Visiting the doctor

Because I'm down and out again with a cold I thought I'd tell you about some of the every day things that go on with visiting a doctor in Japan. I've been to him twice in the past two weeks... Tetsu took his mother for a check-up at a major hospital last week... my friend was visiting the doctor this week and we have been talking about the pros and cons. A lot of different viewpoints.

When I went to the local doctor a couple of weeks ago I arrived at his parking lot at about 8:30 AM. Now I know he doesn't open until 9:00 but that was why I went early. With the local doctors you don't make an appointment and so I knew that unless I got there early, I'd be in for a long wait. I was the second one in the parking lot but the other man got out of his truck and went and stood in front of the hospital/clinic door. I decided I felt bad enough that I did NOT want to wait outside in the cold until the nurse unlocked the clinic.

By 9:00 a little group of people had gathered in front of the clinic... all patiently waiting in a line to get in. As soon as the nurse unlocked the door I joined the line... went inside... removed my shoes and put them in a cubby and then put on slippers and went to the registration desk. Since I rarely need to go to the doctor's, I hadn't been there for awhile and needed to fill out a registration form again. I also had to show them my insurance form card and give them the clinic's card that they'd made for me before with my number on it... (if I'd forgotten that the nurse would have to look up my history some other way... I just saved her time.)

While I was waiting I was handed a thermometer and told to take my temperature. This thermometer is to be placed in the armpit... not the mouth. I remember 35 years ago I stuck the thermometer in my mouth and the nurses got very excited about the stupid foreigner!

A short wait, not bad at all! and then I got to see the doctor. He looked in my throat, checked my heart, typed things onto his computer and sent me away. I saw him for about 1 minute if that. Back in the waiting room and I paid some minuscule amount (yesterday it was about $5) and was given a prescription that I took to the pharmacy next door. I paid another $5 for three types of medicine at the pharmacy and then I went home. Until recently, doctors doled out the medications. They had a pharmacist in their office I guess, and the receiving and paying for medication was all done at the receptionist's desk. Recently laws have changed and I have to go next door. (Which sort of seems like an extra step to me since somebody had to build a tiny pharmacy next to the doctor's office and no one but the doctor's patients go to get their prescriptions filled there.)

That's what visiting the local doctor is like.

Now for Tetsu's mother...

Tetsu left home at 6:00 AM to go pick up his mother who lives 30 minutes away. He got to her apartment at 7:00 and together they went to the major university hospital another 30 minutes away. Tetsu's mother had an appointment for between 9:00 and 12:00 that morning... Again, the doctors don't start seeing patients until 9:00 AM but Tetsu said that people were lined up in front of the computers (where you insert your appointment card) and waiting for the computer terminals to open (inside the lobby). He said at 7:30 they were the 47 person in line. Finally at 8:00, the computer terminals opened, they stuck in the card and were sent on over to the doctors window. This is a major hospital so there are walls of windows and rows and rows of benches to sit at. I think they had to register again at the window to let the nurse know that they were there but supposedly the order in which you arrive doesn't matter... at least that is what the nurses tell the pushing crowds trying to put their ticket in the box before everyone else.

Finally around 9:30 Tetsu's mother was called and she went in to see the doctor and tell him what all was wrong with her. She has an ongoing every three month appointment so she figures she needs to tell him everything that has gone wrong the past three months and ask all the questions she can because she won't see him for another three months. Tetsu said the doctor (often a new one each time you go...depending on the day, the doctor's schedules for surgery and such, transfers etc.) did not seem too sympathetic. In less than three minutes they were out of there and back in the waiting room this time to get medicines and pay. In the major hospitals I think this is all done in one whack. Tetsu and his mother were both very happy that they were out of the hospital by 10:30! Sometimes Tetsu's patience level explodes because there are blood tests or eye exams etc. and each involves another hour's wait and they don't get out of the hospital until 2:30 or 3:00. That is par for the course for major hospitals.

And then my friend who went to her local doctor said she evaded the waiting system by asking her husband to drop by the doctor's office on his way to work before 7:30 and place the little card in the box before everyone else. I guess at her doctors the waiting room isn't locked or something. This means that the card got in first and my friend didn't have to sit in the waiting room or the car (like me) or stand in the parking lot. My friend seems to think this is a good system.

Actually I don't like this system because I remember taking Takumi to the doctors when he was a baby and, seeing no one in the waiting room at 9:00, thinking that we would be out of there in a flash. But no... people had brought in their cards, left them and gone back home to do whatever and came back at the approximate time that they thought the doctor would see them. I've had nurses tell me to go ahead and deposit my card and come back in the afternoon since there were so many cards in the box already! With Takumi I remember always thinking that we were the next one up and not getting in to see the doctor until 11:00 or so. And with a crying, sick child, this was miserable!

Or there was the time when Leiya had the chicken pox or something and was feverish. The nurse (who didn't want to have the other patients contaminated) ASKED us to wait out in the car for an hour instead of sit in the waiting room passing our virus onto the others. She kindly came out to the car to let me know Leiya's turn was up.

So. I'm just as happy that I don't get sick very often. Yesterday I beat the system by going to the doctor's at 6:00 PM, just as the nurses were putting out the closed sign... I was in and out in a minute or two, the next door pharmacy people were just checking out the doctor's parking lot to see if they might expect any more patients. Too bad. They had to wait for me.

Back to bed.

Crunchy or sweet?

Do you like crunchy or sweet? There seems to be a time of day for both. I am partial to sweet, especially chocolate, but I find myself craving for crunchy things too. I love nuts and Japanese crackers that go "saku-saku" (the sound of crispy things being eaten). Chocolate makes me happy, the sound of crunch in my ears gives me satisfaction.

So... wouldn't you know that Japan has the answer for both cravings!

Royce Chocolate is an exclusive Hokkaido (northern Japan) chocolate maker. Let me tell you, in Japan this is known as GOOD chocolate! And Hokkaido is also known for its potato industry. Can you see where this is leading?

Yep. Chocolate Potato Chips!

Yummm. GOOD! SATISFYING! Do I dare open this box and serve these? Yes, I do and I hope everyone will eat a lot of the sinfully delicious chocolate potato chips because anything left will go directly into my mouth!

Frills

I am assuming that Leiya does not check my blog. (Remember when I asked Takumi ...via blog... if he wanted my beach scenery small quilt? No reply so I guess he didn't read that post... ) Anyway, I made up a muffler for Leiya (and Leiya if you see this post then you can still act surprised when you open the package). I wanted to show you the interesting way it turned out.

This is called Frill tape. I seems to be made out of cotton or silk or something (sorry, I threw away the packaging) and is extremely light and soft. There were quite a few colors one could chose from but I liked the way the stripes accented the finished product. The sample I saw was in black, and black and white tape. This is white, and black and white tape. The knitting was extremely simple. Thread 20 loops (they are already made on the tape) onto the knitting needle turn and knit back. Every two rows put the other color tape over the first. and when 4 rows have been knitted, change colors.

Knitting the fine thread part (loops) pulls the wider tape part into frills... thus the name. I think the weight of the end rows makes the center part narrower... I did not decrease any stitches. A fun, easy project done in a couple of hours. The "yarn" is a little pricey but for a one time project for a special daughter I think it is nice.

Now to remember to send this.

Saturday miscellaneous

I participated in the final role playing seminar for language interpreters again yesterday and learned a lot. Especially about the Japanese insurance system! I came away thinking that how the medical bills get paid seem to be of greater importance than what the money gets used for. Maybe that is true all over the world. At any rate... because of the greatly confusing insurance system almost anybody in Japan can afford medical care. Of course there are a lot of situations with illegal aliens who do no pay national insurance fees...

Here is a rare picture of me "working". I think I was playing a pregnant mother-to-be. (That's pushing it quite a bit!) We were also fed lunch! Yum! I love the fancy box lunches that Japanese restaurants will prepare and deliver for special occasions.



I'll have you know I have laid aside my patchwork (not completely) for awhile, and am now knitting! Tetsu's annual Christmas present from me is a sweater or vest and so I need to get started. I "saw" a vest pattern I liked but cannot get the book for... I "think" I can make my own pattern and come up with something similar. I bought yarn already and have knitted up a swatch to check my gauge but am sort of concerned that the pattern is going to get lost in the mohair... I lovingly thought mohair would keep Tetsu warmer... true but it doesn't do a lot for a cable pattern... My annual knitting is always such a hit and miss affair.

And I'm also working on a scarf for Leiya. I think I can show that tomorrow!

Char-rin!

Mrs. Ochiai came over yesterday and spent a couple hours showing me what my new cell phone can do. We also resolved a couple of my computer problems. It is so nice to have a computer and electronic literate friend.

落合さん！　ありがとう！

（I just said thank you to Mrs. Ochiai. She is one of my friends who just visits my blog for the pictures. ）

So... I have relearned how to back up my blog. Mrs. Ochiai has taught me how to do this before but I forgot. And I have checked my computer for a bluetooth device which we determined it doesn't have. Not that I've missed it in the past two years...

And I registered my cellphone on-line and now can use the cellphone-wallet application. Japan's stores abound with little disks at the cash registers where you place your compatible cell phone and can pay for purchases without opening your wallet. Whether this is necessary or not I don't know but I wanted to have fun with my cellphone right? So now I can do this.

After on-line registering, Mrs. Ochiai and I went down to the nearest convenience store and with her leading me by the hand (not really) she proceeded to direct me on how to "charge" my cellphone with money and buy something.

To the convenience store clerk,

"I want to charge 1000 yen (about $10) to my cellphone."

Place it on the disk and hand the clerk money. Push a couple buttons on the screen.

"Char-rin!" (the sound of coins "dropping" into your cell phone.)

Now what to buy... two soft drinks. One for Mrs. Ochiai, one for myself. Back to the same clerk.

"I want to pay for my purchases with my cellphone."

Place it on the disk and another "Char-rin!"

Purchase made. The clerk was laughing at me while I was anxiously checking my cell phone to see if I'd really used the money that I'd just put in. Sure enough... some 700 yen left!

Mrs. Ochiai warned me not to keep too much money in my cell phone just in case I lost it...

Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur in a digital world...

(picture from the Internet)

Curries and Chapatis!

Tuesday I got together with Bajiwa-san (from Pakistan) and his family and some pool friends. His daughter-in-law showed us how to make Pakistan curry. Oh~ so delicious! (She held down the spices for us wimps that can't take real Pakistan spicy... Even so we all warmed up quickly.

This is me after poking a hole in the chapati that I was trying to make. Lahira though it very funny the way we all gasped at the amount of red pepper she put in her curry and how our chapati kept flying off onto the counter (better than the floor).

We, in turn, were amazed that Lahira could cook in her garb... the tassels and head scarf seemed to come so close to the flames but Bajiwa explained that the women ALWAYS wear the traditional clothes (sorry, I can't remember the name) and that Lahira has been cooking since she was 10 or 11 so no need for us to worry.

We (actually Lahira,) made three types of curries and chapatis. And I came home with a whole set of spices so that I can do this again in my own home. Hah! I'm willing to try but I doubt after one lesson I can make authentic Pakistan curry again! I doubt that I'll ever attempt the chapatis. Especially as Lahira seemed to think it would be very difficult to make chapatis in a regular fry pan...



Good friends and good food again! Oh, and I finished the baby quilt in time to give it to Bajiwa-san's grandson.

Beauty parlors

Nothing much interesting going on here. I got my hair trimmed just because I was looking authentically witchy for Halloween and needed a simple beauty boost. I don't know if it worked.

All my life I had very long hair. As a child it was mousy brown and straight. I remember my mother using the word "witch" to describe my hair back then. In my teens my style could be called Joan Baez style...　 Long and parted down the middle. I don't think I have EVER been to the beauty parlor in the States.

For quite awhile in Japan I stayed with the long straight look but maybe because of the humidity my hair started to curl. And get darker. My mother has always wondered if this was due to eating Japanese food... For years, every summer she would finger my hair and say,

"My goodness Tani. Your hair is BLACK! It must be all the seaweed you're eating."

When the kids came along I started changing styles. Short bobs, sculptured necklines etc. Too much trouble to keep getting it cut. Too much fussing in front of the mirror every morning. Another term of short hair was when the white started coming in, Mother's comments in thirty years changed to,

"My goodness Tani. Your hair is WHITE! How old ARE you?"

For some unknown reason I'm growing it out again.

ANYWAY... I don't know American beauty parlors, only Japanese. I go to a nice older women who has a little shop off the side of her house next to forest... Only grandmas and me go to her.

I suppose in a lot of ways beauty parlors are all the same. Hair washing area, spinning chairs, lots of magazines. But how about this? In Japan when a beautician washes your hair she always places a small white handkerchief over your face? Is this common elsewhere? I suppose the white handkerchief keeps the customer from looking into the beautician's armpit as she scrubs the head but I'm always reminded that dead people get a handkerchief placed over their face too while they lie in state...

There was one beauty parlor that I patronized for awhile where the hair washing could be done in a machine. I'd get put into a chair with my head lying over a sink and a big dome would come down and water would spray from all sides, shampoo would dispense from somewhere and plastic automated fingers would do the scrubbing and rinsing etc. Not too bad... Sort of an experience... I never got wet anywhere else so I guess the machine was perfected...

In most Japanese beauty parlors and barber shops, at the end of the cutting and styling experience, the customer is given a simple head and neck massage as part of the shop's service. I'm not too fond of this myself... The beautician thumps her palms and wrists against the head in various places and on the shoulders... I have no idea what a head massage has to do with cutting hair.

And I've had beauticians offer to shave my face for me! "

"NO WAY!!! I do not have a beard (yet) thank you! Stay away from me with your razor!"

This isn't such an uncommon service and many of my friends like to have their faces shaved. (Strange tastes!)

Another service that Japanese beauticians are qualified in is the dressing of customers in kimono. Putting on a formal kimono is so complicated that most women when dressing for a special wedding or funeral or such situation where a kimono is appropriate, will have the beautician do all the dressing and obi tying etc. I suppose they have to get their hair styled anyway so Japanese beauticians train in both hair and dressing skills. This is another service I've never taken advantage of...

I'm not really looking too different from before I went to the beauty salon so no picture of me today...

Bazaar quilt

While I was at the interpreter seminar on Saturday, the kindergarten was having its annual bazaar. Unfortunately it was a rainy day so I guess the whole thing had to be done indoors (usually it is held on the playground). I can imagine what a circus that was! The main event at the bazaar is always the quilt raffle that Mrs. Furui and I started some 15 years ago...maybe more than that? Anyway for a long time a few of us spent the year making a quilt and other small items and then setting up a raffle booth and selling tickets. A few years ago we "retired" from actual raffle selling and have just donated the first prize quilt. Since I couldn't be present at the raffle I had Mrs. Furui buy me some tickets and asked her to report about the reaction to our Neenie's Garden quilt. Saturday was the first time the kindergarten mothers and staff saw it and I do wish I'd been their to see the reactions. This year's quilt was such a beauty!

When I got back home from Saturday's work, there was an e-mail from Mrs. Furui with pictures of the lucky raffle winner! One of the former kindergarten teachers!!! This is amazing because last year's quilt had gone to a different former kindergarten teacher (both are now mothers at the kindergarten). In fact of the past 15 quilts, twice the kindergarten principal has pulled the winning tickets, three former kindergarten teachers have won, one current teacher and one current office lady also have won a raffle quilt. You would think the raffle is rigged! But it is not. I suppose the staff end up buying more tickets (it is all in the name of fund raising) but even so... No one complains! The teachers and staff are of course the most well known at the kindergarten, and when the principal wins the quilt it even stays AT the kindergarten so that everyone can enjoy it and be inspired through the years. It is a great consolation to think that even if I didn't win it, I know the person who did! Everyone is over joyed when one of our quilts goes home with staff.

This year's quilt was made from a Block of the Month series that Lorraine sent our patchwork group from Australia. Actually more than a year went into this... and the fantastic machine quilting was done by our friend Mrs. Okutomi who lives in another prefecture. She quilted this huge quilt on her domestic sewing machine! (She is one of the few machine quilters in Japan and has been featured in Japanese patchwork magazines. To think she had her start with our little group some 20 years ago!!!)

Okay... we are ready to start next year's bazaar quilt!

Interpreting

Not greatly perking but it is wonderful how the body responds when it has too. Yesterday I had some work that I could not bow out of and I managed wonderfully. Today... I'm back dragging around.

Yesterday I was helping with a seminar to train interpreters in medical situations. Great fun for me since I got to role play the mentally unbalanced foreigner who didn't understand the Japanese medical system nor have a handle on the Japanese language. Boy did I ham it up! Lots of laughs as I held my head and sobbed into my handkerchief.

Not so funny though are some of the real life situations.

About 10 years ago I befriended a woman from Iran. I saw her outside the neighborhood supermarket and spoke to her a few minutes, she being obviously foreign and with a small half Japanese child by her side. We exchanged telephone numbers and though our common language was only Japanese which she wasn't comfortable with, we became "friends" for the next couple months.

What a story of woe she had! She and her husband had met in Iran when he was working there. Her family disowned her when she married and she came back to our little town with her husband to make a life in Japan. Soon she was pregnant but ended up in the hospital with a threatened miscarriage. She stayed in the hospital 5 months and in the meantime her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He passed away two months after their son was born.

In the cemetery across the street from my house where Tetsu and I walked our dog, there was an interesting gravestone, at the time the only one in the whole cemetery with a picture of a man on it. Inscribed in the stone in childish Japanese characters were words,

"My darling *****. I love you, I miss you. You are my whole heart and will be forever."

So unusual to see such an expression of love and emotion from a Japanese family and Tetsu and I often wondered who the man was (he had passed away young) and what kind of wife would be so open in declaring her affection. Later I found out that it was the Iranian woman! So the mystery was solved.

The poor woman was with a baby in a strange country and no husband. He had left her a small house and money. His family disliked her. She could not go back to Iran because the child did not have Iranian nationality, only Japanese. With his Japanese nationality she was allowed to stay in Japan but without family, friends or work.

For the next few months we saw each other regularly but I wondered about her unorthodox behavior. She seemed to be quite at odds with her neighbors accusing them of spiteful actions and scorn. She was a real shopaholic and her house was FILLED to the ceiling with un-opened boxes of trinkets and clothing and appliances from catalog shopping which she admitted she couldn't stop buying. The child, who was by this time two or three went completely hysterical whenever I visited, and would scream and throw things and seemed to be on the oddest schedule of sleeping during the day and being demanding in the night hours. My friend was at her wit's end but when I suggested she try to adjust the boy's sleeping and eating schedule (he would eat nothing but potato chips) she would say that he was only a child and children could not be trained until they were in school. That is way~ too late in my book but I thought that maybe this was the Iranian way of child raising.

In the end, the woman ended our relationship with outbursts of anger when I tried to explain that I could not and would not take over caring for her husband's grave because the cemetery was so close to me. She accused me of being as hateful as her neighbors and out to get her wealth... A couple of weeks later she returned to Iran for an extended visit and I never talked with her again.

A couple of years went by and once our cars passed each other on the street. "Ah. She's back..." But I decided not to seek her out. She knew where I lived if she wanted to renew our former friendship. I didn't hear from her and sometimes wondered if I should see how she was. I guess by then I'd figured out that what she really needed was some psychological help.

Not too long ago I learned that for a few months she'd been hospitalized in a mental hospital and that her son had been placed in an institution and been diagnosed as autistic. Social workers had been called in but there were none in our area who could counsel her in Persian and she'd become suicidal. In the end the Iranian embassy provided an escort for her and her son to be taken back to Iran where I presume she is getting medical help.

A sad story of how people slip through the cracks. Maybe it is easier to slip when there is a language barrier also involved. I wish I could have helped. I don't think I could have. I hope other foreigners will benefit from the new interpreters who were being trained yesterday.

Cough, cough, sneeze, sniffle

Rats... I am down with a cold. I had sure hoped that all my swimming, if not helping me to lose pounds, would help me keep colds and flu at bay. Nope. Down and out I am! This morning I struggled through cross walk duty in bitter cold and I think I'll be able to pull it off tomorrow too. For the rest of today I'm staying in bed.

There was an interesting trend going on at the pool this week. I noticed one friend with her wrist all wrapped up in gauze. When I asked her what she had done she said that someone (at the pool) had told her a good way to protect herself from cold germs. Something about finding a certain leaf or grass and pulverizing it and then applying it to the pulse point on your wrist. The leaf juices burn through the skin and you are left with a blistered, swollen red mark... and have inoculated yourself against unwanted viruses.

Sure enough a couple other ladies had their wrists bandaged up too... And it was the big topic of discussion a few days later in the locker room. Everybody wants some of the medicinal leaves!
To myself I pooh-pooh a lot of these wives' tale remedies because they catch on so quickly and are forgotten just as quickly but I sort of wish I was wearing a bandage on my wrist today. I could either be perking around or else I could prove leaf medicine as unreliable...

I'm going back to bed.

Halloween

Yesterday we did Halloween at the pre-school where I teach. My role is just to get dressed up as a non-scary witch. (I've tried being scary... make-up and all and had children running for cover...) The teachers went to great lengths to think up costumes for the kids made out of garbage bags and milk cartons. I made cookies and the teachers gave out marshmallows and crackers. Aren't the kids cuties? I wish I could show you more pictures but I've made it a policy to get permission (which I did with this devilish little boy.)

I'm not a great fan of Halloween but do my part in decorating... Ghosts and skeletons don't seem too cute to me (I don't understand the skull fashion boom that has hit Japan throughout the year? Why would you want a picture of a dead body on your chest?) but children have fun and it is all in play. Up on my wall this month is a paper-pieced Halloween wall hanging and a Water Color quilt moon.

Last night in my 5th 6th grade class we ate potato chips and cookies and played Clue... When the class was over one girl told her mother,

"We played Murderer!"

Whoa~~! Something got lost in the translation there!

Recently, Japan has had a run of insensitive teachers who pose discussion problems to their classes such as "The best way to commit suicide... " "Meeting someone eligible at a funeral..." " Who do you think killed the school principal?" Some such ridiculous, off-color, poorly thought out logic problems. There's been a lot of TV coverage about teachers' stupidity. I wondered if I would be getting a call from someone today asking why I was teaching "Murderer" to elementary school kids. (Remember once I got into some trouble for teaching Hangman...) Yikes. One has to tread lightly when teaching...

Japanese Vegetable Soup

I don't seem to be taking many pictures lately...

Yesterday our church had a vegetable stew party outdoors so I was busy on Saturday shopping for that. Sunday morning I took off early and met a couple other members and we made soup at a Christian outdoor facility not too far from us.

Japanese vegetable soup recipe

Daikon (icicle radish)
Carrots
Gobo (burdock root)
Slimy potatoes
Chinese cabbage
Japanese shiitake mushrooms
Deep fried tofu
Green onions
Tofu
Konyaku (gelatinous potato block)
Pork
Dashi (fish soup stock)
Sake
Soy sauce

Miso

Chop everything up. Throw into a big pot. Simmer over fire until vegetables are tender. Add miso. Eat with rice balls and Japanese pickles! Tastes best in the company of good friends!

Friendship quilts

I'm trying to think of a friendship sort of quilt for a good quilting friend (whom you know). I don't think she reads this blog...

So. There are about 5 of us in our regular quilting group that could participate in secrecy. But my friend has a LOT of friends. Do you think Mary's Lattice quilt might make a good friendship quilt? You know, ask a few people (those that sew) to make up a bunch of blocks (they look like signature blocks to me) and then go around in the next few months and have people sign them? Does that make sense? And then I would probably sew them all together...

To make a true signature quilt everyone would make their own blocks, right? But that really limits the quilt. I guess I would have to make most of the blocks and if I were asking others in my group to help make blocks then it would have to be done by hand (boo...) No one else does machine piecing nor would there be a way to do a quick machine piecing class in secrecy. Could we do some blocks by hand and some by machine? Oohh. Confusing.... Or I could just make up all the blocks myself (I have enough fabric) and just hand them around for people to sign... But does that make it a friendship quilt?

Or just make a 10 or 12 of the same blocks and forget signatures and too bad if not that many people can participate....

So many quilts right now on my table and in my head and here I'm thinking of starting another one... But I don't really know where to start. Any ideas?

Not me!

Yesterday 6 of us gathered for more patchwork at Furui-san's house. Mostly talking.... I didn't get out the needle and thread even once! (So why do we call it patchwork time?) Mostly exchanging information about techniques... exhorting the advantages of machine piecing or quilting, explaining new tools that we've purchased, showing new books bought or borrowed.

Afterwards I visited Mrs. Yamaguchi's house because she wanted to show me her new.... KITTENS!

NOT ME!!! NOT ME!!!





Don't anybody freak out and jump to the conclusion that I've brought home two more. These cuties are Mrs. Yamaguchi's and she is completely smitten by them. So adorable! God surely gave baby animals a wonderful share of cuteness that brings them burrowing into our hearts. I snapped picture after picture of these two posing so primly for me in their chair... (one got sleepy!)

And just because this is such a rare GOOD picture of me I'm showing it on my blog and I'll fool you into thinking I look like this all the time. Mrs. Ochiai took pictures yesterday and I swear she must have a magic camera! (One of those big Eos or Canon or something cameras). I think I'll ask her if I can use this picture at my funeral someday....

Unfortunately this isn't me ...

Teaching

For some reason Blogger isn't allowing uploads for two hours so no pictures today...

Hmmm. What did I do yesterday? Mostly taught. Wednesday is my busy day. 5 classes at the kindergarten (about 30 minutes each) a couple hours with friends "teaching" English (really just talking in English), another hour at a private home with four kids. Sometimes I think I really should start cutting down on teaching time. There are lots of people out there who would like the job... I sure would like more free time... It's not that I HAVE to work...

I came to Japan as an English teacher for a small Christian center in Morioka in Northern Japan. "The TIBET of Japan!" was what I had been told. It was true that the area was COLD and not many foreigners lived there. I spent three years teaching children and adults in small private classes along with four other missionaries. I also was assigned a couple days a week to teach at a jr. college on the coast but that turned out to be a complete disaster.

I was 22. Just out of college myself. And I'd REALLY studied in college! That's what college students do! But in Japan, going to a jr. college meant that the student had failed to get into any other college... that they really had no interest in studying but weren't ready to go out looking for a job. 30 years ago the level of jr. colleges was pretty low.

I was driven 4 hours by a private driver to the college and taught three or four classes. I stayed overnight in a haunted house (not true but the curtains were crumbling, there was no one else in the house except me huddled by a kerosene stove in the living room until I could go to bed in the dimly lit room), the next day I taught a couple more classes and then the driver brought me back to the Christian center where I'd collapse with relief!

I felt (and I think the students felt) that the school and dormitories were a place shut off from the world. It had a stark, prison-like feel to it and the headmaster and teachers (all of whom were shuttled in like me) were strict and unsmiling. The students slept through class or threw spitballs at me or told me dirty jokes that I didn't really understand... In short a nightmare! On one test I failed over half the class and everyone (including the headmaster) seemed to think I needed to give the class a retest. And another retest and another retest until everyone had passing marks. I had kids sobbing, and smoking and threatening suicide and there went my ideals of teaching in Japan. I was ready to give up and go back to California!

I'm embarrassed to admit it but after a year I refused to go back to the school. I said my contract was up (true but it was in the middle of the school year) and I would not renew it unless I was relieved from teaching at the jr. college. 30 years ago native English speakers in Japan were few and far between and so the center really wanted me to stay. Somehow it was arranged that I would renew my contract at the center but would no longer teach at the college. The headmaster was so angry with me that on my last day there no driver was provided to get me back to the city. I had to find my own way to the train station, I had to figure out the schedules and transfers on the trains and HOURS later finally got back to what I considered home. Shaking the dust off my sandals if you know what I mean!

That one year of teaching in an institution traumatized me for life and I've never taught regularly at a school again. After marriage I started teaching neighborhood children and mothers with babies and when my kids were in kindergarten I started helping out and later was hired there. Occasionally I have had schools ask me to join their staff but I have no teaching certificate (which is necessary nowadays), only a lot of experience. Still... I stay away from large classroom situations and find I can be of enough influence just pottering away on my own... God always gives me enough students to help family finances and I don't feel pressured to do testing, give grades and prepare students for entrance exams (English cram schools do that.)

The ladies I "teach" have all become very, very close friends and I really enjoy my JOB!

Another baby quilt

I've started another quilt. This time it is a small baby quilt for a pool friend's grandchild.

Bajiwa-san is from Pakistan and we two are the only regular foreigners who come to the pool. Bajiwa-san and Tetsu spend most of their time talking and Bajiwa-san and I speak to each other in Japanese. He doesn't speak English and I certainly don't speak Hindi or whatever...

A group of us from the pool have gone out to dinner together to a Indian curry place that I love and that Bajiwa-san frequents. So far that is about the only place that we can all eat dinner together because since Bajiwa-san is Islamic he does not eat beef or pork nor even chicken that hasn't been sanctified in a certain way. Sort of limits our getting together but since we see him every night at the pool I guess we don't have to be eating together...

Another interesting thing about Bajiwa-san is that he has two wives! Wow! Am I ever curious about that! One wife lives in Pakistan, one is Japanese... I asked how the wives liked that arrangement and he said that it usually causes a lot of headaches (the men are allowed four wives) but when he took his Japanese wife to Pakistan a couple of years ago, the two women got along very well. Talk about open mindedness on the Japanese wife's part!

Anyway, Bajiwa-san just became a grandfather for the first time last month and I decided I wanted to make his grandchild a simple quilt... Lots of Leader/Enders used. I'm hand quilting this week but I need to get this done by early November when Bajiwa-san and his daughter-in-law and grandchild go back for a visit to Pakistan.

Couples

I was talking to one of my students, a mother with three children about how her family spends their weekends. We got to talking about how life really revolves around the children while they are young and how the husband and wife relationship is sort of put on hold. I can talk a lot about this phenomenon.

Couples in Japan enjoy a fun time of dating and courtship (there are still arranged marriages in Japan but that is another story). And then they get married. And then there are children. And then the husband and wife don't do things together anymore.

Tetsu and I were married 5 years before Takumi entered the world. But with his entering, that meant that we were now a trio and it was the three of us that did things together (hmmm. Daddy worked an awful lot so actually Takumi and I were a duo during the weekdays.) And Leiya came along and we were a family that did everything together. And that was fun! BUT...

Tetsu and I never went out again just the two of us for the next 13 years... There were the baby days when I felt I just HAD to get away for a couple of hours. So Tetsu, who was overjoyed being a Daddy, took over (I went to a patchwork class for two hours when Takumi was a year old.) But it wasn't even possible for Tetsu and me to go out alone for a dinner or a movie etc. THERE ARE NO BABY SITTERS IN JAPAN! There just isn't the system or way of thinking. High school girls do not baby sit and besides...what mother would WANT to get away from her children for an evening? BAD MOTHER!

Some Japanese couples do have a live-in baby sitter in the way of a mother-in-law (parents often live with the eldest son's family) and Grandma will watch the children if the young wife has work to do, but baby-sit while the young couple goes out for fun? Uh-uh~ Whoever heard of such a thing!

In our case, Tetsu's mother never lived with us though she was in the same city... but she made it plain that she could not and would not baby sit (she has a slight handicap). There aren't such things as company Christmas parties or dinner out with friends anyway but it would have been nice to have an anniversary dinner together or take in a movie other than Doraemon (a cartoon character).

I remember our 10th anniversary when Takumi was five and Leiya a year old. We all went to some Chinese restaurant and Leiya proceeded to throw hand towels at the customers in the next booth and Takumi spilled his noodles. Tetsu cheerfully took up Leiya and said I should go ahead and eat while he waited in the parking lot and then we could switch places and I could wait with her while he came back and ate. I sat there looking at Takumi who'd fallen asleep with his head in his noodles and thought "THIS IS NOT MY IDEA OF A ROMANTIC ANNIVERSARY DINNER!" (And Tetsu bought me tennis shoes as a 10th anniversary present... I've never let him live it down!)

When I explained to my student that Americans use babysitters, she couldn't understand why American mothers should want to get away from their children. After all, we WANTED children didn't we and wanting to get away from them was very strange...

Of course I COULD HAVE pointed out (but didn't) that Japanese mothers put their kids in kindergarten on weekdays from age three for 5 hours a day and the mothers are SO relieved to finally have some time of their own again after being housebound for three years... That's always seemed a little incongruous to the "good mother" principle (but my kids went to kindergarten at age three too... More free time for me, didn't add any couple time with Tetsu.)

Just cultural differences and I guess one is not good and the other bad. A little hard on the foreigner...

Quilt exhibit

Tetsu took me to a local quilt exhibition in the next town over and though he isn't very interested in looking at quilts, we spent about half an hour looking at the lovely things.

Some beautiful quilts but what is always most amazing to me is that Japanese quilters do this all by hand. There is not a machine stitch anywhere! The quilting is exquisite. The tiny pieces are mind boggling. The fleeting thought that I really should do more HAND work enters my brain because I have to admit that heirlooms result.

Often when I am teaching quilting, my friends will shun the sewing machine saying that theirs in the back of their closets that hasn't been used in 30 years (bought by their mother as a wedding present or something). They don't WANT to use a sewing machine on their quilt. They want to HAND piece and HAND quilt. Which is fine! Except many of the people who want to do all this HAND work get caught up in other things in life and those HAND pieces never get done.

Or they never get started...

"Oh, I wish I could make something like that... But it would take me a lifetime. I can't even START something so wonderful..."

and so the whatever stays in the imagination.

And some friends who say they DON'T want to do machine work WILL allow me to machine sew a border or a binding for them.... but THEY don't want to touch the machine. If you see a quilt by a Japanese artist you can be pretty sure that it is a 100% HAND made!

Anyway..... A few quilts chosen by me to show because of the use of oriental fabrics, beautiful quilting (that WHITE quilt has never had a cat near it!) and tiny piecing.