A few days before my first day of the first grade, I zoomed in on the "Z" name at the bottom of the "Mrs. Jackson's Class" Roster taped to the front door of Fishinger Elementary School. Anticipation ensued, and school supplies list soon followed. I hopped in the back seat of the family wood paneled station wagon, and with one stop at Gold Circle, a detour to Northland Mall, my checklist was complete: thick Mickey Mouse pencils, Crayolas, a Holly Hobby lunchbox, a Raggedy Andy nap mat. I was measured for a shiny pair of Tom McCan school shoes, and with the final selection of a coordinated outfit from JC Penny's, that I had to "save" until the first day of school, the prep was finalized. In a day. Gearing up to enter elementary school as an Ohioan in the 1970s was relatively low maintenance (though my mom may remember it differently).
The run up to my daughter's first day at the local Japanese elementary school in the 2010s, though cliche, was a world away from my experience. In Japan, that one day of preparation from my childhood spanned into nearly two years of my motherhood. I admit that I don't know how to add bead one on the abacus I had to buy from her school supply list, but my own memory of elementary math recalls that 400 plus days vs 1 day is, according to my calculation, "no fair!" That's right, Toto San, it looks like we are not in Ohio anymore.
Initiation Process (or Hazing?)
The games began some 18 months in advance with a manila envelope from the public health center. The packet contained a detailed account of every shot, sneeze and sniffle she's had since 2005, plus a checklist citing the remaining vaccinations required before my Kindergartner's number was up to enter first grade. Since her birth, I had followed through with all of the homework-like health center round-ups. We, the birth cohorts grouped into 3-month herds, had been cattled up to public facilities in intervals to take a number, get a once-over check up, and a shot or a prick, in assembly line fashion, for what felt like everything but mad cow (vaccination pun intended).
According to our track sheet, which I didn't realize but am not surprised is public record, all but a couple of the initial immunizations and booster shots were ticked off the list. I had been passively ignoring, Nihon Noen (Japanese Encephalitis), perhaps ignorantly, perhaps ethnocentrically, assuming that since American wasn't in the name that we had a bye. However, rules are rules, and homework is homework. When entering a Japanese system, protocol comes down to less the fear of exposure to a rural mosquito spreading virus, but more on the group effort of crossing the "t"s and dotting the "i"s on the master checklist to your micro checklist.
While gradually becoming immune to earthly ills, we continued to receive friendly reminders and form letter invitations, or depending on how half full or half empty your thermos is, must-do assignments to advance into the system. One hand addressed envelope, varying from the usual tiny font for a foreign name typed mailing label, arrived from the town hall. I was cordially invited to come for a "light" interview with the superintendent of schools: "Please kindly appear with your daughter at the Board of Education at your convenience, today or tomorrow, before 4:30 pm."
Strategically, or in proud American fashion, we rocked up just before closing on a Friday. It turns out we were the first "foreign" example to grace the halls of the public schools. In contemporary town history, there exists lesser known cases in which the offspring of one Japanese parent and one foreign national stumble through. Yes, if they're out there, I know them. There is an insider eye-lock when you spot another gaijin in small town, or suburban Japan. It's a knowing look, a contextual bond. If you're in the produce section, you exchange, "can you believe how much we pay per apple?" glances, or if you happen to clamp eyes on a station platform, it's, "did you ever think you'd carry a brief case in a bike basket to catch the express train?" You may never speak, or even meet, but you communicated. Truly communicated.
Like us, those families (which I could count on one string of beads on the kid's abacus if I ever did get through the How To enclosures) were tax-paying citizens with rights to the system. Concerns from Oniisan (Big Brother) were more of the day to day variety. Can our daughter speak Japanese? Can she eat the school lunch menu? Not to omit every native's favorite Samurai sword jab, "can she use chopsticks?"
We went through the motions even after the non verbals answered all they needed. When we walked in the room, they offered a coloring book and a doll for Hana to play with while the grown ups talked "boring big people stuff." Somewhat gracefully and mostly under her breath, she launched into singing the jingle associated with the It Girl Character, Cure Sunshine, and talking to her in the local lingo. So the superhero girls-group Precure popularity boom with this age group took care of our "big dealing" session. I had been less gracefully, and to my best effort under my breath, cursing that theme song when it aired every Sunday morning from 8:30-9:00 am, but today, minutes before happy hour, I was blessing its behind the town hall scenes educational benefits.
Following through with the formality of a set agenda, they assigned me to an "essay of intent" in Japanese, 3 pages A4-sized paper, stating my reasons for enrolling my child in the local school. I doubt they looking for fundamentals such as, "human rights," or "the law," which were running through my mental outline, as much as to just make sure I had a formal hold on reading and writing the language too. Homework is homework. Well, this was more like what we used to call "in class busy work," as students, since the easy-A hand-written composition had to be completed in front of them. I took to the fountain pen with the confidence of a Precure superhero, but couldn't resist asking myself, when was my vaccination for red tape number going to be up?
We passed through the first flag marker to advance into the first grade. The Zidonis genius line continues (give me that much, it stalls at the abacus - cue the Scarecrow's, "If I Only Had a Brain").
Field Day
Closing in on 9 months before the start of the school year, an invitation for the incoming first grade students to participate in an event at the Fall Sports Day Festival arrived. I filled out the return RSVP postcard, then tackled the items included in the checklist of 9 things to bring for the 30 meter dash relay. This was to welcome the kids, as well as to warm them up to the school rituals, complete with traditional fanfare, none short of the vuvuzela invasion on the World Cup stage. I suspect a hidden agenda was to get the moms (I'd say "parents or guardians," but my quick survey of those accompanying the 91 first grade candidates came to a non scientific 100% mom count) accustomed to spending 12 hours in prep time for every 3 minutes of event time they'll face in their academic lives.
In training mode for the relay, I took the baton (a sash in Japan), and ran with my role in abiding by the uniform code, the measurements of the to-bring list, down to the appropriate measure of barely tea refreshment for both mother and child, the street shoes and the playground shoes. I studied hand crafted maps of where to check in, stand, cheer, and finally memorized the layout of the course where the kids would start, finish, and collect prizes. I didn't go as far as others by bringing my kid to run through the course, but I dutifully came through with the final request of labeling everything I or she will bring, wear, eat, drink or touch, in two languages.
In the end, everyone was a winner. At the finish line, the 6th graders presented their juniors with school issued notebooks. They labeled them on the spot at a table and marker station in impressive record time. I bet the Olympics even requires a day or two turn-around to get the champion or event names inscribed on medals.
Physician's Permission Slip
With any track and field event win, a doping test looms right around the corner. A notice of the mandatory on-site health checks and "intelligence" tests held at the school was the next invite in my mailbox. Parent-child teams were to report to the school, by now versed in the drill: labeled plastic bag totes for street shoes, indoor footwear, note-taking supplies. Future first graders had to bring specific plain white indoor shoes resembling a cross between Tretorns and ballet slippers, in order to be appropriately mobile for the rounds of health checks from classroom to classroom. These uwabaki would become their uniform indoor school shoes from April, so it wasn't a purchase-for-one-day shot, more like foreshadowing the syllabus for what was lied ahead in Fundamentals in School Supplies, 101. We were given a diagram in advance including the exact location and dimensions in which to label the shoes with our child's name. There was even a specific sized and brand marker, conveniently called a "name pen" at the top of our must-buy list for such use.
On test day at Higashi (East) Elementary School, we checked in, collected our name tags, information packets and lecture notes. Seated mother-child, mother-child, we settled into cushion-less wooden chairs, in the unheated auditorium for the next 90 minutes. The speeches from the school nurse, principal, and first grade teacher-in-chief targeted the parents: maintaining good habits at home, demonstrating a healthy lifestyle through your own actions. Sitting still beyond the keynote speaker's introduction was probably part of the kids' endurance test.
Highlights mapped out prerequisites to train your child in over the months before the spring start -- using an Eastern style toilet (squatter); introducing a certain rhythm to the tooth brushing ritual, crescendo-ing with a ue shita ue shita (up down up down) chant to complete the cycle on the two front teeth made the top of the list, followed by morphing from indoor to outdoor shoes in a single-file line without having to crouch or look down, ensuing a smooth transition from classroom to recess (one wonders if that task conflicts with mastering the squatter). There were illustrated handouts, Q&A time allotted, and of course note-taking throughout the day. I could have used a recess by page 8, yet I kept myself alert thanks to my systematic use of thematic highlighters -- pink was high on the crazy scale, blue was mild, and green was just plain weird. The sanity scale rainbow kept me awake.
Next, we shuffled in single file from classroom to classroom where doctors from local community clinics were stationed to perform a body of "tests." Examination content appeared standard, reminiscent of the once over I received growing up when a medical permission was needed to join a school sport: heart rate (confirmed Tin Man's "Heart"), pulse, height, weight, hearing and sight. Boys and girls weren't separated at any junction of the check-points, launching them into their all-for-one mind-set from the start. Portable standing screen dividers provided minimum privacy during their exam, but they were shirtless waiting in line, so it was really the thought that counted. A dentist was on call to check the teeth, as well as observe a dry run of the kid brushing on her own while gumming the jingle previously described.
Ears, nose and throat went without a hitch and then it was onto the eye chart. We had a disadvantage on this one and held up the line in American "I'm going to take my dear sweet time" fashion since the "E" chart alphabet Americans are accustomed to, was, well, not standard here, nor representative of their spoken language. As a not so 20/20 result, this is one challenge I couldn't prep her for. The standard Pacman test: A pie shaped circle, with one slice cut out. The "open" side is facing right, left, up or down, in flashing turns through a scope. The kid declares, migi, hidari, ue, shita (right, left, up, down) to indicate the direction of Pacman's mouth. With each random rotation in succession, the size Pac's size gets smaller and smaller. So if you don't know your left from your right by age 5, the school thinks your blind. Or blind dumb. Or both. Or raised by an American Mom. Or all three.
With no inspiration from me -- I was more of a Ms. Pacman kid anyway -- she was advancing from screening test to screening test like a retro arcade gamer. Assured, my focus shifted to the classroom decor. Student projects paraded zoo animals made from empty tissue boxes and paper-towel rolls, as well traffic lights constructed from milk cartons, which was a familiar one from my elementary school days, except they declare the green light to be "blue." Next, we were released with our charts filled in by the 4 doctors, and advanced to the intelligence test. The little ones were escorted by 6th grade leaders to a separate room, where they were administered a 12-page written exam, capped off with a one-on-one interview with a teacher (no Precure doll this round). Although results aren't released to parents, somehow we were granted the "blue light" to prepare for first grade, and furnished with a 66 page hand-illustrated instruction manual stating the specific items to buy, complete with a detailed rule book on how, where and to what millimeter, to label each item. I only had 9 weeks to churn out this Dissertation in Motherhood project. Where was the simplicity of Mrs. Jackson's class list now?
Label Mania
My mom strung my mittens through my winter coat to prevent me from mixing them up with classmates' gear, or sealing their fate in the lost and found crypt. That was one sentence. I could type 176 pages to describe the labeling I went through, but my fingers already feel raw from stitching and iron-on-ing names. Another mother and I devoted three straight days sitting across the kitchen table from each other plowing through the mountain of items had ordered through the school, each with its own how to and what size to label rule. We got so bored with our own child's name after awhile that we switched in intervals, like true study buddies pulling all-nighters before finals. In similar "ol' college try" fashion, it was probably considered cheating.
Science and math sets were the most challenging. Each kit is made up of a large boxed set containing hundreds of tiny items: different shapes, colors and sizes of magnets, mini flashcards, "playing" die, clocks, stop watches, beads, as well as an array of arrows and compasses, and included 380 label stickers of assorted sizes. Many magnets were flower shaped, and clearly one side was taken up by, well, the magnet. There were pinkie sized stacks of flashcards for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, numbers 1-100. I took a break and a victory lap around the table when I got the label on a single die without covering up any of the black dots. Every single itty bitty item required tagging her name, grade level, class number, and student number within class. She was Ashley Hana Dilenschneider, grade 1, class 2, number 23, in other words, アシュリーハナデイレンシュナイダー、一年二組、二十三番.
Piano + Harmonica = Pianica
Just like it sounds, this is a piano keyboard activated with a harmonica-like attachment which somewhat resembles an accordion with a mouthpiece, but with no sign of a circus monkey gripping a tip-collecting cup. Each key required a label which at this point I don't question, but it would be alarming to start finding E-flats and F-sharps in the lost and found, let alone in my vacuum cleaner bag. Although I'm not claiming to have an in-house Mozart prodigy, the Pianica produces a halfway decent sound. I disturbed the neighborhood in 5th grade with my forced-purchase of an unlabeled Yamaha Recorder for music class. In this context it's fitting to draw that comparison, but I doubt I ever practiced, which may be linked to the chilling sounds I set off toot for toot. Alas, the E and the F letter keys were more reflective of my instrumental effort grades rather than musical notes.
Alarm Buzzer
This oval shaped, bright yellow safety item dangles from a built in leather stitched hook on their backpacks, adjacent to a color coded ribbon denoting which group they walk home with after school, which differs from the ribbon color denoting which group that they walk to school with. I failed the alarm attachment test faster than I bombed the Pacman eye exam, my first and 100th attempt at folding origami, my one shot at the abacus, and please don't start me on my try on the unicycle, since at least I have until 2nd grade to get that one "rolling." Unintentionally, I sounded the alarm on day one of attaching it. Note that it wasn't day one of school, but the first day of the recommended "prep in advance" run-through before the school year started. When bloody murder sounded through the neighborhood, a cop doing rounds on his motorbike swung by to detonate it. Instead of being embarrassed (I dropped that feeling 15 years due to over-use), I quickly switched to relief that it was boorishly announced within a 2 km radius that I was doing my parenting homework. And Homework is Homework. If only I still had that old Yamaha Recorder, I could accompany her to and from school, serving as live a replacement for the buzzer. However, that notion would risk jump-starting her book of embarrassing moments, a chapter which I claim to have closed, before even giving her the chance to reach the starting blocks.
And More School Supplies
From the list of items to prepare before the first day of school, we were "free" to purchase some requirements -- pencil case, pencils, erasers, notebooks and seat cushions that became cone-head hats for disaster prevention (I would insert an airplane "your can be used as a floatation device" joke here, but they used those things more in 2011 than I did magnet labels) at our store of choice, but not without a "restrictions apply" clause. First, the store of our choice could be selected from one of the two recommended venues. Second, the items could not appear flashy in color or with commercial characters as to not distract the 6-7 year olds from the learning process. As an exception, the material for the cloth tote bags for chopsticks, masks, lunch place mats, towels (to hang on the chair to scrub the classroom floor, to hang on hook to dry hands after washing), gym clothes cloth tote, indoor shoes cloth tote, craft supplies cloth tote, and cloth "chair leg booties" for when they move the classroom seats to the dusty outdoor grounds for events, had no such color, pattern or character regulation.*
*Providing they were hand made in a display of a mother's pure love and support of her child's education, and within the regulated dimensions, with a one-pull drawstring with no tie or bow, labeled with a single thread color of my daughter's liking, representative of her individualism.
Public schools in Japan don't dictate complete uniforms until junior high. Therefore, they have 6 years of *limited* freedom to choose their daily outfits until they are formally strapped in. Yet, with choices come rules: Neck warmers en route to school? Yes. Leg warmers? No. Rain boots? Yes. Snow boots? No. I don't know if this policy saves them from later regretting fashion photo-uploads on social networking sites, or if it is to thicken their skin while promoting the ability to ganman, or, withstand the harsh seasonal elements. Culturally, I'm guessing it's the latter, but I sure could have benefited from the former. If only someone would have put a carton of milk quart Stop Light on my Xanadu leg warmers and Mork From Ork Moonboot choices. On second thought, 17 winters without central heat, and no early childhood education in ganman, I'd give my thousand sticker labels for that warmth now.
Nevertheless, elementary pupils do have a line of formal Uniform Accessories:
Gym Clothes: Summer wear consists of a white shirt and blue shorts straight out of the circa polyester line my generation modeled from the former Agler Davidson on Henderson Road. Navy blue uniform swim suits and white swim caps, each ID-ing the kids in bold black marker creating trackable bobbing buoys. All public schools have outdoor pools and require a 6 week swim program in their curriculum.
The have an additional 2 weeks during "summer vacation." The report card parents send the kids with to their lesson requires recording their temperature daily, circling an icon best representative of the child's mood that day, listing their breakfast menu, and finally the number of hours of slumber they clocked in the previous night. I'd give myself a grump face icon for my end of the assignment, but instead, I choose to grin and bear it, "in a display of a mother's pure love and support of her child's education."
Following the summer swim school session, they have morning calisthenics at 6 am led by the live national public radio broadcast with a PTA - volunteer - assist daily for one week before school resumes. Freedom of clothing choice for the wake up call disguises the hidden agenda of making sure the children don't get used to the poison vacation lifestyle that yours truly had growing up with Scooby Doo catered by Cap'n Crunch.
Winter Gym Clothes gear simply adds a coordinating blue zip-up jersey and matching pants to the look, although they don't get much use, in harmony with the idea of "proving your toughness to withstand the elements." Colors or styles rarely vary nationwide, though the unique school emblem sets them apart from other kids, or in the least keeps the rice on the tables of the the local Ma and Pa school uniform store fronts. The name plate spanning across the chest of the shirts is 5 by 7 inches, so there is no secret as to who "drops the ball" on any play. Year round, they wear the red side of their red/white reversable hats. Half flip to the white hat side when they into divide teams for assorted scrimmages. The colors depict the Japanese flag, which makes more sense and perhaps is more within the law for this age group than the US cultural equivalent of "shirts and skins," despite having played rounds of that game at the public school health check.
Commute to School by the seasons: 1. Solid yellow hat for winter, mesh yellow hat for summer. No, they don't change clocks for daylight savings time, just hats. No memo or emergency phone chain is activated to remind us, rather, they leave it to the Equinox on the calendar to denote the big switch. 2. Two yellow umbrellas. Even though there are fierce rainy season and a typhoon seasons, kids don't carry both in during these heavy downpours. What with all the "handmade from love" draw-string totes in an array of sizes, how would they ever spare a hand? Rather, one is to carry from home for when rain is predicted from the morning (I give the meteorologists a 99% accuracy rate), the other is to keep at school in the event of sudden rain (so the meteorologists' 1% margin of error covered).
Boxy Backpacks: They serve as a mobile desk, and have the added charm of making students look like astronauts (accessorized with previously introduced neon buzzer and multi colored ribbons). Kids bring all the necessary texts depending on their changing class schedule each day, as opposed to storing them in a school desk or cubby at school. Unlike the K-Mart Blue Light Special, prices vary from About $200-$1,200, a figure which renders them sturdy enough considering they carry the same リュックサック (backpack) all six years. Since about the millennium, リュックサックcolors may vary as much as price. Tradition formally dictated red for girls, black for boys. Women's lib has since advanced, allowing 6 year olds more personal expression to cut loose for this commitment.
School Lunch Uniform: This sounds misleading, since the student body doesn't have a costume change to eat. The daily lunch menu is cooked on-site in a kitchen, but there is no school cafeteria. Instead, they eat lunch in their classrooms. The kids set, serve and clear the daily meal for their class. They rotate serving groups monthly, and the "lunch ladies" (boys and girls teamed in a group of 4-6) wear white cotton chef caps, white lab coats, white masks, and the complete ensemble folds neatly into a white tote bag with a one-pull drawstring. Each student brings a white surgical mask to wear during the set up, chopstick set, toothbrush and cup in a cloth bag each day. Students in the serving rotation require 2 masks to ensure having a spare to serve seconds mid-way through lunch period. *White denotes international symbol of cleanliness in food handling, though I believe they look like they are prepped to perform an emergency root canal.
Not to be excluded, parents are administered 2 types of uniforms: 1. "Event pass" ID badges to wear around our necks for when we visit the school, as well as a matching banner to fasten to the front basket of our bikes for when we pedal* around the neighborhood or to school. *Driving to the school is not allowed, which is in line with our modeling the ideal "uphill, both ways" hardship in commuting-to-school life. After all, our presence in the neighborhood is expected to be of the safety and greeting patrol duty, day or night, weekday or weekend, rain or shine, sleet or snow. 2. We rotate the morning crossing guard ensemble consisting of a neon vest, yellow poncho for rain (umbrella of any color strictly prohibited, ganman enforced), and neon flag pole. As if I didn't stick out enough (here I activated the Cowardly Lion's "Nerve").
Entrance Ceremony
Finally, the gate to Oz, or in this case, the entrance to the first grade along the Yellow Hat Road, comes into view. We chose the right path at the fork, in this case, chopstick in the road, and the Scarecrow, in this case, first grade teacher-in-chief, pointed us the way to the induction ceremony in the gymnasium at the elementary school. Time came to mount that horse of changing colors to the black tie affair. The principal, superintendent and local politicians wear tails (but not the kind donned by guest star Winnie the Pooh who spoke on traffic safety). Parents and incoming 1st graders wear suits, but thankfully not matching to each other or matching to Pooh Bear. We were to carry bags for our shoes and tote our fanciest slippers for the formal occasion.
The hand off from home to school at the starting line has a bigger milestone feel than even the way we celebrate the graduation victory finish in the States. After almost 2 decades in the field of education in Japan, I have come to embrace the ceremonial entrance along side of them, now with my non-cynical, sincere Glinda the Good Witch smile. Their connection to the school, their class, their group within the class, is a proud part of student identity. I would equate it to the zealous loyalty an Ohioan has toward Buckeyes Sports, yet without the tension or risk of losing (or rioting). Following the two hour ceremony of speeches, the classroom teachers give a roll call for the 91 incoming students. We were instructed to rehearse our children for this. They hear their name. They stand. They reply, "HAI!" to confirm their enthusiastic attendance. They take their seats with perfect posture for the remaining of the 90 names and responses.
After the 6 year olds complete their sitting still test (and the fidgeting parents fared well too), one professional photo snap commemorates the teachers, staff, students and families as a group for the last time. They are now released from us and deemed independent first-graders. The principal, or Wizard, of Higashi Elementary School, gives us one final deep bow with his pledge to "take them in and care for them for the next six years in earnest." Off she went to meet with her classmates and teacher for the first time as a unit. No, Toto, we are not in Ohio anymore. And with that, I clicked my indoor ruby slippers and reminded myself, "there's no place like Parenthood" in Japan.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Sunday, October 9, 2011
The After Shock
On March 11, Japan's coast moved 8 feet, shifting the earth's axis. NASA claimed the 9 magnitude quake shortened the day by 1.8 microseconds. I don't have scientific research to back my claim, but from March 12, the days felt 1.8 hours longer. Exhilarated to be alive and grateful to count my blessings, adrenaline was running on over-drive. I rose long before the Rising Sun. Next, my daughter woke. We all made contact: Bob was okay, and would probably make it home somehow (despite grounded train lines) within 24 hours. At least our axis, that family side in the big picture of our own little earth, felt centered. I set myself in motion, all sights set on shifting the axis back to its conventional setting, launching into a normal "day in the weekend life" of mother and child.
Normalcy would be a long time coming.
We had plans to go on a day ski trip up north with another family from kindergarten. Nobody on the east side of the country was going through with plans they made for March 12, although I'm sure everybody had some form of to-do pencilled in that square of the no frills wall calendar. Transportation heading north was crippled, ski lifts toppled, and it turned out the site, along with a list of hundreds of other entertainment venues, never reopened that season. For the day, I wasn't glued to disaster footage on TV, nor focused on the unfolding nuclear crisis. Unintentionally, I isolated myself in our suddenly choked off environment, and attempted to create make-shift fun for a 6-year old who had a full of frills countdown Hello Kitty calendar to her first ski lesson. The quake knocked that calendar from the fridge magnet, shuffling it around the floor by then, so she wasn't concentrating on it anymore either, yet that didn't quench my strong desire to fix something on that chilly Saturday.
We made breakfast, loaded the car, and headed out. Destination: movie theater? I'm almost embarrassed typing that now. I am aware of how absurd and frivolous the notion is, but everything from seismic plates to mindsets was shaken up. We were out of place in our own lives. Aftershocks kept coming, from quick jolts to long trembles, though we were shaky anyway. We felt like we'd just gotten off a long, choppy boat ride, so it was easy to lose track of which were real tremors, and which were what became dubbed as "地震酔い, earthquake sickness."March 11, before 2:46pm at any rate, marked the opening weekend of the latest Disney movie, Tangled. Shobu and Hanyu are the two theaters in our area, centered in sprawling city in itself style shopping malls. As we approached the Shobu parking lot, we greeted the first eerie reality of the day after. Empty. In Japan, it's typically a one car in, one car out of the parking lot policy. It was deserted, the entire shopping mecca closed. The flashy, bustling, crowd-pleasing mall with more than 300 shops, restaurants and arcades vacated. I flashed back to a scene in National Lampoon's Vacation. But this was no comedy. It was the innocent attempt of trying to bring my child to a kids' movie, that suddenly turned into feeling like we were starring in a suspense thriller. We drove on to Hanyu, the next mall, only to discover the same "horror" scene replayed.
By now, though still only mid-morning, we've driven enough distance looking for "escape" entertainment that we need to fill up on gas. The roads were abandoned, and it felt as strange as it did comforting that the one pump stop we stumbled on was attended. Little did I realize that would be my last gas-up opportunity for nearly a month.
We stopped at a 7-11 to pick up some snacks to head to a park. The lights were dim, the shelves bare, and the concrete reality -- unlike the road side concrete damage lining the sidewalks -- was piecing together. Arriving at that park we found comfort near another mom standing on the sidelines trying to give her kids the same "run around break" I was. I wasn't completely conscience of it yet, but that hallow, jet-lagged sense began overtaking my bones. It didn't matter, and it couldn't be a priority for months. Hana latched on to the 2 little girls as they dove into a game of tag -- up and down a hill, rolling from the top to the bottom, making up new rules along the way. I joined in once in awhile, just to fake "losing" long enough to keep their play fresh. I chatted with the other mom. We talked about the moment, its impact, and questioned what was to come. I mentioned the picked over convenience store, asking her if she found the same. She concurred: It was ominous, noting that locals must be stocking up for the big one with our area as the epicenter. Preparing for the big one? That wasn't the big one? Damage, lack of transport, electricity being down were contributing forces (I hesitate to use the axis of evil metaphor here), generating a demand in daily goods, and preventing any re-stocking on shelves. Yet I hadn't stopped to register her big-one reasoning until she candidly articulated it. With that, the innocent kids' game of freeze tag brought me to a stand still.
The next day gas stations had mile long lines ebbing the road. Eggs, milk, bread, toilet paper, bottled water, batteries, instant noodles, candles -- those overlooked items you take for granted -- were a part of our re-written recent history. Soon after, SOLD OUT signs replaced gas price lists at stations, and hand written apologies from store managers replaced goods on emptied grocery shelves. A few more days pass, and those hand scrawled signs were replaced with typed notices, indicating this was not a temporary situation. Paralyzed transportation shut down the in-roads, and the dire need in the hardest hit areas further north got any priority of remaining goods and services anywhere in the country. My exhaustion wasn't jet-lag, and it wasn't just a lack of sleep from the aftermath of events. We were in the midst of adjusting to living with a condition. Despite the relief of the 3 of us reuniting, semi-grounded and in good health, there was no returning to normal. We were breaking ground, learning along the way, how to pave a new normal.
The international media was adjusting its zoom lens on a potential "action" shot, an inevitable lava pool set to erupt in our path. Other networks were one step ahead, putting the final touches on a still life canvas of Japan. Over the next few days, the battle cry of foreign embassies rang out in procession. Non essential nationals should evacuate the Tohoku/Kanto regionn. The crisis surrounding the disabled Fukushima nuclear power plant was more than a mushroom cloud of unknown. France, Germany, and Ireland followed suit, with Canada and the US finally waving the red flag at the end of the pack. The image of the Tepco jumpsuit took center stage, with round-the-clock press conference updates from the sacrificial workers at the Dai Ichi plant, and representatives from the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
Lunch time, March 17. The phone rings. One of my closest friends, a "non essential" Irish expat, but essential to me, is on the other end of the line calling from her Tokyo home. I think we've spoken on March 17 for at least the past 15 years we've been connected in Japan. 2011 marked the first in our history that it wasn't a "Happy St. Patrick's Day" social call. Conflicted, she was in the midst of scrambling to get to Ireland that night. She'd cart two young boys across Tokyo to get to the airport with extremely limited, over-crowded transportation options. Her boys' schools, including the school where she worked, were all closing doors due to the triple crisis anyway, so she was going to shift her summer travel plans to March, yet this time without the usual vacation spirit. "Triple crisis" was one of the many merging catch-phrases, which in happier times was describing another patty on the burger. Language was changing as fast as life.
We, too, were at a crossroads (a sticky place to be when you're getting low on gas). We weren't exactly in Japan on short term contracts from the States, or even on the business trip formula that had a start, an end, complete with a one-way return ticket. We established careers at Japanese universities, and we have a daughter in the local school system. In spite of our blue passports, we are long-term, tax-paying, established-residents of a red passport nation. Our lives here would go on. But for now, the country was in mourning. Ceremonies were cancelled. There would be no traditional March graduations. Pomp and circumstance were inappropriate. Money for the banquets and flowers that go hand in hand with the celebrations were transferred into Red Cross donation accounts. And in place of graduation caps flying up in the air, flags would lower to half mast. Even cherry blossom season - the thousand-plus years old custom of festivals and parties, down to the ubiquitous portable karaoke machines and mobile Asahi beer kegs at all the parks and riverbanks in bloom, would be off for 2011. The display of cheer surrounding the sakura, (cherry blossoms) was replaced by chrysanthemum bouquets as grieving symbols at shrines. In the same way my fellow expat friends dropped the idea of annual green beer gatherings and leprechaun parades in Harajuku (Tokyo), nobody in Japan was focused on pink blossoms, celebrations or tradition.
But it was still March 17. It wasn't just post-disaster, mid-crisis, St. Patrick's day, or even just another Thursday. It was my husband's birthday. Traditionally, the non-surprise (he came to expect the doorbell to ring the dinner hour since his late 20s) was pizza, his favorite, the American classic. Japanese pizza, however, is the cultural opposite of his strict Pepperoni and "no funny business" (his words) pie order. To paint a deep-dish picture, octopus, mayonnaise, and broccoli, to name a few are hot selling toppings here. Therefore, his rigid pepperoni and cheese standard is a special order, and not special just because it would call for birthday candles for his "party." Instead, the take-out menu features a set list of pizza orders, complete with fancy titles and cutsie graphics. The only choices that come with the ordering experience are size (S, M, L) and crust (crispy vs. regular). Prices vary from roughly $20 (S) to $40 (L), and titles are equally as fancy as the photo and price would indicate: Teriyaki Chicken Deluxe, Pizza Purukogi, Tuna Mayo, Bomber Quarter, and Busters Quarter.
Although Japanese customer service is second to none, the drawback is that its consistency is so stringent that it causes a kind of a chaos that shakes the Richter scale to off the line-by-line manual they are trained to follow. Special orders are a foreign language. Thus, after years of dress rehearsals, we have adjusted to playing out their script, their way:
Pizza-La, may I take your order? (It's not a hint toward pseudo American style in the store name - that's pronounced LA, like singing La la la, not L.A. as in Southern California.)
I'd like a large, "Busters Quarter," regular crust, hold the potato, shoulder bacon, corn, sliced tomato, mayonnaise, teriyaki chicken, shrimp, squid, onion, and black pepper.
(That's the Japanese way of following the how-to menu, and leaving off everything to come down to ordering a plain-ol' pepperoni & cheese, thick crust.)
I see, that's, a large, "Busters Quarter," regular crust, with no potato, no shoulder bacon, no corn, no sliced tomato, no mayonnaise, no teriyaki chicken, no shrimp, no squid, no onion, and no black pepper.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
That will be $37.90 (After all we are paying for the whole Busters Quarter), and we'll have it to you within 30 minutes.
The usual script ends there.
Except under the circumstances, there is an add-on:
Very sorry. We have no mozzarella cheese. Or pepperoni-salami. Or crust.
What do you have?
We have some sliced cheddar. Mini wiener hot dogs. And I have a tortilla.
Okay. Turn that into a pizza, we'll take it.
That will be $37.90 (after all, we did order the Busters Quarter), and we'll have it to you within 30 minutes.
Okay.
Add on number 2:
Very Sorry. There's a gas shortage, so the mopeds are grounded, and our deliverers are on pedal bikes. Please understand we can't guarantee delivery time.
Okay.
The unusual script ends there.
We weren't leaving the country, but while we were waiting for our mini-hot dog-flat-burrito birthday pizza, we'd come to the decision that we'd at least escape the stress of the Kanto region for a few days, and instinctively made a call to a Japanese family we've been in contact with even before moving to Japan. The Hayashis were the host family to a college buddy of mine when she was an exchange student in a Japanese high school as a teen. We met the family at her Chicago wedding years later, and they have since become the closest comfort zone and "home-away-from-home-and-away-from-disaster-zone in our lives. It felt like the best "running to Mama away from Mommy" we could do to nurture our family spirit.
They live in the Kansai region, a little over 300 miles from our home, in the opposite direction of the epicenter and eventual nuclear meltdown site (the buzz word quickly moved from crisis to meltdown). We arranged to leave the next day, and with some evacuation plan laid, we had the rest of that evening to pack our essentials and embrace the small joy of someone turning a healthy 42 years-old. The most reckless party-behavior we engaged in over the next two hours was lighting a candle to compliment our "Happy Birthday" song. Not only were candles were a "hot" commodity, but they also served a greater emergency kit and blackout source dual purpose now. We gave it one choppy verse, and we sang fast.
Tickets in hand, we boarded an overbooked bullet train fist thing in the morning. The journey under normal conditions should be roughly 4 hours door-to-door. Yet with damaged infrastructure, a dwindling electrical supply, mass crowds and mass confusion, we clocked more than double that. We embraced the Hayashis upon arriving almost 9 hours later, as if it hadn't been over 7 years since we'd last visited, although nobody could pretend that the circumstances were the same as the previous trip. It was a few refreshing days of being away from the immediate zone, but certainly not a sejour from a problem that would be resolved in our absence. Rather, after an extended weekend of spending time with "family," breaking from mass media frenzy, and from the stress of the unknowns and un-understoods, we would return to the Kanto region to a new round of what ifs and what nexts.
Our daily newspaper now features a map of the Kanto region highlighting the daily cesium amount in the air, and how many microseverts per minute are being released in our area. Confusion over the new nuclear related vocabulary continued to mount, a lesson in words I never dreamed would enter my bilingual world. Knowing how to calculate the surface deposits of cecium in kiloecquerels per square meter in more than one language was never on my lofty list of goals, let alone a desirable boon as a resume-builder. Outdoors, expressways closed and were blocked with crime scene tape and manned by uniformed guards. The sound of low flying choppers overhead hummed through the neighborhood, making home feel like war zone. Dumping sites for debris, divided like paper and plastic on a recycled disposal day--into a pile for concrete blocks from roads and side walks, and another for neighborhood home roof tiles, popped up where cars formally parked. Even the subtle scenes of kids playing outside and futons airing out on balconies, continued to disappear.
A great deal of mis-information was oozing from the rumor mills surrounding the Fukushima plant. But the fact remained, the nuclear power plant was disabled, and scheduled rolling blackouts were kicking in. Tepco jumpsuits took over the familiar TV news anchors' crisp suited look, as they set the scene to warm us up to chilling announcement of cutting off our heat and shutting down the lights. We were glued to the TV to get the flash on the neighborhood assignments, streaming in writing across the bottom of the screen. Which train lines were running as well as their respective time tables were reduced and changed daily. The world-record-on-time Japanese transportation network they pride themselves on here was upstaged by a wait-and-see non precise process. However, pride was being redefined, and contributing to relief efforts was now the sole source of pride for the nation in desperate need.
Every neighborhood across the Kanto plain was divided into any number from 1 to 6 zones, and the time frame that you were to lose power changed daily. The blocks were 2 hours at a time, 2 times a day. Without complaint, people disconnected from their social networks, cable networks, heating, lighting and refrigeration, and re-connected with their neighbors. Community bonds firmed, and everyone worked in tandem: passing frozen goods across the zone boarders, dividing coveted goods such as batteries or lighters, and even hot baths. Splitting my time between the office and home due to different "zones" became one working strategy. I was following the flow of electricity while racing the clock between zone 2 and 4, while traffic lights were shutting down in my near gas-less wake. I daydreamed I was the star of the next Mission Impossible action thriller. Fortunately, hope and the nation's unity were powerful enough forces that the Mission would be Possible.
Without electricity or dependable transportation, many schools were either called off, running on limited hours around the blackout schedule, or with a come at your own risk (and dress warmly) clause. Hana continued to attend kindergarten during the hours it was up and running, if for no other reason to have some form of play, albeit restrained. Newsletters came home: "kids were under stress, uncharacteristic crying as well as "wetting" accidents were on the rise." The scheduled school day, however, meant eliminating the schedule. Planned field trips, end of school year parties, even the daily bus service was off. There was no gas supply, and festivities for a country in mourning could wait. Yet teaching the 5 to 7 year old crowd they "could wait" for their agenda was a hard-fast crash course that their Disney Princess and Toy Story kickers took in stride. Fortunately, I was still riding on that lucky juice of a half tank of gas from the day after the quake, so I loaded a cooler of juice boxes and took up driving some of the neighborhoods kids back and forth. As they road in an oddly hushed state, I was convinced the giggling was much more animated on their regular bus route, when days were "regular." Though the region called for a larger dose of patchwork to repair the quake damage, my imported care package stash of gooey Easter candy could provide some after-school boosts to keep them glued into some form of kid-like fun.
Back home, with 2 unfamiliar knocks on the door, the lady next door entered the entrance way, quickly kicking off her outdoor slippers and announcing herself. She cares for an aging husband full-time, and I rarely see her in the comings and goings of day to day life. Yet, day to day life was over on March 10, and though she barged in like the "busy body" neighborhood lady is portrayed in fiction, I was happy to see her welcomed her warmly. She received a shipment of a 4-pack of quail eggs from a relative on the west side of the country, and was eager to share. She reached out with one thumbed-sized egg with delicate handling, as if it was a fresh catch from the nest, ready to hatch. She popped out as quickly as she "broke" in, barely accepting the bow of a thank you. I looked down at the bite sized spotted gem for an extended half minute before I moved on. I held back for a minute from my usual sarcastic mindset surrounding food delicacies in Japan, which would have been immediately wondering how with this, with a cup of only available powered milk, well, what a sorry pancake I could make. Instead, I was transfixed in bigger meaning behind the catch of that single egg: at how, with that hand-off, she was reaching out with much more than a silly little quail offspring.
Stocking up on fresh perishables had been a non-option during those early weeks, yet I had a relationship as a regular at a Ma and Pa fresh produce shop in the city. Not expecting to load up on goods, I stopped in on a social call. They were grounded, although their store shelves toppled in disarray. The Ma had been waiting for me, and disappeared at first glance, re-emerging with a stash containing a quart of milk, a block of tofu and 10-pack of eggs. Attached was a post-it note with キャサリン (Kathryn) displayed in bold and beautiful Japanese lettering. When supplies were dwindling and among their damage they couldn't remain open for business, she put some staples to the side with me in mind, and calligraphy brush in hand.
During the ride home from that interaction, I could tune out the low flying choppers of the Self Defense Force. I didn't wonder what their mission was that day - whether or not they were transporting delegates to survey the damage, or transport medicine to the victims. For just 3 miles, I let the joy and the gift of the moment sink in. I loaded a CD in the stereo, opting not of the American Armed Forces radio network 24/7 up-to-date disaster information. I road in calm, without monitoring how much gas I had left, I just let go. I pulled in the car port, and greeted neighbors that were outside talking, exchanging water they were putting aside for the scheduled blackout 2 hours later. I approached as Santa with the big red sack. They accepted my offer without hesitation, ducking into their homes and back with containers. We were pouring milk into thermoses, dividing eggs, and scooping bite-sized chunks of tofu into mini tupperware, right in the middle of the street. Maybe we were more like kids on Beggar's Night, trading and exchanging our Halloween loot. I lost the memory of how I prepared that first round of fresh dairy post-quake, but the post it note is a keep sake representing a memory that will stay with me forever.
We were able to feed our bellies, next was trying to feed the tank. One Mobil gas station in the neighboring town started to open for limited hours, 12-2pm or until supplies ran out, limiting each customer to a flat $20 cash in advance rate. I joined the line, which turned out to be 90 minutes of inching up one at a time. (Others behind me didn't make it in the lot that day, they'd line up the next day.) Cars filed toward the entrance in neutral, savoring the limited supplies they had, while volunteers pushed as we slowly inched up closer to the pump. The receipt was pre-printed, with an eloquently worded tag line apologizing for not offering usual services such as windshield cleaning, checking oil, or cleaning out ash trays. The attendants appeared as drained as the pumps, handing the "note" to the customer, saving themselves from further depleting their "only human" energy levels with explanations.
A cold week later, kerosene was rationed back, and I returned to that trusty Mobil station with our orange tanks in the trunk.
During the cold months, kerosene carrying trucks circle the neighborhoods on a regular rotation (Thursdays and Sundays for us), blaring a peppy tune like a mid-summer ice cream truck. The pep was out of step as much as the trucks were out of gas. News of the few stations that acquired enough supplies to sell to non commercial customers on a bring-your-own-tank basis rippled fast. Again, it was a bumper to bumper approaching the station. The difference this time was cars collecting kerosene were unable to enter the lot. They still had 2 hour lines to get in for a tank of gas, so if you were there to get kerosene, Mobil arranged a deal with the 7-11 across the street to use their parking lot. 7-11 had been lonely since they sold out of staples 10 days prior, so they must have welcomed the action. They welcomed it like turkey on Thanksgiving, really. They were handing out bowls of oden, which is a hodge podge kind of soup, a dish popular in winter, while you were waiting for your turn to cross the street to get your tanks filled. When my bowl was empty and my "number was up," 2 men followed me across the street and carried my load after I filled up as far as the traffic light. When the light turned green, they passed my tanks along the human conveyer belt of heavy lifting hands to volley it back to my mini Honda in the 7-11 lot. It was a Norman Rockwell type beauty, like the Boy Scout walking the "little old lady" across the street. When the light turned red, the volunteer transporters retreated in quick step to the closest side of the road and stood at attention until the next green light.
Following kerosene, other necessities slowly re-emerged, and grocery stores introduce new policies. A bell would ring at 10am and 4pm. Customers lined up for a 1 per family per day supply of eggs, fermented beans, or a quart of milk. Store lighting was dim or off, refrigerator and freezer sections were rationed for energy. Background music, such "frivolous luxuries," shut off. There was little we could do to help the affected areas with their survival, but pinching where we could, and reaching out to each other to share what we had, became a pro-active recovery tactic. Escalators and elevators remain off, but train stations re-opened with limited service. Productivity in the workforce, consumerism, all of the key factors that make advanced nations tick remained off-kilter, but despite the lights going dim and the peppy music going silent, people seemed to welcome the idea of heading off to work, of getting involved in volunteer disaster relief efforts, of doing anything that contributes to rebuilding a country that a few weeks prior may have even been considered an over-developed nation.
Seasons changed the annual tropical rain front set in and lifted, as we braced for the oppressive heat. Summers in Japan see (and feel) many days over 100 degrees, with humidity factors as relentless as the still on-going aftershocks. The threat of more rolling blackouts was in the thick, wet air. The jumpsuits reappeared as the government regulated power use for companies, public facilities and schools, requiring cut backs of 15-25% power usage. The daily weather report initiated a "peak power use" forecast for the following day, based on the prediction of when A/C use would be in highest demand. Households were gently warned to refrain from any "extras" during that time: using the microwave, vacuum, washing machine, or iron -- any of that domestic glamour that could wait.
Air conditioning thermostats were regulated to 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), which is not an ideal cool setting. Hand fans returned in style, and retailers scrambled to create new clothing lines, professional sweat-free, breathable looks. New tricks and trinkets came on the market, and any item that stimulated the economy while cooling down the body was a justified purchase.
The Cool Biz campaign started years ago, when the Kyoto Protocol kick-jumped companies into saving energy in order to reduce the impact of global warming. The unwritten suit and tie dress code during the warm months at work places eased. The image of then Prime Minister Koizumi modeling a Hawaiian shirt at a press conference is still strong. Yet, summer 2011 brought the birth of Super Cool Biz, which really sounds like the Prime Minister (already a position change once since 3/11 from this writing) should don a cape. Honestly, we need to embrace the fantasy of a superhero sweeping the country from disaster and rubble.
The movie theater would re-open with limited (day of only) scheduling, fewer screens available, in order to save power and to maintain safety checks. There were no guarantees that they could even maintain the "day of" listings, since a strong aftershock would shut down the system, offering no refunds. I did get to take my daughter to see Disney's Tangled, a month before Tokyo Disneyland recovered enough to open the entire park. On film, Rapunzel was saved. I couldn't help but look at the heroine's tower, less as a dungeon-like trap, but more as a protective fortress from a tidal wave. Either way, it was a happy ending, and a great flash of hope in our day too.
In the peak of the August heat, we did make a brief trip back to Ohio. For the three of us, it was the summer recess period from school and teaching, and we would temporarily leave a country that had no "recess" from rebuilding. We would take a break to visit our State-side families, while surviving families were still living in non air-conditioned evacuation centers: former high schools and public gymnasium floors. However, boarding a plane didn't dismiss us from our experience. We flew through a brief electrical storm, and turbulence kicked in, shaking the cabin somewhat, rattling the bottles from the attendants' carts slightly. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I was half conscience of it, but it was that lingering "earthquake sickness."
Seven months have passed since the day, and I will be carrying the memory of March 11 for a lifetime. I am not a hoarder, but I saved the キャサリン (Kathryn) post-it note, the receipts from the Mobil gas station, and now the Tangled movie ticket stubs. The keepsakes feel like the inspirational notes, or simple reminders that people leave around for themselves when they need a pep talk. A quail egg here, a quart of milk there, a tank of kerosene here, and a cinema memory there, to me all added up to a personalized four leaf clover. I'm happy to drop the memory of the moment of 2:46pm, 3/11/2011, but I welcome the idea of hoarding the lessons learned and experiences lived in the aftermath since that instant, to follow me for life.
Normalcy would be a long time coming.
We had plans to go on a day ski trip up north with another family from kindergarten. Nobody on the east side of the country was going through with plans they made for March 12, although I'm sure everybody had some form of to-do pencilled in that square of the no frills wall calendar. Transportation heading north was crippled, ski lifts toppled, and it turned out the site, along with a list of hundreds of other entertainment venues, never reopened that season. For the day, I wasn't glued to disaster footage on TV, nor focused on the unfolding nuclear crisis. Unintentionally, I isolated myself in our suddenly choked off environment, and attempted to create make-shift fun for a 6-year old who had a full of frills countdown Hello Kitty calendar to her first ski lesson. The quake knocked that calendar from the fridge magnet, shuffling it around the floor by then, so she wasn't concentrating on it anymore either, yet that didn't quench my strong desire to fix something on that chilly Saturday.
We made breakfast, loaded the car, and headed out. Destination: movie theater? I'm almost embarrassed typing that now. I am aware of how absurd and frivolous the notion is, but everything from seismic plates to mindsets was shaken up. We were out of place in our own lives. Aftershocks kept coming, from quick jolts to long trembles, though we were shaky anyway. We felt like we'd just gotten off a long, choppy boat ride, so it was easy to lose track of which were real tremors, and which were what became dubbed as "地震酔い, earthquake sickness."March 11, before 2:46pm at any rate, marked the opening weekend of the latest Disney movie, Tangled. Shobu and Hanyu are the two theaters in our area, centered in sprawling city in itself style shopping malls. As we approached the Shobu parking lot, we greeted the first eerie reality of the day after. Empty. In Japan, it's typically a one car in, one car out of the parking lot policy. It was deserted, the entire shopping mecca closed. The flashy, bustling, crowd-pleasing mall with more than 300 shops, restaurants and arcades vacated. I flashed back to a scene in National Lampoon's Vacation. But this was no comedy. It was the innocent attempt of trying to bring my child to a kids' movie, that suddenly turned into feeling like we were starring in a suspense thriller. We drove on to Hanyu, the next mall, only to discover the same "horror" scene replayed.
By now, though still only mid-morning, we've driven enough distance looking for "escape" entertainment that we need to fill up on gas. The roads were abandoned, and it felt as strange as it did comforting that the one pump stop we stumbled on was attended. Little did I realize that would be my last gas-up opportunity for nearly a month.
We stopped at a 7-11 to pick up some snacks to head to a park. The lights were dim, the shelves bare, and the concrete reality -- unlike the road side concrete damage lining the sidewalks -- was piecing together. Arriving at that park we found comfort near another mom standing on the sidelines trying to give her kids the same "run around break" I was. I wasn't completely conscience of it yet, but that hallow, jet-lagged sense began overtaking my bones. It didn't matter, and it couldn't be a priority for months. Hana latched on to the 2 little girls as they dove into a game of tag -- up and down a hill, rolling from the top to the bottom, making up new rules along the way. I joined in once in awhile, just to fake "losing" long enough to keep their play fresh. I chatted with the other mom. We talked about the moment, its impact, and questioned what was to come. I mentioned the picked over convenience store, asking her if she found the same. She concurred: It was ominous, noting that locals must be stocking up for the big one with our area as the epicenter. Preparing for the big one? That wasn't the big one? Damage, lack of transport, electricity being down were contributing forces (I hesitate to use the axis of evil metaphor here), generating a demand in daily goods, and preventing any re-stocking on shelves. Yet I hadn't stopped to register her big-one reasoning until she candidly articulated it. With that, the innocent kids' game of freeze tag brought me to a stand still.
The next day gas stations had mile long lines ebbing the road. Eggs, milk, bread, toilet paper, bottled water, batteries, instant noodles, candles -- those overlooked items you take for granted -- were a part of our re-written recent history. Soon after, SOLD OUT signs replaced gas price lists at stations, and hand written apologies from store managers replaced goods on emptied grocery shelves. A few more days pass, and those hand scrawled signs were replaced with typed notices, indicating this was not a temporary situation. Paralyzed transportation shut down the in-roads, and the dire need in the hardest hit areas further north got any priority of remaining goods and services anywhere in the country. My exhaustion wasn't jet-lag, and it wasn't just a lack of sleep from the aftermath of events. We were in the midst of adjusting to living with a condition. Despite the relief of the 3 of us reuniting, semi-grounded and in good health, there was no returning to normal. We were breaking ground, learning along the way, how to pave a new normal.
The international media was adjusting its zoom lens on a potential "action" shot, an inevitable lava pool set to erupt in our path. Other networks were one step ahead, putting the final touches on a still life canvas of Japan. Over the next few days, the battle cry of foreign embassies rang out in procession. Non essential nationals should evacuate the Tohoku/Kanto regionn. The crisis surrounding the disabled Fukushima nuclear power plant was more than a mushroom cloud of unknown. France, Germany, and Ireland followed suit, with Canada and the US finally waving the red flag at the end of the pack. The image of the Tepco jumpsuit took center stage, with round-the-clock press conference updates from the sacrificial workers at the Dai Ichi plant, and representatives from the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
Lunch time, March 17. The phone rings. One of my closest friends, a "non essential" Irish expat, but essential to me, is on the other end of the line calling from her Tokyo home. I think we've spoken on March 17 for at least the past 15 years we've been connected in Japan. 2011 marked the first in our history that it wasn't a "Happy St. Patrick's Day" social call. Conflicted, she was in the midst of scrambling to get to Ireland that night. She'd cart two young boys across Tokyo to get to the airport with extremely limited, over-crowded transportation options. Her boys' schools, including the school where she worked, were all closing doors due to the triple crisis anyway, so she was going to shift her summer travel plans to March, yet this time without the usual vacation spirit. "Triple crisis" was one of the many merging catch-phrases, which in happier times was describing another patty on the burger. Language was changing as fast as life.
We, too, were at a crossroads (a sticky place to be when you're getting low on gas). We weren't exactly in Japan on short term contracts from the States, or even on the business trip formula that had a start, an end, complete with a one-way return ticket. We established careers at Japanese universities, and we have a daughter in the local school system. In spite of our blue passports, we are long-term, tax-paying, established-residents of a red passport nation. Our lives here would go on. But for now, the country was in mourning. Ceremonies were cancelled. There would be no traditional March graduations. Pomp and circumstance were inappropriate. Money for the banquets and flowers that go hand in hand with the celebrations were transferred into Red Cross donation accounts. And in place of graduation caps flying up in the air, flags would lower to half mast. Even cherry blossom season - the thousand-plus years old custom of festivals and parties, down to the ubiquitous portable karaoke machines and mobile Asahi beer kegs at all the parks and riverbanks in bloom, would be off for 2011. The display of cheer surrounding the sakura, (cherry blossoms) was replaced by chrysanthemum bouquets as grieving symbols at shrines. In the same way my fellow expat friends dropped the idea of annual green beer gatherings and leprechaun parades in Harajuku (Tokyo), nobody in Japan was focused on pink blossoms, celebrations or tradition.
But it was still March 17. It wasn't just post-disaster, mid-crisis, St. Patrick's day, or even just another Thursday. It was my husband's birthday. Traditionally, the non-surprise (he came to expect the doorbell to ring the dinner hour since his late 20s) was pizza, his favorite, the American classic. Japanese pizza, however, is the cultural opposite of his strict Pepperoni and "no funny business" (his words) pie order. To paint a deep-dish picture, octopus, mayonnaise, and broccoli, to name a few are hot selling toppings here. Therefore, his rigid pepperoni and cheese standard is a special order, and not special just because it would call for birthday candles for his "party." Instead, the take-out menu features a set list of pizza orders, complete with fancy titles and cutsie graphics. The only choices that come with the ordering experience are size (S, M, L) and crust (crispy vs. regular). Prices vary from roughly $20 (S) to $40 (L), and titles are equally as fancy as the photo and price would indicate: Teriyaki Chicken Deluxe, Pizza Purukogi, Tuna Mayo, Bomber Quarter, and Busters Quarter.
Although Japanese customer service is second to none, the drawback is that its consistency is so stringent that it causes a kind of a chaos that shakes the Richter scale to off the line-by-line manual they are trained to follow. Special orders are a foreign language. Thus, after years of dress rehearsals, we have adjusted to playing out their script, their way:
Pizza-La, may I take your order? (It's not a hint toward pseudo American style in the store name - that's pronounced LA, like singing La la la, not L.A. as in Southern California.)
I'd like a large, "Busters Quarter," regular crust, hold the potato, shoulder bacon, corn, sliced tomato, mayonnaise, teriyaki chicken, shrimp, squid, onion, and black pepper.
(That's the Japanese way of following the how-to menu, and leaving off everything to come down to ordering a plain-ol' pepperoni & cheese, thick crust.)
I see, that's, a large, "Busters Quarter," regular crust, with no potato, no shoulder bacon, no corn, no sliced tomato, no mayonnaise, no teriyaki chicken, no shrimp, no squid, no onion, and no black pepper.
Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
That will be $37.90 (After all we are paying for the whole Busters Quarter), and we'll have it to you within 30 minutes.
The usual script ends there.
Except under the circumstances, there is an add-on:
Very sorry. We have no mozzarella cheese. Or pepperoni-salami. Or crust.
What do you have?
We have some sliced cheddar. Mini wiener hot dogs. And I have a tortilla.
Okay. Turn that into a pizza, we'll take it.
That will be $37.90 (after all, we did order the Busters Quarter), and we'll have it to you within 30 minutes.
Okay.
Add on number 2:
Very Sorry. There's a gas shortage, so the mopeds are grounded, and our deliverers are on pedal bikes. Please understand we can't guarantee delivery time.
Okay.
The unusual script ends there.
We weren't leaving the country, but while we were waiting for our mini-hot dog-flat-burrito birthday pizza, we'd come to the decision that we'd at least escape the stress of the Kanto region for a few days, and instinctively made a call to a Japanese family we've been in contact with even before moving to Japan. The Hayashis were the host family to a college buddy of mine when she was an exchange student in a Japanese high school as a teen. We met the family at her Chicago wedding years later, and they have since become the closest comfort zone and "home-away-from-home-and-away-from-disaster-zone in our lives. It felt like the best "running to Mama away from Mommy" we could do to nurture our family spirit.
They live in the Kansai region, a little over 300 miles from our home, in the opposite direction of the epicenter and eventual nuclear meltdown site (the buzz word quickly moved from crisis to meltdown). We arranged to leave the next day, and with some evacuation plan laid, we had the rest of that evening to pack our essentials and embrace the small joy of someone turning a healthy 42 years-old. The most reckless party-behavior we engaged in over the next two hours was lighting a candle to compliment our "Happy Birthday" song. Not only were candles were a "hot" commodity, but they also served a greater emergency kit and blackout source dual purpose now. We gave it one choppy verse, and we sang fast.
Tickets in hand, we boarded an overbooked bullet train fist thing in the morning. The journey under normal conditions should be roughly 4 hours door-to-door. Yet with damaged infrastructure, a dwindling electrical supply, mass crowds and mass confusion, we clocked more than double that. We embraced the Hayashis upon arriving almost 9 hours later, as if it hadn't been over 7 years since we'd last visited, although nobody could pretend that the circumstances were the same as the previous trip. It was a few refreshing days of being away from the immediate zone, but certainly not a sejour from a problem that would be resolved in our absence. Rather, after an extended weekend of spending time with "family," breaking from mass media frenzy, and from the stress of the unknowns and un-understoods, we would return to the Kanto region to a new round of what ifs and what nexts.
Our daily newspaper now features a map of the Kanto region highlighting the daily cesium amount in the air, and how many microseverts per minute are being released in our area. Confusion over the new nuclear related vocabulary continued to mount, a lesson in words I never dreamed would enter my bilingual world. Knowing how to calculate the surface deposits of cecium in kiloecquerels per square meter in more than one language was never on my lofty list of goals, let alone a desirable boon as a resume-builder. Outdoors, expressways closed and were blocked with crime scene tape and manned by uniformed guards. The sound of low flying choppers overhead hummed through the neighborhood, making home feel like war zone. Dumping sites for debris, divided like paper and plastic on a recycled disposal day--into a pile for concrete blocks from roads and side walks, and another for neighborhood home roof tiles, popped up where cars formally parked. Even the subtle scenes of kids playing outside and futons airing out on balconies, continued to disappear.
A great deal of mis-information was oozing from the rumor mills surrounding the Fukushima plant. But the fact remained, the nuclear power plant was disabled, and scheduled rolling blackouts were kicking in. Tepco jumpsuits took over the familiar TV news anchors' crisp suited look, as they set the scene to warm us up to chilling announcement of cutting off our heat and shutting down the lights. We were glued to the TV to get the flash on the neighborhood assignments, streaming in writing across the bottom of the screen. Which train lines were running as well as their respective time tables were reduced and changed daily. The world-record-on-time Japanese transportation network they pride themselves on here was upstaged by a wait-and-see non precise process. However, pride was being redefined, and contributing to relief efforts was now the sole source of pride for the nation in desperate need.
Every neighborhood across the Kanto plain was divided into any number from 1 to 6 zones, and the time frame that you were to lose power changed daily. The blocks were 2 hours at a time, 2 times a day. Without complaint, people disconnected from their social networks, cable networks, heating, lighting and refrigeration, and re-connected with their neighbors. Community bonds firmed, and everyone worked in tandem: passing frozen goods across the zone boarders, dividing coveted goods such as batteries or lighters, and even hot baths. Splitting my time between the office and home due to different "zones" became one working strategy. I was following the flow of electricity while racing the clock between zone 2 and 4, while traffic lights were shutting down in my near gas-less wake. I daydreamed I was the star of the next Mission Impossible action thriller. Fortunately, hope and the nation's unity were powerful enough forces that the Mission would be Possible.
Without electricity or dependable transportation, many schools were either called off, running on limited hours around the blackout schedule, or with a come at your own risk (and dress warmly) clause. Hana continued to attend kindergarten during the hours it was up and running, if for no other reason to have some form of play, albeit restrained. Newsletters came home: "kids were under stress, uncharacteristic crying as well as "wetting" accidents were on the rise." The scheduled school day, however, meant eliminating the schedule. Planned field trips, end of school year parties, even the daily bus service was off. There was no gas supply, and festivities for a country in mourning could wait. Yet teaching the 5 to 7 year old crowd they "could wait" for their agenda was a hard-fast crash course that their Disney Princess and Toy Story kickers took in stride. Fortunately, I was still riding on that lucky juice of a half tank of gas from the day after the quake, so I loaded a cooler of juice boxes and took up driving some of the neighborhoods kids back and forth. As they road in an oddly hushed state, I was convinced the giggling was much more animated on their regular bus route, when days were "regular." Though the region called for a larger dose of patchwork to repair the quake damage, my imported care package stash of gooey Easter candy could provide some after-school boosts to keep them glued into some form of kid-like fun.
Back home, with 2 unfamiliar knocks on the door, the lady next door entered the entrance way, quickly kicking off her outdoor slippers and announcing herself. She cares for an aging husband full-time, and I rarely see her in the comings and goings of day to day life. Yet, day to day life was over on March 10, and though she barged in like the "busy body" neighborhood lady is portrayed in fiction, I was happy to see her welcomed her warmly. She received a shipment of a 4-pack of quail eggs from a relative on the west side of the country, and was eager to share. She reached out with one thumbed-sized egg with delicate handling, as if it was a fresh catch from the nest, ready to hatch. She popped out as quickly as she "broke" in, barely accepting the bow of a thank you. I looked down at the bite sized spotted gem for an extended half minute before I moved on. I held back for a minute from my usual sarcastic mindset surrounding food delicacies in Japan, which would have been immediately wondering how with this, with a cup of only available powered milk, well, what a sorry pancake I could make. Instead, I was transfixed in bigger meaning behind the catch of that single egg: at how, with that hand-off, she was reaching out with much more than a silly little quail offspring.
Stocking up on fresh perishables had been a non-option during those early weeks, yet I had a relationship as a regular at a Ma and Pa fresh produce shop in the city. Not expecting to load up on goods, I stopped in on a social call. They were grounded, although their store shelves toppled in disarray. The Ma had been waiting for me, and disappeared at first glance, re-emerging with a stash containing a quart of milk, a block of tofu and 10-pack of eggs. Attached was a post-it note with キャサリン (Kathryn) displayed in bold and beautiful Japanese lettering. When supplies were dwindling and among their damage they couldn't remain open for business, she put some staples to the side with me in mind, and calligraphy brush in hand.
During the ride home from that interaction, I could tune out the low flying choppers of the Self Defense Force. I didn't wonder what their mission was that day - whether or not they were transporting delegates to survey the damage, or transport medicine to the victims. For just 3 miles, I let the joy and the gift of the moment sink in. I loaded a CD in the stereo, opting not of the American Armed Forces radio network 24/7 up-to-date disaster information. I road in calm, without monitoring how much gas I had left, I just let go. I pulled in the car port, and greeted neighbors that were outside talking, exchanging water they were putting aside for the scheduled blackout 2 hours later. I approached as Santa with the big red sack. They accepted my offer without hesitation, ducking into their homes and back with containers. We were pouring milk into thermoses, dividing eggs, and scooping bite-sized chunks of tofu into mini tupperware, right in the middle of the street. Maybe we were more like kids on Beggar's Night, trading and exchanging our Halloween loot. I lost the memory of how I prepared that first round of fresh dairy post-quake, but the post it note is a keep sake representing a memory that will stay with me forever.
We were able to feed our bellies, next was trying to feed the tank. One Mobil gas station in the neighboring town started to open for limited hours, 12-2pm or until supplies ran out, limiting each customer to a flat $20 cash in advance rate. I joined the line, which turned out to be 90 minutes of inching up one at a time. (Others behind me didn't make it in the lot that day, they'd line up the next day.) Cars filed toward the entrance in neutral, savoring the limited supplies they had, while volunteers pushed as we slowly inched up closer to the pump. The receipt was pre-printed, with an eloquently worded tag line apologizing for not offering usual services such as windshield cleaning, checking oil, or cleaning out ash trays. The attendants appeared as drained as the pumps, handing the "note" to the customer, saving themselves from further depleting their "only human" energy levels with explanations.
A cold week later, kerosene was rationed back, and I returned to that trusty Mobil station with our orange tanks in the trunk.
During the cold months, kerosene carrying trucks circle the neighborhoods on a regular rotation (Thursdays and Sundays for us), blaring a peppy tune like a mid-summer ice cream truck. The pep was out of step as much as the trucks were out of gas. News of the few stations that acquired enough supplies to sell to non commercial customers on a bring-your-own-tank basis rippled fast. Again, it was a bumper to bumper approaching the station. The difference this time was cars collecting kerosene were unable to enter the lot. They still had 2 hour lines to get in for a tank of gas, so if you were there to get kerosene, Mobil arranged a deal with the 7-11 across the street to use their parking lot. 7-11 had been lonely since they sold out of staples 10 days prior, so they must have welcomed the action. They welcomed it like turkey on Thanksgiving, really. They were handing out bowls of oden, which is a hodge podge kind of soup, a dish popular in winter, while you were waiting for your turn to cross the street to get your tanks filled. When my bowl was empty and my "number was up," 2 men followed me across the street and carried my load after I filled up as far as the traffic light. When the light turned green, they passed my tanks along the human conveyer belt of heavy lifting hands to volley it back to my mini Honda in the 7-11 lot. It was a Norman Rockwell type beauty, like the Boy Scout walking the "little old lady" across the street. When the light turned red, the volunteer transporters retreated in quick step to the closest side of the road and stood at attention until the next green light.
Following kerosene, other necessities slowly re-emerged, and grocery stores introduce new policies. A bell would ring at 10am and 4pm. Customers lined up for a 1 per family per day supply of eggs, fermented beans, or a quart of milk. Store lighting was dim or off, refrigerator and freezer sections were rationed for energy. Background music, such "frivolous luxuries," shut off. There was little we could do to help the affected areas with their survival, but pinching where we could, and reaching out to each other to share what we had, became a pro-active recovery tactic. Escalators and elevators remain off, but train stations re-opened with limited service. Productivity in the workforce, consumerism, all of the key factors that make advanced nations tick remained off-kilter, but despite the lights going dim and the peppy music going silent, people seemed to welcome the idea of heading off to work, of getting involved in volunteer disaster relief efforts, of doing anything that contributes to rebuilding a country that a few weeks prior may have even been considered an over-developed nation.
Seasons changed the annual tropical rain front set in and lifted, as we braced for the oppressive heat. Summers in Japan see (and feel) many days over 100 degrees, with humidity factors as relentless as the still on-going aftershocks. The threat of more rolling blackouts was in the thick, wet air. The jumpsuits reappeared as the government regulated power use for companies, public facilities and schools, requiring cut backs of 15-25% power usage. The daily weather report initiated a "peak power use" forecast for the following day, based on the prediction of when A/C use would be in highest demand. Households were gently warned to refrain from any "extras" during that time: using the microwave, vacuum, washing machine, or iron -- any of that domestic glamour that could wait.
Air conditioning thermostats were regulated to 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), which is not an ideal cool setting. Hand fans returned in style, and retailers scrambled to create new clothing lines, professional sweat-free, breathable looks. New tricks and trinkets came on the market, and any item that stimulated the economy while cooling down the body was a justified purchase.
The Cool Biz campaign started years ago, when the Kyoto Protocol kick-jumped companies into saving energy in order to reduce the impact of global warming. The unwritten suit and tie dress code during the warm months at work places eased. The image of then Prime Minister Koizumi modeling a Hawaiian shirt at a press conference is still strong. Yet, summer 2011 brought the birth of Super Cool Biz, which really sounds like the Prime Minister (already a position change once since 3/11 from this writing) should don a cape. Honestly, we need to embrace the fantasy of a superhero sweeping the country from disaster and rubble.
The movie theater would re-open with limited (day of only) scheduling, fewer screens available, in order to save power and to maintain safety checks. There were no guarantees that they could even maintain the "day of" listings, since a strong aftershock would shut down the system, offering no refunds. I did get to take my daughter to see Disney's Tangled, a month before Tokyo Disneyland recovered enough to open the entire park. On film, Rapunzel was saved. I couldn't help but look at the heroine's tower, less as a dungeon-like trap, but more as a protective fortress from a tidal wave. Either way, it was a happy ending, and a great flash of hope in our day too.
In the peak of the August heat, we did make a brief trip back to Ohio. For the three of us, it was the summer recess period from school and teaching, and we would temporarily leave a country that had no "recess" from rebuilding. We would take a break to visit our State-side families, while surviving families were still living in non air-conditioned evacuation centers: former high schools and public gymnasium floors. However, boarding a plane didn't dismiss us from our experience. We flew through a brief electrical storm, and turbulence kicked in, shaking the cabin somewhat, rattling the bottles from the attendants' carts slightly. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I was half conscience of it, but it was that lingering "earthquake sickness."
Seven months have passed since the day, and I will be carrying the memory of March 11 for a lifetime. I am not a hoarder, but I saved the キャサリン (Kathryn) post-it note, the receipts from the Mobil gas station, and now the Tangled movie ticket stubs. The keepsakes feel like the inspirational notes, or simple reminders that people leave around for themselves when they need a pep talk. A quail egg here, a quart of milk there, a tank of kerosene here, and a cinema memory there, to me all added up to a personalized four leaf clover. I'm happy to drop the memory of the moment of 2:46pm, 3/11/2011, but I welcome the idea of hoarding the lessons learned and experiences lived in the aftermath since that instant, to follow me for life.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Earth Shakes, the Heart Firms
2:30 p.m. The second Friday of the month, every month. The regular faculty meeting at the university where I work as an associate professor of English in rural Saitama, Japan, begins with Japanese-style timed precision.
I am the only foreign national among forty-seven faculty members. We assemble in the large formal conference room on the top floor of the university, take our routine table, pulling up to the ritualistic cup green tea placed at each seat. We rifle through the agenda and handouts while waiting at attention for the vice president to call the meeting to order.
Opening greetings, followed by sixteen minutes of what I used to know as order. In an instant, the most fixed routine in my life became the most broken day of my life.
2:46 p.m. A sway, a steady sway. The dean has the floor as the teachers begin to shift their focus from his words to eye one another, as if asking in a glance, “do you feel some…” Sway turns to jolt and momentum builds. No words are spoken, as I follow instinct and the lead of the others and dive under the desk.
Tea is spilling, scalding at first. I’m shaking. I’m wet, and shivering. I clutch the hand of the faculty member closest to me, (Mr.) Sakamoto Sensei, gripping out of the desperation for human contact. He has one leg trying to prop the door open behind us as protocol calls for securing an emergency exit.
The power goes out; my chills intensify. The only noises in the room are hushed yelps of shock, the sound of tea cups clattering, wall hangings crashing down and glass shattering around us. We’re thrusting back and forth under the tables, rocking as if we’re on board that ill-fated ship.
Seventeen years ago, I picked up from a high school post among the cornfields in central Ohio, and moved to a school in the center of the rice fields in Japan on a teaching exchange program between Ohio State and Saitama Prefecture. I have since felt hundreds of tremors over these years, including the Great Hanshin (Kobe) quake in 1995.
Typically, they play out a familiar script. A sway, or a light jolt, and remain steady-paced until they fade away. “Oh, huh. Earthquake,” was the extent of my usual reaction, until March 11, 2011.
2:47 PM. This is not the way I want to go. This cannot be the end. I am not going to die here. Not like this. Not today.
I am not with my family!
My husband?
My DAUGHTER!
Is she panicked? Is she screaming? Who is holding her? I want her. I have an intense need to cocoon her in a tight, protective hug.
2:48 PM. The shaking is strengthening as my heart is weakening. My thoughts shift, “What was my last communication with Bob? How did we leave each other this morning?”
I’m reminded of the text he sent me from the train on his morning commute. He was sandwiched in with a rush hour, Tokyo bound crowd, unable to type, but managed to put a series of pictorial icons together which, in communication among couples, only I knew to read, “I’m glad I married you, and I love our family.” It was silly and sweet, and the pictures gave me a giggle. I opened it mid-morning and responded, “Best. Text. Ever,” which was intended to match his cheekiness because there was no actual text.
We were in three different places when the quake hit. My husband also teaches at a university, and he was on a research trip in Tokyo that day--over 30 miles from where I was--but fortunately in the opposite direction of the epicenter. Our six year old is in a Japanese kindergarten, three miles from where I work, and like any other “normal” day, I dropped her up and need to pick her up by car.
2:49 p.m. I have to get to her, hold her. I’m overcome with a feeling of power that nothing can stop me. I knew my husband was going to be OK. He isn't alone, meeting in a library with a member of his doctoral cohort, and I was confidant they’d know what to do. I also knew that he would be torn up inside not being able to contact us, which was unnerving. I was fraught for the three of us to be holding each other, to be rocking under cover in each other’s arms.
My mind doesn’t wander to a “bucket list.” I’ve been blessed by being surrounded by loving family and friends all my life, which has been full of fortune, adventure, and even touches of humor. I have no “but I didn’t get to…I still want to…” going through my mind. Only a basic need for the three of us to physically come together.
2:52 p.m. I voice it, crying, “I don’t want to die. Not now. Not like this.” My closest colleague and friend, taking cover under the table in front of me, calls back, “I’m scared to death too.” It’s his way of comforting me. He practices--even preaches--Zen and is the calmest person I know under any circumstance. This is his way of reassuring me that I wasn’t alone, and even though culturally I was the only one in the room, who was showing my emotion with inconsolable tears, they all feel the same, rather express emotions differently. Culture, country and language were not barriers. We all had to be family on that day.
2:55 p.m. Shaking subsides. We eye one another, as if slowly coming to, in semi-disbelief that it could be over. The vice president takes welcome command and releases us, instructing us to, “take a moment in our offices,” and we’ll reconvene in 10 minutes.
2:56 p.m. Many of us remain outside the conference room door. We’re in a semi-circle, not saying anything specific, but being near one another. Teachers are checking their cell phones. The power is still out, phone signals are gone, but Internet access one phone provides information on the quake: 9 magnitude, Miyagi Prefecture.”
2:57 p.m. Speechless, our faces drop. We’re stunned. Certainly we were the center of the trauma. The realization that the epicenter was approximately 150 miles north on the coast registered with us that there’s a truer disaster area, and tsunamis are inevitable.
2:59 p.m. I dash to my office, ignoring the collapsed wall-to-wall bookshelves, the desktop that rolled off my desk and into the window, the picture frames and coffee mugs smashed to the floor. I try to call my husband on my cell. No signal. I pick up my office phone to dial the kindergarten. No power, no phone line. I scurry back upstairs and find teachers coming together in awe of the rubble they found in their offices. We’re still shaken up, we are dominated by a feeling of fear, panic still heightened, and we are physically nauseated by the rocking feeling.
3:05 p.m. We reassemble in the fourth room floor, in the dark and cold, despite the dropping temperatures, the windows are wide open, serve as an emergency exits.
3:07 p.m. Another jolt. An aftershock? We shake, we’re back under the tables. Sirens, a fire alarm. It feels almost as strong as the first, but not as long. More sirens, followed by evacuation orders from a citywide public broadcast. I had been anxious to exit the building during the initial quake, but was morbidly reminded that we were on the top floor. If the university collapses, the higher we were the better.
3:10 p.m. The building evacuates. Students, faculty and staff are coming together in the campus courtyard. Hard hats are being distributed, preparedness and order is impressive, but my mission is to get to the parking lot and peel out to get my daughter. Timidly, I ask a colleague if I can get in a car. Knowing, he just nods and waves me off with empathetic concern.
I was the first out of the lot, and I don’t stall to question my judgment. Driving through torn roads, I see smoke coming from the surrounding farmhouses. “Surely the result of gas heaters jolting,” I said to myself. Local residents line the rural streets, staring, wandering and seeking out each other and answers.
Bumper-to-bumper under dangerous conditions, I listen to the broadcasts: “Stay close in line with other cars. Do not use the emergency break. Ride with your foot over, but not touching the gas pedal, and pull over to the side of the road, onto the grass or into the rice field, if an emergency or fire truck comes through.”
3:30 p.m. Still trying to get through to Bob; phone lines are down. I pull into the kindergarten lot. I pick my daughter up, embracing her like a solider home from war hugs his wife.
Ashley Hana, unlike Bob and me, was born in Japan and has had earthquake drills every other week since she started school. She followed protocol. Each six-year-old is assigned to a four-year-old in the way we used to have “buddy check” growing up. She was holding a little boy, “Gara Chan,” during the quake. It turns out that being in a big girl role made her a strong girl when she needed it most.
We edged along the slow-moving flow for the four-mile drive home. She was going over her what-to-do-during-a-disaster chant and wondering what state of chaos our house is in. I’m faking my Mama’s Just Fine Face, still reliving the hour, and feeling crippled by the communication line to our other unit member being out.
Cell phone lines still clogged, I send a text. I know it’s not going through, but hoping it’s in queue for when service resumes. Yes, it’s a series of icons, but not sent in the jovial mood Bob used to send me off on my day a chunk of hours earlier on that same day. I hurriedly use pictures to represent that I have Hana and we are home safe.
3:55 p.m. We make it inside. Hana Chan (she goes by her Japanese middle name here) puts on her Miffy bike helmet, and helps me assess the damage and clean up. It’s a healthy distraction for her: recovering and accounting for her Barbie and princess doll collection strewn about from the toppled dollhouse.
Announcements blare through our neighborhood. “Wear helmets. Change from slippers to shoes to protect yourself from broken glass and fallen items. If you see an elderly person in the streets, and please take him in.” The preparedness is comforting, but not my focus. I am overcome with the relief that we are together, but the unsettling feeling of not being able to hear Bob’s voice, to tell him that we are OK is insurmountable.
4:37 p.m. The power back on, I am able to use my land line. I jump for the phone, and dial the wife of the friend Bob is with. She lives in Tokyo, and informs me that the impact and damage was less than it was in Saitama, where we are. She’s able to exchange an email with her husband, Paul and Bob are together, and they are fine.
4:40 p.m. I turn on the TV and see footage for the first time. I’m sickened. I start resetting timers on heaters, the bath and toilet functions--everything electric in the house.
Hana’s hungry and asks about dinner. I go through the motions and start the dinner shift. I’m jumpy. There’s broken glass, I’m reluctant to use the gas range. I pour a bath once I detect the hot water has resumed.
5:30 p.m. After shocks continue, some stronger than others, as Hana calls them off one at a time, counting them off the way kids count off landmarks on road trips. We sit down to dinner. Saying Grace gives me pause, as every word of every prayer I’ve ever learned takes on a deeper meaning.
6:38 p.m. My cell phone rings for the first time. Bob’s voice on the other end. We’re quickly cut off due to the overloaded tower signal, but we had 17 seconds to know we we’re all in tact and grateful. There are no trains running at the time, as they were wandering the city streets of Tokyo with the millions of Tokyoites evacuated from office buildings.
7:53 p.m. Bob gets through again. He got a hot meal at a restaurant with Paul. They didn’t know what they were going to do from there. Paul lived quite a distance away within Tokyo, so they want to scout out a hotel together, although perhaps hundreds of thousands are hoping to do the same.
We go to bed assured that Bob was not alone. We hope he finds a room, or a way to shelter rather than waiting on a train station platform.
9:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m. I lie awake while aftershocks shake the bed constantly. Next to me, Hana is sound asleep, still in her helmet. I stay in bed as it’s the most peace I can find by just being next to her warmth and smell, much the same way new parents lose sleep because they would rather marvel at their miracle’s slumber.
2:00 a.m. I get up and head downstairs to the couch. I turn on the TV, and I’m sucked into the public service announcements on screen, the reports, the updates, the footage and the predictions for the future. I hope for answers.
4:00 a.m. I check the Internet and I have a series of emails and Facebook messages, checking in on me. I’m comforted that loved ones are reaching out, but at the same time, I’m lonely and starving for adult conversation and physical contact.
4:30 a.m. I am able to see my parents via Skype, and I articulate my experience for the first time. She is my Mother. She asks if I want to come home. The idea of a car, train and airplane were too much to fathom, but wanting to hug her? Yes, I dream of that.
7:13 a.m. My cell phone rings, and I hear Bob’s voice. Trains still hadn’t resumed service, however, the subway was open to limited areas late last night. He and Paul rode as far as they could go, then walked an hour at 11:00 p.m. to reach Paul’s house. He was just coming to, from the same aftershock shaken night I had, having put Paul’s ten-year-old daughter out of her room.
We lose the connection again. Cell phone towers are clogged by everyone trying to reach their loved ones in the disaster stricken area.
3:00 p.m. Trains resume service, but only to the border of Tokyo and Saitama--not quite as far as we live. Trains beyond that are promised, but few, far between, and packed beyond belief. Bob boards a train around 5:00 p.m. and arranges for a friend to pick him up by car from a station he can reach. It’s a 90-minute drive.
5:30 p.m. He calls en route. Bob is with Tony, heading north on congested roads. There are no train options for all the eager commuters taking to the streets.
Knowing that he is on his way, and that the journey is coming to the end, I allow myself to respond to my fatigue. I’m exhausted from having ventured out into uncertainty, attempting to provide a healthy play venue for my child. We only found closures everywhere. Finally, Hana and I go through the established motions of a nightly routine.
9:00 p.m. Hana and I collapse into bed. I’m out solid for a good two hours, interrupted only once by feeling Bob enter the room. I’m half asleep, a needy, jet-lagged feel of sleep. Aftershocks continue through the night, but all three of us are in the same house, in the same bed, aware of each other’s physical presence, finally resting our hearts.
7:00 a.m. I am already downstairs, starting the day. I hear my family wake, stir and come down the stairs. Reunion. A new day, a new chapter. With beaming enthusiasm, Bob exclaims, “family hugs!” There are no cell phone icons to depict that joy, that relief, that reminder of our greatest gifts.
*A version of this blog post originally was published in The Anchora, the Delta Gamma magazine, Spring 2011.
I am the only foreign national among forty-seven faculty members. We assemble in the large formal conference room on the top floor of the university, take our routine table, pulling up to the ritualistic cup green tea placed at each seat. We rifle through the agenda and handouts while waiting at attention for the vice president to call the meeting to order.
Opening greetings, followed by sixteen minutes of what I used to know as order. In an instant, the most fixed routine in my life became the most broken day of my life.
2:46 p.m. A sway, a steady sway. The dean has the floor as the teachers begin to shift their focus from his words to eye one another, as if asking in a glance, “do you feel some…” Sway turns to jolt and momentum builds. No words are spoken, as I follow instinct and the lead of the others and dive under the desk.
Tea is spilling, scalding at first. I’m shaking. I’m wet, and shivering. I clutch the hand of the faculty member closest to me, (Mr.) Sakamoto Sensei, gripping out of the desperation for human contact. He has one leg trying to prop the door open behind us as protocol calls for securing an emergency exit.
The power goes out; my chills intensify. The only noises in the room are hushed yelps of shock, the sound of tea cups clattering, wall hangings crashing down and glass shattering around us. We’re thrusting back and forth under the tables, rocking as if we’re on board that ill-fated ship.
Seventeen years ago, I picked up from a high school post among the cornfields in central Ohio, and moved to a school in the center of the rice fields in Japan on a teaching exchange program between Ohio State and Saitama Prefecture. I have since felt hundreds of tremors over these years, including the Great Hanshin (Kobe) quake in 1995.
Typically, they play out a familiar script. A sway, or a light jolt, and remain steady-paced until they fade away. “Oh, huh. Earthquake,” was the extent of my usual reaction, until March 11, 2011.
2:47 PM. This is not the way I want to go. This cannot be the end. I am not going to die here. Not like this. Not today.
I am not with my family!
My husband?
My DAUGHTER!
Is she panicked? Is she screaming? Who is holding her? I want her. I have an intense need to cocoon her in a tight, protective hug.
2:48 PM. The shaking is strengthening as my heart is weakening. My thoughts shift, “What was my last communication with Bob? How did we leave each other this morning?”
I’m reminded of the text he sent me from the train on his morning commute. He was sandwiched in with a rush hour, Tokyo bound crowd, unable to type, but managed to put a series of pictorial icons together which, in communication among couples, only I knew to read, “I’m glad I married you, and I love our family.” It was silly and sweet, and the pictures gave me a giggle. I opened it mid-morning and responded, “Best. Text. Ever,” which was intended to match his cheekiness because there was no actual text.
We were in three different places when the quake hit. My husband also teaches at a university, and he was on a research trip in Tokyo that day--over 30 miles from where I was--but fortunately in the opposite direction of the epicenter. Our six year old is in a Japanese kindergarten, three miles from where I work, and like any other “normal” day, I dropped her up and need to pick her up by car.
2:49 p.m. I have to get to her, hold her. I’m overcome with a feeling of power that nothing can stop me. I knew my husband was going to be OK. He isn't alone, meeting in a library with a member of his doctoral cohort, and I was confidant they’d know what to do. I also knew that he would be torn up inside not being able to contact us, which was unnerving. I was fraught for the three of us to be holding each other, to be rocking under cover in each other’s arms.
My mind doesn’t wander to a “bucket list.” I’ve been blessed by being surrounded by loving family and friends all my life, which has been full of fortune, adventure, and even touches of humor. I have no “but I didn’t get to…I still want to…” going through my mind. Only a basic need for the three of us to physically come together.
2:52 p.m. I voice it, crying, “I don’t want to die. Not now. Not like this.” My closest colleague and friend, taking cover under the table in front of me, calls back, “I’m scared to death too.” It’s his way of comforting me. He practices--even preaches--Zen and is the calmest person I know under any circumstance. This is his way of reassuring me that I wasn’t alone, and even though culturally I was the only one in the room, who was showing my emotion with inconsolable tears, they all feel the same, rather express emotions differently. Culture, country and language were not barriers. We all had to be family on that day.
2:55 p.m. Shaking subsides. We eye one another, as if slowly coming to, in semi-disbelief that it could be over. The vice president takes welcome command and releases us, instructing us to, “take a moment in our offices,” and we’ll reconvene in 10 minutes.
2:56 p.m. Many of us remain outside the conference room door. We’re in a semi-circle, not saying anything specific, but being near one another. Teachers are checking their cell phones. The power is still out, phone signals are gone, but Internet access one phone provides information on the quake: 9 magnitude, Miyagi Prefecture.”
2:57 p.m. Speechless, our faces drop. We’re stunned. Certainly we were the center of the trauma. The realization that the epicenter was approximately 150 miles north on the coast registered with us that there’s a truer disaster area, and tsunamis are inevitable.
2:59 p.m. I dash to my office, ignoring the collapsed wall-to-wall bookshelves, the desktop that rolled off my desk and into the window, the picture frames and coffee mugs smashed to the floor. I try to call my husband on my cell. No signal. I pick up my office phone to dial the kindergarten. No power, no phone line. I scurry back upstairs and find teachers coming together in awe of the rubble they found in their offices. We’re still shaken up, we are dominated by a feeling of fear, panic still heightened, and we are physically nauseated by the rocking feeling.
3:05 p.m. We reassemble in the fourth room floor, in the dark and cold, despite the dropping temperatures, the windows are wide open, serve as an emergency exits.
3:07 p.m. Another jolt. An aftershock? We shake, we’re back under the tables. Sirens, a fire alarm. It feels almost as strong as the first, but not as long. More sirens, followed by evacuation orders from a citywide public broadcast. I had been anxious to exit the building during the initial quake, but was morbidly reminded that we were on the top floor. If the university collapses, the higher we were the better.
3:10 p.m. The building evacuates. Students, faculty and staff are coming together in the campus courtyard. Hard hats are being distributed, preparedness and order is impressive, but my mission is to get to the parking lot and peel out to get my daughter. Timidly, I ask a colleague if I can get in a car. Knowing, he just nods and waves me off with empathetic concern.
I was the first out of the lot, and I don’t stall to question my judgment. Driving through torn roads, I see smoke coming from the surrounding farmhouses. “Surely the result of gas heaters jolting,” I said to myself. Local residents line the rural streets, staring, wandering and seeking out each other and answers.
Bumper-to-bumper under dangerous conditions, I listen to the broadcasts: “Stay close in line with other cars. Do not use the emergency break. Ride with your foot over, but not touching the gas pedal, and pull over to the side of the road, onto the grass or into the rice field, if an emergency or fire truck comes through.”
3:30 p.m. Still trying to get through to Bob; phone lines are down. I pull into the kindergarten lot. I pick my daughter up, embracing her like a solider home from war hugs his wife.
Ashley Hana, unlike Bob and me, was born in Japan and has had earthquake drills every other week since she started school. She followed protocol. Each six-year-old is assigned to a four-year-old in the way we used to have “buddy check” growing up. She was holding a little boy, “Gara Chan,” during the quake. It turns out that being in a big girl role made her a strong girl when she needed it most.
We edged along the slow-moving flow for the four-mile drive home. She was going over her what-to-do-during-a-disaster chant and wondering what state of chaos our house is in. I’m faking my Mama’s Just Fine Face, still reliving the hour, and feeling crippled by the communication line to our other unit member being out.
Cell phone lines still clogged, I send a text. I know it’s not going through, but hoping it’s in queue for when service resumes. Yes, it’s a series of icons, but not sent in the jovial mood Bob used to send me off on my day a chunk of hours earlier on that same day. I hurriedly use pictures to represent that I have Hana and we are home safe.
3:55 p.m. We make it inside. Hana Chan (she goes by her Japanese middle name here) puts on her Miffy bike helmet, and helps me assess the damage and clean up. It’s a healthy distraction for her: recovering and accounting for her Barbie and princess doll collection strewn about from the toppled dollhouse.
Announcements blare through our neighborhood. “Wear helmets. Change from slippers to shoes to protect yourself from broken glass and fallen items. If you see an elderly person in the streets, and please take him in.” The preparedness is comforting, but not my focus. I am overcome with the relief that we are together, but the unsettling feeling of not being able to hear Bob’s voice, to tell him that we are OK is insurmountable.
4:37 p.m. The power back on, I am able to use my land line. I jump for the phone, and dial the wife of the friend Bob is with. She lives in Tokyo, and informs me that the impact and damage was less than it was in Saitama, where we are. She’s able to exchange an email with her husband, Paul and Bob are together, and they are fine.
4:40 p.m. I turn on the TV and see footage for the first time. I’m sickened. I start resetting timers on heaters, the bath and toilet functions--everything electric in the house.
Hana’s hungry and asks about dinner. I go through the motions and start the dinner shift. I’m jumpy. There’s broken glass, I’m reluctant to use the gas range. I pour a bath once I detect the hot water has resumed.
5:30 p.m. After shocks continue, some stronger than others, as Hana calls them off one at a time, counting them off the way kids count off landmarks on road trips. We sit down to dinner. Saying Grace gives me pause, as every word of every prayer I’ve ever learned takes on a deeper meaning.
6:38 p.m. My cell phone rings for the first time. Bob’s voice on the other end. We’re quickly cut off due to the overloaded tower signal, but we had 17 seconds to know we we’re all in tact and grateful. There are no trains running at the time, as they were wandering the city streets of Tokyo with the millions of Tokyoites evacuated from office buildings.
7:53 p.m. Bob gets through again. He got a hot meal at a restaurant with Paul. They didn’t know what they were going to do from there. Paul lived quite a distance away within Tokyo, so they want to scout out a hotel together, although perhaps hundreds of thousands are hoping to do the same.
We go to bed assured that Bob was not alone. We hope he finds a room, or a way to shelter rather than waiting on a train station platform.
9:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m. I lie awake while aftershocks shake the bed constantly. Next to me, Hana is sound asleep, still in her helmet. I stay in bed as it’s the most peace I can find by just being next to her warmth and smell, much the same way new parents lose sleep because they would rather marvel at their miracle’s slumber.
2:00 a.m. I get up and head downstairs to the couch. I turn on the TV, and I’m sucked into the public service announcements on screen, the reports, the updates, the footage and the predictions for the future. I hope for answers.
4:00 a.m. I check the Internet and I have a series of emails and Facebook messages, checking in on me. I’m comforted that loved ones are reaching out, but at the same time, I’m lonely and starving for adult conversation and physical contact.
4:30 a.m. I am able to see my parents via Skype, and I articulate my experience for the first time. She is my Mother. She asks if I want to come home. The idea of a car, train and airplane were too much to fathom, but wanting to hug her? Yes, I dream of that.
7:13 a.m. My cell phone rings, and I hear Bob’s voice. Trains still hadn’t resumed service, however, the subway was open to limited areas late last night. He and Paul rode as far as they could go, then walked an hour at 11:00 p.m. to reach Paul’s house. He was just coming to, from the same aftershock shaken night I had, having put Paul’s ten-year-old daughter out of her room.
We lose the connection again. Cell phone towers are clogged by everyone trying to reach their loved ones in the disaster stricken area.
3:00 p.m. Trains resume service, but only to the border of Tokyo and Saitama--not quite as far as we live. Trains beyond that are promised, but few, far between, and packed beyond belief. Bob boards a train around 5:00 p.m. and arranges for a friend to pick him up by car from a station he can reach. It’s a 90-minute drive.
5:30 p.m. He calls en route. Bob is with Tony, heading north on congested roads. There are no train options for all the eager commuters taking to the streets.
Knowing that he is on his way, and that the journey is coming to the end, I allow myself to respond to my fatigue. I’m exhausted from having ventured out into uncertainty, attempting to provide a healthy play venue for my child. We only found closures everywhere. Finally, Hana and I go through the established motions of a nightly routine.
9:00 p.m. Hana and I collapse into bed. I’m out solid for a good two hours, interrupted only once by feeling Bob enter the room. I’m half asleep, a needy, jet-lagged feel of sleep. Aftershocks continue through the night, but all three of us are in the same house, in the same bed, aware of each other’s physical presence, finally resting our hearts.
7:00 a.m. I am already downstairs, starting the day. I hear my family wake, stir and come down the stairs. Reunion. A new day, a new chapter. With beaming enthusiasm, Bob exclaims, “family hugs!” There are no cell phone icons to depict that joy, that relief, that reminder of our greatest gifts.
*A version of this blog post originally was published in The Anchora, the Delta Gamma magazine, Spring 2011.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Ready or Not, Here Kids Come!
My yellow and orange Fisher Price shopping cart is still in my parents' basement in Ohio. At one time I even had a plastic steak, a chunk of Swiss cheese, an egg, and a slice of tomato in the set. There was probably more food that came with it initially, and although as a preschooler I doubt I was subscribing to a menu that reads like an "Atkins" fad diet, that's what I remember pushing through Kroger's on weekend grocery store trips with my Mom. She was that cool. She let me toss that cart in the back of the wood panel station wagon, and scamper with it behind her from the produce section to the dairy aisle, despite the fact that the grocery store supplied carts with seats for children. The fact that Kroger's stocked carts for kids serves as a form of an invitation, or a green light, that you may pass go with your child into this facility. There are high chair restaurants. There are white tablecloth restaurants. In the States, there is a division, and it's a red light, or a green light, with little to no room in the middle for a blinking "Caution: enter with child at your own risk," yellow light. However, in Japan, incidentally the land of rules, there are no such signals defining entrance laws. Nor is there such choice. If you have a child, she's coming with you. Wherever you go. Whenever you go. With crayons. A snack. And a sippy cup.
Sure, a trip to the market, the bank or the post office, although double the time and half the accomplishment with children in tow, can be legally (in this imaginary law book) completed in most any country that provides modern civic services. Those State-side mothers with a willing and available relative nearby, or a babysitter in want of spending money, may choose to "drop the kids off," (in quotations since it's already a distant memory in my phraseology book) during essential errands. Yet in Japan, babysitter is not only a non option, it is not even a word in the Japanese language. Like the fantasy, a reference to my early teen babysitting days, in the peak of the Saturday night line up of Love Boat and Fantasy Island, babysitter (bebiishittaa) is a borrowed word from the fiction section of the guide to American English, and the most basic dictionary definition of the concept in Japanese requires 4 lines of explanation.
I'm not going to pretend that I've lived my 6 years of motherhood in hardship, or that I actually want to hop a chopper to Fantasy Island. I have traveled throughout SE Asia, and although my backpack may feel heavier as the days footing through banana plantations, rice fields and monkey farms go by, hardship illustrates itself in one glimpse of a graceful Malaysian woman, a baby strapped to her back, a newborn wrapped around her front, a bucket of water in one hand, a pail of grains in the other, and a basket of fruit balancing on her head as she crosses a rapid stream. Now she is not crying about a toddler tugging on her pant leg wanting to go to the potty in a post office, or a preschooler protesting because there are only root beer flavored Dumdums remaining in the picked-over candy basket at the bank. Nonetheless, Japan is not one of the countries in the developing nation status column within Asia. Rather, Japan and America tend to be lumped together as comparable in categories such as economic status, technological advancement, achievement in education, and today, the ins and outs, or the tag along withs, of child-rearing.
It would be a shorter list to name which public venues do not supply a play room. I think everywhere I have been in Japan, since 2005 when baby friendly things signaled my radar, I can attest for a corner furnished with a minimum of a crib, box of toys, rack of stuffed animals and picture-book shelf. At least in what would be cultural fuzzy yellow zone facilities to me, whether or not they are geared for kids, at least there is a provision to make it easier for the escorts of the under 3-foot crowd. Airports, car dealerships, real estate offices, city halls, hospitals, hair salons, office building lobbies - they tend push the pedal into the green zone with extended recreational set ups including play houses, slides, swings and hula hoops. These recreation within reality stations are at-your-own-risk, and certainly solely under the parent's supervision. So when your number is up for whatever the transaction, the kid comes with you. Yes, even in the examination room during a delicate dental procedure, or strapped in the chair next to you at traffic school, both examples from personal experience. While a patient in high-tech practices would usually watch an examination chair-side screen of the open mouth and tooth drilling, my monitor quickly switched over from my pearly whites, while Miffy and Friends took over my screen. "The Cute Little Bunny" and friends suddenly served as (what would have been administered as standard in my home town), my Novocaine trade-off. On a different day in the life, after an afternoon at the police station renewing my driver's license, I can confidently claim to have the only American kindergartner that has walked the black bold line wearing simulated "beer goggles" to test her faculties if she were over the blood alcohol limit. Perhaps the chuckle the latter experience gave me was a form of pain relief medication for the former.
I don't hear that collective groan when a child enters a yellow zone. Parents or not, adults seem to perceive children as members of society, and perhaps all they've ever known is a bell curve of ages everywhere they've been. But when I was the only child left at home as a teenager as my older siblings moved away to college, my parents included me in their running weekly dinner date with close family friends (with a teen my age). "Mr. Ed" would ask for "smoking" without fail. None of us were smokers, but it usually guaranteed seats in a non kids section, which was presumably his way of avoiding unruly children spoiling his dinner. Come to think of it, before I moved to Japan, I did notice that on the whole, Asian children seemed so well-behaved, cordial and patient. Now I understand why. At least here, they are basically in the real world from birth, and I am the late bloomer building patience by relearning the process of going through grown up transactions in what I formerly assumed non kid-friendly green zones. This real world experience at an age before they can even count on their little hands results in children knowing that even though there is an available pop-up book selection while Mom spends the day filling out paperwork at the Bureau of Immigration, it's not a place to initiate a game of hide and seek with an unattended briefcase. There was a "cry room" in every church service I attended growing up. Though open-air temples and shrines dominate this region, there is no separation of child and adult. Kids don't need to be told when they've been sponged into the learning process naturally. Catholic Priest or Buddhist Monk speaks at ceremony, you listen. Teeter totter or swing at the park, you play.
After my Florida-based sister had a couple of little ones, she was ready to get out and get some exercise, and maybe even socialize with someone in her age bracket. She joined a gym with a nursery room, where the parents leave their children with the attendants and go workout. Granted, she was pulled from Pilates' peace if her kids got too fussy, but nevertheless, the concept was based on a possibility. I sought out an exercise class in my city. The sessions were held at a public center, in an auditorium, and combined yoga with aerobics. There were probably about 40 ladies in the group with me. All of their pre-school children were there too, in the same large room. The class was conducted as if the kids were not there. The instructor went about selecting her songs for the different stages of the 90 minute session, as the class rolled out their yoga mats or towels, actively joining in. Babies were napping in strollers off to the side, toddlers wandered throughout the rows of workout moms with the comfort toys they toted along from home. Once in a while a kid would get fussy, and the closest mom would just roll a toy that got loose toward the kid. A baby would cry, and any mom would just give the buggy a push back and forth and rock the kid back into a calm state. It was a physical and mental workout to take it all in. My American brain just thought: Lawsuit City. But that's not the culture here. Nobody was concerned about a child sliding under a back bend, or a stroller finding a downhill slope in the auditorium. It was just one, big, happy, flexible and on the way to sweaty, extended family. I not only learned how to take a new look at tolerance levels, I mastered how to change a diaper mid tummy crunch.
My parents have jumped planes out of Ohio to head to Florida or California, to stay with their grand kids while my siblings took an anniversary trip, or a just to give their married children the chance to take a getaway vacation. The coasts provide nice tourist destinations, especially outbound of Port Columbus during the gray months, so they get to see blue skies and soak up sun rays while flexing their grandparent muscles. But the point is, it is not an act of neglect in American culture to leave your children behind, with their blood relatives or a familiar nanny, for a brief sejour. However, when we took our first getaway after we had our baby, a solo flight was unthinkable: We packed our bags, diapers and a Baby Bjorn and headed to Saipan for a long weekend island tour. It's not that my parents' would have been unwilling if we called on them in a pinch, but we would shock the local culture by going anywhere without are child, especially when boarding an airplane, let alone if dusting off the passport was on the agenda. The All Nippon Airlines flight out of Tokyo was smooth, as Saipan is a short hop popular with Japanese tourists. In flight, the attendants were cart-loaded with as much kid toy and snack giveaways as they were duty free bottles of whisky and perfume for the "big kids." We were not alone as a couple traveling with a baby to a resort that included French restaurants with silver service, and a beach front bar, elegant suites with a turn down bed service complete with chocolate mints on the pillows. The add on is that the restaurant had a stash of hidden booster seats, the swim up bar stocked loaner toddler floaties, and the rooms had Hello Kitty plugs to cover the electrical outlets, as well as tasteful corner protectors on the Indonesian wood coffee table for clumsy crawlers. An American family taking the equivalent Caribbean hop from the States might not come across the same Toys R Us-style exclusive, romantic vacation setting.
Upon return, friends from Ohio were in Tokyo on business, and I was eager to show them the insider take on the sights for a day. I headed in with rush hour crunch city-bound train to meet them, with an 11 week old strapped to my front. I held her above my head during the latter stops, as more and more salarymen are physically crunched onto the train with baton assisted train platform employees. It's a typical scene - a commuter needs his briefcase shoved into the train by a third uniformed party wielding a weapon-like stick. So, a mother gently lifting her baby overhead is the protective way to avoid an unthinkable squish. Again, there is no "for shame" looks from observers, as the briefcase and the infant are in the same boat. We're all in this together and we're all equals in this (over)population. Although a college student stood on my feet most of the way, I successfully avoided the imprint that stepping into unfit mother territory would have made, and we safely made it to our destination.
The-do-it-myself walking tour included a stroll through the winding streets of old Edo, with its friendly mix of modern chaos with traditional architecture, followed by a stop at Japanese pub to cap off our time together, relax and catch up on recent years. Bar stool table for 3 with a pull up stroller. There is no "carding" IDs at the door, and the drinking crowd is quite well-behaved here. It was no surprise to the patrons that there was a baby in a bar, nor was it a shock, fortunately for me, that the newborn claimed the only "spit up" in the joint during our time inside. It was all quite civilized. It's just a cultural difference: a watering hole in the US would without question be a red light to bring kids, and if a parent runs that light, the traffic STOP signal would quickly turn to flashing sirens, with social services on board. Yet while a baby who is not exactly nursing a beer, but nevertheless is in a bar in Japan, doesn't attract looks, save the adoring cooing as if she were in a park. Rather, just being with her parent is what makes this acceptable. The assumption is that the company, not the venue, serves as the green light. It's all very warranted. And without call for a breathalyzer.
On trips back to the States, friends and family often ask, "How do dates work?" The inference is that my husband and I would go to an establishment, in the evening, as a couple. The short answer is, dates don't work. They aren't broken, there is simply no fixing what doesn't exist. Without a bebiishittaa, there is no da-to post child. I guess it's not an accident that "date" is, like its vital component, "babysitter," a borrowed word from American English. I wonder if this culture could consider borrowing the babysitter, and not just the word? Rather than the American instinct to see a child enter a non child friendly venue - a candle-lit restaurant, or a dance hall perhaps - and sigh in "my night is ruined" exasperation, the act is oddly accepted, and more expected in Japan. Instead it's the romantic parent-couple on a date without their children that would invite disapproving looks of, "did you abandon your child?" In 2006, I tried to import the custom when we had tickets to a Billy Joel concert at the Tokyo Dome. With the help of an American friend in Japan, who has a daughter the same age as ours, we pulled it off. But I'm convinced that coordinating the 2 hour outing took more time, planning, and energy than it did for Joel to create 16 platinum albums.
Granted, there are day care, pre-school and kindergarten facilities for young children in Japan. However, none of the above resembles a play room with a rolling time line, with or without a talking dinosaur or guest clowns. Instead, they are run on a tight school-day format, with a structured "class" schedule. And when school's out, the kid's out. System rules dictate that the parents' working hours (which workplaces certify with a grand stamp featuring raised seal as proof) serve as the perimeters of the drop off and pick up times. The bylaws gently remind us in their nuanced-laden language that frivolous detours such as picking up milk, stopping home to change, gassing up at the pump, or any other child neglect-like activity en route is strictly prohibited. So like it or not for the parents or other co-errand running customers in society, kids go everywhere moms go.
It's not unusual for American working parents to have a framed family photo on their sturdy oak desks at the work place. Maybe a school aged child's artwork is professionally framed on the wall, or even a calendar with some recent vacation snapshots on each month drapes the back of the office door. These are the display-model children caught on film, clean and pressed. I have a bi-cultural, or you could call it a two-faced, office. The American mom professional has it furnished with a conference table, 6 chairs and a whiteboard for student counseling. By the window sits my desk, swivel chair and computer station. The scene is rounded out with framed Monet, Renoir and Degas on the walls, impressive dictionaries, encyclopedia sets, literary works and various hard back texts line the bookshelves.
Meanwhile, my dual personality side, the kid-in-tow nutty professor living-in-Japan, has a closet with no hangers or umbrellas, rather a stash of indoor racket games, a pogo stick and romper stomps. A life sized play car is strategically covered with a batik cloth in the corner. Colored construction paper stacks and crayons fill my file cabinet, while puzzles and children's books line my bottom desk drawer. Flip the white board around and uncover stick figures in colorful dresses, tulip gardens and rainbows sketched from top to bottom by a five year old's hand. Open the video cabinet under the TV, and you are greeted by Sing Along with Barney and Dora the Explorer DVDs. Alas, if kindergarten has a day off, but the university is in session, my students and I have the benefit of a teaching assistant that works for gumdrops. Yet it is no surprise, instead it's simply the cycle of life, education and play growing up in Japan. These 18 to 22 year-old students grew up in the same kids come along environment, so it's no wonder they are fantastic with children (even when their grades don't depend on it). When I was an elementary school student, I always liked the children's educational program and theme song of the same title, "Kids are People Too." I suppose their was a hidden message in their for adults to respect us little ones. However, motherhood in Japan has taught me an even greater lesson: Kids are Grown Ups Too. Now I'd also like to keep the cliched American fantasy of "Being a Kid Again" alive, although I'll admit I probably won't go as far as reviving my retro Fisher Price shopping cart to do my groceries, even as a shameless mom in her 40s. Yet I'd like to keep spinning the cycle of acceptance, and assume that this idea that kids and grown ups are on some level created as equals, could be an educational program with a catchy jingle that both American and Japanese "Grown Ups" could sing along to, karaoke style.
Sure, a trip to the market, the bank or the post office, although double the time and half the accomplishment with children in tow, can be legally (in this imaginary law book) completed in most any country that provides modern civic services. Those State-side mothers with a willing and available relative nearby, or a babysitter in want of spending money, may choose to "drop the kids off," (in quotations since it's already a distant memory in my phraseology book) during essential errands. Yet in Japan, babysitter is not only a non option, it is not even a word in the Japanese language. Like the fantasy, a reference to my early teen babysitting days, in the peak of the Saturday night line up of Love Boat and Fantasy Island, babysitter (bebiishittaa) is a borrowed word from the fiction section of the guide to American English, and the most basic dictionary definition of the concept in Japanese requires 4 lines of explanation.
I'm not going to pretend that I've lived my 6 years of motherhood in hardship, or that I actually want to hop a chopper to Fantasy Island. I have traveled throughout SE Asia, and although my backpack may feel heavier as the days footing through banana plantations, rice fields and monkey farms go by, hardship illustrates itself in one glimpse of a graceful Malaysian woman, a baby strapped to her back, a newborn wrapped around her front, a bucket of water in one hand, a pail of grains in the other, and a basket of fruit balancing on her head as she crosses a rapid stream. Now she is not crying about a toddler tugging on her pant leg wanting to go to the potty in a post office, or a preschooler protesting because there are only root beer flavored Dumdums remaining in the picked-over candy basket at the bank. Nonetheless, Japan is not one of the countries in the developing nation status column within Asia. Rather, Japan and America tend to be lumped together as comparable in categories such as economic status, technological advancement, achievement in education, and today, the ins and outs, or the tag along withs, of child-rearing.
It would be a shorter list to name which public venues do not supply a play room. I think everywhere I have been in Japan, since 2005 when baby friendly things signaled my radar, I can attest for a corner furnished with a minimum of a crib, box of toys, rack of stuffed animals and picture-book shelf. At least in what would be cultural fuzzy yellow zone facilities to me, whether or not they are geared for kids, at least there is a provision to make it easier for the escorts of the under 3-foot crowd. Airports, car dealerships, real estate offices, city halls, hospitals, hair salons, office building lobbies - they tend push the pedal into the green zone with extended recreational set ups including play houses, slides, swings and hula hoops. These recreation within reality stations are at-your-own-risk, and certainly solely under the parent's supervision. So when your number is up for whatever the transaction, the kid comes with you. Yes, even in the examination room during a delicate dental procedure, or strapped in the chair next to you at traffic school, both examples from personal experience. While a patient in high-tech practices would usually watch an examination chair-side screen of the open mouth and tooth drilling, my monitor quickly switched over from my pearly whites, while Miffy and Friends took over my screen. "The Cute Little Bunny" and friends suddenly served as (what would have been administered as standard in my home town), my Novocaine trade-off. On a different day in the life, after an afternoon at the police station renewing my driver's license, I can confidently claim to have the only American kindergartner that has walked the black bold line wearing simulated "beer goggles" to test her faculties if she were over the blood alcohol limit. Perhaps the chuckle the latter experience gave me was a form of pain relief medication for the former.
I don't hear that collective groan when a child enters a yellow zone. Parents or not, adults seem to perceive children as members of society, and perhaps all they've ever known is a bell curve of ages everywhere they've been. But when I was the only child left at home as a teenager as my older siblings moved away to college, my parents included me in their running weekly dinner date with close family friends (with a teen my age). "Mr. Ed" would ask for "smoking" without fail. None of us were smokers, but it usually guaranteed seats in a non kids section, which was presumably his way of avoiding unruly children spoiling his dinner. Come to think of it, before I moved to Japan, I did notice that on the whole, Asian children seemed so well-behaved, cordial and patient. Now I understand why. At least here, they are basically in the real world from birth, and I am the late bloomer building patience by relearning the process of going through grown up transactions in what I formerly assumed non kid-friendly green zones. This real world experience at an age before they can even count on their little hands results in children knowing that even though there is an available pop-up book selection while Mom spends the day filling out paperwork at the Bureau of Immigration, it's not a place to initiate a game of hide and seek with an unattended briefcase. There was a "cry room" in every church service I attended growing up. Though open-air temples and shrines dominate this region, there is no separation of child and adult. Kids don't need to be told when they've been sponged into the learning process naturally. Catholic Priest or Buddhist Monk speaks at ceremony, you listen. Teeter totter or swing at the park, you play.
After my Florida-based sister had a couple of little ones, she was ready to get out and get some exercise, and maybe even socialize with someone in her age bracket. She joined a gym with a nursery room, where the parents leave their children with the attendants and go workout. Granted, she was pulled from Pilates' peace if her kids got too fussy, but nevertheless, the concept was based on a possibility. I sought out an exercise class in my city. The sessions were held at a public center, in an auditorium, and combined yoga with aerobics. There were probably about 40 ladies in the group with me. All of their pre-school children were there too, in the same large room. The class was conducted as if the kids were not there. The instructor went about selecting her songs for the different stages of the 90 minute session, as the class rolled out their yoga mats or towels, actively joining in. Babies were napping in strollers off to the side, toddlers wandered throughout the rows of workout moms with the comfort toys they toted along from home. Once in a while a kid would get fussy, and the closest mom would just roll a toy that got loose toward the kid. A baby would cry, and any mom would just give the buggy a push back and forth and rock the kid back into a calm state. It was a physical and mental workout to take it all in. My American brain just thought: Lawsuit City. But that's not the culture here. Nobody was concerned about a child sliding under a back bend, or a stroller finding a downhill slope in the auditorium. It was just one, big, happy, flexible and on the way to sweaty, extended family. I not only learned how to take a new look at tolerance levels, I mastered how to change a diaper mid tummy crunch.
My parents have jumped planes out of Ohio to head to Florida or California, to stay with their grand kids while my siblings took an anniversary trip, or a just to give their married children the chance to take a getaway vacation. The coasts provide nice tourist destinations, especially outbound of Port Columbus during the gray months, so they get to see blue skies and soak up sun rays while flexing their grandparent muscles. But the point is, it is not an act of neglect in American culture to leave your children behind, with their blood relatives or a familiar nanny, for a brief sejour. However, when we took our first getaway after we had our baby, a solo flight was unthinkable: We packed our bags, diapers and a Baby Bjorn and headed to Saipan for a long weekend island tour. It's not that my parents' would have been unwilling if we called on them in a pinch, but we would shock the local culture by going anywhere without are child, especially when boarding an airplane, let alone if dusting off the passport was on the agenda. The All Nippon Airlines flight out of Tokyo was smooth, as Saipan is a short hop popular with Japanese tourists. In flight, the attendants were cart-loaded with as much kid toy and snack giveaways as they were duty free bottles of whisky and perfume for the "big kids." We were not alone as a couple traveling with a baby to a resort that included French restaurants with silver service, and a beach front bar, elegant suites with a turn down bed service complete with chocolate mints on the pillows. The add on is that the restaurant had a stash of hidden booster seats, the swim up bar stocked loaner toddler floaties, and the rooms had Hello Kitty plugs to cover the electrical outlets, as well as tasteful corner protectors on the Indonesian wood coffee table for clumsy crawlers. An American family taking the equivalent Caribbean hop from the States might not come across the same Toys R Us-style exclusive, romantic vacation setting.
Upon return, friends from Ohio were in Tokyo on business, and I was eager to show them the insider take on the sights for a day. I headed in with rush hour crunch city-bound train to meet them, with an 11 week old strapped to my front. I held her above my head during the latter stops, as more and more salarymen are physically crunched onto the train with baton assisted train platform employees. It's a typical scene - a commuter needs his briefcase shoved into the train by a third uniformed party wielding a weapon-like stick. So, a mother gently lifting her baby overhead is the protective way to avoid an unthinkable squish. Again, there is no "for shame" looks from observers, as the briefcase and the infant are in the same boat. We're all in this together and we're all equals in this (over)population. Although a college student stood on my feet most of the way, I successfully avoided the imprint that stepping into unfit mother territory would have made, and we safely made it to our destination.
The-do-it-myself walking tour included a stroll through the winding streets of old Edo, with its friendly mix of modern chaos with traditional architecture, followed by a stop at Japanese pub to cap off our time together, relax and catch up on recent years. Bar stool table for 3 with a pull up stroller. There is no "carding" IDs at the door, and the drinking crowd is quite well-behaved here. It was no surprise to the patrons that there was a baby in a bar, nor was it a shock, fortunately for me, that the newborn claimed the only "spit up" in the joint during our time inside. It was all quite civilized. It's just a cultural difference: a watering hole in the US would without question be a red light to bring kids, and if a parent runs that light, the traffic STOP signal would quickly turn to flashing sirens, with social services on board. Yet while a baby who is not exactly nursing a beer, but nevertheless is in a bar in Japan, doesn't attract looks, save the adoring cooing as if she were in a park. Rather, just being with her parent is what makes this acceptable. The assumption is that the company, not the venue, serves as the green light. It's all very warranted. And without call for a breathalyzer.
On trips back to the States, friends and family often ask, "How do dates work?" The inference is that my husband and I would go to an establishment, in the evening, as a couple. The short answer is, dates don't work. They aren't broken, there is simply no fixing what doesn't exist. Without a bebiishittaa, there is no da-to post child. I guess it's not an accident that "date" is, like its vital component, "babysitter," a borrowed word from American English. I wonder if this culture could consider borrowing the babysitter, and not just the word? Rather than the American instinct to see a child enter a non child friendly venue - a candle-lit restaurant, or a dance hall perhaps - and sigh in "my night is ruined" exasperation, the act is oddly accepted, and more expected in Japan. Instead it's the romantic parent-couple on a date without their children that would invite disapproving looks of, "did you abandon your child?" In 2006, I tried to import the custom when we had tickets to a Billy Joel concert at the Tokyo Dome. With the help of an American friend in Japan, who has a daughter the same age as ours, we pulled it off. But I'm convinced that coordinating the 2 hour outing took more time, planning, and energy than it did for Joel to create 16 platinum albums.
Granted, there are day care, pre-school and kindergarten facilities for young children in Japan. However, none of the above resembles a play room with a rolling time line, with or without a talking dinosaur or guest clowns. Instead, they are run on a tight school-day format, with a structured "class" schedule. And when school's out, the kid's out. System rules dictate that the parents' working hours (which workplaces certify with a grand stamp featuring raised seal as proof) serve as the perimeters of the drop off and pick up times. The bylaws gently remind us in their nuanced-laden language that frivolous detours such as picking up milk, stopping home to change, gassing up at the pump, or any other child neglect-like activity en route is strictly prohibited. So like it or not for the parents or other co-errand running customers in society, kids go everywhere moms go.
It's not unusual for American working parents to have a framed family photo on their sturdy oak desks at the work place. Maybe a school aged child's artwork is professionally framed on the wall, or even a calendar with some recent vacation snapshots on each month drapes the back of the office door. These are the display-model children caught on film, clean and pressed. I have a bi-cultural, or you could call it a two-faced, office. The American mom professional has it furnished with a conference table, 6 chairs and a whiteboard for student counseling. By the window sits my desk, swivel chair and computer station. The scene is rounded out with framed Monet, Renoir and Degas on the walls, impressive dictionaries, encyclopedia sets, literary works and various hard back texts line the bookshelves.
Meanwhile, my dual personality side, the kid-in-tow nutty professor living-in-Japan, has a closet with no hangers or umbrellas, rather a stash of indoor racket games, a pogo stick and romper stomps. A life sized play car is strategically covered with a batik cloth in the corner. Colored construction paper stacks and crayons fill my file cabinet, while puzzles and children's books line my bottom desk drawer. Flip the white board around and uncover stick figures in colorful dresses, tulip gardens and rainbows sketched from top to bottom by a five year old's hand. Open the video cabinet under the TV, and you are greeted by Sing Along with Barney and Dora the Explorer DVDs. Alas, if kindergarten has a day off, but the university is in session, my students and I have the benefit of a teaching assistant that works for gumdrops. Yet it is no surprise, instead it's simply the cycle of life, education and play growing up in Japan. These 18 to 22 year-old students grew up in the same kids come along environment, so it's no wonder they are fantastic with children (even when their grades don't depend on it). When I was an elementary school student, I always liked the children's educational program and theme song of the same title, "Kids are People Too." I suppose their was a hidden message in their for adults to respect us little ones. However, motherhood in Japan has taught me an even greater lesson: Kids are Grown Ups Too. Now I'd also like to keep the cliched American fantasy of "Being a Kid Again" alive, although I'll admit I probably won't go as far as reviving my retro Fisher Price shopping cart to do my groceries, even as a shameless mom in her 40s. Yet I'd like to keep spinning the cycle of acceptance, and assume that this idea that kids and grown ups are on some level created as equals, could be an educational program with a catchy jingle that both American and Japanese "Grown Ups" could sing along to, karaoke style.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Have a Baby in Japan. Obey the Rules.
The Blunder
I strategically forget what grade in elementary school I was in when I was called on to read aloud in class. I came across, "Virginia," in the passage, and boldly voiced, "Vagina." My friend Jeannie, sitting next to me at the time, erupted with a case of the giggles that never really subsided. Even though I successfully blocked out what grade that was, I didn't exactly recovered. In an evil twist of fate, that loyal friend moved to Northern Virginia in 8th grade, and we remain in close touch. The only change in our friendship representative of the geographical distance, is that I refer to her residence as "VA" in writing, and "NoVa" in conversation. That verbal typo from the 70s would come to be some spooky foreshadowing on "baby grand" scale (Jeannie is a professional pianist after all, but this would be a different kind of baby). Perhaps it was a sour-note signal that I just might be better off one day going through my "real life" education of anatomic and gynecological terminology in another language, culture and country.
The Clinic
Fast forward however many years it was between my elementary school gaffe to 2004. We lived in a flat accommodating enough, in American terms, for one more tiny person, say in the 7-9 pound range. Our place was conveniently situated within a 10 minute walking distance from Narita Ladies Clinic in Hasuda City, a quaint off-spring of urban sprawl north of Tokyo. Approaching the entrance to the clinic, I was greeted by several tastefully ostentatious statues in the lot, and upon entering the foyer, I was overcome with the fragrant waft from the fresh floral ikebana display. Soothing music piped throughout the building, impressionistic art draped the walls and a formidable ceramic statue leaped out of the fountain through the bay windows as viewed from the plush waiting room sofas. Based on my medical education concerning what to look for in a hospital, outside of location, location, location, I concluded that this could be a place to wait and see for the 9 (although they count 10 here) months of my pregnancy.
The Handbook
"It takes a village to raise a child," so goes the African proverb. If that's the case, than it takes a country to see a woman through childbirth. This soon became everybody's business. I had a team throughout the first trimester, seeing me through my "education." Really, not much news in the twice weekly required ultrasounds, but it was my duty to bring a child into the local community in the Japanese way. Suddenly voicing "vagina" in a room full of curious elementary school kids was a much less public (I just read that three times to ensure I didn't write pubic) memory. After the first trimester, I was required to register my pregnancy with the City hall. This would be one of the first of many requirements that came with the elective course of childbirth in Japan. I registered at the Hasuda City Hall, was issued the required text, the Boshi Techo, or, Mother and Child Health Handbook. This bible of pregnancy, child birth and child rearing, chronicles my blood work, bi-weekly urine test results, daily weight fluctuations, "breast feeding" potential and performance, the child's development and immunization records until she enters elementary school, where I hope that she will become a stronger reader than her mother.
For 6 years, this booklet is as valuable as a passport and is actually more public and revealing than you'd suspect. Nobody likes their passport photos, but hanging on to it throughout its expiration date is the sacrifice we make for international travel. What I considered culturally confidentially details of my insides is inked, stamped or stickered into the Bochi Techo for the world to see. And by world I mean the 77 intuitions and counting that for their own reasons require I hand it over for their review on demand (incidentally, never on my call). Come to think of it, I should consider Googling my record on the internet from time to time just to see if it's posted out there for the cyberworld to see as well (if you are toggling away from this page now to find out, kindly update me the results of your search in the comment column).
The Rules
My parents visited me in Japan for the first time in 1995. They disembarked at Tokyo's Narita Airport and followed the flow in jet-lagged sheep mode with the masses toward customs and baggage claim. The billboard sized sign hanging above the escalators leading down to immigration read, Welcome to Japan. Obey the Rules. We laughed about it at the time, especially in their jet-lagged fortified punchy state. Japan has since polished its politesse in that department and at least in writing has cropped the second sentence from that larger than life poster. Nevertheless, I have been living the mantra every day since. Off to the city hall was I, obeying the order to fetch the handbook assigned to be the official record of my pregnancy progress reports, the child's development, immunization records, and everything else that you would only email the grandparents. No. You don't question it. You set off to the city hall, Obeying the Rule to get your handbook.
Along with the coveted booklet, the city hall representative handed over my warm welcome kit of necessities: laundry soap, a set of bars of body soap, a 5 kilogram bag of rice, a box of tissues, a towel, a set of "I'm With Child" stickers to wear on the train in order to alert others of my condition so that they obey the rule to give me a priority seat. And finally, my favorite, a "Maternity on Board" tag for the rear windshield of the car. It's interesting that I walk out of registering with the public municipality that I am pregnant, and they in turn load me up with multiple heavy items to carry, but I'm going to take the high road and focus on my gratitude for all the near accidents that would have happened if drivers weren't alerted that they should not plow into my "With Child" compact car.
Now that I was officially registered a la national rules, I could legally make a reservation to give birth at the clinic. Party of one coming in, hoping for party of two by the end. That's right, you make a reservation, with a non refundable deposit of roughly $1,000 to hold a room for the mandatory full week stay. I was given a basic schedule of how my visits would play out until check in: Bi-weekly during the the first half of the second trimester and 3 times a week in the latter part. By the third semester, it was 3-4 times a week third trimester, that bumps up (and out) to four times a week from 36 weeks and finally daily from the week before the due date. I wondered if there was an easier way, like wearing one of those monitoring anklets that convicts on house arrest wear, but equipped with ultra sound technology to alert the midwives of any fluctuation on my progress. The city hall probably installed an echo powered camera in the soaps anyway.
The Education
Alas, there were no short-cuts: Attendance was mandatory and there were 5 required classes along the way. Classes. The class record actually got its own chapter in the handbook you're chained to for 6 years. Not one report card or transcript followed me for more than four years in my life up until this point. So much for the auto-instinctive American exit strategy: "how do I get out of this?" There was no playing hooky, and not even my own mother could write me out of class. There were spaces for instructor signatures as well as stickers upon completion. Indeed, if I did well, I would get a sticker. Short term reward: smiley face. Long term reward: wailing face.
I remember the first class. I signed in at the door, collected the handout materials, which included a juice box sized Oolong iced tea (so much for the reduced caffeine rule I'm familiar with in the States). I entered the room and slipped into the back row of too small for pregnant women chairs. Growing up as a Z in the alphabetical seating chart world, I was programmed to warm the back corner seat, so this scene was putting me back into an 8th grade school zone mindset. Obey the rules: Be polite to the teacher. Don't talk out of turn, and respond when called on.
I had a pen. Those around me brought notebooks. I covered that botch by putting my handouts on top of my handbook to "write on." The doctor entered the room, everybody stood, bowed to him with respect, and he began his power point presentation of the process of childbirth. This was the first such lecture I was a part of that didn't require me to submit a permission slip from my parents to hear. I don't think I noted any major changes since the sex education lessons during elementary school in the 70s, but power point was a techno step up from waiting for the film strip to "bleep" for the next graphic.
The Dos and Don'ts
In another culture and language, I was at an advantage since I tuned more into cultural differences then I did to the fact that the actual process they were illustrating was going on inside me. That part, including potential complications or assured pain and discomfort didn't bother me. Instead, I really never got past the fact that my classmates were down to the sucking sounds at the bottom of their tea packs by the second of three hours of the session while I was still stuck on, "we can really have caffeine?" That was the first of many cultural myths I was to throw out the window.
It took me a few months to stop cross referencing all the dos and don'ts I got from Japan with those in America. One friend passed on a reference from the UK, which also had some different game rules. I found the way to Obey the Rules was to just pick one from each country whose language you can read and ignore remaining don'ts in order to find peace. World Peace. That was my justification. If only someone would buy what I was doing was any more than rationalization I would have one whopping sticker in the milestone handbook for striving that mark.
Realistically, my temporary solution for information overload was to run any questions directly by the doctors and nurses that were actually seeing me, what, three times a week by now? That should be enough live consulting to justify not having to read all available print media in my native or host tongue. I was soon scheduled to return to the States for a few weeks and do some traveling for my In-law's 50th wedding anniversary. "Are there any precautions I should be aware of?" I really don't know what I was looking for, but it was just the Japanese nuanced way of leading into the fact that I needed an excused absence from my weekly attendance chart for a family occasion. But he was reassuring:
"Don't worry about anything. Stress is that last thing you want. Why not pour some green tea, and relax in a hot bath?" There they go again with the caffeinated green(tea) light. And a hot bath? Another fundamental NO from the US websites. "Oh, but one thing," he continued. "Fulfill your yen for sushi pre-departure. I wouldn't trust the freshness in the States." Now I got a kick out of that one (or maybe it was the baby). Nonetheless, I stuck to my true red, white and blue when it came to breaking "sweet" rules. They eliminate sweets completely during pregnancy, which includes limiting fruits and juices, as not to exceed the Japan standard ideal of an 8 kilogram weight gain. In the end, I opted to pull the information I needed based on which country's reference told me exactly what I wanted to hear. I gave myself the big sticker and an A plus in Cross Cultural Referencing, and bonus points in Cop Out Research.
The Bag
The final test (you think it would be delivery) was to prepare your hospital bag six weeks in advance, to insure that there was ample time to fail the test and have a retake. The list of things to bring was size and quantity specific, including hand drawn pictorials for clarification. Some things I had never heard of and still don't understand, but like any school supply list in the States where you can just show your print-out from the teacher to a Kmart attendant and be pointed the way to the jumbo crayons, I was guided by the hand holding, soft-spoken maternity store clerk. Leg warmers for my tummy, Velcro waist bands to "snap my shape back," and other gizmos straight out of pink and blue laced mythology filled that bag to the decaffeinated rim.
It only took two bag check appointments to pass the test, so we just kept it in the entrance way in order to avoid the temptation to over-edit, crossing "t"s or dotting "i"s, or worse, reduce the hand luggage by half the way we do just before international flights. When it is time to pop that bag in the car to go to the hospital for labor and delivery, they require that the mother calls. They claim that they need to hear the mother's voice directly, so no cheating by having the father call to say, "we're on the way." Part of that rule is to force the mother into her endurance test, by putting her into her first situation of being the only one who could possibly be qualified to troubleshoot a situation.
The Forbidden
After all, the fathers didn't have any stickers to show for their responsibility at this point. The other part of that policy is a mystery to me, and I didn't dare cut corners on this one since I had already once been accused of cheating. Far enough in when it should have been obvious to the doctor on the other side of the thrice weekly ultrasound screen, we inquired if we were expecting a girl or a boy. Dr. Narita was ready for me, the picture of an impatient American with a bulge. He had pre-pared a photocopy from a Japanese medical journal on why it is wrong to flirt with fate by knowing in advance the sex of your child. This was god's path, and I am not worthy to interrupt, which includes intercepting knowledge of, its course. Feeling small, even at 6 months pregnant, I nodded along and accepted my handout.
A few visits later, I had a different doctor at the clinic. I gently hinted in a round about Japanese way that I would be open to be given a pink or blue clue. That doctor looked at the screen, nodded in a way that revealed he was in on Dr. Narita's god's path for me, proceeded to page through my 3 inch thick file. He noticed that I had been seen last by Dr. Narita, the man on the marquee of the hospital, and likely, the name at the bottom of his paycheck. He nonchalantly confirmed, "you saw Dr. Narita last?" which turned out to be his "round about Japanese way" of saying, "stock up on pastel yellows and greens."
I accepted my twice rejected fate and did what any impatient, hormone-fortified American would do. I turned to the world wide web for self-diagnosis. I took an on-line quiz consisting of 10 Yes or No questions which would lead me to score 9 out of 10 that pointed directly to pink booties. (One of those questions had to do with craving citrus, which I really shouldn't have known since I should have been off the oranges, but allow me to confess...) In sum, I would eventually confirm that the 90% test result handed down by the not-worried-about-fate-internet-gods was correct. Obviously, there was no page for a sticker for that research project in my Mother and Child Handbook, but I kept it under wraps anyway to protect myself from being docked a box of tissues or a city issued gift towel for cheating.
The Check-In
Even though I wore badges on my lapel on the trains, there was a sign on my car letting the world know I was pregnant, and by now more people had seen my Mother and Child Handbook detailing ultrasound photos than had seen my high school senior yearbook picture, as the only Americans in our area and an ocean away from family, we felt somewhat alone in the process. When it came time to wonder if it was time to go to the hospital, I called a good Irish friend, and a young mother of a baby boy who lived in Tokyo, for wisdom. The conversation was deep, and loaded with medical jargon:
Me: Hi Nicola. How did you know when it was time?
Nicola: Now. If you're calling me, it's time for someone else to take care of you. Just go check in the hospital.
Never ignoring the sage Irish, I was at the hospital within minutes, maneuvering around what I thought at one time to be a soothing floral arrangement as if it was an orange construction cone creating a road block on my path. I reached the midwife station and before they glanced in my direction, they nabbed the coveted bag from my husband, confirming the contents were properly assembled. It was like the passport check at immigration. I guess some things just come first. Rules again, and I wasn't in a position to care. We checked in and were escorted to a corner suite on the second floor of the 3 story building. I put my bag down and changed into the gown on my bed. Floral gowns were declared en vogue uniform for the pregnant ladies, and upon delivery, "the mothers" are changed into a solid pink gown for their new lead roles.
The Exam
I donned the slippers issued for the hallway and dining room and headed to last minute examination room, situated adjacent to the delivery room. Purgatory examination might have been out of a scene from the 70s cult classic, Xanadu. Before I was asked to stretch out on the neon bed, I was given an AV lesson on operating the technology, ironically designed for my relaxation. I was free to choose the color of strobe lights and the angles and shapes of lasers that zipped around the room. Alternatively, I could select a rotating rainbow on the ceiling with a virtual rain forest on the walls, accented by a waterfall image trickling down the door. There was a dial by the bed to operate the accompanying soundtrack. Again, surfing those channels brought me from Xanadu to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: Olivia Newton John, the Beatles, followed by Karen Carpenter. I stopped short of ABBA when I realized I'd prefer silence to having "Dancing Queen" running through my head for the rest of this process.
I made it back to my room, but not before gingerly exiting the roller derby purgatory room, since I still felt like I would be caught in some kind of infamous Who concert crowd traffic. I'd like to think that my delusional state was due in part to the meds, but that was not on the full course dinner menu that was served in my room when I returned. With a tap tap on the door, and the server entered in a white tuxedo shirt, bow tie, black skirt, pantyhose and hospital administered slippers with 2 trays carrying my dinner, which I gauged to be about double my baby weight. My husband started flipping through the channels, encouraging me, "not to ignore these shish kabobs, they're delicious!" The chicken kabobs, calamari, Chinese dumplings, rice, miso soup, marinated tofu, seaweed salad, pickled plums, melon wedge and green tea did not appeal to me at the time, a time that my sister would later tell me was "transition." Well during this culinary "transition," I gummed some tofu and one sip of miso before turning my attention to the TV show my husband landed on during his surf session. It was some sort of cryptic puppet Star-Wars-eque type animation on a NHK (Japan's answer to PBS), so bizarre it may just one day be modernized and remade into a 3D film starring Johnny Depp.
The "Time"
The server tapped back in to clear the meal, leaving coffee and cake on a sliver platter in its place. Either the absurdity of the extravagant caffeinated meal service or the inane entertainment selection sped up my progress and we were soon to set off down the hall to the delivery room. I "buzzed" first, as protocol (read: rules) dictated and let them know we (all three of us) were "ready." I thought they would wheel me down or at least send an escort, but apparently wheeled carts were reserved for shish kabobs. Women delivering babies in floral gowns were expected to gut it out down the corridor, which I was picturing to be similar to the slow motion sobering impact of the lead up to the climax scene straight out of Dead Man Walking. In retrospect, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I had to hoof it myself. After all, I ignored at least 3 calls to take walks around the halls and up and down the stairs of the clinic during my "wait." Somehow, the puppeteer cartoon was the better option, which shouldn't surprise you that media won the coin toss, given all of the above Hollywood references.
We approached the entrance to the delivery room, and Bob was immediately sent back to the room for "the bag." Three months of preparing that step and we dropped the baton. Meanwhile, I was on my own in the agony of being told to change my slippers. I had to remove my "hallway" slippers and change into "delivery room" slippers. Regretting that I had a sip of miso soup in me at all, I awkwardly crouched down to change the footwear. I put my other slippers on the appointed shelf, stepped up from the entrance into the foyer, and took 6 steps to the delivery table where I, in turn, removed the delivery room slippers. That was the most painful memory of the next 18 minutes. Perhaps that was their strategy. Put me through the culture shock torture of changing slippers to cover 2 meters of ground in my weakest moment in order to erase what was to come. Instead, what followed was comic relief. Bob entered the room wearing a white doctor's coat that was at least 3 inches short up from the wrists. "Do you like my jacket? They said I could keep it." I was focused on how he wasn't issued scrubs, a mask, or hairnet/cap, and how he really had an uncanny Mr. Bean gone wrong on Halloween look about him. Suddenly, my required floral print gown felt Milan runway ready to me.
The Delivery
The clinic rooms were like the Waldorf suites, but next to me in the delivery room, a humble linen/poly blend pleated curtain divided me from the woman at the next table. She was saying, "I can't do it." The midwife scolded her, "if you say you can't do it, you can't. Is that how you want to start motherhood?" Whoa. I thought we were naughty for lapsing on the delivery room bag. She won't get the labor sticker in her handbook. But I was more relieved that she got to the room first, and that seniority dictated her rule-enforcing midwife. It turns out the the midwife assigned to was famous in her circle, as I would hear for the 3 months to follow at the various city administered health checkups how lucky I was since she makes "the best bellybuttons." Up until this point in my life, I thought I brushed fame by frequently hearing that my Mother in Law makes "the best spaghetti marzetti." Nevertheless, she works quickly and silently. There is a Fuji film commercial that spoofs a Japanese birth. The couple deliver the baby in seconds, without a peep, and the baby comes out with a camera and takes their photo. That scenario seems more believable than the Laser Show Examination Room, I realize, but it does ring somewhat true. It was quiet. I was instructed to hold my breath three times. After three intervals of breathing cycles and 18 minutes, we had our daughter. She didn't have a state of the art camera loaded with Fuji film, but she had a world renown bellybutton.
The Role
As one midwife was changing me into my titled pink "mother gown," another resumed my education. She approached me with a silver platter, of no less quality than the room service tray, this time serving a different purpose. The deep dish housed the placenta. She was holding the tray with one hand, and kneading it like dough with the other as she spoke. My reaction at the time was probably what you are experiencing just reading that line, screaming a mental, "WHAT?" My assignment was to touch it myself to say "goodbye" to the assist. Its job on the inside was over, and now the life of this child is in my hands, on the outside. This responsibility will outlive me, take it to heart, obey the rules. I didn't give it the same gentle massage as the preaching midwife, but I followed through by caressing it, the way you would approach a snake at a petting zoo, and incidentally have been off baking home made bread dough making ever since.
The Baby
I returned to my room, where it was my job to recover for the first of the 7 night stay. In-service Mother School would resume the following morning. There was a midnight "snack" delivery, in full formal, "after 5" clad staff, but other than that, it was to be my "uninterrupted time." The babies were cozy in bassinets behind an elegant ceiling to floor glass wall in the midwife station. There were 18 newborns at the time, 5 born on "my day." Those 5 mothers would become my mother degree cohort. We spent the next week in classes, monitored feedings, and meals together. Ashley Hana was the only baby with a name, and I was the only one using it.
In Japan, there is a 2 week rule to naming your baby after birth. That's the deadline to register the baby's birth, including its name at the city hall. Until then, they tend to keep it a secret, or they really haven't decided. There's an unwritten cultural rule that the baby's parents have to seek the approval of the grand parents, great grandparents, and extended family before the name goes public. Next comes the bigger job of making sure the amount of strokes to represent the first and last name in kanji characters does not add up to an omen number, which could doom the child, family and future generations. Also, part of me thinks that since the mother and child's lives will become national record for the via the handbook until the child's 6th birthday, they are simply living dangerously by enjoying the 2 week window of having the freedom to guard anything, if only a name, in seclusion.
In the meantime, the babies are labeled with black permanent marker. The mother's name is inked down its arm and leg. As if the only American baby ever born in the clinic wasn't obviously mine on her looks alone, the phonetic Japanese lettering to write my foreign name totals 15 characters to the average 4 in kanji for the Japanese. The only baby with a real name, was a poor little graffiti child for her week in the display case. The least we could provide was longer than local average limbs to lessen the only cluttered look at the ornamental clinic.
The Gourmet
Breakfast call was a classical Mozart selection piped through the room speakers. Mothers took their places in the dining room, where a full breakfast was served on our pink linen and multi colored floral patterned Noritake table settings before the classes kicked off that would take us up to lunch to a different composer. We had a week schedule which eased us in with basics like feeding, burping and bathing newborns then graduated us to detailed challenges like mastering the perfect sushi roll fold of a baby in a blanket. The only one without a secondary education in the art of origami paper folding, I had to retake that test several times a day during my stay. On the bright side, I was better prepared for my post natal education compared to my prenatal lessons, adorned with a full set of shiny, labeled school supplies thanks to the rigidly monitored checklist of the conspicuous hospital stay bag.
Babies moved in with the mothers mid-week, since we needed to learn that 3 PM children are different from 3 AM children. That may be, however, no matter what time of day it was or how many times I had cleared the bath test, this kid still had my name branded across her twentysome inches in bold black pigment. The ink in my pen, in contrast, was the only thing to my name that was fading. I followed the lead of my cohort and filled an entire notebook throughout our daily lectures. For the most part, I doodled during the "birth control" chapter since I thought the deep dish silver platter visual post delivery was more effective and economical than considering purchasing any alternative forms of prevention.
On the final night, our usual full course dinner service was upgraded to a feast worthy of three Michelin stars, including a champagne toast, several elegant Chinese appetizers, lobster as the fish course and Kobe beef as the main dish, followed by mochi ice cream and a dessert tray of tarts and cakes that appeared cuter and even more delicate than the newborn Kodak moments. We took photos and exchanged contact information, even though the hospital would be keeping us together on a twelve month follow-up agenda that led to our final graduation from child rearing education, a celebration on the babies' first birthday a year later.
The Goodbye
The next morning was check-out. I saluted my one week stay goodbye as the front desk collected the remainder of the balance in cash-only fashion. In return, I was to pick out a souvenir gift for the child from the "girls'" clothing rack. Every baby also received a package including a hooded towel robe for the fresh out of the bath baby, which is appropriate for February newborns in a country lacking central heat, along with a "sandbox suit," which is appropriate in a country that actually keeps their kids neat and pressed whether it's 3 PM or 3 AM. They didn't forget about the mothers. I was given a parting gift as well. A small cedar box, containing a dose of cultural shock. The Japanese keep a part of their baby's umbilical cord, which I accepted with grace. After all, if she got the midwife that "makes the best bellybuttons," I should have a keepsake to commemorate the craft.
With my hospital stay bag now full of study materials, parting gifts and perfectly folded baby blankets, we loaded the car with a car seat, waved goodbye to the staff, and the cultural experience and headed home as a family of three. I headed inside, plopped my goodie bags down with cautious relief. I glanced around and thought it felt like I was away longer than just one week. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the empty pizza boxes stacked in the kitchen and instead of a feeling of dread the housework ahead of me, the feeling of solace got the better of me. After an intensive 10 month education session Japanese style, ordained a "mother," and set off on my way, I should have enough confidence to read "Virgina" in a public forum with pride. But yet I don't think I'll have the chance to visit that buddy Jeannie in NoVa anytime soon. At one time bedazzled by the overwhelming scent of the clinic's floral arrangement, my senses grounded and I found myself overcome by the welcome bouquet of leftover pizza. Suddenly, instead of wishing I still had 3 AM and 3 PM access to the Narita Ladies Clinic Iron Chef, I thought, "Ahhh...a taste of the American way. Home and on our own. Without a rule book...at last."
I strategically forget what grade in elementary school I was in when I was called on to read aloud in class. I came across, "Virginia," in the passage, and boldly voiced, "Vagina." My friend Jeannie, sitting next to me at the time, erupted with a case of the giggles that never really subsided. Even though I successfully blocked out what grade that was, I didn't exactly recovered. In an evil twist of fate, that loyal friend moved to Northern Virginia in 8th grade, and we remain in close touch. The only change in our friendship representative of the geographical distance, is that I refer to her residence as "VA" in writing, and "NoVa" in conversation. That verbal typo from the 70s would come to be some spooky foreshadowing on "baby grand" scale (Jeannie is a professional pianist after all, but this would be a different kind of baby). Perhaps it was a sour-note signal that I just might be better off one day going through my "real life" education of anatomic and gynecological terminology in another language, culture and country.
The Clinic
Fast forward however many years it was between my elementary school gaffe to 2004. We lived in a flat accommodating enough, in American terms, for one more tiny person, say in the 7-9 pound range. Our place was conveniently situated within a 10 minute walking distance from Narita Ladies Clinic in Hasuda City, a quaint off-spring of urban sprawl north of Tokyo. Approaching the entrance to the clinic, I was greeted by several tastefully ostentatious statues in the lot, and upon entering the foyer, I was overcome with the fragrant waft from the fresh floral ikebana display. Soothing music piped throughout the building, impressionistic art draped the walls and a formidable ceramic statue leaped out of the fountain through the bay windows as viewed from the plush waiting room sofas. Based on my medical education concerning what to look for in a hospital, outside of location, location, location, I concluded that this could be a place to wait and see for the 9 (although they count 10 here) months of my pregnancy.
The Handbook
"It takes a village to raise a child," so goes the African proverb. If that's the case, than it takes a country to see a woman through childbirth. This soon became everybody's business. I had a team throughout the first trimester, seeing me through my "education." Really, not much news in the twice weekly required ultrasounds, but it was my duty to bring a child into the local community in the Japanese way. Suddenly voicing "vagina" in a room full of curious elementary school kids was a much less public (I just read that three times to ensure I didn't write pubic) memory. After the first trimester, I was required to register my pregnancy with the City hall. This would be one of the first of many requirements that came with the elective course of childbirth in Japan. I registered at the Hasuda City Hall, was issued the required text, the Boshi Techo, or, Mother and Child Health Handbook. This bible of pregnancy, child birth and child rearing, chronicles my blood work, bi-weekly urine test results, daily weight fluctuations, "breast feeding" potential and performance, the child's development and immunization records until she enters elementary school, where I hope that she will become a stronger reader than her mother.
For 6 years, this booklet is as valuable as a passport and is actually more public and revealing than you'd suspect. Nobody likes their passport photos, but hanging on to it throughout its expiration date is the sacrifice we make for international travel. What I considered culturally confidentially details of my insides is inked, stamped or stickered into the Bochi Techo for the world to see. And by world I mean the 77 intuitions and counting that for their own reasons require I hand it over for their review on demand (incidentally, never on my call). Come to think of it, I should consider Googling my record on the internet from time to time just to see if it's posted out there for the cyberworld to see as well (if you are toggling away from this page now to find out, kindly update me the results of your search in the comment column).
The Rules
My parents visited me in Japan for the first time in 1995. They disembarked at Tokyo's Narita Airport and followed the flow in jet-lagged sheep mode with the masses toward customs and baggage claim. The billboard sized sign hanging above the escalators leading down to immigration read, Welcome to Japan. Obey the Rules. We laughed about it at the time, especially in their jet-lagged fortified punchy state. Japan has since polished its politesse in that department and at least in writing has cropped the second sentence from that larger than life poster. Nevertheless, I have been living the mantra every day since. Off to the city hall was I, obeying the order to fetch the handbook assigned to be the official record of my pregnancy progress reports, the child's development, immunization records, and everything else that you would only email the grandparents. No. You don't question it. You set off to the city hall, Obeying the Rule to get your handbook.
Along with the coveted booklet, the city hall representative handed over my warm welcome kit of necessities: laundry soap, a set of bars of body soap, a 5 kilogram bag of rice, a box of tissues, a towel, a set of "I'm With Child" stickers to wear on the train in order to alert others of my condition so that they obey the rule to give me a priority seat. And finally, my favorite, a "Maternity on Board" tag for the rear windshield of the car. It's interesting that I walk out of registering with the public municipality that I am pregnant, and they in turn load me up with multiple heavy items to carry, but I'm going to take the high road and focus on my gratitude for all the near accidents that would have happened if drivers weren't alerted that they should not plow into my "With Child" compact car.
Now that I was officially registered a la national rules, I could legally make a reservation to give birth at the clinic. Party of one coming in, hoping for party of two by the end. That's right, you make a reservation, with a non refundable deposit of roughly $1,000 to hold a room for the mandatory full week stay. I was given a basic schedule of how my visits would play out until check in: Bi-weekly during the the first half of the second trimester and 3 times a week in the latter part. By the third semester, it was 3-4 times a week third trimester, that bumps up (and out) to four times a week from 36 weeks and finally daily from the week before the due date. I wondered if there was an easier way, like wearing one of those monitoring anklets that convicts on house arrest wear, but equipped with ultra sound technology to alert the midwives of any fluctuation on my progress. The city hall probably installed an echo powered camera in the soaps anyway.
The Education
Alas, there were no short-cuts: Attendance was mandatory and there were 5 required classes along the way. Classes. The class record actually got its own chapter in the handbook you're chained to for 6 years. Not one report card or transcript followed me for more than four years in my life up until this point. So much for the auto-instinctive American exit strategy: "how do I get out of this?" There was no playing hooky, and not even my own mother could write me out of class. There were spaces for instructor signatures as well as stickers upon completion. Indeed, if I did well, I would get a sticker. Short term reward: smiley face. Long term reward: wailing face.
I remember the first class. I signed in at the door, collected the handout materials, which included a juice box sized Oolong iced tea (so much for the reduced caffeine rule I'm familiar with in the States). I entered the room and slipped into the back row of too small for pregnant women chairs. Growing up as a Z in the alphabetical seating chart world, I was programmed to warm the back corner seat, so this scene was putting me back into an 8th grade school zone mindset. Obey the rules: Be polite to the teacher. Don't talk out of turn, and respond when called on.
I had a pen. Those around me brought notebooks. I covered that botch by putting my handouts on top of my handbook to "write on." The doctor entered the room, everybody stood, bowed to him with respect, and he began his power point presentation of the process of childbirth. This was the first such lecture I was a part of that didn't require me to submit a permission slip from my parents to hear. I don't think I noted any major changes since the sex education lessons during elementary school in the 70s, but power point was a techno step up from waiting for the film strip to "bleep" for the next graphic.
The Dos and Don'ts
In another culture and language, I was at an advantage since I tuned more into cultural differences then I did to the fact that the actual process they were illustrating was going on inside me. That part, including potential complications or assured pain and discomfort didn't bother me. Instead, I really never got past the fact that my classmates were down to the sucking sounds at the bottom of their tea packs by the second of three hours of the session while I was still stuck on, "we can really have caffeine?" That was the first of many cultural myths I was to throw out the window.
It took me a few months to stop cross referencing all the dos and don'ts I got from Japan with those in America. One friend passed on a reference from the UK, which also had some different game rules. I found the way to Obey the Rules was to just pick one from each country whose language you can read and ignore remaining don'ts in order to find peace. World Peace. That was my justification. If only someone would buy what I was doing was any more than rationalization I would have one whopping sticker in the milestone handbook for striving that mark.
Realistically, my temporary solution for information overload was to run any questions directly by the doctors and nurses that were actually seeing me, what, three times a week by now? That should be enough live consulting to justify not having to read all available print media in my native or host tongue. I was soon scheduled to return to the States for a few weeks and do some traveling for my In-law's 50th wedding anniversary. "Are there any precautions I should be aware of?" I really don't know what I was looking for, but it was just the Japanese nuanced way of leading into the fact that I needed an excused absence from my weekly attendance chart for a family occasion. But he was reassuring:
"Don't worry about anything. Stress is that last thing you want. Why not pour some green tea, and relax in a hot bath?" There they go again with the caffeinated green(tea) light. And a hot bath? Another fundamental NO from the US websites. "Oh, but one thing," he continued. "Fulfill your yen for sushi pre-departure. I wouldn't trust the freshness in the States." Now I got a kick out of that one (or maybe it was the baby). Nonetheless, I stuck to my true red, white and blue when it came to breaking "sweet" rules. They eliminate sweets completely during pregnancy, which includes limiting fruits and juices, as not to exceed the Japan standard ideal of an 8 kilogram weight gain. In the end, I opted to pull the information I needed based on which country's reference told me exactly what I wanted to hear. I gave myself the big sticker and an A plus in Cross Cultural Referencing, and bonus points in Cop Out Research.
The Bag
The final test (you think it would be delivery) was to prepare your hospital bag six weeks in advance, to insure that there was ample time to fail the test and have a retake. The list of things to bring was size and quantity specific, including hand drawn pictorials for clarification. Some things I had never heard of and still don't understand, but like any school supply list in the States where you can just show your print-out from the teacher to a Kmart attendant and be pointed the way to the jumbo crayons, I was guided by the hand holding, soft-spoken maternity store clerk. Leg warmers for my tummy, Velcro waist bands to "snap my shape back," and other gizmos straight out of pink and blue laced mythology filled that bag to the decaffeinated rim.
It only took two bag check appointments to pass the test, so we just kept it in the entrance way in order to avoid the temptation to over-edit, crossing "t"s or dotting "i"s, or worse, reduce the hand luggage by half the way we do just before international flights. When it is time to pop that bag in the car to go to the hospital for labor and delivery, they require that the mother calls. They claim that they need to hear the mother's voice directly, so no cheating by having the father call to say, "we're on the way." Part of that rule is to force the mother into her endurance test, by putting her into her first situation of being the only one who could possibly be qualified to troubleshoot a situation.
The Forbidden
After all, the fathers didn't have any stickers to show for their responsibility at this point. The other part of that policy is a mystery to me, and I didn't dare cut corners on this one since I had already once been accused of cheating. Far enough in when it should have been obvious to the doctor on the other side of the thrice weekly ultrasound screen, we inquired if we were expecting a girl or a boy. Dr. Narita was ready for me, the picture of an impatient American with a bulge. He had pre-pared a photocopy from a Japanese medical journal on why it is wrong to flirt with fate by knowing in advance the sex of your child. This was god's path, and I am not worthy to interrupt, which includes intercepting knowledge of, its course. Feeling small, even at 6 months pregnant, I nodded along and accepted my handout.
A few visits later, I had a different doctor at the clinic. I gently hinted in a round about Japanese way that I would be open to be given a pink or blue clue. That doctor looked at the screen, nodded in a way that revealed he was in on Dr. Narita's god's path for me, proceeded to page through my 3 inch thick file. He noticed that I had been seen last by Dr. Narita, the man on the marquee of the hospital, and likely, the name at the bottom of his paycheck. He nonchalantly confirmed, "you saw Dr. Narita last?" which turned out to be his "round about Japanese way" of saying, "stock up on pastel yellows and greens."
I accepted my twice rejected fate and did what any impatient, hormone-fortified American would do. I turned to the world wide web for self-diagnosis. I took an on-line quiz consisting of 10 Yes or No questions which would lead me to score 9 out of 10 that pointed directly to pink booties. (One of those questions had to do with craving citrus, which I really shouldn't have known since I should have been off the oranges, but allow me to confess...) In sum, I would eventually confirm that the 90% test result handed down by the not-worried-about-fate-internet-gods was correct. Obviously, there was no page for a sticker for that research project in my Mother and Child Handbook, but I kept it under wraps anyway to protect myself from being docked a box of tissues or a city issued gift towel for cheating.
The Check-In
Even though I wore badges on my lapel on the trains, there was a sign on my car letting the world know I was pregnant, and by now more people had seen my Mother and Child Handbook detailing ultrasound photos than had seen my high school senior yearbook picture, as the only Americans in our area and an ocean away from family, we felt somewhat alone in the process. When it came time to wonder if it was time to go to the hospital, I called a good Irish friend, and a young mother of a baby boy who lived in Tokyo, for wisdom. The conversation was deep, and loaded with medical jargon:
Me: Hi Nicola. How did you know when it was time?
Nicola: Now. If you're calling me, it's time for someone else to take care of you. Just go check in the hospital.
Never ignoring the sage Irish, I was at the hospital within minutes, maneuvering around what I thought at one time to be a soothing floral arrangement as if it was an orange construction cone creating a road block on my path. I reached the midwife station and before they glanced in my direction, they nabbed the coveted bag from my husband, confirming the contents were properly assembled. It was like the passport check at immigration. I guess some things just come first. Rules again, and I wasn't in a position to care. We checked in and were escorted to a corner suite on the second floor of the 3 story building. I put my bag down and changed into the gown on my bed. Floral gowns were declared en vogue uniform for the pregnant ladies, and upon delivery, "the mothers" are changed into a solid pink gown for their new lead roles.
The Exam
I donned the slippers issued for the hallway and dining room and headed to last minute examination room, situated adjacent to the delivery room. Purgatory examination might have been out of a scene from the 70s cult classic, Xanadu. Before I was asked to stretch out on the neon bed, I was given an AV lesson on operating the technology, ironically designed for my relaxation. I was free to choose the color of strobe lights and the angles and shapes of lasers that zipped around the room. Alternatively, I could select a rotating rainbow on the ceiling with a virtual rain forest on the walls, accented by a waterfall image trickling down the door. There was a dial by the bed to operate the accompanying soundtrack. Again, surfing those channels brought me from Xanadu to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds: Olivia Newton John, the Beatles, followed by Karen Carpenter. I stopped short of ABBA when I realized I'd prefer silence to having "Dancing Queen" running through my head for the rest of this process.
I made it back to my room, but not before gingerly exiting the roller derby purgatory room, since I still felt like I would be caught in some kind of infamous Who concert crowd traffic. I'd like to think that my delusional state was due in part to the meds, but that was not on the full course dinner menu that was served in my room when I returned. With a tap tap on the door, and the server entered in a white tuxedo shirt, bow tie, black skirt, pantyhose and hospital administered slippers with 2 trays carrying my dinner, which I gauged to be about double my baby weight. My husband started flipping through the channels, encouraging me, "not to ignore these shish kabobs, they're delicious!" The chicken kabobs, calamari, Chinese dumplings, rice, miso soup, marinated tofu, seaweed salad, pickled plums, melon wedge and green tea did not appeal to me at the time, a time that my sister would later tell me was "transition." Well during this culinary "transition," I gummed some tofu and one sip of miso before turning my attention to the TV show my husband landed on during his surf session. It was some sort of cryptic puppet Star-Wars-eque type animation on a NHK (Japan's answer to PBS), so bizarre it may just one day be modernized and remade into a 3D film starring Johnny Depp.
The "Time"
The server tapped back in to clear the meal, leaving coffee and cake on a sliver platter in its place. Either the absurdity of the extravagant caffeinated meal service or the inane entertainment selection sped up my progress and we were soon to set off down the hall to the delivery room. I "buzzed" first, as protocol (read: rules) dictated and let them know we (all three of us) were "ready." I thought they would wheel me down or at least send an escort, but apparently wheeled carts were reserved for shish kabobs. Women delivering babies in floral gowns were expected to gut it out down the corridor, which I was picturing to be similar to the slow motion sobering impact of the lead up to the climax scene straight out of Dead Man Walking. In retrospect, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I had to hoof it myself. After all, I ignored at least 3 calls to take walks around the halls and up and down the stairs of the clinic during my "wait." Somehow, the puppeteer cartoon was the better option, which shouldn't surprise you that media won the coin toss, given all of the above Hollywood references.
We approached the entrance to the delivery room, and Bob was immediately sent back to the room for "the bag." Three months of preparing that step and we dropped the baton. Meanwhile, I was on my own in the agony of being told to change my slippers. I had to remove my "hallway" slippers and change into "delivery room" slippers. Regretting that I had a sip of miso soup in me at all, I awkwardly crouched down to change the footwear. I put my other slippers on the appointed shelf, stepped up from the entrance into the foyer, and took 6 steps to the delivery table where I, in turn, removed the delivery room slippers. That was the most painful memory of the next 18 minutes. Perhaps that was their strategy. Put me through the culture shock torture of changing slippers to cover 2 meters of ground in my weakest moment in order to erase what was to come. Instead, what followed was comic relief. Bob entered the room wearing a white doctor's coat that was at least 3 inches short up from the wrists. "Do you like my jacket? They said I could keep it." I was focused on how he wasn't issued scrubs, a mask, or hairnet/cap, and how he really had an uncanny Mr. Bean gone wrong on Halloween look about him. Suddenly, my required floral print gown felt Milan runway ready to me.
The Delivery
The clinic rooms were like the Waldorf suites, but next to me in the delivery room, a humble linen/poly blend pleated curtain divided me from the woman at the next table. She was saying, "I can't do it." The midwife scolded her, "if you say you can't do it, you can't. Is that how you want to start motherhood?" Whoa. I thought we were naughty for lapsing on the delivery room bag. She won't get the labor sticker in her handbook. But I was more relieved that she got to the room first, and that seniority dictated her rule-enforcing midwife. It turns out the the midwife assigned to was famous in her circle, as I would hear for the 3 months to follow at the various city administered health checkups how lucky I was since she makes "the best bellybuttons." Up until this point in my life, I thought I brushed fame by frequently hearing that my Mother in Law makes "the best spaghetti marzetti." Nevertheless, she works quickly and silently. There is a Fuji film commercial that spoofs a Japanese birth. The couple deliver the baby in seconds, without a peep, and the baby comes out with a camera and takes their photo. That scenario seems more believable than the Laser Show Examination Room, I realize, but it does ring somewhat true. It was quiet. I was instructed to hold my breath three times. After three intervals of breathing cycles and 18 minutes, we had our daughter. She didn't have a state of the art camera loaded with Fuji film, but she had a world renown bellybutton.
The Role
As one midwife was changing me into my titled pink "mother gown," another resumed my education. She approached me with a silver platter, of no less quality than the room service tray, this time serving a different purpose. The deep dish housed the placenta. She was holding the tray with one hand, and kneading it like dough with the other as she spoke. My reaction at the time was probably what you are experiencing just reading that line, screaming a mental, "WHAT?" My assignment was to touch it myself to say "goodbye" to the assist. Its job on the inside was over, and now the life of this child is in my hands, on the outside. This responsibility will outlive me, take it to heart, obey the rules. I didn't give it the same gentle massage as the preaching midwife, but I followed through by caressing it, the way you would approach a snake at a petting zoo, and incidentally have been off baking home made bread dough making ever since.
The Baby
I returned to my room, where it was my job to recover for the first of the 7 night stay. In-service Mother School would resume the following morning. There was a midnight "snack" delivery, in full formal, "after 5" clad staff, but other than that, it was to be my "uninterrupted time." The babies were cozy in bassinets behind an elegant ceiling to floor glass wall in the midwife station. There were 18 newborns at the time, 5 born on "my day." Those 5 mothers would become my mother degree cohort. We spent the next week in classes, monitored feedings, and meals together. Ashley Hana was the only baby with a name, and I was the only one using it.
In Japan, there is a 2 week rule to naming your baby after birth. That's the deadline to register the baby's birth, including its name at the city hall. Until then, they tend to keep it a secret, or they really haven't decided. There's an unwritten cultural rule that the baby's parents have to seek the approval of the grand parents, great grandparents, and extended family before the name goes public. Next comes the bigger job of making sure the amount of strokes to represent the first and last name in kanji characters does not add up to an omen number, which could doom the child, family and future generations. Also, part of me thinks that since the mother and child's lives will become national record for the via the handbook until the child's 6th birthday, they are simply living dangerously by enjoying the 2 week window of having the freedom to guard anything, if only a name, in seclusion.
In the meantime, the babies are labeled with black permanent marker. The mother's name is inked down its arm and leg. As if the only American baby ever born in the clinic wasn't obviously mine on her looks alone, the phonetic Japanese lettering to write my foreign name totals 15 characters to the average 4 in kanji for the Japanese. The only baby with a real name, was a poor little graffiti child for her week in the display case. The least we could provide was longer than local average limbs to lessen the only cluttered look at the ornamental clinic.
The Gourmet
Breakfast call was a classical Mozart selection piped through the room speakers. Mothers took their places in the dining room, where a full breakfast was served on our pink linen and multi colored floral patterned Noritake table settings before the classes kicked off that would take us up to lunch to a different composer. We had a week schedule which eased us in with basics like feeding, burping and bathing newborns then graduated us to detailed challenges like mastering the perfect sushi roll fold of a baby in a blanket. The only one without a secondary education in the art of origami paper folding, I had to retake that test several times a day during my stay. On the bright side, I was better prepared for my post natal education compared to my prenatal lessons, adorned with a full set of shiny, labeled school supplies thanks to the rigidly monitored checklist of the conspicuous hospital stay bag.
Babies moved in with the mothers mid-week, since we needed to learn that 3 PM children are different from 3 AM children. That may be, however, no matter what time of day it was or how many times I had cleared the bath test, this kid still had my name branded across her twentysome inches in bold black pigment. The ink in my pen, in contrast, was the only thing to my name that was fading. I followed the lead of my cohort and filled an entire notebook throughout our daily lectures. For the most part, I doodled during the "birth control" chapter since I thought the deep dish silver platter visual post delivery was more effective and economical than considering purchasing any alternative forms of prevention.
On the final night, our usual full course dinner service was upgraded to a feast worthy of three Michelin stars, including a champagne toast, several elegant Chinese appetizers, lobster as the fish course and Kobe beef as the main dish, followed by mochi ice cream and a dessert tray of tarts and cakes that appeared cuter and even more delicate than the newborn Kodak moments. We took photos and exchanged contact information, even though the hospital would be keeping us together on a twelve month follow-up agenda that led to our final graduation from child rearing education, a celebration on the babies' first birthday a year later.
The Goodbye
The next morning was check-out. I saluted my one week stay goodbye as the front desk collected the remainder of the balance in cash-only fashion. In return, I was to pick out a souvenir gift for the child from the "girls'" clothing rack. Every baby also received a package including a hooded towel robe for the fresh out of the bath baby, which is appropriate for February newborns in a country lacking central heat, along with a "sandbox suit," which is appropriate in a country that actually keeps their kids neat and pressed whether it's 3 PM or 3 AM. They didn't forget about the mothers. I was given a parting gift as well. A small cedar box, containing a dose of cultural shock. The Japanese keep a part of their baby's umbilical cord, which I accepted with grace. After all, if she got the midwife that "makes the best bellybuttons," I should have a keepsake to commemorate the craft.
With my hospital stay bag now full of study materials, parting gifts and perfectly folded baby blankets, we loaded the car with a car seat, waved goodbye to the staff, and the cultural experience and headed home as a family of three. I headed inside, plopped my goodie bags down with cautious relief. I glanced around and thought it felt like I was away longer than just one week. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the empty pizza boxes stacked in the kitchen and instead of a feeling of dread the housework ahead of me, the feeling of solace got the better of me. After an intensive 10 month education session Japanese style, ordained a "mother," and set off on my way, I should have enough confidence to read "Virgina" in a public forum with pride. But yet I don't think I'll have the chance to visit that buddy Jeannie in NoVa anytime soon. At one time bedazzled by the overwhelming scent of the clinic's floral arrangement, my senses grounded and I found myself overcome by the welcome bouquet of leftover pizza. Suddenly, instead of wishing I still had 3 AM and 3 PM access to the Narita Ladies Clinic Iron Chef, I thought, "Ahhh...a taste of the American way. Home and on our own. Without a rule book...at last."
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