running out of time

i just finished my farewell speech yesterday. its been "done" for about a week now but last night i made the last few corrections. im going to copy-and-paste it here along with its english translation (im giving the speech in japanese at chapel on december 20th, so next monday). if the japanese actually shows up on your computer and you notice some inconsistencies with my translation thats because japanese usually doesnt translate directly into english. before i came to japan sometimes while watching anime i would understand some of the japanese and it didnt match up perfectly with the english translation. thats because, although you can translate japanese word-for-word sometimes, its better to translate the meaning instead of the words. i think so, at least. anyway, without further ado, my farewell speech:

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good morning. im kate, the exchange student from minnesota, u.s.a. today id like to talk to you about my experiences as an exchange student.

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when i was trying to come up with what to write, i remembered a number of different experiences ive had as an exchange student here in japan, and i had a hard time figuring out what to write about. it took a long time. even after i go back to america i wont know how to answer my friends when they ask, "hey, how was japan?"

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being an exchange student in japan has been really fun, but naturally i ran into problems as well. because i came to japan with the KCC tour group 2 years ago, i did not expect to experience culture shock, but i did. the japanese way and american way are truly different. at first i thought that america was right, no question, but eventually i changed my mind and realized that the american way of doing things is not always perfect. also, even though i studied japanese very hard for 3 years in america, when i first came here i didnt understand ANYTHING. but now i understand most of what i see on tv shows and the news. other than that, eating japanese food day after day drove me crazy, there were weird old men in the train, everybody stared at me... 10 months seemed like a long, long time to be away from home. i wanted to give up. i considered going home to america early. but in the end i decided not to give up.

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its a good thing i didnt give up. now that ive finally gotten used to my life here in japan, i have to go home. of course im looking forward to seeing my friends in america and graduating high school, but i love my host family dearly and i dont want to go home. after i go home to america i wont be able to eat my host mothers delicious cooking, nor will i be able to go to the movies with my host sister. also, i like kobejogakuin more than i like my high school in america. im very happy that all of you have been so kind to me.

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very few people get the chance to study abroad. i will always remember my homestay here. i have so many good memories. cultural festival, clubs, my trip to hokkaido, doing the nebuta dance in aomori during the school trip, and, even though i hated it at the time, gakupa.

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the most difficult thing about my life here in japan has been accepting that america and japan are different. at first i was constantly comparing japan and america. for example, saying, "in america we do things like this." but i had to stop thinking like that. both america and japan have their good and bad points.

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thanks to my homestay in japan, my way of thinking has changed. not only have i learned about japanese culture, but my own countrys culture as well. i have made lots of new friends. i will never, ever forget my 10 months here. from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

saturday, may 29, 2004

on saturday there was a bazaar at kobejogakuin so i got up bright and early at 6:30. i got to school at 9:45, which is actually what time i was told to be at school by. but by the time i got there the doors were locked and hayashi-sensei said i was too late (and then she turned her head around 360 degrees and spit out pea soup).

fyi, i was too late for chapel, not the bazaar. the bazaar was outside anyway.

but somehow they managed to broadcast haruna-senseis sermon so you could hear it no matter where you were on campus, so really i didnt miss chapel after all.

right after chapel i found hyemi, ashley, and susan, and the 4 of us went to the locker room together to change shoes and put our hymnals and bibles away.

i completely blanked on how to load film into my slr camera (its been 2 years since ive taken basic photography). ashley and susan gave it a shot but they werent sure whether or not it was actually in all the way. i told them not to worry about and that id find a photography club member instead, but there are like 5 club members so that turned out to be easier said than done. i didnt even know where to start looking.

susan wanted matcha (green tea) ice cream. theres matcha everything in japan. other than matcha ice cream, theres matcha-flavored milk (like nesquik), cookies... recently they started advertising chocolate candies with matcha filling inside on tv.

the bazaar had mostly homemade crafts (most of the girls mothers are stay-at-home moms) and secondhand items up for sale. there were all kinds of things. candy necklaces, plush toys, even live goldfish you could take home (but thats pretty standard at japanese festivals). i didnt buy anything. susan got a stuffed cat and cotton candy for 400 yen (about 4 dollars. what a rip-off).

around lunch time we were deciding what we wanted to eat when i spotted mimiko, who happens to be a member of photography club. without thinking or telling hyemi, ashley, or susan what was going on, i ran off to ask mimiko about my camera. she couldnt figure it out either. she suggested i show it to okawa-sensei instead, the photography club "teacher" (hes actually more like a supervisor. he doesnt do anything). SOMEHOW i found him and he showed me how to load film into my camera.

thats when i realized that i hadnt said anything to the girls about where i was going and that they were probably wondering where the hell i was. it didnt take long to find them. predictably, they were eating lunch at one of the tables that had been set up just for the bazaar. susan and hyemi hadnt really cared that id gone off without saying anything, but ashley seemed kind of annoyed.

i didnt feel like waiting in line by myself and i wasnt really all that hungry anyway, so they shared with me. ashley was eating sandwich wedges and butaman, hyemi had chicken wings and mochi cookies in a hello kitty tin, and susan, sushi.

after lunch we did a little more shopping, and this time i bought something. but before i get to that, i found a PAT THE BUNNY stationery set. it came with a notebook, a pen, stickers, a pad of paper, the whole works. i cracked up and got a lot of questioning looks until i explained that my boyfriends name is pat (okay, so hes not my boyfriend, but he will be soon enough hopefully). as soon as the words were out of my mouth the girls running the stand were on me like white on rice. they said that i give it to pat as a gift. no matter how much i explained it to them they couldnt seem to get their head around the fact that theres no way pat, a 20-year-old american male, would go for pat the bunny stationery. hes already had to put up with "patty cake" jokes.

in retrospect i kind of wish i had bought the stationery (for myself, not for pat), but at the time the last thing i needed was any more reminders of pat. king plush is enough.

(king plush is a stuffed chicken that pat won from a crane game while he was still working at pizza hut, and right up until he sold his little red honda civic king plushs throne was in that car. before i left for japan pat gave it to me and ive had it ever since.)

anyway. at the bazaar i found yukatas (summer kimonos) on sale for 29 dollars (each. they werent THAT cheap). in case you dont know, 29 dollars for a yukata is dirt cheap. the cheapest ones usually run around 80 dollars. i decided i HAD to get one. its not every day you see yukatas going that cheap. i was so excited about it that ashley practically had to tell me to shut up. but everyone was just as excited as i was, they were just less vocal about it. all 4 of us bought yukatas. hyemi ended up regretting it later, but whatever.

my yukata looks like this (the obi is different, though).

it wasnt until after id paid for the yukata that i realized that i still had to buy an obi (thats the sash). obis are sold separately so you can mix and match them to your liking. i picked out a red one with yellow flowers and crescents, which was another 25 dollars, of course. another 25 dollars i didnt have, so ashley generously lent me 10 or 20 bucks. luckily i already had a pair of geta.

as a side note, i love how usually the kimono and obi dont "match." if it were me i wouldve matched the obi with one of the colors in the yukata, or a lighter shade of blue or purple or something. a japanese girl on the other hand would probably choose an obi that looked good, but didnt necessarily match. thats why i got a red obi instead of one that wouldve matched. the japanese do that with their everyday clothing too. for some reason i really like that.

after that i think hyemi wanted to hang out with some friends or something like that, and susan wanted to spend time with her host family (who now coincidentally is my host family, but thats a long ways off), so it was just ashley and me. we headed over to the tea house and got in free thanks to our tea ceremony club memberships (i bet resas blood is boiling at the thought of tea ceremony club) and received the ceremony along with like 30 other people. we were going to sit near the back but one of the tea ceremony teachers (the one i dont like) found us and insisted that we sit up front with the guests of honor.

fyi, because making one bowl of tea takes about 10 minutes (including clean-up afterwards), its impossible for one person to make tea for a large group of people (or even a small group of people for that matter). usually the person performing the ceremony will only make one or two bowls of tea, and that tea will go to the guests of honor, who sit closest to the person performing the ceremony. everybody else has their tea made in the kitchen (out of sight) and brought out to them after the guests of honor have been served.

i dont know who the guests of honor were, but they looked important. one was an older man who obviously knew what he was talking about when it came to tea ceremony. he had lots of questions. about the tea bowls (most tea bowls, or at least the nice ones, have stories behind them), the tea ceremony utensils, the chinese folding fan that was set out, etc. etc. he even asked ashley and i a few questions.

the ceremony was absolutely gorgeous. i still get goosebumps when the ceremony is done right. the girls kimonos were so beautiful. sitting there in the shade with a bowl of hot green tea, i thought, "this is perfect."

i took pictures. one in particular came out well and id like to get it framed sometime.

ashley and i had a lot of free time until chapel, which was at 3:30, or at least thats what every teacher we ran into told us. they probably thought we were going to skip or something, which is not an altogether incorrect assumption.

oh, ashley and i also stopped for cake. it was kind of expensive, but what wasnt? other than my sexy yukata, that is.

after the bazaar, i:

- finished howls moving castle;

- showed my host mother my brand new yukata (she said shed teach me how to put it on without anyone elses help);

- cleaned up my room a little; and

- sketched a maiko in a kimono.

when i was in 2nd grade a japanese woman came to talk to us about japanese culture and brought 2 yukatas. she asked who wanted to try one on. i really, really wanted to raise my hand but i was too shy. but for like 3 months after that i drew kimonos nonstop. i thought they were so beautiful, especially the sleeves.

i miss drawing.