Under the Osakan Sun
Page 30
On the day of the party, everyone was in high spirits. Mrs Tsubota was fussing around, making sure that her pancakes were being kept warm. Mrs Tanaka was setting the table. She had brought a big bowl of fried rice and a large platter of pickles. Mrs Terauchi was already sitting expectantly at the head of the table, rattling on about the state of her garden and how cold the weather had been recently.
Mrs Kiguchi stepped into the room from the kitchen. The festivities had seemingly brought her back to her good-humoured self and it was obvious that she was enjoying the hustle and bustle in her living room. Her eyes twinkled. ‘Sensei, what have you cooked for us?’
I pulled out my bowl of green curry and opened the lid. The women craned forward to get a whiff of the exotic aroma. ‘Oohh, sensei,’they chorused, and daintily concealed their mouths while they chuckled among themselves.
‘You are such a good cook, sensei!’ Mrs Kiguchi exclaimed, clearing a place in the middle of the dining table for my bowl.
Everyone took their places and we tucked into our Christmas banquet. Despite my warnings that my green curry was spicy, the mothers gave themselves large servings. I tried not to smile as they broke out into a sweat and had to take off their sweaters. We made our way through the mountains of food and a large quantity of Mrs Matsui’s mulled wine. By the end of the meal, all the women had pink cheeks and flushed complexions.
‘Oh this is fun!’ enthused Mrs Tsubota. ‘Merry Christmas, sensei.’
‘Merry Christmas everyone,’ I replied in Japanese.
Mrs Terauchi started singing a religious hymn to the tune of ‘Silent night’. I snuck a glance at Mrs Kiguchi. She was laughing and covering her mouth while she watched her old friend Mrs Terauchi sing. I smiled. It seemed that her loneliness had been forgotten.
Mrs Terauchi reached the end of her impromptu Christmas carol and thanked us for listening. Mrs Kiguchi nodded at her, and at the same time I noticed Mrs Matsui and Mrs Tanaka exchange secretive glances.
‘Ah yes, of course,’ Mrs Terauchi trumpeted suddenly. ‘Sensei, how have you been recently?’ She leaned forward and looked at me intently. I noticed Mrs Matsui and Mrs Tanaka scurrying from the room.
‘I’m fine,’ I said hesitantly, wondering what was going on.
‘And what have you been doing at school lately, sensei?’ Mrs Terauchi asked with exaggerated interest. She seemed determined to hold my gaze and prevent me noticing the absence of her friends.
Mrs Matsui and Mrs Tanaka returned. They sat down, discreetly tucking a pair of mysterious parcels under the table as they did so.
With her friends safely back, Mrs Terauchi now lost all interest in our conversation about school life. ‘Is it time yet?’ she asked Mrs Kiguchi.
Mrs Kiguchi nodded. ‘Sensei,’ she began slowly, ‘since it is a Christmas party we would like to give you some presents.’
I smiled. I had expected there might be a small exchange of gifts, and had come prepared. ‘Aha!’ I announced triumphantly. ‘I have some gifts for you as well.’ I had written each of my Japanese mothers an individual letter and greetings card in Japanese.
They delicately opened the envelopes and read the messages aloud. Mrs Terauchi corrected a couple of missed strokes on some of my kanji characters. Mrs Kiguchi read her card to herself in a whisper. She looked up with misty eyes. ‘Thank you for my Christmas card,’ she said softly.
Mrs Terauchi was growing impatient. ‘It is time for sensei’s presents,’ she said crossly. ‘Quickly, we must give them to him.’ Mrs Kiguchi nodded to Mrs Tanaka, who produced a bulging plastic bag from beneath the dining table.
Three beautifully wrapped parcels were emptied out before me, and I began opening the nearest one.
A bag of apples.
Mrs Tsubota blushed. ‘These are from the tree in my garden. I hope you enjoy them.’ I assured her that I would.
I opened the second parcel. A jar of homemade marmalade.
Mrs Matsui coughed nervously. ‘Ah yes, I made that at the same time I made the mulled wine. I was enjoying cooking so much that I made many different things. Do you like marmalade?’
‘Sure,’ I said, ‘this will go well on my toast.’ Mrs Matsui smiled.
The third parcel was heavy and oddly shaped. I fumbled with the wrapping paper and clumsily tore it open. It was a tile from a nearby temple. This was perhaps one of the more bizarre gifts that I’d ever received.
Mrs Terauchi’s eyes twinkled. ‘I knew you’d like it. It will bring you good luck.’
Everyone oohed and aahed as we examined the temple roof tile. My other Japanese mothers were impressed with Mrs Terauchi’s gift, and assured me that the temple it had formerly decorated was very prestigious, and that this tile was, therefore, very special.
I thanked Mrs Terauchi and she bowed happily. ‘Thank you, sensei, thank you. I am so happy that you like my present.’
I looked at my Christmas gifts and thanked everyone once again. The women smiled and looked at Mrs Kiguchi. She nodded to Mrs Matsui, who produced another parcel from beneath the table.
I looked at the thin flat package that now sat before me. I reached forward and untied the purple cloth wrapping. I paused. The contents of the package made little sense to me.
The women sensed my confusion. Mrs Kiguchi leaned forward and began to explain. My Japanese mothers had just presented me with my own handmade kimono.
I listened, stunned. Each of them had played a part in its design, and they had pooled their resources for its creation.
Mrs Tanaka had chosen the pattern. Mrs Matsui had gone out and bought the silk. Mrs Tsubota and Mrs Terauchi had procured the necessary sewing tools, and Mrs Kiguchi had painstakingly sewn the kimono.
I felt close to tears. ‘Thank you,’ I finally managed to stammer. ‘Would you like me to try it on?’
They burst into laughter. ‘No, no, sensei, this is not for you to wear,’ Mrs Terauchi said. ‘Wait for Mrs Kiguchi to finish her story.’
Mrs Kiguchi clasped my hand. ‘You are such a nice man, sensei,’ she said. ‘One day you will be a wonderful husband for a young lady. This kimono is intended as a gift for your future wife when you become engaged.’
20
Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs
It was the end of January. My life in Japan had now passed the two-and-a-half-year mark. Only six more months remained in my employment contract.
I looked at my calendar. Six months seemed worryingly short. Misgivings about my future swirled through my mind. What would I do for the next chapter of my life?
I shivered. It was freezing cold. Concerns about my future were temporarily forgotten. I had just stepped back into Arctic Osaka after a three-week Christmas vacation in the humid climes of Malaysian Borneo. This had been my last Southeast Asian getaway, and the last time I would make use of the ‘studying Japanese in the town library’ cover story.
I had thoroughly enjoyed hiking up Mount Kinabalu, trekking in rain forests, catching glimpses of wild orangutans, and travelling overland across Brunei in a beaten-up old bus. This T-shirt-and-shorts lifestyle had come to a crashing end the minute I touched down at Osaka International Airport. There was a good five centimetres of snow on the ground.
What’s more, I had developed a huge backlog of washing, and while my washing machine worked overtime to catch up I had to wear the same chalk-covered polar-fleece jacket and olive track pants to school every day. A large damp pile of washed clothes slowly accumulated in the corner of my laundry. There was no way to dry them. By the end of January, my grubby jacket and olive pants were being ‘recycled’ for the second week in a row.
Fortunately, none of my fellow teachers seemed to notice. They were too busy panicking about the daily snowstorms. Not only would the entire town apparently catch the flu, but countless numbers of students were predicted to fall over and break their necks on the icy footpaths. Hence, the teachers spent extra hours in the early morning, and again late at night, ferrying students to and from school.
Everyone claimed I was crazy, and several people pleaded with me not to go outside in the snow on my bicycle any more. I replied by telling them that in New Zealand people walked barefoot to school across snowy mountain ranges. This boosted my strong-guy image, and to boost it even further I grew a week’s stubble and recycled my rugged, outdoorsy clothes for yet another week.
The young minnows class was now an enormously popular hour of my week. At the end of the year, I had rashly promised my small group of special friends that I would make them one more super-duper board game before they graduated the following March. I had later hoped that the minnows’ usually short-term memories would let me escape from fulfilling the promise, but it seemed they had written it down in their diaries and I was duty-bound to come up with something special.
So, throughout the month of December, I had painstakingly put together a huge papier-mâché board game, which included a large conical volcano, small round hills and a big Mayan-style temple. I had left the board in my apartment to dry for a week and had then brought it into school to be painted by the young minnows themselves.
Teru-Chan was absent on ‘painting day’ but Hiro and Yurika were frothing at the bit. Hiro was put in charge of painting the Mayan temple. He dobbed globs of grey paint all over the temple, the surrounding papier-mâché hillside, and his own jacket.
While I painted the rolling hillside and smooth playing-field grass, Yurika was charged with colouring the slopes of the conical volcano. Her poor eyesight led to a couple of brown stripes being added to the grunge on my polar-fleece jacket.
The bell rang, and we stepped back to admire our handiwork. I was happy: the game board was shaping up well. The minnows, though, were baffled: why had we just wasted an hour painting an oddly shaped fruit basket, in which the green hills were apples, and the volcano a pineapple?
I chuckled secretly and returned the game board to the safety of the staffroom to dry. Next day I went shopping at the Jinaimachi toy shop and bought a packet of plastic dinosaurs – four Tyrannosaurus rexes, a funny-looking Brontosaurus and a bright pink Pterodactyl.
I then constructed an ingenious set of small playing pieces. Each had a miniature photo of a young minnow player emblazoned on both front and back. I hoped this personal touch would endear the minnows to the game. Although I had copied both the idea and the rules from a popular board game called Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs, these playing pieces were entirely my own concoction.
Several days later, when the game board was completely dry, I added the finer details with felt-tip marker pens: playing squares, red and orange-streaked lava flows, temple bricks and steps, and dinosaur caves in the rolling hills. It was time to present my creation to the team.
Hiro and Yurika were completely bowled over by the dramatic transformation. Hiro danced around the room, and Yurika tugged on Teru-Chan’s sleeve. They all sat down with bulging eyes, keen to learn the rules and start playing.
The first round of Dinosaurs was a success. I was eagerly invited to bring the game back to the waka-ayu room during lunch breaks, or whenever I had a free moment.
The idea of the game was simple. Players had to move their counter through the valley of the dinosaurs to the temple. Once there, they had to pick up the treasure and carry it back to the start, all the while dodging lava flows, Tyrannosaurus rexes and the bright pink Pterodactyl.
At first, this proved to be a nice exercise in teamwork and everyone worked together to bring the treasure home. However, things slowly started to go wrong and I noticed a new atmosphere developing among the team.
After two weeks, everyone was out for themselves. Yurika inadvertently revealed that she was planning to make a treaty with Hiro and then, after he had obtained the treasure, drop him in the lava flow. Hiro, meanwhile, surrounded Teru-Chan’s counters with menacing dinosaurs and laughed happily when Teru-Chan got eaten. Teru-Chan called us all names and grumpily swore she wouldn’t come back to school again.
A few more days of this and tempers were flaring dangerously. Yurika couldn’t figure out why everyone knew what she was up to. Hiro and Teru-Chan were no longer speaking, and it was a race to kill the other person’s playing piece. The original object of the game was forgotten, leaving me with an unobstructed route to the finish line.
It was Sunday, February 9, and the South Osaka Prefecture Half-Marathon Running Event was about to begin. My foggy breath was evaporating in the frosty air in front of me. I clapped my body to keep warm and jogged on the spot.
Mr Higo panted up. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked nervously. His nervous gaze suggested he did not have much faith in my running ability.
‘Yes,’ I answered uncertainly. My stomach felt like jelly.
He smiled. ‘Good luck then.’ He jogged off to check on the condition of the rest of our team members.
I tried to calm my jangling nerves and concentrate on the race at hand. What on earth was I doing this time? I thought back to the fateful lunch break in early December when Mr Higo had announced he was wanting to put together a four-person relay team to compete in the big race in February.
‘I thought you were sick of running long distance?’ I had asked suspiciously, remembering all too clearly Mr Higo’s reluctance to compete in the previous year’s school athletics day. ‘You will be taking part yourself, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he had replied defensively. ‘I think this will be a good event for staff members. It will be good for our health, and good team bonding.’
Not only had I allowed myself to be pressured into joining the team, before I knew what had happened I had been given the great responsibility of being the team’s opening runner. This would apparently give our team international credibility, and it was earnestly pointed out to me that the New Zealander who walked barefoot over snowy mountains would surely be strong enough to endure the longest stretch of the race.
I had spent much of December training seriously for the big event, including spending every afternoon on a running machine at the local community centre. Unlike the lead-up to The Great Lake Biwa Circumnavigation, I had managed to get into fairly decent shape and was quietly confident that I would be able to complete my 4.6-kilometre leg within a respectable time.
The race day had turned out to be relatively warm. Although the frosty air was stinging my ears and fingers and my nose was running, there was no snow on the ground and hardly any wind.
At the starting line I checked out my rivals. Most contestants were decked out in snazzy gear – ultra-brief running shorts, space-age shoes and T-shirts emblazoned with the names of past marathons or running races. I was wearing my smelly olive track pants, now in their third week, my Thai beer T-shirt, and old shoes with holes.
About seventy teams had turned up. On my right was a young man with Down’s Syndrome and a bald man who, I suspected, had leukaemia. Their presence gave me hope of coming, at worst, third to last.
Mr Terada, the PE teacher, was yelling advice from the sideline, ordering me not to sprint off at the start, as I had done in the school races. This made me nervous. I felt my shoulders tense.
All the runners bent forward into their starting positions – except me. Clamped tightly by the crowd, I couldn’t bend down and was left standing rigidly upright.
I started to sweat. The starting gun sounded and the runners sprinted away like a pack of horses. Following the PE teacher’s advice, I ran at a moderate pace and was soon passed by pretty much everyone, including the Down’s Syndrome man, who raced by in a cloud of dust.
After the first 800 metres I had slipped to the back of the pack – with the bald guy, one of a group of five struggling runners. It was at this point that we struck the first hill. I had completely omitted hills from
my training routine, figuring that having grown up in a hilly suburb in Christchurch would have more than adequately prepared me. Alas not. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bald guy shoot ahead.
I was breathing pretty hard by now, and sounded as though I’d dropped a lung somewhere along the course. As we passed the spectator section, I came to the mortifying conclusion that I was dead last.
To make matters worse, everyone in the crowd seemed to know my name. The mayor, Mr Kitahashi, was there. My principal, Mr Kazama, was there. My supervisor, Mr Horrii, was there, and it seemed that most of the people who read my monthly town magazine articles were there too.
I looked behind. I was alone. Everyone was chanting my name. Sudden terror of being lapped propelled me onwards and I somehow finished my leg of the race without walking.
At the end of the day I found to my astonishment that I had managed to run the 4.6 kilometres in 20 minutes and 46 seconds, only three seconds more than my target time. Our team had managed to come in sixth to last overall, a not inconsiderable achievement.
It was February 14, Valentine’s Day. In my first year in Japan, I had received five boxes of chocolate from elderly well-wishers. One family had even gone to the expense of buying me a grey polar-fleece jacket and special milk chocolates from the northern island of Hokkaido. My landlady’s pre-school daughters had given me a cute gift-wrapped piece of chocolate and two scribbly portraits of me picking flowers. Some of the boys at school had parted with bubblegum cards of their favourite girl singers.
The following year I had received an astounding eleven boxes of chocolate from an assortment of students, old ladies and others. In Japan, however, February 14 is merely the day on which women give gifts to men. One month later, in March, the men are compelled to return gifts of five times the value to the women. I was diligently saving for my spring vacation in Laos and Vietnam, and my strict budget left me with little to eat other than instant noodles and bread. The prospect of having to buy eleven boxes of expensive chocolate was too terrible to contemplate. I resorted to pint-sized chocolates, and shuffled off to Vietnam before anybody could complain.