Screwing Up Royally

Most of you who know me also know that I am a bit scatterbrained. I've hit the point in my life where if I don't write something down TWICE, I forget it. Not only do I have a family calendar on the fridge but I also have a dry erase schedule on the back of the front door. Somehow, I still miss 5% of my life's obligations.

Reiko, the woman who runs the English school I teach at, likes for me to remember the kids' birthdays. I warned her that I can barely remember my own children's special day. If it weren't for Lily updating me weekly about the new and improved plans for her birthday party (starting 9 months in advance), I might actually overlook it.

One of my 10-year-old students, who speaks fabulous English, reminded me two weeks ago that we had missed celebrating her birthday because of the Christmas/New Year holidays. I told her I would bring cupcakes to the next class. The following lesson time, as I was saying goodbye, she said, "My birthday?" Oh, Lord. I told her I was very sorry and would bring TWO cupcakes for her next week.

I didn't write that down. Big mistake.

The following class did not take place in Reiko's home as usual. The flu has hit hard in Japan and two of her children were out for the count. Since she didn't want to expose everyone to those germs, we met instead at a local community center. The first thing out of my student's mouth as she entered the room was, "My birthday?"

NOOOOOOOOOOO! I can't believe I forgot again!

I apologized profusely. Her eyes filled up with tears as she looked down at her feet, trying to compose herself. I felt like...well...have you ever disappointed an adorable Japanese kid to the point of tears? That depth of lowliness can't quite be expressed fully in the English language.

I started the lesson but I couldn't concentrate because my conscience was still busy cussing me out. All of a sudden, I thought of an option...THE DRINK MACHINE. Every Japanese gathering place has a drink machine with 30 choices of water, tea, soft drinks, jello juice, coffee (cold and hot), hot chocolate, corn soup (?) and assorted vile vitamin shots.

I broke out of my calendar review and shouted, "Birthday drinks from the machine!" The birthday girl looked shocked and excited. She jumped up and everyone stampeded for the machine. At first they thought the birthday girl would be the only one getting treated. When it dawned on them that everybody was included, you would have thought that Nancy Sensei was the Japanese Messiah. Hallelujah, free beverages!

I gathered from their level of excitement that Japanese kids do not get treated like this on a regular basis. They were so stoked to pick their own drink and enjoy it in class that the smiles did not come off their faces for the rest of the hour. The birthday girl was ecstatic. To add to my triumph, I even mangaged to weave the impromptu drink celebration into our lesson on the five senses (How does your drink taste/feel/smell?). Oh yeah, I'm a weaver. I weave. That's what I do.

Yessiree, my self esteem continued to skyrocket...until I tried to act out the meaning of the word "relax". I sat down in a chair and put my feet up on a desk, while letting out a long, theatrical "AHHHHHH". The entire class gasped in absolute horror. For a moment, I had completely forgotten that showing the soles of your feet/shoes to others is a deplorable, defiling insult in Japanese culture. Nothing is dirtier or lowlier than the bottom of one's foot. (It is also a terrible faux pas to point to anything with it.)

So after a second round of saying gomenasai (sorry!), there I was, back at square one...feeling lower than, well...the soles of my unfortunate feet.

More New Year Thoughts...From Someone Else

“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.”
William Allen White

Daruma Dreaming

Nothing says New Year in Nihon like the ubiquitous daruma doll (the little red guy engulfed in flames above). Mustachioed and a little fierce looking, he is modeled after Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism in Japan. These miniature fellows are usually hollow, red for good luck and lacking in appendages and eyes. The owner, while making a wish, colors in one eye (usually the left). If the wish comes true during the year, the other eye is filled in.

Dontoyaki follows closely behind the Japanese New Year, usually around the second week of January. It is a solemn ritual centered around the burning of all the religious New Year's decorations and any other items associated with that year's god, to include charms, tokens and darumas. The Dontoyaki experience is both serenely magical and immensely cathartic. I became completely mesmerized watching the flames consume the remains of the past year.

(For a more detailed description of the event, please see my post from January 2008.)

The purpose of the dontoyaki fire is two-fold. Things are either returned to last year's god in gratitude...or to make humble peace with his disfavor. Burning "unlucky" items, like the daruma pictured above, symbolically destroys the unfavorable and sends it back from whence it came. The soul, released from its negative past, is then ready to fully hope for better times with the new year's god.

Those of you who know me and my family are aware that it has been a rough year, and, for different reasons, will continue to be for some time. But my dear friend Kim gifted me with my very own daruma this new year. I carefully colored in one eye a few weeks ago. Mr. Daruma now rests patiently in my cabinet...waiting for the day he can fully see...for the day my happiness is completely envisioned.

I know this is extremely late--but Happy New Year to you all. I hope that if the events of last year left you blind, that you now may see...great happiness and love throughout the coming year.

Dear Santa...

The Japanese school I teach at had an American-style holiday program right before Christmas. All the classes performed a Christmas song and showed off some of their English phrases. I have two classes; one performed The Twelve Days of Christmas and the other Jingle Bell Rock. My kids, some of them shown above, also spoke about why they love Christmas (based on the 5 senses we have been studying)...i.e. I love Christmas because I smell cookies baking, hear bells ringing, etc. They did an outstanding job.

Every class was adorable. The little ones sang I'm a Little Snowman (to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot), a class of rascally boys sang O Christmas Tree, and a class of sweet girls performed a Hawaiian Christmas dance in hula skirts.

My favorite part, though, was a class who read Letters to Santa. Ninety-nine percent of them wanted a DS game or a bicycle. One little 7-year-old girl got up and boldly read,

Dear Santa,
My name is Maiko. I have been good. I want a diamond necklace for Christmas.

Love Maiko

Maiko's dad set down his Nikon for a moment and buried his head in his hands. Some things are truly cross-cultural.

Into the Wild

The Thai people inconveniently decided to take a stand (once again) against their government two weeks before our December beach vacation to Phuket. We decided to skip the pleasure of getting stuck in the exotic Bangkok airport and go to Singapore instead. Singapore is wonderfully strange. It's kind of an Asian Orlando--brand spanking new, full of shopping and obsessively manicured.

The butterfly above is from the Singapore Zoo. He alighted on my head in the zoo's outstanding rain forest exhibit. Protected by soaring nets, all sorts of little fauna roamed free inside. We observed mice deer meekly foraging for food, sloths and tree kangaroos slumbering in the tropical growth, fruit bats swooping overhead and lemurs lounging like bored teenagers on electrical boxes. All of these creatures were no more than a foot away from our path. I haven't been this delighted, this lost in wonder, in such a long time.



There were dozens of butterfly species I had never seen before, all floating about in that aimlessly predestined manner of butterflies. This dark and handsome fellow wafted over and perched on my head. I calmly turned my head to look at Lily, Holy Moly, can you believe I have a butterfly on my head? Her brown eyes, the size of rice bowls, seemed appropriately amazed. The butterfly slowly flit, flit, flitted over and landed on her arm.



She shrieked like she had been assaulted by a venomous creature, convulsed wildly, turned tail and ran screaming with arms above her head, cartoon style, completely out of sight...completely out of the exhibit.



I laughed so hard I cried. I laughed so hard my sides hurt. (When was the last time I laughed until my sides hurt? I can't remember.) Family vacations always remind me that kids are truly amazing creatures themselves. They are so much fun to watch outside of their normal environment.

Of course, Claire, the benevolent older sister, commenced ridiculing her younger sister, until not one hour later, Claire freaked out when she saw a tiny spider hanging from my umbrella, near her head. These girls can do weird food. They can travel like pros. They can expertly navigate any city's metro/airport system. Just don't ask them to convene intimately with nature.


Perhaps high rise apartment living and no backyard has cut them off from their truly "wild" side. Perhaps they inherited the willies from a family member (see the post: I Love Not Camping). Who knows? In any case, I am seriously considering packing some Xanax on future zoo forays. I shudder to think of the mental health bills we will have to pay if we fail to preempt another traumatic episode of When Butterflies Attack.