June 21 and 22
As I woke up this morning, I knew that the home stay was about to begin. I was a little nervous to stay in a Japanese home, but not nearly as much as I thought I would be. When I first chose to apply to be part of this trip, I saw the weekend that would be a home stay with a Japanese family, and I said, "No Way!" I was planning to play sick or whatever to get out of staying in someone's house. It didn't keep me from applying for the trip, though. I figured I wouldn't get to come anyway! After I was invited to come, I made the conscious decision that I would look forward to the home stay as the best part of the trip. After all, I could have come to Japan as a tourist and I may have never been invited into a Japanese home and never connected to a Japanese family, so why not make the most of this once in a lifetime opportunity?
I had already met Fumiyo Nishio, the mother of my home stay family, at Shinshima Elementary where she works as the teacher of the Dandelion class. As I entered Sawara Junior High (the staging ground for the families to pick us up) I saw Fumio and her uncle, Keiji Nishio. They waved at me and I went over to greet them. We left for the Nishio home shortly thereafter. Both Fumiyo and Keiji spoke English well and it was very easy to communicate on the car ride to their place. I noticed that as we got further and further from the junior high school, my surroundings appeared more and more rural. We finally arrived at the Nishio family compound, which was surrounded by rice patties and some other crops. There were a few greenhouses and there was another house where the parents of Fumiyo's husband live. Fumiyo and her husband live in the main house and it is beautiful!
As I walked into the house, I was greeted by Kazuko (Fumiyo's aunt), Mariko (daughter), Takeshi (Father in law) and Shizuko (mother in law). They were all very warm and welcoming. There was a big banner hanging above the stairs that read "Welcome Mr. Scott!" and had cherry blossoms all over it. I was invited to sit down in a very special room of the house that had tatami floor mats and a small Buddhist shrine. Mariko lit some incense in the shrine and then dissappeared, bringing back all of the the makings of one of the most wonderful meals I have ever eaten in my life... and one of the largest! The courses kept coming. There were soups, tempura, sushi, tea, sweets, rice, tofu, you name it! It was amazing! I learned the hard way not to clean my plate, or more magically showed up. It was delicious!
After lunch, Mariko, Fumiyo and Kazuko diappeared and I had a nice chat with Keiji and Takeshi about the land that they lived on. I gathered from our conversation that the family has owned the farmland for about 200 years or so and it has been passed down from generation to generation of Nishios during that time. Takeshi actually was the farmer at present, and his son Hiromachi was working for a bus company. Keiji also shared with me that his strong English came from the fact that he used to be the president of a company in Ohio for several years. He manufactured transmissions for Honda U.S.A.
The ladies soon returned and Mariko was dressed in a beautiful Kimono. Not being very familiar with Japanese customs, I was hoping that I was not about to be betrothed, or there would be a lot of explaining to do as soon as I got back to Orlando. But alas, they just wanted to take a picture! Kazuko brought Hiromachi's kimono downstairs and tried her best to put it on me, but it was not designed for a "gentleman" of my "stature." Did you ever see episodes of the Hulk tv show in the 1980s when Lou Ferrigno would bust out of his clothes? Well, that was almost me.
After taking pictures in the Kimono, Keiji and Mariko brought out some calligraphy supplies and began teaching me how to write Kanji letters. They taught me how to write my name in Katakana and Kanji, and they showed me how to write a symbol for Amazon River, which they said was my symbol since my character was so broad. I think they were referring to my enthusiasm in trying new things, but they may have been referring to my waistline! That kimono sure was tight! We also made some origami. I ended up with a great newspaper Samurai helmet big enough to wear.
After the time spent learning some Japanese arts, the Nishio family took me out to this river near where they lived. In "Shutting Out the Sun" I'd read about how so many rivers and lakes had concrete banks. These were apparently the result of an effort of the Japanese government to try to keep the construction industry moving. This river was an example of that practice. We got on the boat and took this great tour of what I think was Sawara, but I'm not sure. We ended up in this narrow canal that went through town and was covered by twelve bridges. There was a kind of drive through candy shop that two ladies ran out of their house, and they were selling sweets made of rice paste and wheat gluten out of a window of their house that faced the canal. The sweets were really good. At the end of the canal was a lock and we had to turn back. The woman who was driving the boat turned up the speed on the boat and took us in front of Shinshima Elementary. I hadn't even realized that there was a canal there when I'd visited a few days before. When the ride ended, we headed back over to the botanical garden. Where I'd basically self-toured before, this time the Nishio family explained the whole deal to me. There were 1.3 million iris flowers in bloom while I was in Japan, all part of the regional Iris Festival. I'd first heard about the Iris Festival when we got to Sawara the first time, and I saw the purple Irises in bloom in front of the Inoh Tadataka Museum. It was simply amazing how they were presented at the Botanical Garden. We took a boat ride there as well, and the ladies kept giggling because the old woman who was steering the boat kept cussing in Japanese.
After visiting the botanical garden, we headed over to a little mall. The Fumiyo bought a local made toy for Elise and gave it to me. There was a section of foreign and exotic food in the mall and a jar of Skippy peanut butter was on one of the shelves! The Nishios didn't understand why I thought that was hilarious. Keiji bought a shogi board in the toy section. Shogi is a kind of Japanese chess. When we got back to the house, he whipped my butt and everyone laughed. It was really fun. We didn't spend too much time back at the house because the Nishios wanted to take me out for some barbeque. Alright!
You know that you're in a local place when you walk in and all of the people turn to look at the gaijin. (The gaijin being me, of course!) We sat at a table on the floor. I noticed that my legs were getting really tired of being twisted into various positions to sit at all of these tables! There was a grill in the middle of the table and Mariko fired it up. Hiromachi, Fumiyo's husband, joined us at dinner. He ordered an appetizer and dinner. When the appetizer came, it was raw meat with a raw egg on top. Mariko stirred it up and put some on her plate and then passed it to me. I very weakly tried to pretend that I didn't see it sitting there, but everyone was staring at me again so I had no choice but to put some on my plate. Deep down inside my brain was telling me, "There's absolutely no way that you can eat that... it's raw beef AND a raw egg!" I ate it anyway. It wasn't bad. Later, someone told me that this dish was Steak Tartare, which is considered very gourmet in the States. I survived. Still being full from lunch, I found my heart filled with fear when I saw the giant plate of raw meat that was brought to our table. I was praying that it was going on the grill, and it did. I had sooooooo much more meat, I learned the hard way not to empty your plate when dining with the Japanese because they will fill it again! Mariko put a piece of liver on my plate and I ate it. I chewed that thing forever. I guess they figured I didn't like it that much because I wasn't given another. I thought it was okay, just really chewy.
After dinner, the Nishios took me to a karaoke place. I knew that this was going to be awesome. Fumiyo and Hiromachi's younger daughter, Sayaka, joined our group and we got a pretty big booth, much bigger than the one in Tokyo. We sang karaoke for like three hours. It must have been midnight when we finished! I didn't know any of the Japanese songs that the family sang, but they were wonderful. Mariko and Sayaka sang "A Whole New World" in Japanese, and they put on "Linda Linda" at my request, and I joined them for the chorus:
Linda Linda! Linda Linda Linda-uh-uh! Linda Linda! Linda Linda Linda-uh-uh!
It was one of the best times that I had on the whole trip. I was beat by the end and had no voice, but it was the bomb nonetheless. Here's my song list for those of you that need to pull down a Ralph-Sensei karaoke set from iTunes:
- Summer of '69
- A Beatles Medley
- An ABBA Medley (EVERYONE sang along with that)
- Daydream Believer
- 1999
- YMCA (the most fun we had in the room)
- Groove is in the Heart (the girls were totally into my mad skillz on the mike, ala Q-Tip)
When we got back to the house, I took a shower and then soaked in the bath for a little bit. Fumiyo made that thing hot and it felt great. After I got out of the bath, everyone was just hanging around watching TV. No one was trying to put on any kind of appearances, they were just having family time and I was invited to hand out. I loved that. Fumiyo started frying up sausages in the kitchen and I told her not to cook too much unless they were all planning to join me for a midnight snack. I brought out my gifts and they really liked them. I gave them the Kibo/NASA patches in a frame, a book of old and new photos of Orlando, a book of photos of wild Florida, and two boxes of Russell Stover candy fresh from the factory in Leesburg.
I was really starting to feel exhausted at this point, so I went back into the formal room, where the table had been moved and a futon had been set down in its place. I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the futon. It was a very comfortable sleep.
The next morning I got dressed and helped move the table back into the room, and Fumiyo served me a wonderful Japanese breakfast. It was another feast! There was a fried egg and lots of vegetables, as well as natto with rice. I'd been nervous about trying natto since I got to Japan. I'd heard that it was really smelly and that most Western palettes just couldn't handle it. Well, the pressure was on with my character being that of the Amazon River and all. So I stirred some natto into my rice (the descriptions of the smell were not an exaggeration) and dug in. It was pretty good actually. Keiji said it was the best thing for my health. I ate all of the natto that I took, and at the end of breakfast Fumiyo brought me this:
It was a very special tea made with water and a whole cherry blossom. The bud is placed into the cup and it open when the hot water is poured over it. The tea was very fragrant but salty, since the bud was preserved in salt. Keiji explained that this tea was only served at the birth of a baby, the wedding of a loved one, or the visit of a very important person. I felt very honored to have been presented with this tea.
Fumiyo asked me what I'd like to do for the morning that we had together. She suggested the port of Kashima, but I was so over tourist stuff. I told her that I'd like to just do family things... so they took me bowling! When we got to the bowling alley I had to write my shoe size on the card, so I looked inside the tongue of my shoe where I knew I'd find the international sizes. My shoe size for Japan was listed as 31 cm. I wrote that on the card and my shoe size caused yet another controversy as the largest shoe size in the whole place was 30 cm. So I took them. When we started bowling I fell behind very quickly and was in last place for about three frames. It's so much easier on the Wii! Kazuko broke off to an early lead and held on though seven frames, when I came back and hit three nine-spares in a row. I finished with a score of 119, winning by only about three or four points.
Another feast awaited me at a traditional restaurant called Triangle. I'm not even going to try to describe this one, other than to write that it was an amazing extravaganza of Japanese cuisine. I think I ate more food while with the Nishio family than I ever have during any weekend. I didn't know I could hold that much! I was like the Catbus of Japanese Food! After lunch we walked outside and I saw that the balcony of the restaurant overlooked the Botannical Garden. Wouldn't you know it, there was some guy in a big Cheever costume walking around, greeting little kids. I'd been there twice and that son of a gun wasn't anywhere to be seen. Darn you Cheever!!!
When we got back to the house, it was time to say goodbye. I told the Nishio family that I appreciated how they had treated me just like a part of their family. After I changed into my suit for the meeting with the mayor of Katori, they presented me with several gifts. One was a huge "King" piece from the game of Shogi that all of the family members had signed in both Japanese and English. Another was a wonderful book of 8 x 10 photos they had been taking and printing during my visit. Finally, Fumiyo and Kazuko brought down this big packaged wrapped in cloth. They began unfloding it, and it was Fumiyo's very own kimono, which she said was a gift for my wife. I've never been so moved by a gift before. I gave hugs and handshakes and we took some final pictures, and Fumiyo drove me to Katori city hall. I was really working hard to not become a blubbering mess. To have this wonderful experience right near the end of the trip was amazing. I was at the height of missing my own family, and here I was feeling like I had an extension of my family in Japan.
And then I was missing them too.
