July highlights.

It's a hard transition from 22 years of hot, dry summer freedom to still reporting to school every weekday at the end of a sweaty, humid July. Ironically, I've only gotten busier since classes properly ended for the summer back on the 12th. (Yes, it's summer vacation, but that term is extremely loose in Japan. School is still open, required extra summer classes are being held, and 18 five-paragraph essay rough drafts ready to be edited are calling my name.) Since then it's been grading, planning for when the real vacation starts, running errands I couldn't do while school was still in session (like going to the post office), Saturday Open Campus at Luther, and other activities. The Big Thing that's been eating up most of my time is preparation for Luther's annual English Summer Camp, which takes place this week. There will be big, long posts later, but for now I can only touch on a few highlights of the past month.

Highlight 1: July 4! (And Caroline's birthday.)

Thanks, Mrs. Caroline's Mom!

Naturally, the Japanese don't have much reason to celebrate America's Independence Day. It was a normal school day, but I snuck in some American pride. Caroline's mom is awesome and sent the three of us (Caroline, Morgan, and me) matching 2013 Old Navy American flag tank tops. After getting approval from Katie, I threw in in a white camisole and cardigan to make it school-appropriate and wore it throughout the day.

Hilariously, most teachers and students didn't notice my patriotic wardrobe. (And when they did, they thought it quite charming.) America-themed clothing is everywhere here in Japan... I'm talking stars-and-stripes, outlines-of-the-continental-United-States, "I ♥ AMERICA" t-shirts--pretty much just a fashion statement, not an actual declaration of love for or loyalty to the United States. We blended right in that night as we went out for Korean barbeque. (It's the closest thing to a real American barbecue we can get at 8pm on a school night.)

Low shutter speed makes for cool shots...
and blurry Carolines.

Of course, no July 4 is complete without fireworks, and they are gloriously legal here. So after a safety lecture ("It actually says on the bag specifically not to light it the way you're about to light it, guys!"), we went out on Caroline's veranda and rang in the Fourth the way it was meant to be.

Two days later, Caroline celebrated her first quarter-century. We went out with some friends from the weekly Sunday evening English church service and celebrated in the Japanese fashion... with karaoke and photo booth shots. (Japanese photo booths are called purikura--they're crazy high-tech, in every shopping mall and arcade, and usually filled with schoolgirls making kissy faces and peace signs at the camera.)

We turned the "doe eyes" setting all the way up. It had an... interesting effect on the guys.

Highlight 2: Guitar!
Some of you know how disappointed I was to have to leave my accordion back in the States, but recently I inherited another musical instrument. This one's a little more conventional, and a lot more lightweight.
 

A legacy from past J-3s.

I've only been playing for three weeks, so my fingers are still getting calluses and it takes me five to ten seconds to change between the three chords I know, but I'm working on it!

Highlight 3: Kittens!
There's a litter outside our apartment building. They make my returns home a little more adorable.

Mom was giving them baths before I startled them.

In August things should slow down a bit... maybe. There are many more posts I want to write and stories I want to share, but there's an equal amount of stuff I have to grade, chores I have to do, and sleep I desperately need. In the midst of this busyness, it's hard not to stress out. But, as the story of Mary and Martha (this past Sunday's Gospel reading) reminded me, I need to step back, take a breath and remember why I'm here. (Hint: It's not just to teach kids how to write a thesis statement.)

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
Luke 1:41-42 (NIV)

School in Japan.

What you're about to read started out as a bulleted list in Notepad several months ago and eventually became the wall of text you see before you. I'm thinking in the future I'll switch to a more vignette style in my blog entries, and thus (hopefully) be able to post more often. But hopefully this will give you some background on what my work environment during the week is like.

Luther High School, established 1926.

The Japanese school system is incredibly different from America in almost every way. To start, it's year-round, so it ends in March and begins in April. Elementary, middle, and high school last six years, three years, and three years, respectively. This applies nationwide, even to private schools. And grade levels aren't K-12. A student in their ninth year of post-kindergarten education wouldn't be in "ninth grade," they'de be in "middle school third year." It took me way too long to realize why people looked so confused when I told them I first came to Japan when I was in "high school fourth year." There is no high school fourth year here.

Students stay with the same classmates all day (their "homeroom"), and in the same classroom, too; it's the teachers who move around. (The only exceptions are classes that require special equipment, like science.) Homerooms' schedules are different on every day of the week. One homeroom I teach has English first hour on Monday, but fifth hour on Wednesday. (The hope is that they will be more alert at one of those times. The consequence is that it's been three months and I still don't have my weekly schedule completely memorized.) Each homeroom is made up of about forty kids and has an assigned homeroom teacher that's almost like a third parent in how much responsibility they take for their students. They do a lot of disciplining and counseling, and also spend long hours on the phone with parents.

My sweet ride, a standard Japanese commuter bike (foreground).

Japanese students in general are much less independent than their American counterparts. Forget driving to high school; you can't get a license here until you're 18. Plus the parking lots are tiny and many people commute to work and school on bicycles anyway. (I'm one of them!) Japanese students' lives revolve almost entirely around school, with very little spare time. They're often at school on weekends and/or before the crack of dawn and/or long after it gets dark for club activities, sports practice, required extra classes, or discipline. (One girl in my junior high class got into trouble and now has to help clean campus every morning for a while.) Every junior high and high school, public or private, requires its students to wear uniforms not just in school but when they're in public, too. This technically includes weekends and vacation. Every school's uniform is distinct, so if a student misbehaves in public, everyone knows which school to call for discipline (usually dealt by the homeroom teacher). Luther even has embroidered uniform socks and uniform book bags.

Speaking of which, the dress code at Luther would make most American high school students squirm. Students are not allowed to wear piercings, makeup, nail polish, or colored contact lenses, and if girls' hair is longer than shoulder-length they have to tie it up. (Boys aren't allowed to grow it out that long.) Students are also not allowed to dye their hair. If they dye their hair they must go to a salon and get it dyed back to black. (They're also supposed to save the receipt and submit it to the school to prove that they didn't just apply temporary spray-on dye.) If students actually, genetically, have lighter hair, they have to submit documentation of their family history for it. In addition, students aren't allowed to pluck their eyebrows, shave their heads, or grow their nails too long. Boys can't have facial hair, either.

Sometimes the girls will try to sneak in makeup or colored contacts, or shorten their skirts (they're supposed to fall low enough that the hem touches the floor if the girls kneel) by tying them up with long elastic strings under their shirts. It's usually pretty easy to spot which girls have done this. In a delicious cycle, Katie confiscates the strings and then cuts them up to make hair ties to hand out to the girls whose hair isn't tied back.

View from my desk in the teachers' office.

The social structure of a Japanese school is much more vertical than in the States. I was having lunch with one teacher the other day who had gone to the same high school and college as his friend, another Luther teacher, who was a grade level above him. "Were you two friends in high school, too?" I asked. He seemed surprised, and then replied, "Not friends. He was my senior." Students are very attached to their homerooms and peers in the same grade--so much so that their juniors use a title--senpai--instead of their actual name to address them, even if they are friends. And the teachers are ranked even higher. When students enter the teachers' office, they must recite their name, grade level, homeroom number, and attendance number before announcing which teacher they are there to see. Then they have to ask, in the most polite Japanese possible, if it might possibly be all right if they entered. Then, as they leave, they always bow and say a formal apology that in practice is used for "goodbye." This form is all printed on a laminated placard on the door so the students remember, right under a chart that shows which teachers are at which desks.

Ministry-approved junior high English textbook
that made me a little homesick.

As for the curriculum, there's no control at the prefectural or local level, public or private; it's all managed by the Japanese Ministry of Education. With a few special excpetions, even private schools have to pick textbooks that are Ministry-approved--a practice not without controversy, especially when it comes to history books. The entire system seems to be made of tests--skill tests, entrance exams, standardized tests, college prep exams, English vocabulary tests, Chinese character tests. Classes are often taught lecture-style and with a focus on rote memorization. Not sure which one came first--the tests or the teaching style. The English classes I team-teach are much more American-style, with more focus on participation and discussion. Sometimes the students warm up to it, but often if a teacher asks a question to the whole class, the students respond with blank stares and a long silence. (Shiiiiiiiiin, in Japanese onomatopoeia.)

30% is considered a passing grade here. I was shocked to learn that when I first arrived, but as I started to teach, I realized that these students are busy as all get-out. It's not that the students aren't doing their best, it's that they don't have time to do their best, with all the clubs and extra classes and fifty kinds of standardized tests they have to study for almost every week. They have barely enough time to even sleep at night. Consequently, students falling asleep in class is the biggest disciplinary problem I encounter. On the plus side, they often don't have enough time to get into trouble in public, either.

Top-floor Dainishichōkakushitsu ("No. 2
Audiovisual Room," or "Heaven" to the
native English teachers) after cleaning.

Another responsibility Japanese students have is cleaning. At Luther there's no custodial staff, aside from an older lady who cleans the entrance and staff bathrooms every morning. There's a dedicated fifteen-minute period every afternoon where small groups of students report to their assigned areas of the school to clean, which is kind of a raw deal for the students who get stuck scrubbing the bathrooms. Other jobs including sweeping the outdoor walkways and cleaning the teachers' office (where they are watched carefully). I'm in charge of one of the two special audiovisual classrooms used for English classes on the top floor, where every afternoon students clean the desks, empty the garbage, and vacuum the carpet, which is generally pretty clean anyway, due to the fact that shoes aren't allowed. (Shoes are not allowed in the library, either. The students generally drop their shoes at the entrance and pad around in their socks, but there are a few pairs of slippers available for teachers and guests.)

This post may have been information overload, but it's reflective of just how different my work environment is from anywhere I've ever been before. It's hard to imagine myself or my classmates from high school in an environment like this, dressed in uniforms and standing and bowing to teachers at the beginning of class. When I was in high school, the only time I was ever regularly at school past 4:00 was the year I took Journalism on nights before the school paper was due--and even then my teacher would order pizza for all of us. (We had a sweet deal with a local pizzeria where we gave them free advertising in exchange for free pizza once a month.) It makes it hard to relate to my students sometimes, except that liking Taylor Swift and Harry Potter seem to be universal.

There are plenty of advantages and disadvantages to the Japanese school system, and with all the structure it's sometimes hard to remember that I'm here primarily as a missionary and not an English teacher... especially when I'm showing students a giant picture of a hamburger and explaining that it's like a paragraph (see, the the two slices of bun are the topic and concluding sentences, and... yeah). But regardless, it's the backdrop against which I do most of my work, and I'm glad I get to see firsthand what these kids go through in their daily lives. I'm hoping and praying for more opportunities to connect with them in and out of class, and really looking forward to the next 21 months here. It's gonna be a a busy, but I think rewarding, next couple of years.

Monthly Luther/KyuGaku English Conversation at a downtown Starbucks.
Luther students in the light blue, KyuGaku students in the gray.
Posted with permission.

Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
Ecclesiastes 12:12b (NIV)

A trip to Aso.

At the end of April and beginning of May are a coincidental cluster of Japanese holidays collectively known as Golden Week, which is a very popular time for Japanese people to travel. This year the J-3s got a three-day weekend and then a four-day weekend. Caroline and I decided to dedicate two of those four days to go exploring the Aso region about a two-hour train ride out of the city. Aso, which, despite its official designation as a "city," is about as rural as you can get here in Japan. Mount Aso itself is a still-active volcano, which means that the area is rich in natural beauty and, my favorite, hot springs. Despite our late start in planning, we managed to book two beds at a little youth hostel not far from Aso Station, and the morning of Friday, May 3, we took our backpacks and boarded a train for our first independent Japanese overnight adventure.

Shopping street near Aso Shrine, decorated
with carp flags for Boys' Day on May 5.
Photo by Caroline.

After exploring, finding our hostel, getting lost, and grabbing lunch, we met up with Katie and her husband, and went exploring the side streets near Aso Shrine. This is where Caroline discovered that she didn't like mitarashi dango (steamed rice dumplings coated with soy sauce syrup on a stick), and where I discovered I liked kinako dango (steamed rice dumplings coated with toasted soy powder on a stick). We also discovered that there are basically no trash cans anywhere. ("What am I gonna do with the stick?")

Then we all went to an onsen (hot spring) together for a pre-dinner soak. Well, not together together. In Japan bathing suits aren't allowed at onsen, and ever since the arrival of missionaries in the 16th century, onsen and bathhouses have always been segregated by gender, so Katie, Caroline, and I went to the women's bath to experience the legendary Aso hot spring water. Soaking in an onsen is always amazingly relaxing, but my favorite thing was watching a grandmother interact with her two grandchildren in the bath. ("Abunai!" ["Danger!"] they'd shout before splashing into their grandmother's arms. Bath time is family time in this country, and it's a beautiful thing.)

Our hostel, run by possibly the sweetest lady in all of Japan.

Katie and her husband had to be back in town that night, so they dropped us off at our hostel, where we settled into our bunks for the night. We shared a room on the women's floor with two very nice ladies, one from Germany on a whirlwind Japan tour and one from Kumamoto with a great command of English. The hostel was an older building, but very clean and well-maintained, and you couldn't beat the price. We were a little worried about the bank of motorcycles that were parked out front that night, but we didn't see any of the motorcycle gang members during our stay.

The next day, we got a quick breakfast at a coffee shop and boarded a bus up into the mountains, having decided to take a hike up Kishima-dake, one of the so-called "Five Peaks of Aso." We had the option to hike up Mount Aso itself, but it's an active volcano that spews out toxic gas, so we decided to play it safe with what looked liked a relatively easy, safe, and hopefully uncrowded excursion. We refilled our water bottles and loaded up on rice cakes and dried peaches at the little bank of gift shops and restaurants at the base of the trail, and set out on our journey.

Kishima-dake, which looked easy from here.

But then throw in 837 of these. (We counted.)

And one of these.

At one point I honestly didn't know if I could make it the rest of the way up the mountain. Caroline's pretty fit and active, but I'm not athletic in the least. Biking to and from school every day has done great things for my health, but going up this steep slope I thought I was going to collapse before we even reached the top. But then...

The signpost marking the peak of Kishima-dake, 1,321 meters up.

I had to sit and drink water and eat peaches and rice cakes for a while, but after a short rest I was ready to go exploring the edge of the crater. The view was amazing. Talk about the glory of Creation. This was a literal mountaintop experience.

The view that made it all worth it.

Mount Aso from the peak of Kishima-dake.

As we walked and marveled at the size of the crater we were circling, Caroline and I decided to commemorate our experience with a video. (The wind was pretty strong, so you can't hear half of what we're saying. I tried to caption it, but it kind of messed with the aspect ratio. Sorry.)

Greetings from the mountaintop!

After getting back down from the mountain, we were exhausted, so we took a leisurely late lunch before deciding to go to one more onsen in Akamizu, a couple of stations down the line from Aso. We got into Akamizu Station as the sun set, only to hear that the onsen was closed, and the next train would come forty-five minutes later. Defeated, we plopped into benches on the platform while I whipped out my phone for only the second time all weekend to research any other potential onsen in the area. Then suddenly I heard Caroline say, "Laura. Look up from your phone."

I was completely missing the beauty of that moment. So we didn't get to go to another onsen. We were still given the gift of a gorgeous sunset and great weather. And, as I realized when we boarded our train, I was really tired anyway.

Akamizu Station, site of our non-adventure.

It was an amazing couple of days. As we reflected on how much of a relief it was to get out of the urban environment of Kumamoto City, I was reminded of William Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," a poem I've had to read several times for various classes in high school and college, where the poet talks about how his memories of the scenic Wye River Valley grant him tranquility "in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din / Of towns and cities":

While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.

We've already got plans to go back and visit the parts of the city we never got to. But we have plenty of good memories to sustain us until then.

May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works—
he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
Psalm 104:31-32 (NIV)

Spring summary.

Things are really heating up around here, both figuratively and literally. Definitely literally. Temperatures have gotten up to almost 90°F (32°C) lately. For now it's just been a dry heat, but rainy season and then the legendarily humid Kumamoto summer are just around the corner. How will a born-and-raised Californian girl handle the subtropical heat? Stay tuned to find out.

Moving day.

On March 25 I moved out of my temporary apartment and into my official J-3 lodgings. Compared to the extended-stay hotel kind of places I'd been in for five months, this apartment is palatial. It's on a bit of a busy street but the neighborhood is nice and there's a couple of lovely parks in the alley out back. All in all I'm just glad to be living in a place with a full kitchen and more than two chairs. One of these days I'm going to host some kind of gathering or movie night here. I can seat six or seven people now! And I can cook for them!

Our hanami view.

On March 27 Caroline, Morgan, and I decided to break in our new apartments with a hanami, or flower-viewing picnic, in one of the nearby parks. It's an annual tradition in Japan that families, friends, and coworkers will gather under blooming cherry trees and have a meal and drinks amongst the falling petals. I tried my hand at making hotteok, those Korean pancakes made of deliciousness, but it just wasn't the same as the ones from the Tokyo street vendors. Oh well. It was a nice afternoon, anyway.

I also had the chance to pay a visit to Kumamoto Castle on March 30, surrounded (naturally) by blooming cherry trees. The view from the top of the donjon is just spectacular. I appreciate that Kumamoto is a city where you can find just about anything but you can also see that nature is just a short distance away.

The donjon, framed by cherry trees.

View toward our apartments and Luther from the top of Kumamoto Castle.

Inside Kumamoto Castle.

On April 1 it was time to don a business suit for my first day of teaching English at Luther. Well, really it was my first day of staff entrance ceremonies and teacher meetings. But then a few more entrance and opening and welcoming ceremonies later (Japanese schools are waaay more formal than American ones), my teaching work really started. I teach about 200 students total (most of them high school first-years) and I have a Japanese partner teacher in every class. I enjoy it immensely, though it's quite exhausting.

On the way into the park.

Some of my favorite students are my junior-high second-years. In American terms, they'd be in eighth grade, and thus probably total punks, but in Japan they're still cute. I got to accompany them to a welcome event on April 26 at a park across town. We all boarded a train together, and then walked the rest of the way in a line. Katie and I brought up the rear.

Jump rope with the first-years.

Up until then I'd only seen the kids in their classroom wearing their formal suit-and-tie or sailor-outfit school uniforms and doing homework. But in their t-shirts and jeans, hanging out with their classmates at a park, it was much more like camp. I got to bond with some of my second-year girls over games of tag (I was instantly declared to be the oni, or It) and Screaming Toes, a camp game I was thrilled to be able to teach them in my halting Japanese. Bonds were forged that day. I'm going to love working with my junior high kids.

Another recent event was Sports Day on May 11, which is a much bigger deal in Japanese schools than in American ones. The entire school came out, even in the drizzly weather, and performed various exercises, races, and stunts. All of the high school boys did crazy gymnastic formations, concluding with human pyramids consisting of all the boys in each class year. It was fun to watch.

Left to right: yellow team, red team, purple team.

Second-year girls' Maypole dance.

Third-year boys doing gymnastic formations.

Third- and second-year human pyramids.

To keep the 1500-meter race entertaining, some of
the soccer (or maybe baseball?) players ran each lap in
a different costume. Here one is as Santa.

Purple team's ōendan. Literally "cheer squad," but much more
intimidating in practice. Check out their hakama outfits!

That about covers the major events up till now, I think. As you probably have guessed, my Internet access has thankfully, finally, been restored. My spare time, however... I don't think I'm going to see that again for a while. I do love my job, even with its six-day work weeks (school on weekdays, church on Sunday) and frequency of being at school past 6:00 in the evening. But the spring-themed stationery I bought purely to write letters to people just sits on my desk long after the real cherry blossoms outside have all disappeared. I still have a pile of emails to reply to, dating back to February. I'm planning to tackle those this week, but we'll see how school goes.

A couple of random fun notes before wrapping this up: on March 16, we made the local news. Apparently the criteria for being selected to march at the front of a St. Patrick's Day parade in Kumamoto are (1) wearing green, (2) looking sufficiently non-Japanese, and (3) standing outside a 7-11 near where the parade begins.

J-3s on parade... and on the evening news.

Also, on April 21 we were treated to basashi, the raw horse meat that Kumamoto is famous for, courtesy of a local pastor. Should I feel guilty that it's delicious? (It's delicious.) But it's also raw meat, and on top of that, raw horse meat, so I can only eat so much at a time before my brain stops me from consuming any more.

Basashi.

I'm really looking forward to the next two years in this city. Yes, there are bad days, and sometimes the weather or the pollution (it blows over here from China, and it is brutal) is extremely unfriendly. But I work with some amazing people, and some amazing students, too. In future posts I'll talk about school, church, and Caroline's and my recent trip to the nearby mountains of Aso. But for now, dinner. 

That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:13 (NIV)

Alive, well, and busy.

Since my last writing a month-and-a-half ago, four very important things have happened:

1. I have moved into my official J-3 apartment.
2. I have begun teaching English at Luther.
3. My Internet access has been severely limited since moving into my official J-3 apartment.
4. My spare time has been severely limited since beginning to teach English at Luther.

I am sorry to say that this has proved an unfavorable combination for my blog. Hopefully my Internet access will be restored soon, and when that happens I can post the volumes and volumes that I've been wanting to for over a month. Living and working as a missionary in Japan is unlike anything I've ever done before, and for the most part I'm really enjoying it. I'm very excited to share it with you all (and yes, there are plenty of photos), but for now all I can do is shoot off this brief message and my apologies all the people whose online communication I've had to (temporarily) spurn.

The God of peace be with you all. Amen.
Romans 15:33 (NIV)

A calligraphy lesson.

Another cultural activity we recently took part in was shodō, or Japanese calligraphy. An older gentleman from one of the Lutheran churches in town was our teacher. I heard later that he and his wife are both well-versed in many classical Japanese arts, so I was grateful that he took an afternoon to teach a few beginners the "way of writing" in the fellowship area of the church while his wife served us tea and sweets.

My workspace.

Thankfully I had a bit of a head start thanks to my home church's retreat last year, where one very talented member of my church taught a bit of Chinese calligraphy during free time. (My attempt at writing 恕 shù, "forgiveness," is still hanging on the wall of my room at home.) Japanese calligraphy is quite similar to Chinese, though this time our instructor didn't speak English.

"Suzuri," he said as he took an inkstone out of his bag and placed it on the table. Then he picked up the brush. "Fude." Finally he poured the ink. "Sumi."
 
Our first task was to write two kanji, or Chinese characters: 十 and 生. The first, pronounced jū, means "ten," and the second is the first character in the verb 生きる ikiru, which means "to live." Sensei explained that together the characters mean nothing; 十生 isn't a word in Japanese. But, he continued, 十 is the first character in 十字架 jūjika ("the cross of Christ") and 生 means "to live," so it was an appropriate combination of appropriately simple characters for calligraphy beginners during Lent.

He laid out felt mats on the table in front of each of us, some marked with diagrams to help properly balance whatever character we were writing. The paper we used was thin enough that the guide lines were visible underneath. He wrote out 十生 in orange ink for each of us as we watched, then instructed us to try our hand.

It is much harder than it looks. "Hiji wo agete," Sensei kept having to remind us. "Raise your elbow." "Tekubi janakute, ude wo tsukatte." "Don't use your wrist, use your arm."

Don't be fooled by my name in tiny letters
on the left; this is Sensei's beautiful work.

He came around to each of us in turn with his brush dipped in orange ink, drawing circles where we'd done well and gently redrawing parts of the characters we'd gotten wrong. Then we'd take another sheet of paper and try again. The pile of orange-marked practice papers became higher and higher. I was impressed at his patience: a man whose every brush stroke was a thing of beauty taking on teaching three beginners who had barely or never held a calligraphy brush before.

Finally all three of managed to write 十生 well enough that Sensei told us to write our names on them before he hung them up on the whiteboard. "It's important to look at what you have already written, too," he explained in Japanese. After we quietly and awkwardly admired our work for a little bit, he said, "Would you like to try writing different characters? I brought lots of paper, so please feel free."

We nodded, smiling nervously. He gave us each different characters to write. For me, he wrote 天上. "Can you read this?" he asked me. "Ten... jō?" I said tentatively. (Tenjō with slightly different characters also means "ceiling.") He smiled and nodded. "It's where God is," he explained. Ah, this tenjō means "the heavens." Though I had to confirm it with my phone's dictionary later.

We kept all our practice papers as trophies.

The characters 天上 are deceptively simple, especially the two tails on 天. It seemed I could never get the strokes right... if I made one good one, I made two other bad ones. I had just finished one I thought was far from my best when Sensei came over and picked it up, holding it out in front of me. I looked up at him, confused. He had a huge grin on his face.

"Jouzu ni dekita ne," he said. "Well done."

There's a certain je ne sais quois about Chinese and Japanese calligraphy that I've never been quite able to capture, that "I know it when I see it" kind of thing. I saw it in Sensei's every brush stroke... not so much in mine, though the adorable older church ladies who occasionally came through and saw our finished pieces gasped, clapped their hands, and declared them "Jouzu, jouzu, jouzu!" ("Excellent, excellent, excellent!")

From left to right: Caroline's, mine, Morgan's.
山川: yamakawa, "mountains and rivers"
春: haru, "spring" (the season)

When he finally deemed one of each of our attempts at calligraphy acceptable, he had us write our names on the left before he took them and hung them on the whiteboard below each of our previous "十生." "Now let us look at what we've written while drinking tea, shall we?" he said.

I did very much enjoy my calligraphy lesson. It's a precise art, and it's all too easy to make mistakes, but it's also somewhat therapeutic and serene, too. Something about the brush sliding across the paper, the way the ink spreads, the flow of the character. It was raining that afternoon, too, which helped the meditative atmosphere.

Watashi wa budou no ki
Anatagata wa sono eda dearu.

Before we left, Sensei gave us all ribbon bookmarks with his own beautiful calligraphy on them, things like John 3:16 and "God is love." I chose a blue one with the first part of John 15:1: "I am the vine, you are the branches." It goes well with a certain other beautiful handmade John 15:1-themed piece of décor I received as a gift from a member of my home church before I left America last October.

In a Japanese in-flight movie I watched on the way over here all those months ago, the main character would write her goals in calligraphy and hang them on the wall to make them more likely to come to fruition. I wonder if I couldn't go down to the hyakuen (dollar) store and pick up some (cheap) supplies of my own to write Japanese Bible verses or prayers or the like to hang around my permanent apartment when I move there. (It's coming up soon!)

Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Proverbs 3:3 (NIV)

Hinamatsuri.

One of the many Hina doll displays along the
downtown shopping arcade that day.

Sunday, March 3 was my first Hinamatsuri, also known as Girls' Day or the Doll Festival, a uniquely Japanese holiday that traces its origins back to over a thousand years ago. The holiday celebrates daughters and is a chance for their families to pray for health and a good marriage. Every year households traditionally set up a display of dolls representing the Emperor and Empress and their court, dressed in the traditional clothes of that time period. In the old days, it was thought these dolls could draw bad spirits away from the daughters. Full doll displays tend to be very expensive, so they are often passed down through generations. And they are always taken down soon after March 3, since the story goes that the longer the doll display is left up, the longer it will take for the daughters to get married.

The YMCA here in Kumamoto runs a Hinamatsuri event for international students every year, and one of the coordinators, a member of one of the Lutheran churches here in town, invited us to join. So after church that Sunday, Caroline and I strolled down to the local community center where we met our host, and several Kumamoto University graduate students.

We were first led into a large room where several other foreign women were already getting outfitted in kimono, and were allowed to pick from something like twenty kimonos laid out on the tatami mat flooring. I chose a dark blue one; Caroline took a bright red one. It was much like the tea ceremony we attended last month: three or four women scuttled around us, putting kimono piece after kimono piece on us--a ribbon here, a hidden towel there, a plastic insert to keep the obi (that wide sash) smooth.

Both of our kimonos were of the style known as furisode ("swinging sleeves"), appropriate for unmarried women as the long sleeves can be used to beckon suitors. Caroline's kimono turned out to be downright Biblical, with a dove and a rainbow. Mine had rickshaws on the sleeves and the front panel. Props to Japan for creating a garment that is beautiful and elegant and also features a mode of transportation at the same time.

 

Caroline and me at the tea ceremony.
(Photo courtesy of our host.)

 After we were all dressed up we were ushered into a smaller tatami-matted room where we were given sweets and tea. It was a much more informal tea ceremony than the one we had last month, but we had many more people there, too.

We also had the chance to hear the niko, or erhu in Chinese, a traditional Chinese bowed instrument that sounds much like a violin but with a thinner, more voicelike sound. A Chinese student, dressed in a traditional men's kimono, played four Japanese folk songs, one of which was apparently a Kumamoto folk song. My favorite part was hearing all the middle-aged Japanese ladies in the back of the room softly sing the lyrics. When the performance was done we all called for an encore from his own country, so he played a beautiful Chinese song called "Jasmine."

Last of all was a dance. An older, kimono-clad woman moved to the front and demonstrated a dance from the Aso region northeast of the city to the recording of an old Aso love song. The dance moves were quite subtle--one can't move very much past shuffling pace in a kimono--but really lovely and graceful. Afterward, we were immediately handed baton-like objects and she began to demonstrate another dance, this time a repeating sequence of tapping one's shoulders and legs with the baton. I may have gotten bruises from hitting myself too hard with the baton in my concentration.

The international group.
(Photo courtesy of our host.)

Surprisingly, Caroline and I were the only Americans at the whole event. We met new friends from all over the world, from Eastern Europe to the South Pacific. After the event ended, Caroline and I joined a couple of them in a stroll through the downtown shopping arcade to see the doll exhibits, talking about our hometowns and comparing them to Kumamoto. Truly an intercultural day all around. It was good to meet people outside church and school, too; I'm eager to form relationships with people all over this city.

(I couldn't find a Bible passage I felt fit with this entry, but since Caroline and I spent so much of the afternoon feeling like princesses, here's the wham line from the story of my favorite Biblical princess, Esther, who risked her life to save her people from annihilation:)

And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?
Esther 4:14b (NIV)

Amakusa.

A few weeks ago I went with Caroline, Morgan, Christine (a 2010-2013 J-3), two Kumamoto pastors, a Luther High School student, and a Kyushu Lutheran College student to the Amakusa islands southwest of Kumamoto City. Amakusa is an area rich in nature, beauty, fresh sashimi, and Christian history, and we soaked it all in for an entire day. Here's some of what we learned.

Crossing one of the so-called Five Bridges of Amakusa on our journey in.

The Shimabara Rebellion.

Memorial at the Amakusa
Municipal Christian Museum.

European Christian missionaries first arrived in Japan in 1549, and their teachings, along with the goods they brought, were generally welcomed. But in 1582, the feudal lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi took power and, fearing a threat to his authority by such foreign influences, strictly prohibited Christianity. Hideyoshi ordered the death of many a Christian, including the public crucifixion of who are now known as the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan in nearby Nagasaki.

Christian persecution continued sporadically for the next eighty years or so, as well as heavy tax burdens on the Amakusa area peasants. Punishments were harsh for those who couldn't pay--they were generally made to die horrible deaths. Discontent over persecution, taxes, and famine stirred up rebellion, and the charismatic 16-year-old Amakusa Shiro was chosen as leader in 1637.

Amakusa Shiro.

Statue of Amakusa Shiro outside the
Amakusa Municipal Christian Museum.
Photo by Caroline.

Born Masuda Shiro Tokisada, Amakusa Shiro was raised among Christians and was said to have mysterious powers from God. Supposedly he walked on water, and once had an egg containing a scroll of Scripture and a painting of Jesus fall into his hand. Many thought he was the fulfillment of a prophecy, made by a Catholic missionary who had been expelled some years earlier, that a "child of God" would come to save the people of Amakusa. Evidently Amakusa Shiro was a natural-born leader, as at the tender age of 16 he helped round up the citizens of Amakusa to try to attack Tomioka Castle. When that didn't work, they sailed to nearby Shimabara and barricaded themselves in the formerly abandoned Hara Castle.

Tomioka Christian Monument. May or may
not have the severed heads of some of the
1638 Shimabara rebels buried underneath it.

The number of Christians in that castle was about 37,000, including women and children who were willing to die for their faith, preferring to go to paraiso (paradise) than live in the hellish conditions brought on by unmerciful feudal lords. As time wore on, the rebels' food ran out and the government troops surrounding the castle grew to 125,000. Hara Castle finally fell on February 28, 1638. All the Christian rebels (except one suspected traitor) were beheaded, all believing they would be reunited in the Hereafter, safe in God's hands.

The Shimabara Rebellion was the largest rebellion as well as the largest religious war in Japan's history, and as such, changed the course of Japan's history for the next 200 years. Having seen firsthand the dangers of Christian teachings of human equality before God, the Japanese government officially closed off all exchange with foreign countries (with very limited exceptions) until 1853. Freedom of religion would not be instituted until 1873.

The Hidden Christians.

Amakusa Rosary Museum (foreground) and Ōe Catholic
Church (background), the latter established in 1880 after
Christianity was permitted, and rebuilt in 1933.

During the intervening years, Christian culture in Japan was calcified in the practice of the Kakure Kirishitan, or "Hidden Christians." They worshiped Jesus in secret, hiding crosses in seemingly Buddhist artifacts and praying in secret rooms. An innocent-looking hand mirror would project a cross onto the wall if held to reflect direct sunlight. A statue of Kannon, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, would really be a statue of Mary. When someone received a Buddhist blessing in the house, someone else would recite Christian prayers and pull a rosary in and out of a jar full of holy water in the secret room to neutralize the sutra.

Sakitsu Catholic Church, also established in
1880, rebuilt in 1934.

Sometimes these hidden Christians would be found out by means of fumi-e, or "stomping pictures." Officials would put a metal or wooden plate engraved with an image of the Virgin Mary or Jesus on the ground and challenge suspected Christians to step on it. If they refused, they were instantly arrested and killed for being a Christian. Many were martyred this way, and many lost their nerve and recanted, begging God for forgiveness later. The Hidden Christian culture remained well-preserved until the ban on Christianity was lifted in 1873 and Christian culture was once again allowed to flourish.

There is much more to this story, and I admit with my limited historical knowledge (and the limited availability of English-language materials) I may have gotten some details wrong, but it was still quite a moving experience to be in a place steeped in so much history. For a country that still largely views Christianity as foreign, Japan has quite a rich Christian heritage.

Scenic Amakusa.

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
Acts 17:26-27 (NIV)