Lift Up Your Hearts!

We relaxed a bit this morning, spending our time packing, reading, and practicing kanji, depending on who we were. :) Our lunch was a fitting ending to our visit: Naito sensei, Shimizu sensei, and Yuko had prepared a feast at Naito sensei's house. This also gave us a chance to meet Naito sensei's husband, daughter, and dog. (We have not seen many pets in Japan.) Janet enjoyed helping Naito sensei make sushi. Not to take away anything from the effort that went into the preparation, which is an art, but the Japanese have one great advantage over us when it comes to making sushi: one can buy beautiful pieces of fish, cut to appropriate sizes, at the grocery store! In addition to the fabulous sushi, we had delicious rolled-up sandwiches—one variety of which was strawberries and whipped cream!—salad, tea, and possibly some other delight I forgot to write down. For dessert we had lovely, individual confections that came from a bakery we had passed yesterday on our walk to the Takeda Shrine. We had looked in the bakery window briefly, but if we'd known what was awaiting us inside, we would have lingered.

As delicious as the meal was, the best part of the afternoon was the conversation. Out of courtesy to us, most of the conversation was in English, but some was also in Japanese as the four teachers discussed the new school year. (Did I mention that the Japanese school year begins in April?) They just received their new assignments and of course there was some excited buzz about that. Perhaps the conversation went a little more slowly because Janet was included, but I was thrilled to be able to understand just a little of the Japanese! Not enough by any means to follow the conversation, much less participate in anything beyond a simple greeting and "thank you very much"; but knowing the general subject and being able to recognize a few words and phrases, I was sometimes able to discern one word from another and have a vague idea of what they were talking about, which was really exciting. Okay, so it doesn't sound exciting, but for me there was a huge difference between the afternoon's conversation and my general experience of the Japanese language here, which is a totally incomprehensible wash of sound.

Here, also, we were given beautiful gifts: a Japanese box and bookmarks. The Japanese have certainly taken hospitality to great heights. Sometimes I think the custom of omiyage may be overdone, and could be accused of multiplying clutter and needless expense, but I can certainly learn something from their generosity as hosts. After we had left the Okajima store I on Tuesday, I had realized that we had perhaps not paid enough attention to getting souvenirs. (Shopping is an activity we all avoid whenever possible.) Not to worry! Everywhere we've been, our hosts have taken care of that omission, probably better than we could have ourselves.

I've been a bad tourist in another way on this trip: I brought no camera, since ours is heavy and a bit awkward. Instead I relied on Porter's new cell phone—the phone itself doesn't work in Japan, but the camera feature does—and Janet's new Japanese camera. This afternoon, not only did the teachers take many pictures, but so did Naito sensei's father-in-law, who is a photographer, so I hope to get a copy of some of them. Easy picture sharing is one of the great things about digital photography!

We were home in time to leave again. Janet's friend Aden, from China, took us to his apartment for dinner. He is a student here in Japan, and hopes to teach when he returns to China. On the way, we found out that in China people drive on the right hand side, while in Hong Kong they drive on the left, which makes for an interesting cross-over between the two.

The only thing wrong with our delicious, many-course dinner is that Aden, as cook, couldn’t join us until dessert. He explained that in China the cook does not eat with the guests, because of the nature of Chinese cooking. I can't give a good description of what we ate, but it included tea (of course), salad, vegetables, two dishes with rice (one of which was mapo doufu), with oranges (sliced and served with the rind as a cup) for dessert.

It was awesome to have the privilege of talking, as friends, with someone from Mainland China. It would not have been appropriate, in this situation, to discuss anything controversial or political, but conversation about ordinary life was sufficient to reveal vast differences in our understanding of certain situations and events. This highlights one of the greatest lessons I've learned on this trip: If we're serious about working for world peace, we must increase greatly opportunities for cultural exchange, in which real, ordinary individuals from one country get to know real, ordinary individuals from another. But that's a subject worthy of its own blog post.

"You can't out give the Japanese"—even when they're really Chinese. As were leaving, Aden gave us a large bag of the jasmine tea he had served us, tea which was grown in his home town!