from Kyoto: contexts

There’s this discussion at the moment between the me and the I: I wants to slow down, me wants to pick up the pace.

I wake up in the middle of the night and remember last minute instructions for Ed, who is shortly boarding a series of planes for Osaka. I call, I instruct, even as I'm certain he's only half listening. Then I can’t sleep. I work a little on the class and then doze off, but it’s too late to have a fitful rest.

And even as I am back on the “too little sleep” treadmill, I also have the feeling that I am not doing nearly as much as I would like.

Part of it is that my work is taking far more time than I would have guessed. Reworking law school materials for non native speakers of English is something that I’ve done many times in the past, but now I am doing more than just the guest lecture or two. I am presenting an entire body of law and I’m teaching Japanese students an American legal mind set, in periods of three hours each day. It is intense.


I make a point of starting the day gently, with a cup of coffee and cinnamon toast at a nearby café (that is actually part of a small and lovely chain here).





But at every turn, I am reminded how difficult it is to transcend barriers to understanding. One must try, but it is an ongoing challenge. An example: in Kyoto, when you step off the tourist path, all traces of English disappear. People here struggle with our language (in the same way that we would struggle with theirs, were we to even try) and often times know a few words, but not much more than that. And their utter agreeableness and desire to please causes them to respond in a way that implies that they understand, even as they really don’t. Because truthfully, you’re saying words they’ve never heard before.

In the morning, I am happy that my request for coffee with milk is understood. As I leave, I look at the sign in front. This is truly an unusual place – it has a sign with an English message. I may be the only one for miles who actually can read it. But even as I read it, I puzzle over its meaning. It’s lost on me. I know that they must be trying to evoke an image of a European (German?) bakery. But what theme are they using that strikes a chord for the Japanese, but not for us? (I know, they probably meant "sweet." Or maybe not?)





And so it’s the language, but it’s so much more. Meaning is a contextual concept. At best we will understand each one’s words. But conversation across cultures requires more than that.

It is such a challenge (though a rewarding one!) to communicate across cultures.

I ride the subway to campus and I watch a group of young Japanese girls. So many of them have this in common: a love of pastels and pinks, of cartoons, of English language slogans on clothes and bags.





I look out my office window at the university, enthralled by the views from this lovely corner room...





...and I worry about reaching the group of students in my class.


After, as I walk home from the subway, passing, as always, the baseball field, I think sports fans have it easy. There is a common denominator. Everyone is on the same playing field (no pun intended).






In the late afternoon, the “me” in me wants to see some more of ancient Kyoto. It’s my third trip here, and I am very aware that I am on my third day and I still haven’t been at the most beautiful places and spaces that so define the city. I run through the listing of temples, gardens. They all close in early afternoon. Until I break from teaching (beginning Saturday), I have to wait.

Except for one. My guide book tells me that Daitoku-ji (a complex of some two dozen Zen temples) is open until dusk. I set out.

But I need more than just the morning cinnamon toast. My energies are low. I can feel my pace slackening. The “I” in me says – can you walk more slowly please?

And so I pause at a café for a pastry and another coffee. I know. I need real food. But dusk is near and I want to reach my destination.





But it’s no use, the temples at the complex have long closed for the day (correction to guidebook: closing time is 4, not dusk).

And still, the grounds are enormous and perhaps this is one special way to see this place, because there is a sense of empty tranquility here now. And the late afternoon colors are gentle, lightly golden.


 







There is only an occasional person walking her dog. And a monk opening and closing a gate. And a pair of apprentices, trimming a tree to one of the many entrances.





And it’s not as if I cannot see what’s behind some of the gates. The buildings, old and beautiful, rise above the enclosures in splendid curves and forceful ornamentation.





I stroll quietly and for once the I and the me are not at war.

But then I have to hurry again. Ed is to leave for Japan at five in the morning Madison time and both of us are concerned that he wont wake up. I want to call and make sure he gets going.

And now I am back in the neighborhood of my apartment, not wanting to go downtown again. I walk along the main, lightly commercial street, looking for a place to eat. I come across a pleasant looking place with a posted menu that shows reasonable set dinner prices. And there are little photos of very Japanese looking food. The place even has an English translation on at the entrance: it’s a yoba restaurant. I look up the word yoba in my guidebook. Not there. Useless guidebook. Lonely Planet! You failed me twice today!

I go inside and order the cheapest set menu and a small beer.

The waitress asks: Meat? Fish? Tempura? I ask what kind of tempura? That’s too difficult. And why should she know – it’s not as if she deals with English speaking people on a daily basis. I try to ask about the fish. I’m curious: ocean fish? No, I’m pushing it. She says yes, but I know that we are lost in our own worlds of meaning. She nods, I smile and I wait.

First comes the chilled yuba soup.





Whatever yuba is, it’s bathed in soy milk. The mystery continues.

Next – a sampling of some pickled veggies and fish and something probably yuba. All yummy.





Next, a bowl full of pure yuba. The waitress is beaming as she sets it down. Yuba! Any wise person familiar with soy products would have guessed by now that yuba is this. Me, I’ve put thoughts of translation aside. Eating strands of coagulated yuba in a milky broth reminds me of eating sour rye borsch at my grandma’s in Poland. You have to be raised liking it. Outsiders cannot jump in and understand the attraction with the first spoonful.

I finish it, not knowing yet that I have eaten a natural health elixir with benefits recognized by kings and emperors and more recently, those favoring organic, natural products over prepared foods.

I then get delicious tempura. I actually thought we settled on the fish, but I am so glad she thought otherwise, because the tempura is excellent. Sprinkled with wasabi salt. Fresh. Outstanding.





Then, yuba drenched rice. Again, in fairness, this is a yuba restaurant, so there will be yuba everywhere. Sort of like going to a wasabi farm and buying ice cream: be prepared for wasabi ice cream.





But I do a “let’s bury some the yuba under the bottom layer of rice” number, because for now, I have had my yuba fill. And I know there will be a next time, and I know I will eat it with more pleasure then, merely because I will have understood the context. I will know my yuba.


The final course is a delicious little plate of citrus jelly and soy milk ice cream. With several teas.






I walk home thinking about how good it is that people tolerate our inability to speak their language when we travel to really distant places. And how hard they try to please us anyway. I think also about the many Japanese women who, in Madison, came to shop at the little store where I moonlighted this winter selling French creams and soaps. When they would enter the store speaking Japanese, I would ask once if I could help them and then I would let them talk in Japanese amongst themselves. If I enter a shop or a café here, I am swamped with attention exactly because they realize it will take ten of them working round the clock to get me to understand perhaps one wee portion of what they’re trying to tell me.

I walk home in the dark night and I think about how humid the air is here and how soft the skin feels bathed at all times in an ocean of moisture. It must be so hard to live in Wisconsin (as a student, for example) if you are from Japan.

from Kyoto: settling in

Well, I know the answer to the weather question of last night: that was some rainstorm we had!

I wouldn’t have noticed or minded – I am this week enveloped by my teaching duties here which start quickly enough (Wednesday). Downtime will come soon – next week the university is on holiday and so I have many days off, waiting for the final week of teaching to come after. But I did mind the rain and here’s why.

In the morning, I broke away from my computer and books to find coffee and a pastry. It was easier than I thought: two blocks down the road is a lovely home that has opened its doors to the public as a café (and gallery).

I had a cup of coffee and a cheesecake, all very artfully presented...





...and I was sorry to see a sign that appeared to indicate that they were taking a holiday for most of August. I wondered who came here and kept this place afloat – we are rather far from the downtown commercial or central tourist areas. I suppose I got my answer when a truck pulled up and a local worker came in for his brew. A good cup of coffee here is valued by so many, that even a quiet neighborhood can sustain a coffee shop.

The break took less time than I thought and so I decided to extend it by walking to the local grocery store. Hot as it was. You learn to appreciate why women and girls especially, carry little towels (and umbrellas of course) with them: to dab at the brow every now and then.





At the store, I tried not to stay with the running theme of -- I can’t believe how expensive fresh food is here, but it was hard. $6 for a slice of watermelon. $3 for an orange. And so on. I bought a lovely peach for $4 and felt decadent, considering what peaches are going for back home right now.

I could go back to the other theme of “they love sweets here." A love acquired at an early age.





I passed on the sweets for myself, but I studied the wines. I have no interest in drinking imported wine in Japan. A beer works well with most dinner foods. But I have read that recently, Japan has embarked on growing their own grapes for wine. And so when I saw this shelf...





...I hesitated. Very inexpensive by any standards! But which one do you pick? I chose the one that had 100% scrawled over the label, in thinking that it is at least 100% something worth bragging about. I haven’t tried it yet. I’ll let you know.


In the late afternoon, I was to go to the Law School to get keys, sign more papers, and pick up the wee honorarium for my work here. [I am, as of this year, only employed at UW for nine months of the year, with negative salary adjustments, but with the freedom to do other things – such as taking this teaching position – during the summer months.] And this is when the rain came down.

We realized it was pouring when we came out of the subway. Some of us hesitated.





Me, I had no fine robes to worry about. I hurried forth.

But when I reached the Law Building, I learned that I needed a detour to the cashier on the other side of campus. And I had fifteen minutes before they closed. And I had no other money in my pocket. And there aren’t many ATMs here that accept foreign credit cards.

I tallied forth.

I have never been so wet. When I returned to the Law School offices, I benefited from the generous offers of the hand towels that people carry. I have often thought that if there is a way a Japanese person can offer help to a visitor, they will do it and delight in it. It is a remarkably courteous nation.

The rain subsided and I was ready for at least a short walk. I had given the commercial areas a good fly through yesterday; I wanted to at least begin seeing the other, even prettier side of Kyoto. No gardens or temples yet, not this evening anyway, but at lest a walk by the Imperial Palace Park...




... past the Goo Shrine (where it's all about having healthy legs and where you may pray for a life of safe journeys, free of mishaps -- the sign tells me).





Ah, yes. Kyoto deserves its reputation of having more restful places for contemplation than perhaps any other town its size.

Now, in the matter of dinner: on this night I want to eat somewhere. Not at the apartment in front of the screen with the Japanese weather lady telling me something I cannot begin to understand. I choose Kyoto’s old noodle place, Honke Owariya (because it’s close by and so very reasonable and so fitting for a wet day, and because I love buckwheat noodles).

There isn’t English on the outside...





...but there’s English on the inside. I sit on a mat and look at the menu and think – I could eat anything and everything here right now. My soba combination plate is exactly what I need. A stack of noodles dishes, with broth and trimmings. And a beer.





After, I forget about the dampness. On the walk home from the subway, the night air feels pleasantly warm, the cicadas are loud as ever.

from Kyoto: arrival

It’s a long flight from Paris – nearly twelve hours, but I am impressed how like clockwork it goes. The arrival time is posted on the screen as 8:26 a.m. (Monday). It never changes. As we approach Korea, there is some turbulence, and still that time stays the same. The plane doesn’t go higher, or lower, but continues on its steady course, destined to get there no matter what. 8:26. Japan is a place where there are few delays.



landing in Osaka


It all seems so easy. We land on time, my bag spits out promptly, I find the train station, I buy the ticket and by 9:16, I am on the Kyoto Express.

If you do not know these central islands of Japan, then you will be surprised speeding through them. It is a continued stream of towns and cities. There isn't a break. What agriculture remains between Osaka and Kyoto is squeezed in between buildings. Instead of lawns, there are rice paddies.





Arriving at the Kyoto train station, it all comes back to me: the sensory pull toward another culture. The immediate absence of English. The clamor of noise where you begin to identify recurring sounds and words, but you have no idea what they mean. And you will never know.

Just past the platform I see the beloved Japanese sweet shop. By the end of my stay, I will be an addict. It all grows on you as you search for ways to accept a habit that is not typically yours. (And it is no surprise that when you bring the local candies and cakes back home to your own turf, they lose their meaning and become just something ordinary.)





Kyoto is arguably Asia’s most beautiful city. But at the train station, it is just a large Japanese city. Very very modern.





I search for a post office to access an international ATM and then I search for my subway line. As I walk through tunnels and pass countless shops and throngs of people, I think -- this is my brief moment of adjustment. Of accepting that everything around me is different and will remain thus til the end of the month.

I take the subway to the last stop. I am in a quieter neighborhood now – by the northern hills. Residential, for the most part. With an occasional rice paddy of course. And small, almost hidden shrine.












My apartment is functional, very neat, very modern. Lots of wrong buttons to push. (You’ll understand once you have come across a toilet that does more than just flush, or a bathtub that fills with water at the push of a button -- in the kitchen.) It’s spacious by Japanese standards. Equipped for an academic: bookshelves predominate. Long computer cables available. A comfortable small desk. A TV that cannot distract a foreigner (only Japanese channels).

I am in the middle of condo sale negotiations and so the first thing I do is fire off emails here and there and in doing this I realize I am very tired. Two nights on an airplane almost back to back leaves a mark. I decide to go out, acquaint myself with the neighborhood and head back downtown for a walk that can begin my total Kyoto immersion.

First, then, the neighborhood. Houses, rice, playgrounds, and the occasional place that throws open its door invitingly, but reveals nothing to me of what's inside.





The very first store I enter is just a few blocks down. A sweet shop.





It sells ice cream as well, and did I mention how steamy hot Kyoto is in August? The humidity is tropical – wonderfully moisturizing and dreadfully sticky all at once. I pick up a small pistachio ice cream bar and then I remember that in Japan, there is always the potential for a hidden surprise of sweet bean paste, when you least expect it.





It’s absolutely delicious and as so much of the food here – very subtle. It’s interesting that the sweet-toothed Japanese complain that cakes in other countries are too sweet for them. Here, the flavors are more delicate. Pay attention, or it’ll pass you by!

Japan: ice cream with sweet beans, girls in school uniforms, on bikes, texting.





I’m back on the subway, getting off in downtown Kyoto, heading for a stroll through the (covered) food market. Japan is a place where you remember your sense of smell. The faint scent of foods dipped in soy, pickled, boiled, fried. Words don’t help here, but surely walking through a market with eyes closed you’ll know you’re in Japan.





And perhaps “market” conjures up the wrong image, because the Kyoto market has more prepared foods than produce.





I’m hungry, but I haven’t found my bearings yet. There are no English signs, no explanations that will make any sense at all. In fact, it is amazing how much written language is all around me and how only the numerical digits are familiar.





I pause by a small stand with rice balls, or triangles actually. Yes, definitely a good snack. But which one? I think I finally pick a mildly chickenish one, but I can’t be sure.





The walk through the market relaxes me. The tiredness is ebbing. I’m enjoying the sudden explosion of new vignettes around me.









I leave the market and continue on to a department store to buy dinner. The market tickles and tantalizes, the department stores explode with counter after counter of prepared foods. Again, there is a confusion of meats and fishes and fried whatever, and the sellers are in the aisles enticing you, asking you to take note, but of what? I can only guess. I buy something that looks like rice cakes or egg cakes or bean cakes...





... and some pickled salads, and I deliberate on some of the green tea cakes, but decide to take it easy this first day.





On the busy commercial street again. I need to stock up with essentials. A towel (who knew). Dishwashing soap, detergent, that kind of thing. But which one? How can you tell? What if you do dishes with laundry soap or clothes with dish detergent?






These few early hours in Kyoto don’t tire me out – no, not at all. I want to walk further. And I am close to the uniquely lovely alley (Pontocho) that winds its way not far from the river. A place of secret restaurants and clubs (not so secret these days, but still somewhat forbidding to a person who can only guess at what foods are presented inside and at what price).





Here, if you arrive at dusk, you may come across an elusive geisha quickly stepping out, hurrying past you fleetingly, as if her careful art is not for you to see or appreciate. It’s reserved for whomever is paying for her company.

And I am immensely lucky, because I spot one, peering out, getting ready to make her dash...





...and then some more, passing her doorway, stopping to greet, perhaps welcoming her, she may be new to this...





Kyoto. A first evening and I already think that time moves quickly here. In some ways.





I leave the quiet alley, where young girls find spaces to share secrets, and geisha disappear into unmakred doorways.









I pick up a can of Japanese beer (at the price of a sixpack back home) and head home. I eat my foods to the sound of Japanese weather on TV. We’re either in line for a monsoon or a partly sunny day. Who can tell.

from Paris: trip memories

[In anticipation of a long day of travel, I'm posting early, right on top of yesterday's entry. Whatever else travel does, it rearranges your writing habits.]

An article in the NYTimes on spending and happiness confirms what I have long understood about myself: spending on vacations is up there with marriage and strong personal relationships in contributing to a sense of happiness. Psychologists have noted that vacations bring about memories and these you savor with the same pleasure you reserve for the best things in life, even if, in truth, the trip you took had elements of pain, or at the very least – discomfort.

Still, as I walk through Paris, I am reminded of my last hours here in April: the time I opened my pack and understood that my purse was lost somewhere on board our last flight. I remember the tedious realization that I would have to replace it all and lose even more money in the process. If acquiring things with money doesn’t produce great amounts of joy, losing cash is really distressing.

I wonder if I’ll forever recall the unfortunate veal kidneys from this trip and whether someday they'll make me smile.

But, who am I kidding – I love all my memories of trips taken, with a passion. Though I would do some things differently were I to redo them, as Ed, in a moment of unusual reassurance last night, tells me -- if I make no mistakes then I am not living adventurously enough. (I called Ed no fewer than six times to add tips on how to show my condo today. He took it all in stride.)


Sunday morning. If yesterday I arrived to empty morning streets, today I walk back to the RER station through a city that feels even more unnaturally quiet.

Up the block, with a final glance back at my hotel (the same one where nearly five years ago Ed commented – I never knew you could hear people’s footsteps outside in a city) – the one with the geraniums in windowboxes...





And then, across to the park – noting how the poor chestnuts are having a bad run of it in so many cities of Europe...





I have time to walk through a corner of the Luxembourg Gardens and that’s good. I like seeing them in its waking moments, when benches and chairs are scattered and empty.





A quick look and then I’m off to the chaotic Charles de Gaulle airport. I find a quiet corner even there and take out my computer to do some work. But only after I take the time to reconsider some of this trip’s good moments.