Jon's Journeys: Life in Amami

I know, you all have been saying, enough of all the tourist stuff, we want to know what life is really like in Japan. Well, it's like going to work, going to school, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning ... on another planet. This is where we live, in Naze City, Amami Oshima. It's a port town, the biggest city on the island. You can see it's surrounded by steep hills, so to expand the city, they've filled in the waterfront with cement. But if you read my e-mail series in 2005, you know all about it. Not much changes here, just more cement covering the island, but they still haven't managed to pave it all. I've been here almost 4 weeks and am just getting around to writing about it. I'm not saying things are dull here, but the other night we watched a fascinating one hour tv documentary on toenail hygiene and thoroughly enjoyed it. We got to see lots of graphic pictures of ingrowns, learned how elephants' toenails are clipped in zoos (with a saw, while they're sleeping). And I didn't understand a word f it. Anyway, it was better than Ghostbusters 2.

Here's Masami's mom's house. We call her Obaachan; it means grandma. It's a nice house, one of the better ones in the neighborhood, and she has put a lot of money into maintaining it.

These are pictures from Masami's father's memorial service at the end of March. He died two years ago, so they just had the big third year ceremony (even math is different in Japan). Theo's cousins came too, and I guess her brothers and their wives, although we don't have any pictures of them. I wasn't here at the time. Obaachan is mellower than she used to be, so I don't have to hide the laundry from her. She lets me do it and doesn't lecture me anymore about the proper way to do things. She doesn't follow me around anymore either, so we're getting along fine.

You can see what happens to a house that's neglected. This is an abandoned house next door, being reclaimed by the jungle. Obaachan's house is up against a hill, so the forest is on the other side of another tiny vacant lot. Not much space for the house or yard. But we get all kinds of wildlife in the house: house geckos, iguanas, giant bugs the size of Mothra, cicadas, iridescent beetles, ants, 2 inch cockroaches, frogs etc. We had a fire fly in the bedroom last night.

This looks like a jungle, but is actually Obaachan's plants, too many to count. They are all in pots, since the back yard is paved, of course.

In the tatami room is an altar to Masami's father. Obaachan goes here everyday to pray to him. The room is used as storage, as is the whole house when we're not here. It's an often cited statistic that Japanese people live in a quarter of the space that Americans do. What they don't tell you is that they have twice as much stuff.

This is the kitchen where we eat and I cook. Masami and her mother don't cook, so little things like food preparation space are not important to them. Can you guess where I prepare food? I balance a cutting board over the sink.

This is our living room, with real chairs, air conditioning, computer & internet, cable tv and a makeshift stereo I set up. Our refuge in a crazy big house crammed full of stuff piled high t0 the ceiling. It's actually a big house, six rooms plus kitchen, bathroom, toilet, but no space.

Theo goes to school every day at 7:45, comes home about 4, then leaves again to go to swimming practice (every day), returns at 7, has dinner and does homework. He also has swimming practice on Saturday morning. I call it the cult of swimming, and I'll have to devote another blog entry to it.

I play saxophone, read, write, watch movies on the English movie channel, and explore the island on a motorcycle Masami's cousin lent me, or on the old abandoned mountain bike I found and fixed up (more on island adventures later). I shop, cook, clean house, and do laundry. On weekends Theo and I go do things around the island (more on that later, too).

Masami does work on the computer, and goes to business meetings that consist mostly of drinking beer. I guess that's how you do business in Japan. She's trying to clear space for her brother to sleep when he comes to visit tomorrow, so there's a huge pile of garbage now that someone's coming to pick up today. Stuff gets cleared every year, then by the next year, it seems there's more than there ever was. I don't think Obaachan throws anything away while we're gone (except my bicycles).

Amami's a beautiful place, although it's hot (in the 90s) and incredibly humid (89% today). I'm always soaked with sweat, rain, or from swimming to cool off.

It looks like it's stopped raining, so I think I'll chance a bike ride. More later.