It’s the last day I will be visiting a school and teaching, with one class to go, and presently I would articulate my feelings in three:

- I can’t wait for it to be over, after knowing it was coming for so long!
- I don’t want to leave! What am I going to do now?
- Where did the past two years go?

It’s an interesting conundrum, trying to both contain and express your emotions while throwing a foreign language and culture in there too.

With nine schools, I have been having lots of little goodbye ceremonies and drinking parties with staff.  The most recent one was my favourite, a much different atmosphere with just the women.  Apparently the men were all busy.  In any case, that means we had some nice conversation, ordered what we liked, and even had dessert rather than focusing on alcohol and formalities.

At graduations and farewells people are often perhaps not expected but anticipated to end up in tears, but for me I’ve only come close.  My lovely fellow island foreigners would refer to this as my cold, black heart.

When people lavish attention and well-wishing and little to big gifts on me, I feel almost an obligation to get a little theatric, but I will not (or maybe cannot) well up artificially.  That is not to say I don’t feel a warmth in the heart and a knot in the throat.

formal scroll wrapping technique

One school in particular gave me some really special goodbye presents.  They took the New Year’s calligraphy piece I wrote along with the students and made it into a traditional hanging scroll.

They also took the time to make me a personal seal in kanji, something I’ve been wanting for a long time without knowing which kanji character would be best to use.  The one they chose combines the meanings of heart, devotion, sincerity, grace, compassion, a heart without falsehood, and friendship.

large personal seal using 情

Apparently they got one made through a neighbour of mine, who I’ve said all of “konnichiwa” to a few times, and she or the maker cleverly modified the character so one part is actually the shape of a heart.

On the way home, my taxi driver and I marvelled at the effects of the recent heavy rain…

Never did I imagine I would ever succumb to social pressure and the fear of losing my job and actively hide the one controversial part of my identity. Nonetheless, I am guilty of it and therein a certain level of hypocrisy.

Now that I’m leaving and I don’t have to worry about being discriminated against, let alone fired, as I promised myself ages ago I am coming out as gay to my schools and the people who matter most to me here.

All the “sayonara” drinking parties I’ve been having these days serve as a good medium to do this, since they also generally involve the predictable questions about girlfriends and preferred characteristics. It’s a relief to finally just say the simple truth.

So far, the reaction has been surprisingly smooth and not even awkward, which completely blows me away.

The girlfriend question came up early on during one of these parties with everyone’s attention, and following the revelation the party continued and we went on to karaoke and a third venue. Someone even asked what I thought about the young new secretary guy. All this went on without weird behaviour showing its ugly face, though I can’t say the same for the middle-aged hostess bar woman who asked me if I could “fix her.” Then she said she would like to have a little of my DNA (literally), though I like to think she meant it in the genetics sort of way.

Being in the closet here is much different than in the West and especially the United States, where it’s significantly easier to tell who belongs to the majority and who happens to be gay or bisexual. The people of the island especially, as well as most of the teachers that come from elsewhere in the prefecture, seem to have no idea whatsoever. Here I can act just as I normally would elsewhere without this being a concern, and the only time I really hide anything is when I’m asked about relationships and what type of women I prefer.

In Japan, there are plenty of skinny to the point of looking anorexic fashionista men out there who are very much straight. There is no question that Japanese men put much more thought, time, and/or money toward their appearance and apparel. Just pick up a magazine and look at the hairstyles to get an idea. Another stereotype, gestures or body language considered more feminine in the West are of no concern, so it appears.

That is not, at all, to say that there aren’t strong gender roles in Japan. There are absolutely matters of social behaviour and tendencies strictly associated with men as opposed to those associated with women: Traditionally, men are the proactive muscle and women are the artful beauties. Men bring in the money and women control the family wallet. Men bring important guests and women make sure they are elegantly entertained.

To be fair, I live in rural Japan and in a place even isolated from movie theatres, though you can rent a good selection of DVDs. Despite the high-speed Internet access, this is not the super-modern Tokyo, which has both a degree of social modernity and at the same time a higher level of expected formality.

Things like hand-made sweets lie in the realm of the female, as I’m discovering with the surprise school staff show when receiving the cookies I’ve been making as a “goodbye and thank you” gift.

At a work party, it is not necessarily expected for women not to drink alcohol, but at least here on the island the majority will opt for oolong tea or something else. Men, on the other hand, are pretty much expected to be lushes.

At the goodbye party that featured all ladies besides me, they were talking about how there’s a striking difference in gender equality and roles between Tokyo and rural Japan. One of my teachers has a nice arrangement where she cooks one night and her husband cooks the next and they switch off from there.

More shocking to Westerners is the fact that in Japanese society it’s still generally acceptable, or at least not surprising, for married men to have sexual conquests on the side. I highly doubt that their wives approve, but it happens and it’s not talked about very openly — Except perhaps between the men who participate. They even go out together to pick up women at hostess bars or go to soaplands, venues where women are paid to give them a bath with a happy ending.

This situation is one big reason there is a sore lack of open gay lives in Japan, and it is to blame for the frequency of closeted marriages. You can still satisfy your parents, colleagues, and society at large by having a nuclear family. At the same time you can have your sexual fulfilment, though it comes at the cost of some of your identity, the stress of hiding it, and not having a real romantic, loving relationship unless you step across that line.

As long as you live a Japanese life, you can have your so-called “perversions” as you please — Well, at least men can.

This is one of those schools where I only get to teach the fifth and sixth grades, because there are two sections of each so with my schedule it’s not practical to visit the other years.  However, I often have lunch with the lower grades and sometimes play with them during recess, and today was definitely one of those days.

At the tail end of lunch with one of the second grade classes, they swarmed me first asking to read all the English words and romanised Japanese on their shirts and school supplies, and then dragged me in a big mob to the front of the classroom so the friendly teacher could take a few photos.  At the beginning she had me sing “Happy Birthday” to the boy whose birthday it happened to be, and at the end I was lifting whole kids with all four appendages and giving some involuntary and voluntary rides across classrooms and hallways.  Then they all asked me to sign my name on various things, from notebooks to scraps of paper, to pieces of origami.

At recess it took the surprisingly ceremonious second grade organisers a long while to set up a game of dodgeball, and though I had opted to play soccer with the other masses they wouldn’t take no for an answer.  Most of the time was actually spent spinning the little fanboys and fangirls and giving them piggy-back rides.

It was all pretty tiring, but I wish they’d warmed up to me like this way earlier in my stay here!

The fifth and sixth grades respectively reached a new English study unit this week.  The fifth grade is studying rock-paper-scissors in English, Korean, and Chinese and counting from one to ten in six languages including the previous three plus Spanish, French, and Japanese for international perspective.  The sixth grade classes are studying months of the year and how to say when their birthday occurs.

Some classes are more enthused than others, and one teacher that I’ve worked with since last April really has the best control of his students. At first I didn’t think he really liked me, and the same goes for his wife at another school, but he’s actually a pretty nice guy who seems actually interested in making English work in his classroom.

Loquats and Mountain Bird

One of my elementary schools really has developed a nice pattern of introducing me to various elements of Japanese culture and nature.  They’ve let me join for tea ceremony, taught me about fuki no to, let me write some calligraphy and more.

The latest is the 枇杷 (biwa) loquat, a small, pear-shaped fruit about the size of an apricot.  It has a subtle flavour reminiscent of a persimmon, which is also similarly coloured in an orange-yellow hue.  The edible fruit is quite small due to the five large seeds within, but it is light and refreshing.

It is also said to be a good source of Vitamin A, dietary fiber, potassium, and manganese.

The Japanese name “biwa” is probably derived from the variety of lute shaped quite the same.  The modern Chinese names for the fruit (枇杷 pípá) and lute (琵琶 pípá) also sound the same.

That’s no coincidence, since the loquat is native to Southerneastern China, where it may have originally been restricted in consumption to royalty.  It was introduced to Japan a thousand-some years past, and now can be found in various places in many regions around the world.

Bunch of loquats sitting in the staff room.

A third year elementary student brought a bunch of the fruit from his home, supposedly having picked them all himself, and gave them to the staff and fellow students.

Looking around the Interwebs, I found a tasty recipe to try.

Blanching
To peel loquats for sauce and fruit cup, blanch by pouring boiling water over loquats to cover. Add 1/4 cup lemon juice to each quart of water. Cook over low heat about 5 minutes, just until skin loosen. Drain and reserve liquid. Cool, peel, halve, and seed loquats (remove seeds).

Loquat Sauce for Ice Cream
Combine 2 cups juice from blanched loquats with 2 cups sugar. (see Blanching above) Bring to boil, cook over medium heat until syrup spins a 2-inch thread when dropped from a spoon (230~234ºF / 110~112ºC on candy thermometer), about 20 minutes. Cool completely. Add 2 cups / 475 mL peeled, halved, seeded loquats. Chill, then serve over ice cream. Makes about 3 cups / 710 mL sauce.

Approximately the clarity of Gudivara

The road is a cacophony of honking so that small vehicles can indicate their presence to avoid being crushed.  Large vehicles use it to warn about lane changes and intention to pass.  The noise is perpetual, almost unceasing, but you have to give the manufacturers credit for the few varieties of honks.

Though I didn’t expect to ride in an auto-rickshaw during this stay in India, when we paid a visit to one of the other villages the Association of Relief Volunteers has worked in we did indeed.  It’s difficult to say it was a pleasant experience, feeling nauseous from food poisoning and the ride even triggering me to start puking out my guts, but it seemed nicer in the fresh air wilderness than my exhaust fume-filled memory of riding a tuc-tuc in Bangkok.

Interchange statue and motorbikes

Unlike Vietnam, traffic in the cities of India appears to be regulated by traffic lights, but once you get on to the highway it’s not very organised chaos.  Lighter vehicles don’t seem phased by travelling the wrong way in the face of most traffic, and despite the danger and the massiveness of some vehicles even bicycles run down these roads, whether or not in the intended direction.  Pedestrians and cows dare to cross them too, since there really isn’t an alternative.

This reality means that travelling in a large vehicle like a tourist bus tends to slow one down.  It took about eight hours from Delhi Airport’s domestic terminal to get to Agra, the town around the Taj Mahal, on the bus and maybe a little over half that to return in a private car.

The efficiency, however, comes at a tangible cost of security, as there were more than a few close calls on the way where we might’ve been crushed by a truck or a bus with not particularly attentive or careful drivers.  As it was, we saw eight traffic accidents on our way.

Incidentally, our driver explained that the tour company hasn’t taken Indian customers for quite some time now after he was shot in the neck and car-jacked by previous passengers years back.  He may have used to be a tour guide, but since then he’s barely able to vocalise anything despite his English ability it’s no longer an option.

The town where the other volunteers and I stayed overnight after our days of working in the village had its fair share of traffic and all the different vehicles and living participants seen around Delhi.

A peek at Old Delhi.

The more interesting element of the roads, however, was the presence of wandering cows seemingly with no keeper but perhaps somewhere to go.  I recall at least two occasions in the same spot a cow sleeping in the middle of a busy intersection, just in front of a small statue monument, with not a care in the world.  All the locals seemed to think it was perfectly normal as well, so I figured it must be.  The animals certainly seemed at ease.

This year is no exception, as after eight months in office Yukio Hatoyama has resigned under pressure following his failure to negotiate the removal of the controversial U.S. military base at Futenma on the island of Okinawa.

Things you will never hear a Western leader say:

“I apologise to all of you lawmakers here for causing enormous trouble,” he said.

Announcing his decision to the country in an emotional televised address, he said he had “tried to change politics in which the people of Japan would be the main actors” but had not succeeded.

“That’s mainly because of my failings,” he said.

The replacement for Hatoyama has already been selected and is Naoto Kan, the Finance Minister for the previous leader.

The BBC’s Roland Buerk in Tokyo says Mr Kan is seen as a straight-talker with a reputation for standing up to the powerful bureaucracy.

He has pushed for higher taxes and spending cuts to tackle Japan’s national debt, the biggest in the industrial world.

He is one of the DPJ’s most high-profile politicians because of his role in exposing a scandal involving HIV-tainted blood products in the 1990s.

Our correspondent says the new prime minister will have to move quickly to impress voters and to reinvigorate a centre-left government, which many believe has lost its way after just nine months.

Junichiro Koizumi was the last Prime Minister to stay on for longer than that, giving five and one-half years of service in the office until September 2006.  The last time I was in Japan, he was in office, and people seemed to like him; he danced with Richard Gere after the American version of Shall We Dance came out and had a variety of merchandise based off of caricatures of him.

Camellia japonica cultivar ashiya is 雪椿 yukitsubaki!

A friend of mine over in Europe identified this as a Camellia with a nifty link to Wikipedia, which has an even niftier and very detailed breakdown of each species.  This is Camellia japonica Cultivar Ashiya and in Japanese it’s known as 椿 tsubaki, subspecies 雪椿 yukitsubaki (Snow Camellia).

The Japanese Camellia is native to Japan, Korea, and China, and oddly it’s been the national flower of Alabama since 1959 due to the ladies of Butler County and their distaste for the goldenrod wildflower.  Oh, you southern ladies.

The flower is also known as the “rose of winter” in English. In Chinese they are called 茶花 cháhuā (literally “tea flower”) and in Korean 동백꽃 dongbaek-kkot.

Many millions of people in Southern China use a product of processed Camellia leaves as their primary cooking oil. Camellia Oil 椿油 (tsubaki abura) is also a product of the Goto Islands of Nagasaki Prefecture and Izu Islands of the Tokyo Metropolitan Region.

It’s also known as “tea seed oil” in English, and is good for its low content of saturated fats and high content of Vitamin E.  Purdue University seems to think it’s also good for cosmetics, boosting your immune system, and repelling pests.

Bet you didn’t know all that.

The Camellia is more widely known and used to make several varieties of tea such as oolong and green teas.  It’s also bred for different flavours to make Darjeeling, Assam, and Nilgiri teas in India.  Dericious!

India was surreal from the moment we got outside. The walk from the international terminal’s doors across the street to the tunnel leading to the parking lot starred a small and rather sketchy-looking yard full of sleeping men, presumably taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers waiting to be called to service. The heat hit us like a soft, padded brick wall, since in the middle of the night it was only 30 degrees (85ºF) lacking the blazing sun of day, but soon we were in a quiet, air conditioned cab.

It was not far, in fact still on the way out of the parking area, that we passed by a cow walking somewhere on it’s on accord. That, I suppose, was our foremost welcome to India.

When the driver asked, however, we were quick to insist this was not our first time lest he try to be an unscrupulous guide…

One half-hour later we arrived in an alley by our homestay. The driver led us through and up to the family’s apartment, which had little mirror circles scattered across the stairwell ceiling. Angad, the twenties university student of a Texas institution on break for now, the guy I called to make reservations met us and got us settled in our room. In fifteen minutes I was back on the Internet through their wi-fi network and broadband connection. Life was good.

This accommodation, dubbed Caravan Homestay, was one of the best travel decisions I’ve ever made, and I’m quite grateful to Kim for suggesting it and WikiTravel for listing it. Rather than some shady hotel we were welcomed into a family’s home in what seemed to be New Delhi’s equivalent of a suburb and given a beautiful, spacious, and clean room with other comforts to ease us into India. Provided were English travel books and novels in the bed’s shelves, towels and basic toiletries, an air conditioner, a television, a mini-bar fridge with bottled water and other things, and a large and lockable chest of drawers. The water was INR 60 for a litre, a little expensive but all of US$1.20, but I don’t remember if we even ended up paying for that.

Four hours later we were back up and getting ready to go sight-seeing. At the dining room table just outside our room we took a nice breakfast of omelettes with a hint of spice, bread and peanut butter and jams, and some lovely chai cooked by the mysterious young fellow we later learned was the family’s domestic help. Afterward, he was kind enough to lead us to the local subway station a few blocks away and we were off on our way.

Plastered all over the subway car with A/C.

We approached the Delhi subway with some degree of apprehension. I had grand fears of delays, disgusting conditions, packed traincars, and muggings. None of these came to fruition and, in fact, not only was it exceedingly cheap for us, there were English instructions as to how to use it, gender-segregated security lines with metal detectors and pat-downs, security on the platforms. The traincars themselves were air-conditioned, had English announcements in addition to the Hindi ones, seemed timely, and weren’t super packed full of passengers.

We arrived at the nearest station to the Red Fort in twenty-something minutes. Outside it was blazing hot, as expected, but quickly we located the main road and the correct direction, thanks to a certain compass gifted to me. We breezed by the many auto-rickshaws offering rides and were down the street passing many a shop of all kinds, not a market but third-party mobile phone vendors and small home appliance stores and the like. Crossing the street to get to Lal Mandir Temple, we followed the way of the locals and waited for the cars and bigger vehicles to pass, then crossing when it was just auto-rickshaws and bicycles in the road.

Lal Mandir Temple, across from the Red Fort.

Outside the temple and just off the street one must remove one’s shoes and leave them there in the care of one of the temple men. A few feet away at the stairwell, another attendant who didn’t look too official demanded our bags and cameras. Upstairs we saw some intricate artwork and a shrine, a woman in saree praying on the floor, and enjoyed the cool marble floor. On the ceiling of the balcony around the exterior there were large fans, perhaps for large worship gatherings. The complex’s side building is apparently home to a famous bird sanctuary, which we were invited to go check out, but we decided against it in the interest of hygiene.

Across the street to the Red Fort, I was taken aback by how few people there were and how much space was around us in India. The yard leading up to the fort was quite spacious indeed, offering a good view of the front wall of the fortress. If anything is certain, the place is very red indeed.

Lahori Gate of the Red Fort (Lal Qil'ah)

Interior - Red Fort rear courtyard architecture

We had our own “special” ticket line as foreigners at a twelve-fold premium, but still it was only about US$5. Past the ticket check was another gender-segregated security screening, where they asked to see the interior of our bags. Other than some pretty architecture, I’ve not much to say for the Red Fort.

On our way back to the station we looked around for a café our travel guide research recommended, but gave that up and opted to go directly to the Oxford Bookstore, known for its café as well as reading material, down in the Connaught Place area. We stopped by the official government tourist office and got another map, asking for some recommendations and the location of a couple shops we read about.

Getting to the bookstore proved to be difficult, however, as it was unmarked and behind the walls inside a corporate tower-like building. We did see a promotional sale sign for the bookstore, but it lacked directions and so we ended up walking in a circle back to it, passing by some tourist trappers. Then we found our way through the secured gate into the complex over the wall where the sale sign was and with instruction from a guy by the gate found the bookstore on the second storey. For you fellow travellers, it’s in the Statesman House building.

Inside we browsed the books languidly until we settled on a few including the most recent Lonely Planet guide to India, and sat down in the café to splurge on chai and finger foods. So much for two weeks of vegetarianism: I ordered chicken kebab right away, thinking it would be döner kebab and not just chunks of meat. Alas, it was still delicious. My chai, the Bollywood special, was only so special as to come in a colourful pot with some apparent celebrities’ faces painted on it. It was nonetheless appreciated and followed up with a faux-margarita of fruit juices.

Chai and hugger monkey mug-glass.

Bollywood special chai...

On the way out I noticed that the bookstore was also oddly selling Crayola crayons, so I bought a pack to bring to the village kids.

We visited two more places before heading back to the homestay: The government-run bazaar known as Cottage Emporium with crafts from around the nation and Fab India, a small retailer of traditional clothing (i.e. sarees) with fixed prices. Just as we were crossing the street to Cottage Emporium I caught on the wind the words of a tourist trapper (tout) saying “very expensive…” but both venues were quite pleasant.

We retired for the evening, wanting to get back before it grew dark and perhaps more dangerous, so we ended up asking the family for dinner (for charge) and they included us in their wonderful family meal. The parents are vegetarian but the children are not; the mum appears to cook meat for them despite not eating it. We were treated to several wonderful dishes I cannot remember, perhaps the most interesting one wrapped in a bit of thread that you remove before eating.

The twelve year old son of the family also showed us his coin collection, and we gave him a set of Japanese Yen and Korean Won.   He had some rather interesting old Indian coins, one undated and others from 1835 (East India Trading Company), 1897, 1929, and a few from the 1940s.

Indian coins from ancient to modern.

Angad arranged for us to get a taxi shortly after three in the morning to get to the domestic airport with plenty of time for our early flight, but he never got the call from them and unfortunately we had to wake them. The father was kind enough to walk us out to the alley and keep us company until the new taxi came to pick us up. In a half-hour we were at the terminal, meeting most of the members of our volunteer group.

Thanks to some good choices and research in advance, Delhi was far less scary than I imagined. In fact, I was actually surprised about how it wasn’t strikingly backward and the modernness of things like the metro rail. The sheer mass of auto-rickshaws and men sleeping around major areas shocked me like the motorbikes of Ho Chi Minh City in my first excursion on the Asian continent, but despite a few annoyances the city wasn’t so oppressive to the informed outsider.

Here are some selections from our work so far.

Day Two: The 'before' picture.

Upper brick work and a couple of the village kids.

Finished roof, pre-upper brick work.

It’s day two of the work camp and so far things are going smoothly. Yesterday we managed to complete two roofs and today we are working on another, plus helping in the brick-laying for two more.  We’re working alongside the professionals who spread out the concrete for the roof and do the actual brick-laying, so our jobs are mostly a matter of simple labour.

Putting a roof on a house.

We help bring rocks, cement mix, water to the small mixer they’ve got, and then transport the concrete up to the roof in a assembly line formation.  They’ve constructed platforms, so a pair of people lift up a bowl of concrete to the platform, who lifts it up to the people on the one-storey roof.  Then the discs are thrown down and we play a sort of Frisbee assembly line game getting them back to the cement mixer pile.

Rewinding a bit, upon our arrival in the village yesterday morning at approximately 07:30 we were surprised with a very warm welcome of drumming and dancing and smiling faces every which way.  The people of the village seemed very happy to see us, and came up to each of us to give us a huge lei of flowers that from my neck nearly reached the ground.  As we processed into the village, we saw many women clad in beautiful sarees and their children came up to us in a very friendly manner greeting us and asking how we were and what our ages were in impressive English – It’s surprising how their English skill compares to my students back in Japan!

Drum and dance group who welcomed us!

The villagers and ARV’s organisers here do their best to make sure they use us to the fullest extent, and while at first I wondered if there would be too many of us to manage (18 foreign volunteers!) it seems to be working out swimmingly: The heat and dehydration forces us to take breaks frequently so we don’t over-exert ourselves.  Two guys already worked a bit too hard or too long in the sun and ended up with heat sickness yesterday, but they have recovered today and are back to work.

We were given simple scarves to help protect us from the sun, which I used in addition to a small towel wrapped around my head and sunglasses to keep covered up.  In addition to this, we have excellent meals and actually eat in the village for all three meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) in a small building (approx. 10 ft x 20 ft) that is used as a school for 70 children here.  Perhaps the most pressing, we have a huge supply of bottled water thanks to ARV’s preparations, and due to my negligence to bring some along I’ve been borrowing rehydration mix left and right… It’s a very communal atmosphere and all the volunteers are sharing things as required.

Frankly I am so surprised that things have gone so well in a place where the locals admit to the concept of “Indian time” known for its delays.  Our SpiceJet flight to Hyderabad two days ago arrived early but Ravi was kindly there to pick us up and even got us some delicious breakfast of fried flatbread and something very much like hummus.

We had something like an eight hour bus ride to the hotel where we’re staying, and we stopped about halfway to get more delicious, local food at what must have been a common travel stop point.  It was another amazing selection of Indian food, a bunch of different things I would, in my ignorance, describe as curries but are probably otherwise known.  These sorts of “curries” are less thick than the ones in the north and had a little spice, but not as shocking as I was expecting.  Later I will go back and try to describe them in more detail!

The kids are very friendly!

Even in the heat here, hot chai is so wonderful.  I am always looking forward to the next cup and the local people are so kind as to provide us with so much!  But now it’s back to work!