Graham Baecher Could Not Live in This Country.

Evidence to this fact (for those of you that don't him, Graham
"Bonesaw" "GBot" "Gmail" "Bonesaucy" Baecher is 6'6" tall):

-I clear the doorways in my house by about one inch
-The cars here are scaled down by about 70%. I fit ok, but my
predecessor (who's been showing me around) is maybe 6'1" and his knees
hit the steering wheel every time he gets in to drive
-Food portions are smaller. Eating for one Graham would definitely
constitute eating for two Japanese
-They don't make shoes or clothes for people above 6'0" or so

I'm sure I'll discover more reasons with time.

I'm finally starting to begin to get settled in my home--which is
spectacularly big (by Japanese and my standards): 4 rooms with a
kitchen, including two rather large tatami rooms (tatami mats are
traditional Japanese flooring: In Japan it's not at all uncommon to
remove your shoes and change into slippers or go barefoot at the
threshold to a house, and this is in an effort to preserve the
fine-woven rice stalk threads of the tatami--granted, not everywhere you
de-shoe has tatami, but tradition is tradition). I very honestly am
unlikely to use more than 1/3 of the space in this house. And to top
it off, my rent is dirt-cheap thanks to the property being owned by
the town who's contracted me. In short, I have a sweet living
situation. Feel free to come visit!

The past week has been pretty hectic. First, we had orientation in
Tokyo, which yielded full days with all sorts of Japanese talking
heads with formal information interspersed with former or returning
JETs talking much more candidly about living and working in Japan--not
bad, but we were left with a mountain of materials to bring with us
for "reference" (or, as many of us call it, "trash").

Immediately following that, we flew out to Tottori prefecture ("we"
being myself and the other 8 or so new JETs working in the prefecture
that arrived in the 2nd travel group). The flight was fairly
brief--only about an hour--and it was totally worth it. We got to see
a small bit of Tokyo during takeoff, and an aerial view of Tottori
when we were coming in, both of which were beautiful. Tottori is
particularly picturesque--I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet or
not, but Tottori is the least populated prefecture in Japan--the City
of Tottori boasts about 200,000 residents, and outside of that and
Yonago, the other big city on the Western side of the prefecture, the
prefecture is mostly Inaka (countryside) with towns dotted here and
there. What this means is that there's a good expanse of wilderness
with rolling hills and mountains, interrupted by patches of
residences. Very reminiscent of New England in Vermont and New
Hampsire, albeit with different foliage. There's apparently some
decent hiking in the central part of the prefecture (I reside in the
Eastern part), and there are plans in the works to climb one mountain
to visit a Buddhist temple there at the end of the month which I'll
definitely be taking part in.

The weather also emulates New England, though it's decidedly
hotter/more humid here in the summer and a bit warmer in the winter as
well (though they still get snow--apparently the skiing season is
fairly long here, which has me excited). I spend most of my time at
home situated in the direct line of a fan, only daring to venture
farther when I want to make myself some food (or purchase some from
the local grocery store or combini--Japanese short for "convenience,"
these little guys are ubiquitous and super-useful. Think CVS smooshed
down to 1/3 the size, plus more foodstuffs you can grab and eat
immediately, and you've got a general idea).

Once we arrived in Tottori proper, I had about a day to move in--my
supervisor, an English teacher to translate, and my co-JET out here in
Yazu, Josh, met me at the airport, and from there we ran several
errands. We stopped at the town office so I could file for my alien
registration card (which is my ticket to not being deported during my
time here--in the meantime, my passport suffices), and then they took
me by the Yazu town Board of Education, where Josh and I received our
contracts. Immediately following that, they took us out into the main
office, where, standing awkwardly in front of them, my supervisor told
us:
"Ah...please introduce yourselves."
Thank goodness I've had some Japanese before. Introductions (in
Japanese, Jikko-shokkai) are basically a rote repetition of who you
are, where you're from, and maybe a canned phrase about how you're
excited to work together with the person you're meeting, so they're
very simple, but I still feel terribly awkward starting in that
awkward, semi-expectant gap that comes when you meet somebody who
you're going to work with. Hopefully this will improve with time.

After an evening at home on Wednesday, I woke up early Thursday and my
supervisor drove me into the city (I have a car which I bought off my
predecessor, but I can't drive it until I have insurance arranged) so
I could register for a bank account.

Aside--you know how, in America, we sign our names on official
documents? In Japan, they use inkan--a small seal with your name in
it (mine is in Katakana, and reads "Ma-ki") which you can use on a
stamp pad. This strikes me as rife with counterfeit opportunity, but
then again, so is our signature system.

Thursday afternoon, Tottori orientation started, which touched upon
more work information, only more specifically geared towards Tottori.
We in Group B, the second travel group, got to meet all the JETs who
came in Group A a week before us, as well as several returners, and
most of the group seems to be very good-natured, and should be a good
network to lean on for support here.

Friday yielded more orientation in the morning, but then in the
afternoon we traveled and did some sightseeing, including the Tottori
Sand Dune(s) and sand museum. Yes, they have a sand dune, and it's
ginormous--it's the only "desert" in Japan (see attached). It also
had a wonderful view of the Sea of Japan (I do believe the Chinese
call it the Sea of China from their side) from the top (see other
attached). They also had some SPECTACULAR pear-flavored ice cream
(don't knock it 'til you've tried it) which I would attach a picture
of (along with many others), but I only have access to pictures on my
cell phone at the moment as I left my camera cord back in the States.

Yesterday also proved busy--Tottori City has an annual festival, the
Shan Shan festival, which apparently involves massive groups of
Tottorians dancing with ritual umbrellas through much of the afternoon
and evening. On top of that, I was invited to my first enkan (I'm not
sure if the best translation is "party" or "drinking
party")--basically, social gatherings of staff where, in contrast to
the uptight, formal nature of their work, people speak freely (using
alcohol as a lubricant or, in some cases, an excuse), telling people
what they really think, before going back to work the next day and
acting as though nothing ever happened. Weird, but apparently a
really good way to get to know my coworkers--and this one was a
welcome party for me (and a farewell party for my predecessor, who
I'll talk about in a second), so I kind of had to go. This one was a
fairly small gathering, with only 5 or so of the 20 workers from just
one of my middle schools (I work at two), so it wasn't particularly
raucous or exciting, just mellow chit-chat over dinner. Not a typical
enkan, according to Jimmy, my predecessor, and I actually crashed
pretty hard in the middle of dinner energy-wise, still feeling the
effect of the jetlag (which will apparently last another week--it's a
13 hour time difference here), so I didn't enjoy it perhaps as much as
I was able to.

There's a general update. Apologies for the gargantuan nature of this
update, but I'm not done yet. Some anecdotes...

1) Jimmy. My predecessor, he just arrived back here after traveling
through SE Asia. He's been really helpful, showing me around (and
continuing to show me around) and giving me the skinny on the JET
gossip. Really nice, good-natured guy, but I do worry that he's going
to talk me to death sometimes. We'll see how the next few days play
out while he crashes with me before returning to home in Kentucky on
Thursday...

2) Travel. So, a couple evenings ago the Tottori Association of JETs
(AJET) held a social function after orientation ended. I wasn't
planning on staying the night in the city, so I resolved to take the
train home...unfortunately, I missed my transfer and wound up heading
in the wrong direction on the last train for the night...but then,
fortunately, I wound up in Chizu, where one of the other JETs lived
and had returned to earlier that day. By a stroke of luck, she also
lived just a short walk away from the train station. My ass = saved.
The next day, I took the proper train back home--but, when I got to
the station where I needed to transfer, and asked about the train to
Funaoka (the district of Yazu in which I live), the conductor pointed
down the street and said I should walk, because the train wasn't due
for an hour. Resolving to make the walk (which, in retrospect, would
have been about 2 miles), an old Japanese woman interjected to tell me
that she could give me a ride (this is all happening in Japanese--the
natives being fluent, myself being very broken and hard to
understand). So she took me to my district, dropped me off in the
middle (it's a small district), and from there I walked home--stopping
at the combini for a bite, and saying hi to the neighbors on the way
as though nothing had happened and I was just out for a short jaunt
despite getting home, oh, 10 hours later than I intended. I have the
schedule straight now, though! And soon I'll be driving, so that'll
be my preferred means.

3) Driving. Cars here are ridiculously gas efficient, for a few
reasons. One, they're small--they have two calibers of cars here, one
that's somewhat comparable to American cars (and more expensive to own
and maintain), and the other, more common, which is the smaller
variety I described above. They have smaller engines and just chug
along. Two, the speed limit is lower here, about 40 or
50...kilometers per hour. That's a little over 30 miles per hour.
Life has a slower pace here, and nowhere is this more clear than on
the road.

4) Mitsuharu Ota. Apparently a big higher-up in the Japanese English
education board, he gave us a speech in our Tokyo orientation. Of the
30 minute speech, he opened with a phrase about how there was a delay
that caused him to start late, and how "time is very precious, here
and in the classroom..." and then proceeded to spend about half of his
time talking just dropping one-liners and puns in English. He didn't
have a great command of the language, either, which made it even more
hilarious. My favorite--he was talking about how he had butterflies
in his stomach, and then asked us...would we rather have butterflies
in our stomachs, like him, or "butter" flies? "yuck. not very
tasty."

5) Radio. All Japanese, all Japanese music, until..."Bringing you the
heartbeat of Tottori, with the best sounds of today--82.5,
s-s-s-st-starrrrbird!" Exactly like you'd expect for pop radio in the
states. What a wonderful country.

6) Address. See below!

Matt Mackey
Assistant Language Teacher
JET Program
519-3 Funaoka
Yazu-cho, Yazu-gun, Tottori-ken, Japan 680-0471

If you have an interest in receiving a postcard, let me know what your
address is and I'll do my best to get one to you at some point during
the coming year. Or write me first and I'll write you back!

Hope things are well with the rest of you. Even if you don't read the
full update, feel free to drop me an email and let me know how you're
doing!

Zya ne,
Matto-sensei