Saturday, January 19, 2008
The Year of the Rat
It's a new dawn. It's a new day. It's a new year.
2008. The year of the rat. Or is it the mouse? My Japanese friends keep saying mouse, and that does, I admit, have much cuter, more appealing ring.
But I think it's the rat. And my son will be a rat. It's his year. According to Wikipedia, the rat person is clever, cunning, highly organized, a natural leader. In short, the complete opposite of me.
***
A couple of days after New Years, I decided to visit a couple local temples to check out the New Year's scene. The first one was the Futenma Shrine, near Camp Foster. The place was packed. I video-taped the pandemonium, but I don't think it really did the experience justice. Actually there wasn't much to do there, or really all that much to see. But still, being amongst all those people and participating in their cultural tradition, I got that wave of feeling "in it", that "I'm smack dab in the middle of a learning experience" rush which strikes me every now and then when I'm in a foreign country...or on vacation. And which I LOVE. So I'm so glad that I decided to get my butt off the couch and go, and that I had baby in belly so that I could live that with him. I picked up a couple of temple souvenirs for the baby room - a good luck rat arrow and a carved cedar rat - to remember the experience, and for luck of course.
***
Last night, we had another great moment of living in Japan. We being me, Joe, Kay, her boyfriend Chad, and little G in utero. We were at a bar actually, well, a yakitori house right here in our lovely little village of Yomitan. I love this town. Love it. Anyway, we sat at the bar on stools made of tree trunks and proceeded to meet practically everyone in the joint. First, this man who to me looked like a Japanese Floyd Mayweather, who was drunk off his booty and who I thought could well be homeless or a fisherman living on his boat or something, but who turned out to be a baker, who walked to his bakery and brought us back two plastic grocery bags stuffed full with his cookies and who offered to give us Okinawan cookie baking lessons. Baking lessons! Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm in.
Funny, meeting people in a foreign country local bar. People are so open and friendly and when you are sober, as I was, you often start out with suspicion or just lack of enthusiasm. Like, "Am I gonna be stuck with this fellow all night 'practicing my English'". I mean it's really pretty selfish, 'cause there always ends up being a story.
Another guy we met there was this businessman originally from Tokyo, just off from work, still dressed in suit and tie. He didn't look Okinawan, what with the suit and it turns out he runs this big sweet potato product tourist place down the road. And he likes to "playfully" punch people on the arm. And to practice his English. For example he looked at my glass and asked,"Why are you drinking water?" Joe let the him know that I was pregnant, to which the man replied, "Oooohhhh.....I...thought...she just fat!....haa...haa..haaa!..." And added, "I was going to....recommend....walking..."
Pretty good stuff, huh. I mean, now there's a conversation you just can't take away from us.
Okay, I'm off. Time to go for a walk...
Or eat some Okinawan cookies.
2008. The year of the rat. Or is it the mouse? My Japanese friends keep saying mouse, and that does, I admit, have much cuter, more appealing ring.
But I think it's the rat. And my son will be a rat. It's his year. According to Wikipedia, the rat person is clever, cunning, highly organized, a natural leader. In short, the complete opposite of me.
***
A couple of days after New Years, I decided to visit a couple local temples to check out the New Year's scene. The first one was the Futenma Shrine, near Camp Foster. The place was packed. I video-taped the pandemonium, but I don't think it really did the experience justice. Actually there wasn't much to do there, or really all that much to see. But still, being amongst all those people and participating in their cultural tradition, I got that wave of feeling "in it", that "I'm smack dab in the middle of a learning experience" rush which strikes me every now and then when I'm in a foreign country...or on vacation. And which I LOVE. So I'm so glad that I decided to get my butt off the couch and go, and that I had baby in belly so that I could live that with him. I picked up a couple of temple souvenirs for the baby room - a good luck rat arrow and a carved cedar rat - to remember the experience, and for luck of course.
***
Last night, we had another great moment of living in Japan. We being me, Joe, Kay, her boyfriend Chad, and little G in utero. We were at a bar actually, well, a yakitori house right here in our lovely little village of Yomitan. I love this town. Love it. Anyway, we sat at the bar on stools made of tree trunks and proceeded to meet practically everyone in the joint. First, this man who to me looked like a Japanese Floyd Mayweather, who was drunk off his booty and who I thought could well be homeless or a fisherman living on his boat or something, but who turned out to be a baker, who walked to his bakery and brought us back two plastic grocery bags stuffed full with his cookies and who offered to give us Okinawan cookie baking lessons. Baking lessons! Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm in.
Funny, meeting people in a foreign country local bar. People are so open and friendly and when you are sober, as I was, you often start out with suspicion or just lack of enthusiasm. Like, "Am I gonna be stuck with this fellow all night 'practicing my English'". I mean it's really pretty selfish, 'cause there always ends up being a story.
Another guy we met there was this businessman originally from Tokyo, just off from work, still dressed in suit and tie. He didn't look Okinawan, what with the suit and it turns out he runs this big sweet potato product tourist place down the road. And he likes to "playfully" punch people on the arm. And to practice his English. For example he looked at my glass and asked,"Why are you drinking water?" Joe let the him know that I was pregnant, to which the man replied, "Oooohhhh.....I...thought...she just fat!....haa...haa..haaa!..." And added, "I was going to....recommend....walking..."
Pretty good stuff, huh. I mean, now there's a conversation you just can't take away from us.
Okay, I'm off. Time to go for a walk...
Or eat some Okinawan cookies.
