renovations).

Once we'd finished looking around the museum, he led me out to the memorial for the dead out behind the museum. I didn't take any pictures of the memorial itself. It felt like a sacred place, like somewhere a camera didn't really belong.

I bowed in front of the memorial and prayed for peace, then stood up and, in a wavering voice, asked, "What does the memorial say?"

Mr. Tanimoto's voice was also shaking. "We will not make this mistake again. Let all the souls here rest in peace."

It may not be commonly viewed as appropriate in Japan, but I couldn't help it. I bowed my head and I cried. Not loudly, (quite quietly, actually), not obnoxiously, but I cried for a couple of minutes. When you are standing in a spot where just 74 years ago, human beings were literally vaporized or died in all manner of horrific ways, after having viewed images and relics of those lives, you can't help being emotional.

These people had spouses, parents, children, siblings, teachers, friends, coworkers. They had hopes and dreams. They had lives every bit as vivid and real as yours and mine. Many of them had nothing to do with the war, aside from the fact that it had unwelcomely pervaded into every single aspect of their lives. Many of them approved of the war, but many of them didn't.

And they weren't just Japanese, though that, of course, would be far beyond bad enough. They were Korean, Chinese, even American (there as POWs). They had futures. They had purposes. They had reasons to live.

And all of that was shattered in an instant. Some of them died in the blast. Some of them died in the days and months after. Some of them (like Sadako) didn't die until years later. But because of the most horrible weapon humanity has ever used, they died. Their lives were unceremoniously ended as just a "few" more casualties of a horrible, horrible war.

After I had finished crying, I quietly apologized to Mr. Tanimoto. "I'm sorry for crying."

He waved it off. He was teary too.

We went next to Sadako's statue, the memorial for the children of Hiroshima. Again, this space felt sacred. It didn't feel right to me to take a picture of the statue itself. There were several boxes full of paper cranes, one of which was standing open with space for more cranes to be placed.

And while I had not folded the full one thousand that many do, I had brought something with me, at least.

I kept the promise I made to my fourteen-year-old self. I kept the promise I made to God. I kept the promise I made to Sadako Sasaki.

I left my cranes I had folded, 24 cranes bearing the flags of various nations of the world, at Sadako's feet.

I looked at the cranes, and then bowed deeply before them, the common sign of respect in Japan. It felt like the right thing to do.

Mr. Tanimoto took me next to the atom bomb dome. It was much smaller than I had always imagined it to be; for some reason I thought it was very tall, when it's actually just about three stories at the tallest point. It's also not as wide or long as I thought it would be.

"There was a big argument over whether or not to keep this building," Mr. Tanimoto told me. "In Nagasaki, there are no buildings like this left. They were all torn down. And here, the survivors said the atom bomb was painful to see, because it is a terrible reminder of that day. But in the end, we decided to keep it, that we needed to keep it."

"I'm glad it was kept," I said, my voice still shaking with emotion. "Someday, there will be no one left who remembers the war themselves. We need to keep this building so that the people living then can see that these things really happened. People need to be able to see that this was real history, not just a legend."

Taking a deep breath, I finished, "Sometimes we need to be able to see our mistakes, so that we will not make them again."

We proceeded from there to the city government's memorial to the dead of Hiroshima. There was a long hall that went down in a big circle, before opening into a basement room. The infamous panoramic image of the razed downtown area, including the atom bomb dome, filled the giant, circular space.

But here, the image was made of tiles.

140,000 tiles.

One tile for each life that was ended because of the bomb in 1945 alone.

I cried a little more there, as well.

And lastly, Mr. Tanimoto showed me a tree that survived the atomic bombing, a tree that still grows today.

And at that moment, I noticed just how alive the park was. There were children running and laughing. There were cats wandering around here and there. There were tourists from various nations. There were countless plants, trees, and so, so many flowers.

There were so many colors. There were so many buildings all around us, beyond the park. There was a bustling open-air market on the other side of the nearby river we'd crossed a couple of times during our time in the park.

I cried a little more, this time from happiness and a full realization that, despite everything, Hiroshima is still here. Hiroshima is still alive, and well, and lively, and strong, and vivid.

I felt a bit cleansed, somehow. It's hard to describe, but I did.

The rest of the evening was lovely. Mr. Tanimoto and his wife took me to a really delicious ramen place for dinner ("because you are my Morningside College kohai (junior fellow student)," Mr. Tanimoto explained), and dropped me off at my hotel. Tomorrow, they're taking me to Miyajima, a famous shrine near here. On the way to dinner, Mr. Tanimoto told me about growing up as a PK, and laughed when he learned I'm a PK, too. He had three sisters and one brother; I have three brothers and one sister. He and his wife had three boys and two girls. His older sister, Koko, swore she'd never marry a preacher. So did my mother. Koko made her husband promise to never become a preacher. So did my mother. Koko married a financial worker. My mom married an accountant.

Both of their husbands became preachers. It's a small world, after all.

But now, as I sit here in my hotel, after the long day, trying to process everything, with tears rolling down my face, there's only one thing I can really think.

ノーモア広島。No More Hiroshima.

Not in the sense of "down with Hiroshima;" not by any means. No, this phrase is a promise of "Never again will we allow this to happen." It's an admission of "Never again can we allow this to happen." It's a plea of "Never again may we allow this to happen."

No More Hiroshima.

I went to Hiroshima. I did my duty. I saw the atom bomb dome for myself. I saw the Peace Park with my own eyes. I prayed at the peace memorial.

I left paper cranes at the statue dedicated to children victims of the atomic bombings, depicting Sadako lifting a giant paper crane up to the heavens.

I did all that, today, after all these years. I made that pilgrimage. I went and paid my respects, and I acknowledged the horrors that man had wrought.

And God willing, if I ever have children (as I hope to one day), I will bring them here. I will teach them about Sadako, about the Tanimotos, about the thousands of people who died here, about the thousands of people who survived. I will share all the stories I have learned about the victims, about the survivors. I will teach them, No More Hiroshima.

And for the rest of my life, I will say, No More Hiroshima.

And may that phrase ring true throughout the rest of human history, I plea.

No More Hiroshima.

Amen.

Branch Lines and Main Lines and Freight Lines, Oh My!

Despite being a Wizard of Oz reference, that title really takes me back to my Thomas the Tank Engine days. My three younger brothers all, at one point or another in their childhoods, were massive Thomas the Tank Engine fanboys, and I'll freely admit that the fervor ended up rubbing off on me, too. We owned a big collection of all of the Rev. W. Audrey's (I didn't even have to look up how to spell the name; that's how much I've internalized it) original stories about the trains and their adventures on the Island of Sodor, and at least a dozen of the video tapes of the old episodes voiced by Ringo Starr and/or Alec Baldwin, back when the trains and people were still portrayed by wooden train sets and figures. Me and my dad still mention sometimes that we wish we could "go on holiday" to Sodor. For some reason, the idea of trains with faces has never scared me, even though I feel like maybe it should.

(And, surprisingly enough, Thomas is huge over here among little kids. The series makes for a common Happy Meal toy, you can find Thomas toys at any toy shop, and bigger train stations often have at least a few posters portraying the cheery blue engine.)

All that reminiscing aside... The reason I bring it up is because I grew up loving trains, at first as a secondhand fan thanks to my brothers, and eventually just because trains are really freaking cool (a major obsession with The Polar Express starting around the time I was 7 and never really ending probably didn't hurt any either). However, in America, the only times I really ever got to ride trains were on the rare occasions we went to train museums (or the less-rare occasions we went to zoos). And none of those ever had a real destination--it was just for the experience of riding in a train, or to go around the zoo looking at the animals and end up back where you first started.

While I went on the St. Louis Zoo train fairly often as a little girl, if you only count the train rides I've taken since moving to Iowa at age 8, I've easily gone on far more train rides since coming to Japan than I have in my whole life previous. By the time I leave, I'll probably be able to say that, even counting my times on the zoo train. A side effect of this mix of train adoration and actually being able to ride them on a regular basis is that I basically can't stop smiling whenever I'm on a train. I look out the window at the world speeding by, at the ever-present mountains (which I absolutely adore) in the distance, and just feel this huge joy in my heart. The swaying and leaning of the cars on the track, the clacking of the rails beneath, and the hum of acceleration all do the same for me.

My absolute favorite moment, whether I'm inside a given train or not, is when it first starts going and leaving the station. There's this distinct note that plays when a train here starts moving; I feel like it must have something to do with the electricity that powers the train, but you only hear it when a train starts moving. By the time it leaves the station, you can't hear it anymore from inside the train, and not really anymore from outside, either. I don't know why it is, but I just absolutely love that particular sound so much. To me, it sounds like adventure, like having a place in mind to go to and going there.

Alright, I think I've fangirled about trains enough. I should probably get to the actual point of this post.

I think I mentioned in my Osaka trip post that when me and my friends traveled to Osaka, we had to change from a Keihan train line to a JR line. This is a fairly common thing in Japan. You see, JR (Japan Railways) is the giant in transportation here. They have stations and lines throughout the country, and operate every single freight train I've seen to date. However, there are areas where smaller transportation companies still have a large share of the daily travel done in the area. Keihan (a train and bus company) is an example of this in the area where I live. While the station nearest my homestay is a JR station (Nagao), the station nearest Kansai Gaidai is a Keihan station (Hirakatashi). The bus I use to get around on a daily basis, too, is owned and operated by Keihan. But by the time you get to Kyoto or Osaka, pretty much everything is JR again.

(An aside, "Osaka" is actually pronounced quite differently from how we say it in America. In Japanese, it's actually spelled as Oosaka, essentially, and the two Os are basically one and a half syllables. They're not fully said separately (like oh-oh) but they're not just perfectly strung together (like ohh) either. It's hard to explain in writing, but it's sorta of like saying two separate Os, but slurring them together. It's not the same as saying them separately or perfect together, but sort of in-between. Ohohsaka is basically the best way I can think of articulate the proper pronunciation in writing.)

One of the interesting things about different lines being owned by different companies is that to transfer lines, you often have to go to a different station than the one you originally get off your first train at. I hear in Tokyo, this sometimes amounts to having to actually leave one building and walk across the street to another. So far, in my experience, it usually just means having to walk from one part of a building to another (though, oftentimes, there'll be a decent-sized courtyard connecting the two areas). There'll still be signs all over the place with info for both lines on them, but they're still technically two different stations (though often with the exact same names).

While it can be a little frustrating at times having to deal with multiple companies (JR tickets usually cost a bit more than Keihan tickets, though not to a point that it's a real issue), I find it fascinating how well the companies usually seem to work together. Like I said, oftentimes the two stations are practically the same building, and you'll see directional signs listing both companies on the same sign. You can find screens with the timetables for JR trains in the Keihan area, and vice versa, so you can check when you need to be on your transfer train as you get off your first train. It's really so convenient.

Though, honestly, the train system in Japan is endlessly convenient in general. If you have an IC card (a preloaded funds card) all you have to do to pay for your tickets is scan your card at the gate on the way in and again on the way out, and it automatically deducts your fare. (As my host mom put it, you bin when you get on and bin again when you get off--bin being the sound the scanner makes when you scan your card--though she was referring to buses at the time, since IC cards work there too. You can even use some IC cards with vending machines or at stores; I bought a book at a bookshop using mine the other day.) When it comes to local trains (and sometimes even to bullet trains), your ticket (if you buy a physical ticket) isn't restricted by time. You can buy a ticket, eat lunch, and go on the fourth or fifth train going where you want to go, and there's not an issue. Oftentimes, the exact same sort of train (say, Local service to Such-and-Such or Rapid service to So-and-So) will come through every ten minutes, so if your bus is delayed by traffic, it's really not a big deal.

I'm taking my second bullet train trip ever to Hiroshima this Saturday, and then taking the bullet train back to Osaka just in time to travel to Tokyo to visit a friend of Morningside the next day (so, I have four bullet train trips planned in the next couple of weeks). Since I'm planning to have less luggage to deal with this time, I'm seriously looking forward to it. I'm hoping to be able to sit in a window seat this time, so I can actually get a few videos of the world rushing by outside for my littlest brother, who still has yet to completely finish his train mania phase.

Overall, the trains are just yet another facet of daily life in Japan that I find absolutely enthralling and enchanting, despite their total normality to all of the natives. One thing's for sure--when I go home, I am going to seriously, desperately miss being able to go anywhere in the country, anytime, with just a bin of my IC card and a spirit of adventure, with the beautiful note of the train pulling out of the station to sing me along my way.

The Pros and Cons of Living with a Host Family

Pros:

Your host mom truly becomes, in many ways, your surrogate mom for the time you're under her care. Depending on the society, maybe she doesn't hug you or pet your hair like your real mom does, but she shows her affection in her own ways. She pats your backpack when you head out for the day, reminds you to take an umbrella in case it rains like the forecast says it might, and tells you to take care. She slips up and calls you the society's version of a pet name on occasion, even though normally she takes care to call you by your real name in order to sound polite and respectful. If you tell her you especially enjoyed a dish, you notice she starts making it just often enough for you to realize she wants you to be able to enjoy your favorite meal fairly often. She tells you to run your heater even when you feel bad about the electricity usage, because she doesn't want you to get sick. She tells you not to forget your jacket, since it gets cool out still in the late afternoons when the sun starts setting. She gets excited when you tell her you did well on a test, and even more so when you tell her you made a new friend. If you make a mistake in the local language, she gently corrects it. She laughs whenever she discovers some new aspect of her home culture that you already know about and enjoy.

Your host dad is really a dad too. He laughs at things on the TV with you, and laughs even more when he realizes you're laughing too. He asks what you're working on for school, and when you show him, comments "That's tough... please do your best!" He tells you funny stories about things that are happening to the family's friends and at his work, oftentimes using funny voices. He teaches you interesting things about the culture. He gets overjoyed when you learn a local dialectal phrase and use it correctly.

Your host grandma is a grandma. She helps you when you have a crafts-y project you want to try and go to her to ask for advice--and when you thank her for her help, she tells you "it's my first time trying this too." She comments on how well you do everything--according to her, at least, you use chopsticks well, you play the piano well, you sing well, you fold origami well. She loves when you show her photographs of your family and home surroundings and tell her things about where you come from. She gives you a nickname and uses it often. She makes sure you get enough to eat and excitedly teaches you about different kinds of food.

Your host sisters are sisters. They sing duets with you of their favorite songs, letting you sing the English bits and singing the parts in other languages themselves. They sit on the floor and laugh at the TV with you, sometimes to the point where you're all dissolved in giggles and can't even see the TV anymore, leaving mom in the kitchen to comment "well, now EVERYONE is laughing!" They laugh when you make an obvious mistake in the language, but correct you nonetheless, and you know their laughter is all in good fun. Sometimes when they buy a snack while they're out, they buy an extra to bring home and give you, so you can try it too. They make you laugh with their antics--the way they make faces at their homework, the way they dance around the house together to their favorite songs.

Your host family is a family. They make you one of their own. They teach you their customs, their tastes, their celebrations, their language, their culture. They do what they can to make you feel at home. They support you in your life abroad. They do so much for you, and treat you so kindly, and really just make you feel like you belong.

Cons:

You know that after the months you spend living with them, laughing with them, eating with them, picking up their mannerisms, internalizing their faces, their smiles, their voices...

You'll probably never get to see them or even talk to them again.

A Quick Trip to Osaka

As I believe I've mentioned a few times, Hirakatashi is set almost exactly in-between Osaka and Kyoto. The only time I've spent in Kyoto so far is the day I traveled from Tokyo to here, but I can now say that I've spent an evening in Osaka. I meant to spend a day in Kobe and ended up spending a night there in preparation to do so, but upon waking up sick, I had to forego enjoying the Lunar New Year festival (one of Japan's three Chinatowns is in Kobe) with friends and go home instead. But hey, at least I can say now that I got to spend a really fun evening in Osaka.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned Zachary on here yet, but he's a friend I met in a McDonald's almost a month ago now and have been hanging out rather routinely with ever since. He's sort of connected me to his friend group at large, mainly through a Pokemon GO group chat on LINE, so pretty often when one of us has a plan to do something fun at least a few of the others will end up joining in.

Anyway, last Friday evening's trip to Osaka was born out of me stumbling over a "Watch It Again!" recommendation on YouTube. It was a thumbnail for a video for Uncle Rikuro's Cheesecakes, a sweet that went viral almost three years ago due to the fact it's a super fluffy and jiggly cheesecake.

"Huh," I murmured. "I wonder where that shop is."

Well, as luck would have it, it's not only in Osaka (a mere hour away from me by transit), but literally inside Osaka Station. So, suddenly in the mood for cheesecake, I hopped on the Pokemon GO group chat.

"Anyone up for going to Osaka this Friday after classes to get some cheesecake from this cool place in Osaka Station?" I linked the video for others to see.

Zachary answered right away. "I'm up for it." He and I share a class on Wednesdays and Fridays, which also just so happens to be our last class on Fridays, so it's pretty easy for us to hang out together then. We've made a couple of trips to a local multi-floor thrift store, the local two-story SEGA arcade, and now Osaka too because of this fact. "I'll reach out to a couple friends in other chats too and see if they're interested."

A couple minutes later, he asked, "Wait, how far away from the Umeda Sky Building is Osaka Station?"

A quick Maps search showed it's only about half a kilometer. When I let him know this, he got really excited. "We have to go there, too. That place sounds amazing."

"I'm up for it," I assured him, despite having no idea what the Umeda Sky Building is. A quick Google search told me it's the tallest building in Osaka, with an outdoors rooftop observation deck. It's not nearly as tall as the Tokyo Skytree, which I visited in January, but it's pretty amazing all the same.

And a few minutes later, he informed the group, "Guys! The Osaka Pokemon Center is in the station too!"

Welp, it looked like the evening was all planned for us now. Unfortunately, as it turned out, everyone in the Pokemon GO group chat had later classes that evening, but Zachary's friend Isobel said she could come. So the three of us made our way to Osaka Friday afternoon after class, rode up thirteen floors' worth of escalators to the Pokemon Center, and enjoyed looking around at all the plushies and toys and stuff there. Then, we walked over to the Umeda Sky Building and got in a line to get in an elevator that would take us to buy tickets to ride an escalator up the last few floors.

We stood in that first line for 45 minutes.

On the bright side, Zach and I were able to trade several Pokemon on Pokemon GO in the interim, and he was kind enough to hold my backpack for a bit (since I don't have a dorm and my homestay was out of the way, I had to carry mine all day, while he and Isobel dumped theirs off at the dorms before meeting me at the station. Since I had a bus pass, I took the bus there to save my knees as much as possible). But still, the wait was ridiculous.

Once we got out of that line, I thought it was time for the elevators, but no. We got into a smaller line that was waiting for the elevators.

Finally, after another fifteen minutes, we were in the elevators up to the 39th floor. From there, we each bought a ticket for ¥1500 (think $13.50, basically, at the current exchange rate which keeps skewing more and more in the dollar's favor by every week) and took the escalator up to the 42nd floor.

The view was... I don't want to exaggerate, but it was extraordinary. The wraparound windows revealed the by-now-night-shrouded city of Osaka glittering as far as the eye could see.

And then Isobel spotted the staircase up to the rooftop.

We all but sprinted up the stairs onto the roof. The roof in and of itself was a really cool space--there were black lights that caused the ground to glow like a starry sky, making it easy to see where the path was. Of course, a side effect of this was that everything white glowed. Zach was suddenly wearing glowing blue shoes--"I have Skechers! Yay!" he joked. My polka-dotted sweater was now gleaming all over the place.

But the view.

Wow.

I can't get my photos to my computer very easily at the moment (it's a long story), but I'll definitely post some of them here at some point, even if not till this summer. If you've been keeping up with my Facebook story, you saw some of them there. I also have a video of two trains crossing a huge bridge into Osaka in the dark.

The whole view was beautiful, and for whatever reason, the loudspeakers were quietly playing English pop songs. I sang along with a couple that I recognized, just for fun. Isobel spotted an area where couples were placing heart-shaped locks bearing their initials, high in the sky. We figured out that the gift shop sold the locks just for this purpose.

"Humans and our ridiculously intricate customs," Isobel observed.

As most people who know me well can attest to, one of my lesser-known talents is the ability to randomly spout deeper-than-it-needs-to-be nonsense off the top of my head sometimes when the moment calls for it. This, apparently, was one of those times.

"What would be the point of human existence if we didn't have our ridiculously intricate customs?" I asked quietly, leaning against the railing and surveying the starry-sky-like city around us.

Isobel fell silent for a moment. "Valid point," she agreed finally, emphatically, though with a bit stronger of language.

We finally headed down a bit later. Zach and I ended up at the tail end of a group that was ushered onto a long escalator down to the 37th floor that was encased in a wraparound window. When we got to the bottom, the escalator was empty, making for a perfect photo op. Isobel joined us in the line for the elevators down a few minutes later, and then we stood in that line for about twenty minutes.

"I don't see any stairs anywhere," I murmured. "What do we do if the building catches fire?"

"We die," Isobel offered helpfully.

"Or we could bust a window and jump out," Zach observed.

"And die," I muttered with a shudder.

"You either die or you die," Isobel shrugged.

"GUESS I'LL DIE," Zach, me, and several other foreign students/tourists mixed throughout the crowd replied in unison, striking the now-iconic meme's pose.

We got a few funny looks from non-English-speakers in the crowd, but we weren't loud enough to cause any real consternation, and aside from several laughs and finger-guns directed at each other in recognition of the fact that we all knew the same silly internet joke, we quickly went back to being as quiet as everyone else.

We finally made it back down to the ground level. In the basement of the building was an area designed to look like an outdoors restaurant district of Japan's past (unfortunately I was too tired and hungry to remember to take photos). We found an inexpensive pasta place there and enjoyed a really good dinner before heading back to Osaka Station to find our cheesecake.

Despite the fact that it was after 8 PM at this point, there was a line over twenty people long at Uncle Rikuro's. Thankfully, it was quick-moving, and while we waited, Zach and I got to watch the cheesecakes being made through a window. We each bought a hot-and-fluffy cheesecake fresh from the oven (for only ¥695, no less), and then it was time to head home for the night.

We all three took the train back to Kyobashi (a fairly big hub station that connects the JR lines and the Keihan line--a long story, that), but from there, Zach and Isobel headed back to Hirakatashi on a Keihan train, while I got on another JR line to the station nearest my homestay. I actually ended up in a women's-only car, and despite the fact that I've never once felt in any way endangered during my time here, I have to admit that I appreciated that car's existence. Going by the fact it was pretty crowded, I'm guessing the many other women inside it agreed with me.

The trip home was uneventful. I got on a bus at the train station, walked the rest of the way from the bus stop to my homestay, and delivered the still-warm cheesecake to my host mother to be refrigerated and eaten for dessert the next day.

And let me tell you, when we finally did eat it: it was a really dang good cheesecake.

"Good recommendation," Zach texted me Friday night when he tried his. "Very fluffy. Not too sweet."

So, even though the Umeda Sky Building ended up stealing the night overall, my initial idea to go try some jiggly cheesecake still proved meritorious in and of itself.

Amefuri no Toki

I’ll never quite understand people
Who say that they don’t like the rain.
Those who hide underneath their umbrellas,
And grunt that the weather’s a pain.

Because rain’s not just good for the planet,
But it’s also good for the soul.
In the same way it grows trees and flowers,
It helps to make my heart whole.

I’m glad I’m not that type of a person—
“Amefuri no toki, amari genki janai;”
No, “amefuri no toki ga daisuki” for me,
Underneath the lovely gray sky.

*"Amefuri no toki, amari genki janai (desu)." (Ah-meh foo-ree no toh-kee, ah-mah-ree gen-kee jah-nai dess.) (When it rains, I don't feel very energetic/well.)
*"Amefuri no toki ga daisuki (desu)." (Ah-meh foo-ree no toh-kee gah dai-ski dess.) (I love it when it rains.)

♫ I Want A Church Girl Who Goes to Church...♫

♫And reeeeeads her Biiiiiible♫

To anyone who has never experienced that particular vine, I apologize, but I had no idea what else to call this post.

Essentially, probably totally unsurprisingly to everyone who knows me at all, I did indeed manage to find a bilingual Christian congregation here, which I've been attending pretty regularly. The church, Agape International Christian Fellowship, only has about 15 people at service every Sunday (unsurprising since only 1% of the national population identifies as Christian), and as such, they don't have a church building, but meet in a city-owned room at the moment. Services consist of an hour of worship music (led by the pastor, Pastor Watahara, on the guitar and his wife on the flute), and about an hour of scripture study/preaching. Even though services are longer than the ones I'm used to back home, they don't feel as long for some reason.

As I mentioned, the service is bilingual. What this means is that worship songs are primarily sung in Japanese (which is printed on the song sheet in romaji (Roman letters) so I can easily sing along), but occasionally we'll sing a verse and chorus in English. (I save the song sheets since several of the songs are ones I know from home; I'll try to post a video to YouTube fairly soon of me singing a couple of worship songs in Japanese that fellow Morningsider Christians will recognize.) When reading the scriptures, the pastor will read a verse in English, and then immediately read it in Japanese. In the same way, in the sermon, he'll say a sentence in English, and then immediately say it in Japanese. It's a cool way to both practice my Japanese listening recognition skills and hear the Word of God.

There is one major interesting thing I've noticed about the Japanese take on Christianity that surprised me a little. First of all, you almost never see Japanese people get emotional, at least not in a negative sense. Even laughter is often restricted to the home if it's anything beyond a short laugh in most cases. You definitely never see someone crying in public, unless they're a very small child, in mortal agony, or have just lost a relative/good friend or something. It's just not done here. Even at home, crying is rare. Aya-chan banged her elbow good on a countertop the other day, let out a single cry, and curled over on herself, before taking a deep breath and standing back up with a big smile.

"Aya-chan daijoubu?" (You ok?) Mama asked.

"Hai-hai," (Yup-yup!) Aya-chan replied, and went back to making herself a snack.

That said, the only time I've ever seen Japanese people getting truly emotional is at church. I've only been to one communion service somehow so far (I'm not sure about their schedule for those), but when the pastor read the Words of Institution over the Holy Sacrament, he was teary and his voice was shaking. There were several people throughout the congregation sniffling, and it wasn't runny nose sniffling (I've learned good and well what that sounds like by now, since wiping/blowing your nose in public is frowned upon here). At first I was a little confused by the emotional reaction, mainly because it was so unexpected, but when I got back home and thought about it a little, I began to understand.

When you live in a country where Christianity is legal and fairly readily available to you, if you choose to go looking for it, and you yourself are a Christian but practically no one else you know is, well... I can see how it would become all the more precious. The Japanese have religious freedom, of course, so Christians aren't legally persecuted, per se, but... When what you believe to be the most important thing in the universe is rare in your home country, and you know that the vast, vast majority of people around you will never experience why it is so important to you... I can see how that would make it hard not to be emotional every time you get to experience it.

I kinda wish the American church were that enthusiastic and emotional over Christianity, still.

Unfortunately, for the lovely little church I've found, times aren't the best (from a worldly point of view, at least) right now. I'm not entirely sure why, but after the end of March, religious groups can no longer use local city buildings for meetings. So, the room they currently use, and the library (their backup location) are both off the table as of April 1st. They won't have anywhere to meet, and they're not sure where to go.

Last week, the pastor met with the director ("a very kind person," he said) of the building they typically meet in, and asked whether anything could be done to allow them to continue to meet there.

"Well, you're all very kind and polite people," said the director, "and no one else needs that room Sunday mornings anyway, so I really want you to be able to keep using it and doing exactly what you've been doing. So I tell you what--if you say you're just studying the Bible for knowledge and being a chorus group, I'll let you keep using the room another two years, no questions asked. You can keep doing exactly what you've been doing; you just have to say here and now that what you won't be doing is worshiping God. As long as you're not worshiping God, or at least, as long as you say you're not worshiping God, you can stay."

Of course, Pastor Watahara replied, "We can't say that."

So, as of April, they won't have anywhere to meet.

The pastor explained, "From a worldly point of view, this is the worst time for our church. It probably seems like God doesn't really care about us, that He's giving up on us as a church. But from a godly point of view, this is the best time for our church. God is leading us on a new journey of faith and trust."

The native members of the church are trying to figure out where to go, so to anyone who prays, we'd all appreciate prayer on that front. The people of this congregation are all very sweet and kind. Every week, they all take the time to shake my hand and greet me, even if some of them don't really know any English and I don't know enough Japanese to have a full, in-depth conversation with them. The pastor (who is, of course, fluent in English) always takes time to check in and ask how I've been over the past week. The first Sunday I worshiped with them, he told me, "The precious prayers of God's people have brought you to us from across the sea. He has a plan to bless you and others through you this semester. If you need any help with anything, please tell us; we are all God's family."

And then this past Sunday, as I was preparing to go, he told me, "I might not know you very well yet, but you are very polite and joyous, and we are all very happy to see you every Sunday when you walk in."

I beamed back and replied, "Hai, watashi wa ganbarimasu!" (Yes, I try my utmost/do my very best!), only for him to gently interrupt.

"No, I don't think you understand," he said. "What I mean is that your very being and spirit are very polite and joyous." He meant, "You don't have to ganbarimasu. You already are the thing you're striving to be."

I kinda wanted to burst into tears, but in good Japanese fashion, I just smiled brightly and thanked him several times before heading out.

I guess what I really want to say overall is, God bless Pastor Watahara and the people of AICF. I hope and pray they find another place to meet soon.

Happy Artificial Holiday Day!

As everyone probably knows, I tend to be a little bit salty about Valentine's Day. Growing up, my siblings and I called it Chocolate Day, because our parents gave us chocolate candy every year to celebrate. Now that I'm grown, I find the whole "holiday" to be a little silly--Why only do loving things for your s/o once a year? Why not be loving year round?--and the fact that I've never had experience with having a so-called Valentine makes it a little hard for me to understand the hype.

That said, I'll still always enjoy the day for being Chocolate Day, and I'll still always send all of my internet friends meme Valentine cards that seem semi-threatening in a goofy way. (e.g., last week I sent one friend a "card" of a Kirby character exclaiming "Happy Valentines Day! I promise I'll never eat your soul!" that I found on Twitter. They loved it.)

Surprisingly to some people, Valentine's Day is just as big a day in Japan and East Asia as it is in the States/Europe, possibly even bigger. Everyone is highly aware when Valentine's Day is coming up, especially the moms and grandmas who are responsible for helping their elementary-through-junior-high schoolers make homemade treats for everyone in their class.

In my homestay family, Mama and Aa-chan (Grandma; a shortened form of Obaasan/Obaachan, grandmother) made little cakes for everyone in both daughters' classes. I attempted to help but mostly just ended up giggling every time the mixer broke down and I and Aa-chan would scold it. "It's not very kind," ("amari yasashikunai desu ne,") I added helpfully, which thankfully, the whole family found quite amusing.

And, of course, Rimi-chan and Aya-chan brought home treats from all of their classmates, a few of which (and one little cake) they gave to me with a little post-it note that said "Dear リズ" (Rizu being the nickname given to me by Aa-chan the week after Setsubun).

(And on the subject of nicknames, Mama called me "Erizabesu-chan" the other day, which just about made my day. Ever since I've been walking around thinking "I am the smart and cute protagonist of my own anime and abso-freakin-lutely nobody is allowed to make me feel bad about myself." It's nice to feel self-confident for once.)

But beyond grade school, Valentine's Day is still a serious matter over here. You see, Valentine's Day actually goes hand-in-hand with a March holiday known as White Day. You can't really have one without the other.

Valentine's Day is the day when girls high-school-aged-and-up give homemade treats (usually chocolates they've molded into cute shapes) to the boys they like/have crushes on, oftentimes as a quiet way to confess. White Day is the boys' turn to reciprocate--if a boy gives you chocolates/treats back, congrats, he likes you. If you never hear anything else about it after Valentine's Day, well... Better luck next time, I guess.

But the point here is that Valentine's Day is a day for girls to take action when it comes to matters of the heart. Which, overall, is pretty different from the way it works in the States.

Funnily enough, this difference led to a group of single American young women giving our South Korean professor a brief crash course in United States Valentine's Day.

First of all, a brief word about Professor Chang. As I mentioned, he's South Korean, and so far I know he's fluent in English, Japanese, Chinese, and that he knows at least some Russian and French. He might be fluent in those too; I don't know for sure. He used to work for the South Korean government, and was part of the Six Party Talks that up until a few years ago were attempting to persuade our jolly friends the Kims of North Korea to not build nukes. Since that, fairly obviously, has fallen through, he's now started teaching about nuclear weapons at the college level. So, I'm taking nuclear weapons class with him this semester.

(Also interesting is that, before the Six Party Talks, he was part of the branch of government in charge of keeping track of which South Korean citizens were currently abroad and whether or not they made it safely home when expected. "We lose three or four citizens to India every year," he told us, "whether by death or just disappearance. India's not a safe place. Don't go to India. If you have to go to India, whatever you do, absolutely never drink the water outside of a hotel." Considering the things my best friend's boyfriend (an Indian citizen) has said about India, I think Professor Chang's advice is pretty solid.)

Anyway, on Valentine's Day, I had class with Professor Chang, and after class, as most of the guys had left and a few of us girls were taking our time getting our backpacks re-packed and ready to go, someone coming in for her class afterwards mentioned, "Today is Valentine's Day."

Professor Chang agreed, "So it is," and then asked in surprise, "They have that in the United States? Is it a big deal?"

We single-and-salty American ladies gave each other a look somewhere along the lines of "oh boy."

"Yeah, but it's pretty different," I started off. "Here, it's more about girls doing things. In the US, it's more like... guys giving flashy gifts to girls they're already in relationships with."

"And then the girls bragging about the gifts all over social media and making every girl who doesn't have a boyfriend feel bad," another girl chimed in.

About this time an American guy came in for his next class (otherwise, it was just a bunch of female students at this point) and sat down at a desk to listen.

"It's also a time when you hear single people complain a lot," I added. "Some people jokingly call it Singles Awareness Day."

"So you have to already be in a relationship to celebrate?" Professor Chang clarified.

A round of nods. "Basically," a girl agreed.

"The week before Valentine's Day, you see a bunch of memes online that say things like 'If anybody likes me, they need to tell me now!'" I added.

The professor nodded. "I can see why that would make sense, if you have to already be in a relationship."

All of us girls kinda sighed and nodded.

Professor Chang turned to the one guy in the room. "Sounds like you need to get some chocolates or something for the ladies."

The guy laughed in embarrassment. "Yeah, I guess so."

Anyway, shortly after that I left, but it was still funny. I think the funniest part was how odd Professor Chang found it that Valentine's Day in the States is more about bragging about what you already have, and less about confessing to someone that you like them.

Of course, people who are already couples tend to celebrate on Valentine's Day here, too; they just tend to be a bit subtler than in the States (where you're all but guaranteed to see at least twelve posts on Instagram featuring a girl being noisily given a giant stuffed animal in the middle of a school somewhere. It's almost as bad as promposal season, I swear).

Overall, though, I think I like Valentine's Day better over here. It's less of an opportunity to show off in a materialistic fashion, and more a time to actually tell someone you like them for the first time. And honestly, I think that's pretty sweet.

It's still just Chocolate Day for me, though. I bought myself a Valentine's Day Kirby collector's tin of several little chocolates, which I enjoyed eating while listening to music that evening. And that's cool too.