Explorations through South East Asia: Thailand

Last month, I traveled to Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia for two weeks. I decided to go alone because I wanted some time to recollect my thoughts and I really do enjoy solitary exploring. In December, one of my best friends came to visit me in Japan and we traveled for about two weeks as well. The differences between that trip and this lone one were huge. When I was with him, everything was fun, hilarious, random - or at least that's the impression I feel from it, looking back. But when you have few people to talk to for two weeks, you start to talk to yourself a lot, or rather, you think more about what you see and are experiencing. It is not a joint effort between you and a friend, seeing the world and examining it together, there is only you to interpret the life you are imagining.
I had started feeling a little sick before I got to Bangkok, but assumed it was a cold. Within a couple days, it turned into Bronchitis and I could barely get out of bed. The 100 degree weather also made it worse. On my first day of exploring, I arrived at a small area with various vendors selling street food. I bought some watermelon (which, for a pretty big bag, was only about 70 cents...amazing), and sat down at a nearby table and ended up staying there for a couple hours, buying water bottle after water bottle, willing myself to eat the watermelon after throwing up in a bag. Oddly, though, I met a lot of people while sitting there, and though I was feeling pretty bad, I got to spend a couple hours purely observing my busy surroundings - the woman making pad thai dishes and eyeing me in both a frustrated and concerned way, the man selling bags of fruit, always with a smile, the French, Indonesian, and Chinese people I met who ate their lunch on the same long table I occupied, and the various white people, carrying all kinds of souvenirs and coconuts and random things that made me laugh. When I made it back to my hostel, I rested a lot for a couple days and the hostel owner literally checked on me about 20 times a day. She'd bring me bread, juice, water, and was always making sure I was OK. My hostel room only had three beds.
The other two beds were occupied by two German guys who didn't know each other before arriving. We were all strangers. I liked rooming with them because I realized I had almost no understanding of German culture before; I am really ignorant about Germany. But they were both really energetic, outgoing, fluent in German and English, and would feed me painkillers and random German medicines they happened to have with them. They were also really kind, as almost everyone - both foreign and Thai - was in Thailand. I think one of my favorite moments was when I was walking through a mall type place looking for souvenirs to bring back for friends, and as I passed a Thai woman sitting by her booth of items, she smiled at me. I noticed that most people in Thailand do this when you make eye contact - they smile. But for some reason, her smile punctured me, I think I actually started to tear up. I'm not really sure why it meant so much, perhaps because it was a gentle reminder that the human spirit is far too omnipresent for us to ever really be alone.

Cameras: Nikon FM2, Nikon FM10
Film: Portra 160















This was the neighborhood my hostel was in called Klongsan.







Like giant animals in a zoo.


Rooftop.



This was in a TukTuk which is sort of like a motorcycle with a sidecar attached to the back. It's cheap and functions as a taxi.





Many people use motorcycles instead of cars and will bring their kids along with them. Sometimes I would see entire families on one motorcycle - a parent and three kids all squished together. This one caught my eye though - a baby drinking from its bottle. It made me think that if someone in America did that with their child, people would go nuts because it seems unsafe, but in Thailand it was commonplace and I got used to it almost right away. Makes me wonder how much of what we believe is important is only made up from what the government or society deems to be.

That guy's rifle was as long as my leg.




I'll post pictures from my next stop, Cambodia, next Sunday. Until then, I am off to Vietnam and Singapore! Cheers to traveling and exploring.
-M

Japan: Explorations Down South

My calligraphy teacher is a serious badass. He's won tons of "best in show" awards in our region and has shown his calligraphy in museums in Tokyo. Usually, he teaches my friend and I each week, but today when I walked into our little classroom, I saw framed calligraphy pieces strewn all around the room, with a stack of loose papers by his side. He wanted to show us many of his own works. All of the thick pieces of paper had haikus he had drawn on them, and he probably went through 15 different ones, showing us each character and describing its meaning. They were all so...elegant. They bore only a few words, but carried so much meaning with them. Afterward, he asked us which our favorite was. I knew exactly what mine was, and when I told him, he happened to have a couple of signed "practice" versions in his stack that we got to keep! To me, the haiku represents the fragile life of something that at once was beautiful, but eventually meets its own end, falling back to earth.
             ___________________________________________________________________

This is the haiku, first in Japanese and then the translation:

さくらさくら

さくさくら 

ちるさくら

Cherry Blossoms, Cherry Blossoms

Blooming Cherry Blossoms

Falling Cherry Blossoms

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And now, the last installment of pictures from the trip I took in January with one of my best friends. We went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Kobe, and Osaka for about two weeks. I live roughly eight hours by bus from Tokyo, and about twice that from all those other places we went. It was really fun and definitely made me appreciate Japan in even more ways. Enjoy the pictures! I am off to Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia next week, so expect something new when I get back. Until then!

Cameras: Nikon FM2, Nikon FM10
Film: Portra 400, Ilford Delta 3200


Previous: Kansai Trip, Pt. 1, Kansai Trip, Pt. 2

There are tons of awesome staircases in Japan.



This was when we went to see Justice in Osaka on our last night. Amazingly fun!



The friend I traveled with has the initials, "MK." Well, so did every taxi in Kyoto. It was like his kingdom. ...Of taxis.



Kyoto's International Manga Museum. It was FULL of every kind of manga and comic book you could imagine. And even more filled with heaps of people, of all ages, sitting around and reading comic books from the shelves, sitting on staircases, chairs, carpets, anywhere.





This is my friend, Michael's first time eating natto, which are fermented soybeans. They are pretty notorious in Japan for being the kind of food you either hate or love. It smells like a mixture of feet and blue cheese and the consistency is really gooey, as you can see.

This deer only had one eye.

This is Kengo. He was situated in the bunk beneath mine at one of our hostels, and while I'm sitting on my bunk, I hear my friend Michael casually ask him, "So, what's your name?" And from there we all chatted for awhile and went out together for the next couple nights. He was a cool guy.









-m :)

The Flower Man

I live in my own world a lot of the time in Japan. It’s incredibly easy to both be part of this country, and also separate yourself entirely, which I actually appreciate wholeheartedly.  I am nearing the end of January, reaching just barely past the six month mark of my stay in Japan so far. In March, the third year students will graduate and move on to high school. It’s something I’ve thought about on different occasions, but only from my perspective without really considering how everyone else feels. You see, Japan can feel a little emotionless sometimes. Or rather, that’s what I’ve heard. And now that I write it, I feel like it really is only that – what I’ve heard. Because what I’ve actually found is that most people really are expressive. When they’re tired, they’ll let you know. When they’re excited, they’ll throw their arms up and cheer. And when they’re both a combination of happy and sad, they’ll cry…or at least share a little wisdom as to how we can embody both the highs and lows in a single tear.

My desk sits directly across from the teacher in charge of the third-year-students. He is essentially the head of the department for these soon-to-be-graduates. He worked with these students for the past three years, seeing them come to Hiraka Junior High right out of elementary school, and watching them grow and flourish and now, strive to go to high school. And even though I’ve only been here for six months, it really is a magical transformation. In America (or at least where I’m from), you don’t have to do a whole lot to get into high school. In fact, I think you can fill out a couple forms and be on your way. It’s expected, and generally most junior highs have feeder schools that send everyone to the same school. But in Japan, it’s different. If anything, it can be compared to America’s college admissions. The students take rigorous tests, much like the SATs, they are scouted for sports, sometimes they have to do interviews, and overall, the stress and pressure is felt by everyone. Everyone wants to get into the best high school.

Today, a man wheeled in at least 50 potted flowers of all varieties. They were beautiful. In fact, when our paths crossed in the hallway, his hands grasping the cart, I said “kirei!” beautiful! He gave me a weary smile in response, hands still clutching his cart, slowly creeping past me. I let him pass and moseyed back to my desk. Sometimes things happen at my schools and I just…let them. Random things, like 50 plants showing up in the teacher’s room all of a sudden, or old ladies with clipboards circling the hallways. I don’t ask because I assume I won’t understand. But today I went for it. I asked the teacher across from me what all those flowers were doing here. It couldn’t hurt, could it? He reminded me that the graduation ceremony is coming up in only about a month and a half, which will lead to entrance ceremonies for new students and farewell ceremonies for teachers being transferred to new schools, as well as the inevitable beginning of spring. Where we live, it snows like mad. It can reach astonishing heights in a day. We’re almost done with the first month, but we still have about two more. Spring? It sounds so far away. But he went on. “That man brings the flowers every year so we can choose what we want to display around school.” The man I crossed paths with. The man with the half smile. “When I see him each year, I get a feeling,” he said with slightly broken English and a smile. “I know spring is coming,” he said. “Time…moves very fast.” And I knew exactly what he meant. 

Seeing that man in the hall was like a representation of time in its living form, wheeling flowers around and wielding half smiles. Perhaps the flower man’s response to me was perfect, then.

“Beautiful!” I’d said, to which he only gave me tired, upturned lip. The changing seasons, the continuation of life, it really is beautiful. But at times, well, a half smile is the best we can do. And maybe both of those things are exactly how it should be. 

And maybe that’s ok. 

The Meaning of Winter

I’ve been asked on a number of occasions by hopeful Japanese eyes, “so, why did you choose to come to Japan of all places?” And when you see their half smiles staring back at you, it’s nearly impossible to give them the real answer. “Well, my major in college was Multicultural Studies and….” That always seems to fit the bill. It delivers a smile – that’s all they really wanted, right? But what I’d really like to tell people is that I don’t really know why I wanted to come to Japan. I’d heard about JET, which seemed like one of the best programs in the realm of teaching abroad, and perhaps the prestige drew me in initially, but why I chose this country out of all 196 out there…well I’d be lying if I gave you an answer, because I don’t have one. To be frank, I just wanted out. I wanted to go somewhere. Somewhere that would test me. I hardly thought of the consequences of shipping myself like a bag of cargo to a remote island on the other side of this wet ball we call home. I barely thought about the language difficulties or what the job would entail and I certainly assumed I would one day return home as the same quilt of experience, but with a new thread stitching me together. I wanted to grow. But the biggest part I never considered was how.

Right now, I am sitting in my humble apartment, adjacent to at least an acre of white-covered rice fields and mounds of snow collected by the monstrous plowing machines that come through around 2am, reminding me on solitary nights that I’ve probably been sitting idly for too long.  I’d heard a lot of things about winter from the other JET teachers and from the Japanese people I know. But out of everything, there were two statements that trumped all the others: 1) You’re going to hate the winter here; and 2) But you’re going to love snowboarding.  Funny how things worked out that I am both intrigued by and content with the wintery weather, but haven’t found an interest in or love for snowboarding.  But the thing no one told me about winter is that at some point, we become it. A few weeks ago I pondered about changing seasons and their significance to the life cycle of nature and the world. Spring was like birth, summer was life, and autumn was death. But winter? I couldn’t quite figure out what it represented or why it was necessary to this cycle. Perhaps because, as humans, we’re conditioned to think of our life cycle in terms of only those three elements. I speculated that winter was a purifying stage. After the death of the trees and flowers and sunshine comes the cold winter months to blanket the graves of petals in snow, cleansing them before their rebirth. But as humans, how does this make sense to our own lives? I think I am finally starting to understand the answer to that question.

Like I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of difficulties I didn’t consider about this adventure in Japan – not knowing the common language, not being surrounded by the supportive network of friends I’ve been used to, and not being challenged in my job. And for awhile, or perhaps even still at times, it felt like these things were plummeting on me all at once, reminding me of the weaknesses and fears I’ve had, but have rarely seen since they never crept out at home. But I understand it now. That grueling winter I’d heard so much about? It’s not necessarily the one that exists on your doorstep. Sometimes it’s most potent when it exists in your mind. Maybe the human ideology can be too one sided sometimes. We think our life cycles are long. Some can live through decades worth of springs or winters and still only complete one human life cycle. But maybe this is the wrong way to look at it. Right now it feels like a piece of me has been dying. I’ve found myself to be more judgmental, competitive, and stubborn here from time to time. It’s something I was always hesitant to admit because at home, those things never felt like part of me. But I think I need to remind myself of the adventure I threw myself into and stop pretending that I still live under the circumstances of home. It’s the cycle of life and of nature, after all. I am killing off the parts of myself that I know I don’t want. If someone asked me why I came to Japan, then I think this experience would be my answer. Today, my calligraphy teacher told me that the weather forecast says it won’t snow for an entire week. That might be a first for this winter.  Without snowfall, the white fields will begin to melt back into the earth, preparing the land for a revival of life. There’s still about a month of winter left, but I can feel the snow melting already. The things I’ve quarreled with in my mind for so many months – soon they’ll just be water, nourishing the seeds of spring. I can feel these changes happening in my heart and mind. The cycle of life continues.  The snow falls and piles up. But like in nature, one day it will all seem to melt away. 

Ah, and soon then, it will be spring.