Only the new students were required to be at the first half of the orientation to get a more in-depth description about the program, its history and goals. The program's supervisor, Ken Hase-G* (Hase-G was a nickname one of the boys I became good friends with started calling him), introduced all of the professors and staff involved and then each and every new student were asked to introduce themselves and state their major. There were students from all over the world: South Korea, Taiwan, China, Australia, France, Africa, Russia, and Sweden. In total there were only 30 new students accepted that semester, and with the 20 students that were already there for one semester there was only a total of 50 people within the program. I felt really lucky to be a part of the program because it took me about 5 months of paper-work, essay writing and interviews to get accepted and I was chosen at of hundreds of people all over the world that applied. To be honest, I didn't think I would have gotten selected.
After the first part of the orientation we were all brought into a bigger room where the students from the previous semester were waiting. Lina, Kallie and I took our seats in the front and center of the room and looked around to see if we could spot the people we knew. We spotted James and waved at each other and then I pointed out Cindy, who was sitting alone in the back, and then they told me where the Swede boy from their school was sitting. He was a massive and tall blonde who had smug facial features and always wore a smirk on his face. Lina and Kallie told me to be careful to not let him notice that I'm looking at him otherwise he'd think I was checking him out. Malinda, "The Boss", came in and sat in the back with a curly red-haired girl and a tall, scrawny mousy-haired young looking boy. The French girls all sat in a table with each other and kept to themselves. A new-comer group of blonde, white American boys that all looked identical sat at their own table, looking scared and helpless. The Swedes and I could already tell that there were cliques established within the program, both in the previous semester students and newcomers; and we were our own clique.
At that part of the orientation everyone stood up and introduced each other (gah! so many introductions) and then Hase-G explained what we were expected to do that semester. First he talked about the classes offered during the semester and the procedure for signing up for classes. Each class was an hour-and-a-half long and held just once a week, except for Japanese classes that had their own special circumstances depending on if one took a regular or intensive class. After taking a placement test, each student is assigned into a class appropriate for their level.
A = Beginning
B = Beginning/Intermediate
C = Intermediate
D = Intermediate/Advanced
E = Advanced
Individuals were placed into different leveled classes for each different Japanese language subject such as Kanji; Speaking and Listening; and Grammar. Therefor, a person could be placed into level C Grammar, Speaking and Listening but test poorly on the Kanji section of the test and be placed into level A Kanji.
We also had the option of learning more than just one level of Japanese at a time. Let's say that if a student was placed into A, he or she could choose to take a regular Japanese course and learn the entire A level material within one semester. If the person is super-crazy (like I was) they could choose to take an intensive course and learn both A and B level material within one semester. Keep in mind that back in America (and the other countries that everyone came from), universities take a whole year to teach just one level. Therefor, by taking a regular Japanese course through the study abroad program, a person comparatively learns an entire years worth of Japanese in just one semester. And, by taking an intensive course, a person learns TWO YEARS worth of learning Japanese at their home university in one semester (or three months).
Each different level of Japanese courses were usually held twice or more a week with regular classes lasting the normal hour-and-a-half long each day, and intensive courses lasting three hours each day. Kanji classes were held just once a week.
After explaining how the Japanese placement and courses worked Hase-G told us about the Individual Research Project we were all expected to complete. Before being accepted to the program, each applicant had to write a one-paged essay describing what they wished to research and why. Hase-G then explained that they put us into groups of people with related subjects and work together on an end-of-the-semester presentation. He told us to meet with our groups and then he proceeded to call out the names of each person and what group they belonged to. I was grouped with the people who all had Korean related subjects, but I was researching post-war Japanese literature and it just didn't fit. I asked Hase-G if I could change my independent research project's subject to 入れ墨／irezumi (traditional Japanese tattooing) and he gave me the 'OK' and put me in a group with four Australians who were all researching sub-cultures and art in Japan.
I was excited to have changed my subject because it would be a lot easier and it would give me the excuse to visit various tattoo shops in Japan. It would also give me the opportunity to share with people that I had tattoos, including a full back tattoo. The Australians decided to make me the group leader even though I had just changed my subject and wasn't exactly sure what I would be doing. We were all slightly confused as to what was going on and how we were supposed to tie our research together and give a presentation connecting them all at the end of the semester. This confusion would last until the end of the semester until the day of the presentations.
Shortly after meeting with our groups orientation ended and the newcomers were given the Japanese placement test. Those who had no Japanese language skills were taken to a different room and given their books and other materials for the level A course. There were only about ten of us who took the placement test. The placement test was really REALLY hard. Since it was a placement test originally created by the Japanese embassy for foreigners wishing to get popular scholarships to Japanese universities, it was written for people at an Intermediate/Advanced Japanese level. The listening section was way too fast, and they used Kanji that I had never seen on each question so I had no idea what it was saying. The only sections I was able to do well on was the essay and Kanji sections. The test ended and we were told that our scores would be posted at our dorms the next morning.
After the test I met up with the Swedes in the ISC (International Student Union) where I talked to a whole bunch of people for the first time. Lina, Kallie and I were invited by Malinda, Kana and James to go to 花見／hanami (literally flower watching) which is a popular event in Japanese culture. We were to go to a park and meet up with a group of the students from the previous semester to eat and drink under the sakura trees that were currently in bloom. Before parting, we were introduced to the other girl from California, Kacey*, who had just arrived the night before. Kacey seemed sweet and bubbly but reminded me of all of the college girls that I absolutely abhorred. We invited her to come along as well.
To be honest, the Swedes and I were kind of put off and annoyed by most of the people in the program, especially the group of people we were going to meet in the park. In the next entry I'll talk about my blooming dislike towards Kacy, my annoyance towards the other students, and going to hanami.
-Ofilia
Spiiiiiiiiiiiiders!!! Buweahhahahaha! Scared? oh? WELL BEEE AFRAAIIIIDDDDDDDD (wow that word looks weird in all caps and elongated... anyway, on to the post!)
Ok, see, I’ve liked spiders most of my life. I have fond childhood memories of throwing carpenter ants into funnel spider webs and watching the spider scurry out and quickly start to suck the juices from the poor ant’s now paralyzed body. But apparently not everyone in this world has such nice memories of spiders. Now, don’t get me wrong… I hate walking through a spider web just as much as anyone else I know (the creepy crawly “OH ME GOODNESSSSSSS IS DE SPIDER OFF ME!?!? IS IT CRAWLING ON MY BACK!??!!? IS IT GOING INTO MY EAR TO LAY ITS EGGS AND EAT MY BRAINS OUT WITH ITS CHILDREN FOR RUNNING INTO ITS WEB AND RUINING ITS WHOLE NIGHT OF WORK!!!?!?!?!" feeling that you get when running into a web…)
Don’t give me those looks, you know you have the exact same thoughts after running into a web.
Only, now, imagine the spiders ten times bigger *and* ten times more plentiful than in America. Before I came to Japan when I thought ‘spider’ I thought of a small, maybe half-dime sized spider that you sometimes catch sneaking out from under the refrigerator. Not so In Japan. Well, I take that back. Japan has those small kinds too, but they are the ridiculously scary-fast jumping spiders that hunt... oh I don’t know… birds or something. These jumping types I kinda like now, actually. You scare them and they bounce away like a toad. But anyway, back to the huge ones! These suckers span at least 4 football fields with their legs, and their webs are.. umm.. I dunno actual measurements, but probably as big as the Milky Way? Yeah that’s about right if I had to guess.
Ok, so, I exaggerated… maybe… a TEEENY bit. But, seriously, only a little. Anywhoo, after watching these giants grow, they intrigue me now. When I arrived in Japan it was already peek “OH… MY… WHAT THE HECK IS … THAT!!!!” (said while pointing at one of the huge spiders) season. The best way for me to describe these spiders verbally (although I am going to have pictures… if I can find them) are, well, WITH their legs they are the size of my palm, without legs, the size of my ring finger, aaaand they are basically everywhere you look. However, they aren’t always this big. It’s only in late august that they put forth their true colours (bright yellow and red. Nature’s way of saying “I r going to be killz0ring you” (translation into normal English, “I’m poisonous.”)
It’s this growth process that interests me and I was sad when it ended and all the monst... err spiders suddenly disappeared when winter fell. But before we get to the superly amazingly and interesting growth process, one of the other interesting aspects of these spiders is the fact that they hardly ever move. Negating a visit by the typhoon monster (sometimes even normal rain didn’t dislodge them) I would place money on their being in the exact same place and web that I first spied them. When I first arrived, the spiders were toward the end of their life cycle and had already staked claims to what tree, post, fence or whatever they wanted. Because of this it only took roughly three days to know which areas to avoid, when to duck, (and funny as it is) when to jump. (lets just say I sometimes took the path less traveled.) but from the time I arrived till spider death, they stayed in exactly the same places and, apparently rebuilt identical webs when needed. But I dunno, I'm not sure they'd ever needed to rebuild... I can only see the webs of these spiders being damaged as a result of catching a bird… or two......(or three). I can say this because I accidentally played the part of a bird on two or three occasions, running into webs of finely woven steel and subsequently doing the freak out dance of spiderweb-on-ya. I remember it so well... one time, when I unknowingly attempted to walk through one of these webs, it felt like my face was trying to force its way through a wall the density of something between Styrofoam and cement. I know for an absolute fact that if I was spider prey, these webs are definitely strong enough to catch a good three or four of me before needing replacement.
Like I said earlier, I hardly ever saw these spiders in motion, however, there were a few times that I did. There was this one time that I was walking home late at night and I briefly glanced up from my txting and, to my surprise, saw one of these palm-sized spiders dangling from a single cord, evily clawing the air with all eight legs literally inches from my face. I also could have sworn I heard whispers of spidertalk saying, “Peekaboo! Walk one more step…please…I want… I.. want… to… to… eeeeeeeeeeeeeat…. your… your…your braaaaainseses…….Bwauehaehahahahaahahahahahhahahhahahhahahahahaha!!!!!!!... mew.” (spiders can want to be cats too, you know!)
The only other time I ever saw one of these spiders move was when I was forced by the dormitory's authorities to clean my balcony before moving out (one of the standard requirements. Bah. leaving a country is almost as hard-stupid as moving in!) Seeing as I hadn’t cleaned or been on this shabby thing called a balcony all year, when I opened my window to see the state that it currently was in, I was expecting to see a few spiders living there. In retrospect, taking into account the proportion of spiders living in japan, there were only a couple living on my porch. There just happened to be twelve palm sized spiders, which to american me, doesn't really feel like just a couple though. Oddly enough though, these twelve spiders were hanging in what appeared to be sixteen different webs. I am not sure what the extra 4 webs were for, perhaps catching birds, or human babies, but evil human me knocked them all down with two pieces of wood I had hiding behind my bed. Yep, the remnants of the 2x4 I had smashed up earlier in the semester. This whole situation was fun, but creepy at the same time. With twelve spiders around, and me having to actually set foot outside on the balcony, I was always wondering if/where one was sneaking up from to extract its revenge for knocking down its web. I was guessing if one attacked, it'd just kill me, but who knows what kind of spider derived torturing methods they have! so, I knew I had to be extra careful since spiders can be coming from below… or from the side… or from above… or from a second spider-demention... or anywhere! I have often wondered who is more sneaky, a spider bent on killin’ a person who just knocked down its web or a ninja who just… well I dunno... wants to kill someone? Is that what ninjas do? I think so. Anywho.. yeah.. So in one year, those were the only times I’ve ever seen these spiders move.
Now, I guess I should get to the growth process, since I DID say it was the most interesting part. Well, it is, but it’s kind of hard to explain. Basically it is interesting to me because when the giant yellow/red spiders disappeared I became extremely sad. But when spring…hehe…hehe…sprang (sorry I just HAD to use those words together :D) I replaced the sadness in my heart with an interest in these little green spiders I started to notice. These spiders were probably the size of a grain of rice, that’s how little they were. But anyway, I saw them all over the place, and had never noticed them before. I thought it was because I was too busy noticing the giant yellow and red spiders so I felt an odd feeling of regret for overlooking them, but little did I know, these tiny green spiders turned out to BE the giant yellow and red spiders! That’s right, apparently when they are little, and haven’t the power to make the bird-catchingly strong webs as a defense against… well… birds, so they stay a greenish colour and spin webs strong enough to catch a few of these. Once they eat a few of those, and start to get bigger and bigger and then MASSIVELY HUGE, they start to get a little yellow, and then when they reach about palm size they add a giant dot of red to their stomachs as if to say, “RAWR! I R SPIDER! I HAVE RETURNED TO EAT FRED’S BRAAAAAINS ONCE AGAIN!!! MUEWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!... mew” (yet again, seriously! spiders can want to be cats too!)
Anyways, so… yeah.
I like spiders.
[Ken Hase-G] That’s good.
-Fred
It was all black. Everything! THE WALLS WERE CLOSING IN!!! THE WORLD IS EEENNDDDIIINNGGGG!!! Oh, wait, nono, it was just the dark hotel, the night before my flight to Japan, and I was sitting there on my brand new laptop plunking my feelings of mild anticipation into written word. I wrote:
To be honest, [going to Japan] hasn't hit me yet. I know a little while ago I said it had, however that was but a fleeting thought. I do not think that it will hit me until I land in Narita and realize something such as, "oh my goodness... they are all so short... and me 6'1"... I AM GODOZIRA!
Anyway, time for me to get some sleep. I do have an exciting day ahead of me. Well, its more like stressful and boring I suppose...
And a day full of stressful boringness it was. In the morning I was awoken by my parents and then endured the groggy five minute drive to the Atlanta airport. We got there four hours early and ridiculously early in the morning as all international flights "require." We had no trouble checking in, and then sat at Wendy's for an hour or so tiredly awaiting my departure through security. When I finally had to leave I hugged my parents goodbye and entered the mindlessly forward-shuffling security line. I found my gate fairly easy, and was forced to sit around for the next few hours being bored out of my mind and extremely annoyed at the “be there 4 hours early for international travel!” standard. I boarded my plane and when it lifted off I had finally departed from American soil for the first time. On this journey the only the instructions I had were, “When you arrive in Japan, exit the terminal and you’ll see an orange counter. It is the limousine bus service. Take it to Yokohama. Your tutor will meet you there.”
Stepping onto that airplane with so little information was slightly nerve wracking. I mean, I felt like I drastically lacked information, had poor Japanese skills, (My Japanese was about to the point of almost communicating “I have to pee!” after three or four tries) and basically zero experience in air travel, and during this trip I was about to fly 5000 miles landing in an Asian country for a year long exchange program. Pretty valid reason for being nervous if you ask me!
Before this international flight, I had only one experience in air travel, and It was a one hour flight from GA to NY with no transfers or layovers or anything. Ahh... memories... anyway, at the time of that flight I was sixteen, and I was dropped off at a gate, and immediately picked up right as I exited the terminal. Not a huge airport experience. Layovers? Checking the monitors for the number of my next flight? Navigating terminals? I had no idea these things even existed, let alone how to do them.
I boarded the first leg of my flight and sat down in my window seat hoping my currently absent seat mates would either be pleasant or not make the flight. That leg was only an hour and a half or so I wasn’t really that concerned, but still…
A few moments later a woman and her 10 year old daughter sat down next to me. "Oh no a kiiiidddddd…" thought a wary me, but she was well behaved, and as they were walking up I noticed that the daughter’s carry-on luggage happened to be a violin. Definitely a plus in my book. Once everyone was settled, I got to chatting with the mother, and the more we talked the more she reminded me of my early years with my mother and my cello. I guess this was mainly because they were going home from a Suzuki convention, but still. Throughout the flight the mom was perky and preoccupied with sudoku, and the daughter was well behaved and colouring, so all was well and stayed well throughout that flight. We chit chatted about music and whatnot for a few minutes, and then I succeeded in sleeping for the hour remaining before being awoken by the “we are now approaching…” speech.
It wasn’t till I awoke that I groggily found out that the flight monitors existed. This happened when I pulled out the boarding pass to the second leg of my journey to check what gate I must be at, aaand it was totally blank. What?! I thought it would just be printed on the ticket, I mean that’s how the first boarding pass worked, right? Much to my chagrin, it was totally blank! Silly untraveled me, I had no idea what to do. After a few moments of quick brainstorming I came to the conclusion that, yep, I still had no idea what to do. It was a pretty stressful moment, seeing as the first leg of my journey put me 20 minutes behind schedule and my layover in O'Hare was only 50 minutes long. But I sucked up my pride and asked my new found friend what to do. I mean, I HAD already told her that I didn‘t travel much, was going to Japan, played the cello, cry at sad movies, sit down when I pee, have murdered 5 people, flown to the moon and mars, wanted to become a famous dog trainer, never finished the 6th grade, ate live octopus, cut off my legs once so I could be crippled for fun, invented the internet, caused global warming, ate yogurt, petted a dog, licked a frozen pole, had to rip my tongue off said pole, cried a little, couldn’t taste things for days, once smacked off the high dive, didn’t like roller coasters, sporadically had super powers, could see the future, ate pie, liked pie, wanted more pie, wanted her to make me pie… etc.
Ooor, I could have just said “since we had hit it off and chatted a little.” but anyway, back to the story. I asked the lady sitting next to me for advice, and she told me “oh that’s what the monitors are for!” problem solved.
I left the airplane, checked the monitor, found my next gate, sat around boarded for a few moments, (the gate wasn't far from where we arrived) boarded the plane, and sat myself down in my comfy aisle seat, once again hoping my seat mates wouldn't be, for the lack of a better phrase, poopoo heads. Originally I had planned to study Japanese a bit on this 14 hour flight from O'Hare to Narita, but when I sat down I realized, the Asians had attacked! They were everywhere! I was embarrassed to pull out my “Genki: Elementary Japanese” book and study “Hello, I am Fred, nice to meet you.” like phrases again. So, I didn't. Instead I read the few English books I had snagged from my parents moments before leaving them, listened to the little Japanese music I had brought, and slept. Randomly I did this in a pretty solid rotation. Read for an hour or so, listened to music for half an hour or so, tried to sleep for an hour or so, and repeat. For fourteen hours. Ugh. Oh and I peed a few times. That flight was boring. ugh. Anyway, I did start and finish a relatively boring a six hundred page book flight, so thats... kind of an accomplishment?
It ended up that no one sat next to me, so I had a lot of space. Overall it was as pleasant a 14 hour flight as could be expected. Toward the end of the flight, I talked with the American across the aisle from me. He had been in Japan before, spoke fairly good Japanese, and oddly enough during the flight walked all over the place making friends with all the old Japanese people. When I spoke with him thought he had sat back down in his seat. All I remember of that conversation was that he told me, “You’ll have fun... Just do whatever is suggested and never say no to anything, ever, the whole year, even if it sounds really, really weird.” I nodded my head and tentatively decided to live my year with that logic. (Other than morally corrupt things like when I was invited to a Love Hotel ; ))
We made plans to meet up sometime because he was located in Tokyo and I was in Yokohama, but we didn’t ever follow through on them because we didn’t exchange contact information since he had already been in Japan and could go through the “Already been in Japan or Japanese citizen” line of customs. It was a lot quicker than the first timers line, so he was already gone when I got to baggage although we said we'd meet there. He wasn’t one of them hawt Asian chicks anyways, thought, so I didn’t really think much of losing contact so quickly.
Like I said, it took me a while to get through the first timers' customs and being untraveled like I was, I accidentally went to the one carousel that had people gathered around it. I stood there for a good 10-20 minutes wondering how I could ensure that this was the right place, but since it was the only one with bags or people in the whole airport, I just stood there. Everyone was Asian, who was I supposed to ask? I didn’t know if anyone even spoke English! When my bags still hadn't come, and I spied two white people with bags who were talking in English walk by, I asked for help. They told me about the monitor’s (yet again) which I hadn’t noticed. I thanked them and found the right place for me (which had no bags on it even when I first got there) I wandered around it mentally scratching my head in “wtf”ness and then turned the last corner and saw my bags sitting on the floor in a line of apparently unclaimed bags. Apparently by the time I left customs my flight’s bags had already been completely collected and the 7-8 that were left were just pulled off the carousel and placed on the ground. I thought this was rather odd because I walked pretty briskly to customs when I got off the flight, and didn't have that much trouble in customs, so I can only guess that everyone on my flight was already from Japan and flew through customs and got their bags before I made it though noobie-firstimers' customs. Meh, who knows.
Anyway, I grab my bags and went through the mandatory “are you bringing drugs/alcohol through here” blahblah and exit the terminal with just the 3 lines of instructions I had been emailed nervously running over and over again in my head. Luckily, although they were much more concise than I would have liked, they were perfect. I exited the terminal, and a big bright orange counter was right in front of me. I bought a ticket (in English since I was too scared to try Japanese) and went out to the bus stop (which was right outside) and waited for my bus to Yokohama.
Even though the majority of people in the airport and on the plane were Asian, it hadn’t truly hit me that I was in an Asian country until I stepped onto that bus and for the first time ever I noticed and truly felt that I was the minority. The only language I heard was Japanese, every seat but one was taken by a Japanese person, everyone was wearing Japanese clothes, people were using Japanese cell phones and reading Japanese books... sufficient to say, it was an odd feeling being a white male and being the only minority on that bus. I sat down next to a Japanese business man in the only empty seat left, and 20 minutes later remembered that I had forgotten to say “座ってもういいですか。” (May I sit here?) which is the polite, and culturally expected thing to do. "Oh well," I thought, "I’d have been too nervous to say it out loud anyway."
I dozed off and on for the two hours that the bus trip took and then arrived at YCAT (Yokohama) terminal. When I stepped off the bus, three hours later than planned because of delays, my tutor was standing there bored but still holding a piece of paper in hand saying “Fred Nicodemus.”
He picked up the heaviest of my bags, waved goodbye to his tutor friends, and after briefly greeting me, we shuffled off toward Yokohama's taxi stop. He had planned on taking the subway to Minesawa-kamicho, but it was late, we were both tired, and I had heavy bags to carry. All I remember about the conversation we had that first night was that I attempted to talk in Japanese, and failed, and he attempted to talk in English, and failed. I do remember him trying to remember the English word for "Major" and i said "senmonwa?" and he was all happy... but the littlest Japanese from a white person makes Japanese people happy, so meh. Anyway, this first taxi ride in japan was kind of weird because Yokohama is full of small one-way looking roads that go both ways, lots of lights, an looots of people. Before this trip, I hadn’t been in even a mid-size city before, and Yokohama is the second biggest city in Japan.
The ride was a mishmash of poor communication in two different languages, tired feelings, bright lights, excitement, and exhausted enjoyment. We arrived at Minesawa dormitories at around 7 at night, briefly talked to the office ladies briefly, signed a few papers, and then went to my room, B-122. He then showed me, more with body language since at that point we knew we couldn't communicate with language, that he had bought me a few gifts. Toilet paper, tissues, a Japanese sized towel, a sheet, and a pillow. I thanked him, we had a few awkward bad-language inspired moments of silence and then he left saying he’d meet me tomorrow. I remember sitting on my bed a few moments, wondering if I should go out and explore, or just pass out. I was exhausted and scared of exploring alone because I didn’t speak Japanese well, so I decided even though it was only 7:30 at night, I would go to bed. I drifted off to sleep my first night in discomfort because of my horrible bed but wondering japan wondering what the people in the program would be like, happy that I wasn't sitting any longer, and a lingering excitement in the knowledge that I was in a different country.
Thus I ended my trip, and first moments in Japan on a hard, springy, horrible bed, with a rather hard and annoyingly uncomfortable pillow, three unpacked bags, and one life-changingly exciting year ahead of me.
But seriously, that bed sucked REALLY bad before I got the futon.
-Fricodemous (I really do have trouble remembering how two names are supposed to go together ; ) )
