Reflections on being home
I guess this comes under the heading of “better late than never.” You may perhaps recall that when I first returned to Japan, I said I would post some reflections on my trip home. That was almost a month ago now.
I'll divide this into two sections, reflections on the homestay, and then reflections on just being home in general.
Homestay
Now that I’ve returned to Japan and had a chance to meet up with the students again, it is interesting to see which aspects of the homestay trip are getting highlighted. I like to think we were really able to provide a wide range of experiences for the students: spending a day at an American High school, going to a typical American Church service, volunteering at a homeless shelter, going skiing, visiting Lake Michigan, seeing a professional Hockey game, Grand Rapids Museum etc, etc, etc. Yet the only thing the students talk about is going shopping. In fact Mike, the other JET in Ajimu (Ryan’s replacement) after talking to the students, thought that shopping was the only thing we did.
This is particularly surprising to me since Japan has shopping malls to rival anything we went to in Grand Rapids. Granted the actual town of Ajimu is just a small rural community, but Fukuoka (only 2 hours away by train) contains a huge 5 story shopping mall, each floor of which is probably equal to one Woodland Mall.
But I suppose given the fact that the majority of the students I brought with me were 15 year old girls, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that going to the mall would be the highlight of the trip. And the malls in Grand Rapids were filled with different stores and different types of people than the malls in Japan.
And at some point the students must have mentioned other things we did, because one of the teachers at Ajimu High School praised me quite highly for the variety of experiences we had arranged for the students. Of course in Japan flattery is common, so you always have to take compliments with a grain of salt, but I was pleased with how highly he seemed to think of the homestay.
Not that I can take any of the credit for it. My mother actually did most of the work, thinking up activities and making the necessary phone calls to arrange stuff. Over on this end the Ajimu Board of education coordinated everything here, and also thought up of some ideas for the homestay. All I really did was act as a middleman between the Board of Education and my mother. And of course chaperoned. But the students were so well behaved that it really wasn't much work.
Another interesting thing I've noticed the students talk about frequently is how good looking everyone in America is. We had a bit of a post trip party where they showed their pictures to the rest of my Wednesday night English class, and it was interesting to hear what they said, particularly when they were talking in Japanese to each other and presumably under the impression I couldn't understand what they were talking about. They talked at length about how beautiful my mother was, and how cute my younger cousins were. At one point the subject of my former girlfriend came up (whom I had mentioned in passing once during the homestay) and I overheard one student say to the other, “Do you think she is beautiful?” and the reply was, “She must be. There aren’t any people in America who aren’t beautiful.”
All this is made more interesting by the fact that I received several comments from people in America about how good looking my students were, and how beautiful Japanese people appeared to be.
Now that we’re all back in Japan and school has started again, I'm trying to find the line between hurting the feelings of these students by ignoring them completely, and embarrassing them by paying too much attention to them. I made the mistake of warmly greeting one of the students in the hallway last week, and as I was leaving I heard her friends tease her about what good friends the two of us have become. The same day I think I hurt a student's feelings slightly by not acknowledging him when he came into the teacher's room. It's a delicate line, and like many things in life, requires more finesse than I have.

Part 2: being home in general
And what can I say about the mixed emotions of being back home? Sometimes when I would meet good friends again, I felt like it had been a mistake to leave in the first place when I have such valuable friendships back in Grand Rapids. Other times I thought about all I had learned and all the experiences I had since I left, and I was increased in my conviction to continue living abroad in some form or another even after my current job finishes in August.
Sometimes it felt like I had never left Grand Rapids, and that relationships had picked back up right where I had left them. Other times I had the weird feeling of returning to a familiar place, and yet feeling like I didn't belong anymore. Sometimes I felt things hadn't changed at all in Grand Rapids, and I was relieved by that. Sometimes I was frustrated for the same reason (what a boring place where nothing ever changes). At other times it seemed that too much had changed since I left, and I was frustrated by that I no longer knew my city.
All in all, I was somewhat relieved to return to Japan where at least I feel like I know where things stand (even if it is for just another 6 months now).
But I don’t want to harp on this too much, because one thing I realized when I was home is that my experience is not unique. Very few people I know from High school are still in the same place. Most of my friends in Grand Rapids now are friends from Calvin, and not native to the area. So they probably went through all these same emotions many years before I did. Granted perhaps I'm a bit more sentimental about things than the average person, but still.
So I suspect I don’t need to elaborate on these feelings too much, because most people have experienced the same thing about leaving home and coming back again at one point or another.
But it was damn good to see a lot of you again. I really wish time had allowed for me to meet more people.
Living in Japan the past few years has obviously been a choice I made. And with any choice, there is always something lost, and the thing I have regretted the most is loss of proximity to friends and family. The experiences I have had in Japan have I think made my choice worthwhile, but I really wish I could have both.
But as I said already in an e-mail to some of you: I should be home again in August. No promises, but probably. My job will end this August. I don’t know what I'm going to do next, but I have enjoyed my time in Japan for the last 3 years, and would like to stay abroad in some form or another. I imagine it's more than likely that first it will involve a trip home first to sort everything out before I depart again.

homestay
Well, yesterday morning the 8 students left to go back to Japan, so now I finally have some free time on my hands again and can update this blog. What to say about the experience?
As I said in my previous post, really every day of this homestay experience could well have been a long post in its own right. Now that the whole homestay is over, I'll try and condense my stories and thoughts into something readable.
First of all some back ground, because I guess I haven't kept everyone updated on this as well as I could have. Because I went to Sapporo this summer to study Japanese, I had used up just about all my vacation time from my job. When I asked to go home for Christmas, the board of education pointed out that I had no vacation time left. At which point I came up with the idea of taking some students back to America with me, and thus turning it into a "working vacation."
I decided to accept students on a first come first serve basis. We sent out notices to the Junior high and high school, and ended up having 6 students sign up. I had previously said five students was the limit, but when only 6 students signed up, I figured I could sneak another student in.
Later the board of Education wanted to insert 2 University students as well, bringing the total up to eight students. At this point my mother started getting a little worried about spacial concerns, having 8 Japanese students all staying at the Swagman house. This was in addition to all the Swagman Children coming home for the holidays (besides me I have two younger sisters, and one younger brother). It was no doubt a very packed house for the ten days everyone was over here. At the same time though the Japanese students were all great and were a pleasure to have around the house, and I think everyone in my family was sorry to see them go.
Being entrusted to take these eight students to a foreign country and chaperon them for ten days was the most responsibility I have ever been given in my life. As we were preparing for this homestay back in Japan, I began to realize the awesome amount of trust these students parents were placing in me, and I was determined to live up to it. The first few days of the homestay especially I was out to prove myself as a responsible adult.
And I got off to a terrible start. At the airport in Osaka there were at least two occasions when I almost left a student behind at a restaurant or a book store. The university students (who were in many ways more responsible than me, even though they were 3 and 6 years younger) had to stop me on both occasions to make sure we didn't leave anyone behind. After that I started counting heads before we went anywhere, but it was an embarrassing start to the event.
The weather in Kyushu is much warmer than Michigan, so I wanted to make sure everyone brought warm winter coats. And everyone did. Except me. I, the Michigan native, forgot my winter coat in Japan, even though all the kids remembered theirs.
But actually, as those of you who have been in West Michigan for the past week know, the weather was unseasonably warm. In Kyushu we rarely get snow, and so I've been telling stories about Michigan winters for the past two years, and I think I perhaps lost a bit of credibility when the students arrived and there was barely any snow on the ground.
The two university students could speak quite good English. The High school and junior high school students not so much, so I was doing a lot of translating this week. How good is my Japanese? Honestly I think it depends on the day. This may be true of anyone learning a foreign language. I have days when I can string sentences together with ease, and days when I have to work really hard to say the most elementary of things. I had good days and bad days this past week. Some days I got sick of speaking in Japanese, and talked to the kids mostly in English. Somedays I was trying to show off what I knew, and spoke mostly in Japanese. I did a lot of switching back and forth between the two languages, and sometimes mixed up what person goes with what language. Often I would say something in English to a student, get a blank look from them, and then have to repeat it in Japanese. And once I accidentally addressed a question in Japanese to my mother, which got a big laugh from my students.
We had a busy week. The students spent one day at Calvin Christian high school, one day at the Inner City Christian Federation (teaching origami to the children there). We went to Woodland Mall and River town crossings mall and the IMAX theater, and we went to Meijers 4 times. I took them to Lake Michigan for a day, and Cannonsburg ski area for a day, and we played laser tag.
Also they went to church with our family the first Sunday. None of the students are Christians, but I told them it was an important part of American culture. The next Sunday we skipped Church, and I told them skipping Church is also an important aspect of American culture, so I think they got a well rounded experience.
And of course Christmas.
Christmas exists in Japan, but it isn't a major holiday. The comparison I like to make is with Valentines day in the U.S. Everyone knows when in it is and the decorations are up in the stores, but you don't get the day off from work or school, and don't usually do anything special.
So the students were very amazed that Christmas was such a big deal in the United States. And we showed them the whole Christmas experience: Two big Christmas dinners on two separate days with both sets of relatives, a family gift exchange (don't worry, we gave the Japanese students gifts as well) and we took them to our Church's Christmas eve service. One student in particular told me she had no idea Christmas was so important in America.
It was really a lot of fun having the students here for the past ten days. I enjoyed showing them around my hometown, and showing them what life is like in America. But as you can imagine, I haven't had any time to myself while they were here. And I hadn't really had any time to reconnect with any friends.
I ran into an old friend from Calvin at the Griffins Hockey game (which I also took my students too). I won't post her name online without her permission, but lets just call her M.G.. She said she knew I was back in town, but wasn't going to call me because she thought I would be too busy and wouldn't want to hang out with her.
Well M.G., I was pretty busy, but the students have gone back now, so I have some free time until January 10, when I head back to Japan. And am interested in getting in touch with you and the rest of the old gang, so give me a call (I'm at my parents house), or e-mail me (joelswagman@yahoo.com). Hope to see a lot of the old gang in the next few days.

Philosophy of web logging
I've discovered a little irony about web logging recently. When nothing exciting is happening to me, I have lots of time to write on this web log, but not too much to say. On the other hand, when I'm really busy and doing interesting things, then I don't have time to update the weblog.
The reason I haven't updated in a week is because I'm pretty busy right now. I'm back in Grand Rapids, with 8 Japanese students, conducting a one week homestay over the holidays. (Perhaps you remember I had a couple of previous posts about getting ready for this homestay).
And really each day of this week so far has yielded a number of interesting stories that I really wish I had time to put up on this blog. Each day by itself should be a full entry.
Unfortunately all I have time for right now is this lame message apologizing for not posting more messages. And this will probably be true until the end of the week. At which time, hopefully I can put together a nice summary of the week and post it here.

Christianity in Japan:
Ajimu Elementary school is preparing for the Culture Festival next month. As part of the Human Rights curriculum in the Japanese schools, the culture festival usually features a drama dealing with problems of discrimination in Japan. This year the topic is persecution of Japanese Christians during the Edo Period. I was called in today to answer the children's questions about Christianity, and also to show them how to pray for the purpose of the drama.
There is a lot of ignorance about Christianity in Japan, and most of what is known is gleamed from American movies. Now, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but for a predominately Protestant country, we have a lot of Catholic imagery in our movies. (I suspect because the rituals of Catholicism make a better visual on the big screen). Thus Japanese people associate Catholic rituals with American Christianity.
For instance whenever the subject of Christianity or prayer comes up, a Japanese person will usually gesture by crossing themselves the way Catholics always do in the movies. When I first came to Japan, I tried to explain that we Protestants don't usually make the sign of the cross when we pray. But most Japanese people don't know the difference between Catholics and Protestants, so this usually leads to discussion about the reformation that is very difficult to conduct across the language barrier.
The other difficulty is Japan, as a country which has historically been isolated from the rest of the world, often has a lot of stereotypes about the outside world. These stereo types can be very difficult to break. It's almost impossible to convince a Japanese person that Protestants don't cross themselves, when that Japanese person "knows" for a fact that all Christians make the sign of the cross when praying.
So, this is a battle I gave up on a long time ago. If a Japanese person asks me if I pray everyday, and then makes the cross sign, I just go along with it and say, yes, I do make the cross sign all the time when I pray. I also go along with all the other stereotypes about Christians that come from Hollywood. For instance, we all wear crosses around our neck, which we pull out at various times during the day and clutch with both hands while we kiss it.
And today followed much the same pattern. When I was asked to teach the children how to pray, I just taught them to cross themselves like they see in the movies. There was a question about whether to cross from the right shoulder or the left shoulder, and I didn't know, so I just guessed, but pretended I knew what I was talking. And when asked what they are supposed to say while they cross ourselves, I just made that up as well. ("In the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen"--I think that's right, but I too am just going by Hollywood movies).
I'm a little nervous about how much time I added to my stay in purgatory today by lying about prayer, but it was so much easier to just tell them what they expected to hear. Even in my own English conversation classes, where I am preparing the Junior high school students for a trip to America, I followed this pattern. We were talking about Church, and after initially trying to explain that we don't cross ourselves in my church, I just gave up on it.
So, I'm a little worried my credibility will be at stake when these Junior High school students come to America with me this December. So if it's not too much to ask, I need a little help from anyone who happens to encounter me and these students over Christmas break. If you could just please cross yourselves from time to time, and every once and a while pull out a cross from around your neck and kiss it, I would really appreciate it.

As we've been getting ready for the homestay, I've been doing lessons with the Junior high school students on American communication. I have a bilingual book (“Do as Americans Do”) that talks about American manners, and it is often quite funny to try and teach the kids from this book.
For instance, the book had a section on eye-contact. In Japan it is often disrespectful to make eye contact with superiors, but the book said that in America eye-contact is important in a conversation. But, the book cautioned, staring too intently can make the other person feel uncomfortable. So the book said a good rule of thumb is to try and make eye-contact 60% of the time during a conversation.
Perhaps good on paper, but you can imagine these kids practicing their English conversation, and trying to get the eye-contact just right at 60%. They were so frustrated.
Last night was a lesson on small talk. Small talk doesn't really exist in Japan in the sense you would never strike up a conversation with someone you don't know. I had the students pretend that they were waiting at the bus stop, and that they didn't know each other, and to come up with a conversation. They wrote it out, and then performed it. It really made me laugh, so I’m reproducing it here. Mistakes are of course uncorrected

Ryosuke; It sure is a nice day, isn't it?
Marie: Yes, it is.
Nozomi: Yes, and I heard on the radio that it’s going to stay like this.
Ryosuke: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Marie: Yes, I have two brothers and one sisters.
Nozomi: Me too. I have two sisters.
Ryosuke: Really? I have a sister. She is very fool. How about you?
Marie: Everyone too.
Nozomi: I think my sister is more fool than yours.
Ryosuke: Really? Good. Where do you live?
Marie: I live in Ajimu.
Nozomi: I live in Kamiichi in Ajimu.
Ryosuke: Really? I live in Ajimu too.


Perhaps you had to see the performance to really laugh about this. I endure a lot of mockery at the junior high school because of my bad Japanese, so I don’t feel too bad about enjoying the humor in their mistakes (I didn't laugh at this to their face obviously). That said, I could never have produced a dialogue like this in a foreign language when I was 15, so fair play to them.