Family

KAZOKU-BANASHI!!

Family Stories from Days of JET

(Winter 2006 Issue)

While most of us went off to Japan alone, our families played a big role in our JET experience, whether through their visits or their absence, or in some cases the susbstitutes we found in Japan, and even the new families we created.  Here are some of those experiences.

I took my parents to Kyoto and Hiroshima for a bit of sightseeing.  On our first day in Kyoto, I bought a pack of bus tickets at a conbini.  I gave one ticket to each of my parents, tore off one for myself and put the booklet back in my bag.  We walked the one block from the conbini to the bus stop and in that time, my father managed to lose his ticket.  I freaked out!   I totally took on the role of the parent and reprimanded him – how could he lose his ticket in one block?!  I made him search his pockets, his wallet and the bag he was carrying and then I proceeded to search.  After much ado (about nothing – perhaps 150 yen), I reluctantly tore off another ticket which ruined the symmetry of my plan.  I would have to buy an additional ticket so that we would all have a return ticket.  To this day, I still get a hard time every time I go to a museum, zoo or ride public transportation with my Dad.  He’s constantly asking if I’m sure that I still have my ticket.  He wouldn’t want me to lose it!
-Cindy Hoffman

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When my little brother came to visit me, my mother sent him with a huge suitcase stuffed with goodies and necessities.  My list of needed items was so large that she could barely get the bag closed and had to leave some things behind. When my brother went through customs they asked him to open the bag.  To his dismay, he opened the bag and loose tampons spilled out all over the place. Apparently, my mother couldn’t fit the two boxes of tampons, so she had spread them in all the open spaces after everything was packed. Needless to say he didn’t speak to me for two days after his arrival.
-Lynnette Martyn

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I was a JET in a very small town, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, so when my dad came to visit, it was practically headline news. I brought him into Town Hall so he could see where I worked, and they pulled out all the stops. The Deputy Mayor and Town Manager formally met with my father in the Mayor’s office, the Office Lady served tea and bean cakes, the IT Manager demonstrated his plans to wire the entire town to high speed internet, etc. Not being used to the celebrity status of Americans in inaka Japan, my father was truly impressed. But everyone in the office kept apologizing that the Mayor wasn’t there to greet my father himself. Even though we repeatedly said we didn’t mind being “slighted” by the Mayor, the town office workers felt very bad about this situation. Later that evening, when we had gone back to my house so my dad could take a jetlag nap, my cell phone rang. It was the Mayor’s driver –  they were in front of my house and the mayor was hoping to come in to greet my father! I quickly woke up my dad, who was totally disoriented (as jetlag will make you), made him change back into nice clothes, didn’t give him time to even comb his hair, and we opened the door for the Mayor, who was bearing a box of locally made treats and apologizing profusely for not having been at the office earlier in the day.  Thankfully (because my house wasn’t clean), the mayor didn’t come in, but we had a nice chat on the front steps. My father still talks about that experience today!
-Clara Solomon

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The Tsukamotos became my “Japanese family” through a typically weird sequence of events.  I went to find my landlord one day with virtually non-existent Japanese language ability and some vague directions from the folks at the Board of Ed.  I just started knocking on doors asking people if they were my jinushi (which I later learned is the 16th century word for landlord.  Imagine someone showing up at your door and asking if you are the lord of their land.)  But while everyone else shut the door in my face, the Tsukamotos invited me in for tea and cookies, depsite knowing virtually no English.  Somehow they helped me find my landlord, and then they started inviting me to cultural events – the symphony, English rakugo.  Then they started having me over for dinner every Monday night.  And since they knew I didn’t like seafood, I ate shabu-shabu or sukiyaki almost every time.  (They seemed to be rather well off.)  The strange thing was that they had an adult son who lived with them.  After two years of spending quality time with my Japanese “family,” it was finally time to say goodbye.  I went to their house, said goodbye, and as I was about to leave, Mrs. Tsukamoto said goodbye and… and… stuck out her hand for a handshake!!  I had to counter by giving her an awkward, but heartfelt, hug.
-Steven Horowitz, Aichi-ken, 1992-94

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After JET, I enrolled in a full-time language school in Fukuoka.  During that time, my youngest brother Eric, four years my junior, visited.  Although we grew up together, I had been in college and then off to Japan thus, we finally had an opportunity to get reacquainted as adults.  I met him at the airport, we dropped his stuff at my apartment, and immediately headed out to The Dark Room, a gaijin bar on the famed Oyafuku-dori.  We met up with one of my classmates, who I will call Adam (since that is his real name), another JET alumnus.  As students, money was tight so the gimmick that drew us to the Dark Room that evening was “free tequila night.”  Free, nomihoudai tequila!  One must imagine that the business plan counted on sensible people having other drinks and food with the occasional free shot. Adam and I, however, planned to stick to the tequila.  As a beer drinker, I lacked experience with hard liquor but knew I needed a strategy to ensure that I made a good impression on my brother.   I elected to pace myself two shots behind Adam, the more experienced drinker, in order to make sure things stayed in control.  Things seemed to go well for a while, but then my memory gets fuzzy.  My own patchy recollection and my brother’s account indicate that Eric, after about 6 hours in Japan, with no knowledge of Japanese and completely reliant on his “responsible” oldest brother, wound up out on the sidewalk (were we thrown out?) taking care of the two vomiting and incoherent locals who were supposed to be taking care of him. No idea where I lived, how to get there, no language skills, nothing. Eventually, Warren (who would eventually be a JETAA Country Representative and President of the Heartland chapter) happened by and rescued us, driving us back to the apartment as he and Eric coaxed the directions out of me. The next clear memory I have is waking up in my apartment the next morning.  I had slept on one of my futons, Adam on the other in my sleeping bag, and Eric was pathetically huddled under the kotatsu cover, shivering on the tatami.  Way to make a good impression. Welcome to Japan little brother.  Sigh…
-Brian Hersey

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I’m English and Matt’s American. We met after I’d been on the JET Program for a year, then Matt came to Nagano-ken, too. We lived about an hour and a half away from each other by train. This was August ’97.  After another year on the programme for me and a year for Matt (though this was his third time in Japan), we decided to travel together.  We went to Korea and China, then took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg, Prague and to Paris. There we left each other:  Matt back to Minnesota, and myself to England. Matt then visited me in November ’98 and proposed, we were married in ’99 (a ceremony in MN, honeymoon to Greece, and another ceremony and reception in England). We now live in MN and have two adopted children from South Korea.  That’s our story in a nutshell.
-Nichola & Matt Schoenfelder, Nagano-ken 1996-98

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My cousin Tim was in Tokyo for a business trip, and came up to my little town/city of Ninohe in Iwate-ken to visit. I lived in an old, drafty teacher’s house for which I paid 6,000 yen a month in rent. He’d been staying in a fancy hotel in Akasaka. Needless to say, he was not too impressed with Ninohe’s rustic mountain charm, nor with sleeping on the floor in my spare room (already a bit chilly by early October) and making use of my pit toilet. He only stayed one night, but refused to use my shower, which required cranking to heat up the hot water, sitting on a little stool on a cement floor (he’s 6 feet), so I took him to our local onsen. He was actually a really good sport about that and still counts that as the highlight of his visit, although he still makes fun of me for living in a house with a pit toilet.
-Crystal Wong

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My brother came to Japan not only to see his little sister, but also to get a traditional tattoo. He did his research and got recommendations for a really good artist. Turns out you need to book this particular artist months or even years in advance. So my brother booked his apprentice. The tattoo was started on that trip and continued on a return trip to Japan to finish it off. He got it done in the “traditional” way, which means not using an electric needle (I think they are needles, I am no expert on this). All of which basically translated to a whole lot of hours of work and my bro laying on the tatami. I went to the studio once to watch.  It is quite a nice image of carp swimming.
-Kat Barnas

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The first time my mother visited me in Kobe we went to this little noodle shop in Akashi. She had to go to the bathroom so I pointed her towards the little door in the back. She came back some minutes later, looking flustered and bewildered.  “What happened?” I asked.  “Well,” she said, “I’m not sure if I did it right.”  “You mean the bathroom? OHHHH, was it Japanese style.” Head bobbing. “Well you must have figured it out somehow.”  She proceeded to tell me how she had nothing to hold on to.  “You hold onto the flusher handle,” I emphasized.  “Well I couldn’t reach it…”  “Whaddya mean you couldn’t reach it, it’s right there!”  “Well not if you’re facing the door…”  The image of my aging, diminutive mother with a bad leg teetering precariously over the slippery porcelain with nothing but the wall to hold on to was too much. I still laugh heartily at her expense.
-Kennerly Clay, Kobe-shi, 1995-98

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Prior to JET, I lived in Japan for one year as an exchange student. During that time I was shuffled between four families (don’t ask). When my host mother wasn’t cheating on her husband — okaasan once gave me a 1,500 yen train pass so I could “disappear” for the day — she was drinking herself silly.  I remember one night when I was having dinner with her and my nine-year-old host brother, and she noticed that the Kirin she tried to insta-chill in the freezer went solid.  Not one to let the laws of thermodynamics keep her from getting sozzled, okaasan busted out the can opener and scooped out a nice helping of “aisu biiru.”  While her son was bemused by this, she said it wasn’t too bad and kept pecking at it throughout the meal. She was still busy nursing it by the time I went to bed.

During JET my own family never it made it over to visit me, but I did get to meet my girlfriend’s parents, who lived in a small fishing village two hours’ north of Kobe. I had never visited a country town before and was amazed at how different a vibe it was from city life. For example, I got to observe a public funeral and attend a pre-wedding ceremony all in the same day. I didn’t think my girlfriend’s folks liked me much, since they didn’t really fit the description of “open minded” Japanese.  But at the end of our visit, they surprised me by giving me a lovely handmade Doll Festival display made almost entirely out of origami. It was so delicate that it couldn’t help getting wrecked on my way back to the States, but I was able to fix it with some carefully placed Krazy Glue.  It’s now proudly on display in my living room, a lasting memento of my time on JET.
-Justin Tedaldi, Kobe-shi, 2001-02

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The highlight of my brothers’ visit to Japan was taking them to a rotenburo in the snow-covered mountains of Gifu.  We were the only ones there and had a great time running around naked, throwing snow at each other and taking barely appropriate pictures of each other.
-Steven Horowitz, Aichi-ken, 1992-94

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My school totally rolled out the red carpet when my parents came to town.  They had an assembly with all the sannen-sei which included my students performing the school song, kendo and karate demonstrations, traditional Japanese dance, a “rock” band performance and of course the requisite opening and closing speeches in English.  Afterwards, my parents witnessed a tea ceremony and finally tried their hands at ikebana.  Much to my mother’s and my surprise, my father excelled at ikebana.  The teacher told my father that his arrangement was perfect and made no corrections/adjustments.  This humbled my mother a bit since she’s arranged flowers at church and for many holidays and celebrations.  In his retirement, my father now gives my mother interior decorating suggestions.  Who knew Japan would help him discover his artistic side?!  Either that or math and engineering skills somehow translate to ikebana proficiency.  I always felt very loved and appreciated on JET, even on those days where I was used as a human tape recorder, but the treatment my parents received made me really understand the lengths and depth of Japanese hospitality.
-Cindy Hoffman

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I had a great host family in Yokohama and stayed with them for two weeks while my apartment was being prepared. My host father taught at my school and Wakako-san was a traditional housewife who taught me how to make all kinds of great Japanese dishes from scratch. I’d come home from school and we’d cook. For two weeks, she made me these wonderful bentos for me to take to school. Once I moved out, I thought it would stop-until I was presented with the same wonderful bento box delivered by my host father with the announcement that since she was making his lunch, it was no problem to make one for me too. For the two years I was there, Wakako-san made me lunch every day-to this day one of the most memorable things that happened to me in Japan.
-Ilonka Osvald

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My parents visited me in Japan in the spring of my second year on JET.  I thought I had prepared them with a care package of books about Japanese culture and etiquette for Christmas.  Things went pretty well, for the most part.  On one of the few occasions where we dined alone (no friends, teachers, etc.) we went to my favorite restaurant in the city where I lived.  I ordered all of the dishes I really liked and wanted my parents to try.  “Sammy,” the owner, whose real name none of us gaijin ever learned (coincidence?  I think not!) came out and saw that my parents were visiting, so he quickly rushed back in the kitchen to prepare a special dish.  I had witnessed the house specialty before when the other gaijin in my town had ordered it to shock other gaijin visitors to our town and purposefully did NOT order it.  I knew it would not be good when Sammy started to make a fuss over how honored he was to have my parents visit his little restaurant.  Out first came a beautifully prepared and displayed dish of iwashi sashimi (the restaurant’s name was Iwashi no Sanshiro) and, just to show how fresh the iwashi was because the huge tank with live iwashi at the end of the bar wasn’t proof enough, the still breathing, head and tail intact, skewered remains of the poor fellow.  When the waiter disappeared back into the kitchen I really started to worry.  My parents, who thankfully enjoy fresh(!) seafood and are fairly adventurous as far as food goes, politely nibbled on the sashimi as I sat awaiting my fate.  Next came a small dish with the dime-sized, still beating heart of the iwashi on it.  I knew my mother would not go near it, but was hoping my father would take it on since he had sampled his share of unusual fish in his years in the Navy.  No such luck.  I resigned myself to my fate, let the beating slow down a bit, quickly swallowed the heart and chased it with a large gulp of beer.  To add insult to injury, the final part of the dish involves the chef deep frying the remaining part of the iwashi (head, backbone and tail) to make hone-sembei (bone
sembei) which I also was forced to eat in order to save face with my friend Sammy.  Leave it to Japanese to not waste a bit of the fish!
-Cindy Hoffman

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This wasn’t on JET, it was when I was a rotary exchange student at the tender young age of 16. My host fathers used to take me to hostess bars to show me off (I’m not sure who I was being shown off too…)  Rotary club members are usually very successful businessmen from their community, seeing as how this community was Osaka, these men were quite well off, so we went to some swanky places.  My favorite was the one where the women were actually dressed in little bunny suits.
-Clara Solomon

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When my parents were coming to visit, they asked me what I wanted, and I said, half joking, a hoagie from Hoagie Haven (best hoagies in the world.)  Well, on the way to the airport my mom went to the Haven with my special request and the guy gave her all the ingredients separated into plastic ziploc bags.  I picked my folks up at the airport and we took the express train from Narita.  And while other passengers proceeded to open their tray tables and eat their train-purchased bentos, my mom hauls out the hoagie ingredients and on our tray tables we proceeded to assemble a good old American turkey hoagie.  A nice cultural contrast to start their trip.  One additional family train experience:  On the shinkansen while playing Travel Scrabble to pass the time, we dropped a tile (I think it was an ‘R’) and spent the next thirty minutes on our hands and knees crawling around the shinkansen floor with a couple other helpful Japanese passengers.  We never did find it.
Steven Horowitz, Aichi-ken, 1992-94