Japan E-mails August 29, 2001

 (Retrospection)

[From my predecessor, Ben]
Have you gone from to any of the waterfalls around Ajimu yet? Drive past Tsubusa and you’ll see signs for it. I used to go swimming there after working out.]

My response:
Yes, I have seen the waterfalls, although I haven’t had a chance to spend a lot of time there. And speaking of working out, I’m looking to get into a work out routine. Is there a gym or something around here that you can go to?

Driving has been going okay. As I mentioned beforehand, I am unused to driving a manual transmission car. And there are a couple other things that threw me off about driving in Japan. The whole left side of the road thing was okay when I was thinking about it, but sometimes I would be concentrating on the shifting instead and would automatically turn into the right lane of traffic. (Don’t worry, no accidents yet).
Also, the roads are so damn narrow. I think even in the states I had a tendency to drive too far to the side of the road (just from being an overly cautious person that I am and not wanting to hit the cars coming the other way) and of course you can’t do that over here because you’ll drive the car right into the irrigation ditch. (And again, don’t worry, I haven’t actually done that yet either. Although I won’t mention just how close I did come).

Anyway, I’m afraid I must have given the impression that I couldn't drive at all, because they've been giving me driving lessons in the parking lot. And they've been using an automatic transmission car to teach me on. I tried to explain that I can drive an automatic no problem, and that is was only the manual transmission that was given me problems, but I don’t speak Japanese and their English is limited so it is often hard to get these concepts across the language barrier. (I guess this isn't all bad however. The lower their expectations are for me, the easier it will be to impress them).

Here’s the thing though: they went looking for another car that I could drive more easily, and they found an automatic for me. At first I insisted that I was learning the manual gradually, but they made a good case for me to switch over to the automatic. It is in excellent condition, so I won’t have to worry about it breaking down or repairs. The Shaken [Japanese road worthy certification] is good until next August, and the car I inherited from you is good only until January. Plus the price sounded very reasonable.

So, I’m going with the new car. They want me to trade in your car for it, and I tried to explain that it wasn't my car to trade, and that I was just borrowing it from you, but again the language barrier is limiting how well I can get this across. They are insisting that it is not your car, that you drove another car, and that this is Sam’s car. Anyway, what do you want me to do with your car when I change over to the other one?

And another thing. I found 98 American dollars in the apartment, possibly left over from a trip to Thailand (it was with some other Thai stuff). Now, you’ll have to excuse me, I’m new at this whole living overseas thing, so what is the best way to get the $ back to you?

[Editor’s note: the case of Ben’s forgotten money represents both my best and worst qualities: my good intentions matched against my laziness. I had every good intention of sending him that money, as evidenced by the fact I e-mailed him about it. Which was very nice of me (if I don’t say so myself). I could easily have just kept quiet about it.
Ben told me to just hide it in a card and mail it too him, but I was new in Japan and out in the countryside simple things like mail seem like a huge undertaking. Where do you buy stamps and envelopes out in the middle of nowhere? How do you communicate with the post office staff? I wasn't even sure where the post office was in those early days.]

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To my cousin Jeff,
How are things going for you? I am in Japan now, and getting myself settled in. You’ll have to forgive my forgetfulness, but I don’t remember where in Japan you will be when you come here (or have you arrived in Japan already?) Anyway, last time I e-mailed you I don’t believe I knew my address yet. Actually I still don’t know my address, but at least now I have a vague idea of where I am. I am in the town of Ajimu, near the city of Usa, in Oita prefecture, on the Island of Kyushu. So, tell it to me straight Jeff, are we anywhere near each other, or are my chances of running into you about equal with my chances of meeting the prime minister?

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To my supervisor:
Hope your new hotmail account works out good for you. Hotmail is very nice because it is free, and also because lots of people use it so it is easy to remember your e-mail address ending. However it can be frustrating at times too, so be careful. Sometimes the system crashes, and if you’re writing a letter when it crashes you will have to start all over again. At other times hotmail can be very slow, because many people are using it at the same time. And sometimes you can get a lot of junk mail in your hotmail account.
Hope this helps.

[This was an e-mail I sent at my supervisors request to test out his hotmail account. I had been trying to explain to him how the internet works, and that he could check his e-mail from any computer he wanted to ( he had a hard time understanding this concept, and I had to draw pictures of how different computers are all connected to a central internet, and his e-mail account was not actually located on his computer). Because his English was limited, and because he was my supervisor, I composed this e-mail using very simple (and perhaps, on reading it, somewhat patronizing) English.
At the time a number of my friends had been complaining about losing long e-mails when Hotmail would suddenly crash on them. I think they've since fixed that problem, as well as developed more controls on junk mail, but you can see I included these concerns here in this e-mail.]

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Things are going good over here. I went swimming in the Ocean last night. It was the first time I had a chance to go swimming in the Ocean since I got here. The water was surprisingly warm, but I still like Lake Michigan better. After you go swimming in the Ocean, you get all sticky and salty from it.

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To Bob (from Media Mouse)

I have been corresponding with Erica via e-mail, and we have been batting ideas back and forth together. I have been thinking of ways I could still help out Media Mouse even over here from Japan, and I have a couple of ideas for the website that I thought would be cool, but I don’t want to create any trouble for you [the website designer].

I've been tentatively thinking about doing some writing about periods in radical history, but that might be a little down the road at this point. I thought maybe something easier to set up might be a radical literature review section. I think maybe this could really take off pretty well. I mean probably each person at Media Mouse is well read in radical literature, and could, if they wanted, probably contribute at least 5 reviews each.
Admittedly this project isn't very activist oriented, but it would be a good way for us to recommend (or not recommend as the case maybe) books to each other and anyone else who visits the site.
Now, be honest with me here Bob, for each review I send you how much trouble is it going to be for you to add to the site. If this is going to create significantly more work for you, I don’t want to do it.

[Editor’s note: with my typical ignorance of computers, I was completely unaware of how much trouble it would or would not be to add book reviews to the website. I’m now a little less ignorant, and am aware that is simply a matter of cutting and pasting.]

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To: my sister
Things are going well here. I just got done with my tour with the Back Street Boys. No, don’t worry, I didn't do any singing, I just drove them around in their bus and helped them set up their microphones before they sang. It was okay, but I don’t think they’re music was near as good as N’Sync. Hopefully if N’Sync comes to Japan, I will be able to tour with them too, but I might be very busy teaching during the school year, so we’ll see.

I gave the bandannas you made to my supervisors family. It was nice because there were 4 bandannas and 4 people in the family. They liked them very much and are currently using them as place mats at the table.