When "hello" becomes "oui" and "we" is laundry.

Learning Japanese is no longer as frustrating as it once was.
We are losing 4 teachers from Gotsu Senior High School. 3 of which have shown me many kindnesses and a lot of patience. I owe them a great deal and feel that in this brief time I haven't had the opportunity to express my gratitude. I am really going to miss these guys.

So I've been writing thank you cards in Japanese. Bad Japanese. And it takes me a very, very long time to do so. It's hard to be articulate when one is merely proficient in saying whether something is beautiful or late, and if it is going, coming or went somewhere. But I am doing my gambatte excercises, so I think it'll all work out. (My favorite thing is to use the word "watashitachi" which means, "we". I just like it because it makes me think of a laundromat near Andy Campagna in North Hollywood. That's how it exits my mouth, as if I'm running errands and doing chores.)

One of the teachers leaving is Seiya sensei who drove me everywhere before I got my car. He lives above me, and lately we laugh because we bump into each other on the way down the stairs in the morning, about 10 minutes later than we should. And though we leave at the same time and take the same route, I never follow his car and yet somehow he arrives earlier. The man is a magician. He's trying to learn English and liked teaching me Japanese, so was a good conversationalist on days when we found ourselves free for a period. Now that I am learning a new language again, I constantly use french words where Japanese words should be, so Seiya learned a bit of french too.


Hajime sensei (in the center of the photo below), head of the English program, picked me up from the airport in Izumo in the beginning of August with his baby daughter. He was there when the freshmen ALTs stared into the exit, looking for their name on colorful signs, bright-eyed and delirious. He was my first connection to this weird little world. Since our humble beginnings he has proven to be the funniest Japanese person I've met, he has incredible English and runs the English program with humor and efficiency (-this is a coupling that can be hard to find around here in my experience).

And finally Saito sensei, one of the PE teachers. When Seito sensei discovered at an early enkai that I love steak, the man immediately invited me to his favorite steakhouse in Hamada. And wow-o-wow is it wonderful. He took Yoshimi and I there and paid for me to stuff myself full of very tender, med-rare -covered in sauteed onion greatness- pieces of meat. The first time I spoke to him at an enkai he asked me about Dad because Dad had just visited. He asked about what he did for work and how he liked Shimane, then he asked me if I respected my father. "Yes, I do." I said. And from there we began a discussion (about his worries that his daughter does not respect him. She's a teenager. I told him teenage girls are far too self-involved and insecure to even begin to respect their Dad outside of loving, Daddy-can-protect-me-from-anything little girl respect) that has since been delved into further during other enkais. His wife is a painter, and he gave me a Mercedes Benz scarf for my father as I left the school today.

I will miss them all so much. They have been very generous with their time, energy and patience. In a different country I could repay the favor, and I hope I can do that someday, but I hardly expect they'll be leaving to sight-see in the states anytime soon.
It is these kinds of friendships with my teachers that make learning the language and assimilating bit by bit more tolerable. There have been many days which I walk from my car to the front door of the school passing students, flashing them a big grin and greeting, and I suddenly wonder where the hell I am and how I ended up there. Sometimes I even stop and look around wondering...huhh? Japan?! I have a job?! It startles my system a bit. Walking into the teachers' office and saying good morning to these teachers reassures me. They remind me that there is comfort and there is even familiarity.

Other things startle me too, like when I realized that I hadn't said, "Hi!" in form of an English greeting for such a long time that when a foreigner said it to me, I thought they were saying "Yes!" "Yes, Ashley!"