Reggae Festival

Thanks for the message Ribsy. Sorry the first one got lost when Hotmail crashed. If it makes you feel any better, that has happened to me as well on Hotmail. Frustrating, isn't it? If you find something that works better than Hotmail, let me know. Otherwise maybe you could type it out on Word Perfect and then cut and paste it over to hotmail. Because I do appreciate those long messages. I mean, I know I've only been gone a couple weeks, but I really do want to be kept updated on the homefront, and I'm counting on you because, let's face it, I think contact with the rest of the boys is going to be sporadic at best. Bless their hearts, but most of them aren't regular e-mailers. (Although thus far I did get one e-mail from Rob, and I one from Brett).

Yes, it is too bad we couldn't hang out more this summer, but that's how things go. I understand you were really busy with the new job and everything. Besides, we had a good four years of hanging out at Calvin, right?

What's up with me you ask? Well I don't remember what I wrote you last, so you'll have to excuse me if I repeat myself.

First of all, it's amazing how much I stand out here. I guess that's just stating the obvious, but it is hard to get away from out here.

I got back from orientation in Beppu yesterday. Beppu was a big city, which was nice after a week and a half of small town life. But things in my town aren't bad either. I've been finding ways to keep occupied out here, and the scenery is absolutely beautiful. 

What else, what else? Oh, they have these things in Japan called hot springs. It's kind of like a big hot tub or something, but everyone goes to them naked. (They're not co-ed though. At least usually they're not co-ed. All the ones I've been to have been all male). The first time I was taken to one, I didn't know about the whole naked thing, and that really caught me by surprise.

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I've been having a good time so far, and managing to make some friends. There is one other English speaker in my town, a New Zealander, and we hang out a lot. And there is a Welsh JET in the neighboring town just 10 minutes away. Otherwise when I'm talking to Japanese people I just talk slow, use lots of gestures, and don't say any big works. Most of the time it seems to work. So I'm not completely miserable.

There are lots of stories about JETs returning back to America and having a hard time speaking English again, and I can certainly understand some of that. I'm already starting to do some of my thinking in broken English.

Last weekend I went to a Reggae festival in the neighboring town, and danced to Japanese Reggae and ska music. It was a bit surreal, but a lot of things here are. For example Tuesday night we went out to a club with a 1950s theme, and saw Japanese Elvis and Buddy Holly impersonators.

I indicated I was interested in the Japanese Peace Movement, and my supervisor has been helping me locate books about it. He even took me to talk to a few of his friends who had been involved in the Japanese student movement. (Classes haven't started yet over here, so we've all got a bit of time on our hands at present).

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Dear Brett, Good to hear from you old buddy. I've got a couple of funny stories I've been saving for you because I don't think anyone else would appreciate them quite as much. I went to a Jamaican Reggae festival this weekend, which was a trip in itself, seeing all these Japanese people who were really into Reggae, and all these Japanese groups groups singing Reggae music, and Japanese people wearing punk shirts and with dreadlocks. I guess in and of itself there's nothing too weird about that, but it felt weird because it didn't fit my image of Japan. I expected everyone over here to act Japanese all the time, but they do a lot of the same stuff we do over here, only everyone looks different and speaks a different language. At times it feels like I'm in some sort of parallel universe or something.

Anyway, Ryan, the other JET from my town and I went to this festival on Saturday. On Sunday it was blazing hot, so we decided to spend the afternoon by one of the waterfalls, and go to the festival later. Because this is a mountain town, there are lots of beautiful waterfalls around here, some of them are more crowded than others. The one we went to was kind of a tourist spot. It's still beautiful, but with lots of people around. Kind of like that waterfall we went to Senior Year Spring Break with Bear and Prodigy.

In other news: school still hasn't started yet. School will start on September 1st. Until then...well I don't really know what is going on between now and then. More of just sitting around the office at the Board of Education I think.

The town I'm in is only 8,000 people. It's not too big, but there are towns even more rural than this that JETs get put into, so I guess I'm doing all right. And there's a bigger town only 20 minutes away. The weather is pretty hot and humid. It's not unbearable. It's about like West Michigan on a bad day, but the killer is over here they have that kind of weather every day. But they love their air-conditioning over here. Every place I go has the AC blasting. I thought as a foreigner I would be the one unused to all the heat, but the locals complain about it more than I do.

We do get a bit of rain, but it always seems to be in short dashes. I think the mountains may have something to do with that.

My apartment is pretty nice, a lot like Rob's studio apartment actually.

That's all the news that's fit to print for now. Until next time...

Note:

This post was originally an email that I sent.  I didn't actually start this blog until October 14, 2003.  But in order to preserve a complete record of my travels, I have added in some of my old emails from my Japan days, and backdated them to the date that I originally sent them.