June 24th email

Leg blankets have been replaced with fans, the vending machines now have more cold drinks than hot, school uniforms have changed (but the skirts remain hiked up), the sun is setting later, bugs are emerging, the 100yen store is selling fireworks and waterguns and "atsui" is the new favored expression in the staff room. Summer is here. Its cherry picking season in Yamagata. Many prefectures in Japan are famous for a certain type of food. Whether these designations are arbitrary or business-driven, I don:t know. While I do think some prefectures have some legitimate bragging rights, sometimes it seems rather random. My prefecture happens to be famous for cherries. And our cherries are expensive!!! I had my first taste of Yamagata cherries as my reward for participating in the Higashine Sakuranbo Marathon. They were delicious but nothing seemed particularly special about them. To me, they were just cherries. Not really worth the $30-$40 a box price. The real fun lies in the cherry picking. Which I got to do last week with a Japanese friend. [I will preface this story by saying that lately I have been hanging with two older, unmarried Japanese women in their 50s who seem to be older, wiser, versions of 2 different sides of my personality―one loves hiking, gardening, and Bob Dylan; the other one loves beer, stupid jokes, and can get crazy and semi-naked]. I went cherry picking with the crazy one.

She picked me up in her black air-conditioned car and her, and Amy (another Japanese woman) and I went to the cherry trees. She buys her own tree every year―which costs around $300 a year. Rich Tokyo folks will spend up to $700 on a tree and then they have to come up to Yamagata to pick the cherries. So, we went to her tree and I climbed and started picking. 5-10 minutes later her and Amy took cigarette breaks and started talking their friend who worked at the place. The were calling him "gigi" (old man) and he was firing back with the name calling. I climbed down. We started throwing cherries at him. He brought us some sour cherries to eat. More name calling and cherry throwing ensued. I went back up and picked a little more but then Amy and Chiaki (my friend) had had enough. We left and then sorted and boxed cherries to send to customers and family in Tokyo. I now have a deeper appreciation of Japan's need to have and exploit local specialties. Its about the experience.

In other rumors and news, tomorrow there is supposed to be a large earthquake that will destroy large parts of Yamagata prefecture. Rumor has it that predictions have been made by Chinese Astrologists, a random medicine woman in Mexico, and a group of Brazilian midgets. It is a bit disconcerting considering the recent earthquake in China and the 7.8 earthquake we had in Northern Japan last weekend (I felt the earthquake as a 4 in my town). Today we are supposed to have emergency drills―but I think these drills are just coincidence. And my friend who was recently in Tokyo told me that a couple people in Tokyo asked her if she was in Tokyo to escape the big earthquake that was supposed to happen. Ridiculous. I don:t really believe it. But if I don:t reply tomorrow…

Not much else is happening around here, I keep busy during the weeks and on weekends. It is a little weird to still be in school this late in June. I used to think the 3rd, 4th and 5th year JETs were crazy―how could they stay away from their family and friends for so long? But now I get it. This country is incredibly easy to live in and when you build your life here, it becomes hard to leave it. However, the job as an ALT is what drives people away after the standard 2 year stint. Depressing winter months with no classes, the inability to see the student's progress, little to no job autonomy, being consistently kept in the dark about some things, and generally―you are just an outsider and an assistant at that. However, it can be really FUN! Not to mention all the Japanese responsibilities that are forgone precisely because of your foreign assistant status. I can go to sports clubs and play sports with the students and I don't have to work every weekend like many of the club teachers. Many ALTs leave because they want more job responsibility, not because of Japan.