culture – Page 56 – hannah ananas

A letter from my past self

The following is the transcription of a letter I found this week. (Yes, it was in one of the boxes of papers and folders and such.) I wish I had found it months ago, when I’d first returned from Japan. However, it still did me loads of good when I read it the other day. While I missed out on some bits it mentions, I actually did a really good job of fulfilling most of the tasks prescribed in it… a version of them, anyway.

Anyway, it is a letter I wrote to myself when I was still on my college campus, about to leave to study abroad in Germany and Austria. As per standards of our school’s study abroad program, we all had to write our future selves a letter, which would be mailed to us upon our return from our study abroad programs. I fully acknowledge that mine is full of grammatical errors, but that was part of why I was going abroad anyway – to improve my language skills. Also, the whole letter is written in cursive, because I do that. The third sentence actually caused me to tear up, and the fourth had me crying. It’s amazing how right I was, and I really didn’t know that I ever would be in the current situation in which I find myself.

……………………

10. April 2012
Dienstag

Hannah Leigh, chèrie,

Ich weiss nicht, was muss ich dir sagen. Ich kenne dich nicht, weil du so viel gechanged hast. Welcome home – may it still feel that way to you. You are forever welcome here, so remember that – you might need it some day. Okay, here’s what I want you to do:

1) Go record it. Get on your computer, write up any questions
you would love for others to ask, & then record yourself
answering them. Then you can do what you want with
it all, but you will have that satisfaction, that completeness,
wholeness of having shared what you needed, desired, wanted
to share.

2) Talk to people. Make a quick list of what specifically you already
have wanted to share with whom. Call each person & set up when
& where you will share what you have to share. Share with them.

3) Talk to Opa. No matter where he is, go visit him & talk with
him completely in German.

4) Find someone local with whom you can be open, close, & frank, & speak
only German (or completely German) together with ease.

5) Remember that it’s all right not to “know” who you are. Knowing
makes no difference, anyway, so no good reason to bother with it.
Look yourself in the mirror & see all that has passed, & be open to
all that will come.

6) You are woman & you create the universe with your being. Your
power is endless, & it is selfless love that feels it. Love your
mother & your Mother. Love your self wholly, & your next
step will become available and visible to you.

7) Be at peace. Even if it was &/or is hard, it is all relative.
Take it for the beneficial experience that it is, & enjoy every
bit you have gotten & will get from it all.

8) Now & every time you see that it just might possibly help,
take a deep breath & close your eyes, letting your thoughts
run around & then calm naturally as you breathe deeply.

I love you & I wish you all the best. I am here with you always, though I will now be transformed from the time I wrote this letter. My understanding & my love have only increased & expanded, I promise. You are wonderful. You are beautiful. You are mine.

I love you. Love me, too.
❤ Peace Hannah Leigh

P.S. Pretend I pressed a flower in here to give you a wholesome smile & kiss. 🙂 oxox

…………………………………………………..

Post-a-day 2018

ukulele and hula

I started ukulele lessons today. It also included a reunion and a brief lesson on Hawaiian, the language, which were both a fabulous bonus.

I’ve always had a sort of passive affinity for Hawaiian culture – that wonderful island life, about which I knew almost nothing. I was almost afraid to go to Hawaiʻi, for fear of finding that the wonderful world I’d imagined was no longer in existence. After living in Japan, even being in the countryside, I have learned the sort of balance that likely exists in the culture today. It is like cowboys in Texas. We have our big buildings and fancy cars and billboards, but you can still find, here and there, the true tradition. Sometimes, it is only seen in ceremonies. And sometimes it is part of someone’s everyday life.

My brother, though he rides and owns no horses, spends his days working on his land. Physical labor in jeans and surrounded by grass, trees, and animals is his life most days. And he grew up in the city. There are plenty of others who grew up living his kind of life, and who still do the ranching on horseback. Inside our city limits, no one would guess that that kind of life is just beyond our little area. The average person wouldn’t even cross it knowingly, if he went driving outside the city, either. You have to know how to find it. And that’s just how Japan was… When I think of Hawaiʻi now, that’s how I imagine it must be to a certain degree.

Anyway, ukulele is fun. I started it back in Japan, because I was lonely and didn’t have music in my life. Plus, Hawaiian culture seemed to be prominent in Japan (the reasons for which I hadn’t understood at first), so ukulele seemed an appropriate way to bring music into my life while in Japan. I even took a few hula lessons. (Yes, they were awesome.)

Actually, what really spawned my desire to learn hula and ukulele – not just the casual interest with which I first bought the ukulele, but the real desire that got me into lessons for hula and then, finally, for ukulele now – was a film. It was based in Hawaiʻi, and the caucasian daughter, maybe about 14 years old (I forget), did hula. The way she moved her arms in the dance had me gazing, melting, it was just so beautiful to me. Watching her dance, I had something happen within me. I guess, because she was not Japanese or Hawaiian, but like me went through me head… I was able to see hula differently. It was, at last, something that it was acceptable for me to do.

I had seen Japanese friends perform wonderfully, and plenty of other Japanese women I don’t even know, too. But their close ties to Hawaiʻi made it okay for them to do it. It was regular and standard for them to be doing hula. But what – it isn’t “right”, but something like that, “reason” perhaps – reason does a German-heritage girl from Texas have for doing hula, without an extreme, intense love for it?

Maybe this is just my own brain that had me stuck in this thought process, but it just didn’t make enough sense to me to feel comfortable with pursuing hula. It felt to me like visiting a religious building for a region to which one does not belong and about which one knows very little. It isn’t that the person is not allowed. Not at all. It is just that the person can feel a little lost and uncertain when visiting, and so it can be difficult to visit in the first place, without having a sort of invitation. That’s kind of how I felt about hula.

And that movie helped alter that for me. I started attending hula classes whenever I could, and began somewhat seeking out a ukulele teacher.

Eventually, nude in a hot spring bath in the mountains, I found one. And now, almost a year later, we finally are in the same country and with the same currency (that was the issue before), so we can do lessons. We aren’t anywhere near one another, of course, because I’m in Texas and she’s in Hawaiʻi, but it’s going well so far. Playing together is a bit weird, because of the lag, but I’ve worked with it for years with other things, so I’m somewhat accustomed to being slightly ahead of the beat and to hearing the clash of notes and timing, so that it sounds good on the other side. All-in-all, it was fun, and I look forward to the next lesson next week. 😀

So, go listen to a ukulele song today, and think of me, yeah? 😉

P.S. Icicles were crashing outside my window during our lesson today. And this is Houston. How cool is that?! Or warming, I guess…

Post-a-day 2018

Unpacking & Unboxing

Three and a half thoughts:

1. I spent my afternoon today opening and sorting boxes from Japan. I finally have the much-needed winter clothing I’ve been wanting the past month and a half. Good thing it was almost warm today.

2. I was happily surprised that almost everything I brought back was totally practical and useful and something I really like. I was worried that I wouldn’t like loads of it all.

3. It’s interesting to me how Japan no longer feels like a sort of adventure. It actually surprises me when people have big reactions to the fact that I was there, living there. It feels the same as saying that I buy vegetables at the grocery store – it’s just something simple and everyday. I lived in Japan… and so do millions of other people. I know that it isn’t the regular deal for people around here; I’m clear on that. I just mean that it feels so not special to me specifically. It almost feels more unique that I floss my teeth every day (sometimes more than once a day), than that I lived in Japan. I guess it’s just old news for me now. So does that mean I need some new news, then, if only for myself?

1/2. Wait until you see the tubs of kimono that I have…! (Doesn’t that sound like ice cream or something?) 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Cultural Pants with Mom

Have you ever gotten creative with your clothing? I certainly have. Tonight was just an average ‘work with what you’ve got’ kind of night with clothes. For tomorrow, I’d chosen to wear an Indian tunic – I think the actual name might be kurta, but I’m not sure. However, I don’t have any pants or leggings that really go with the colors of it, and black is totally not an option, because its bright colors are just too happy for black.

So, I asked my mom if she had any leggings or pants I could wear with the top. At first, she brought me Vietnamese yellow pants, which almost look Indian, but the color combined with the style was just not passable. The tunic is a sort of reddish pink, with orange and green embroidery and stitching. Bright yellow, baggy pants just weren’t the look I was going for. I wanted the focus to be the top, not the bottoms. I will wear said pants, however, on a different occasion, you can be sure.

After checking greens and purples, all to no avail, my mom brings in a skirt that is the exact color of the green embroidery and stitching of the tunic. The fabric is different, but the color is darn near exact. “But it’s a skirt,” I declared and repeated, somewhat laughing. I tried it on. My mom said it looked all right, but it totally was not the look I’d wanted. ‘This is what we call “cultural confusion”… I was going for “cultural fusion.”‘

We both laughed and stared at the perfect match of color and utter clash of styles.

And then I saw it. “Aha!” I bent over and grabbed the center of the skirt, both the front and back of it, through my legs. As I stood up, my mom knew exactly what I was doing.

Five minutes later, we had it. I eventually had to take it off and turn it inside out to make it all balance properly, but we knew it would work after the second knot I made while still wearing it. We tied the skirt in a few places in the center to give the illusion of one type of traditional Indian pants (think Indian yoga pants), and it worked marvelously. No, they don’t look exactly like the real thing, but they do look like what I’d wanted: cultural fusion and fabulous.

I wonder how it will go off tomorrow, in a world of latino heritage. I look forward to the opportunity to respond to something like, ‘Cool pants!’ with a, ‘Oh, thanks. I’m not wearing any.’ Or something silly like that. We’ll see. Whatever the case, though, I’ll be in an outfit that I love and that has been created with love from me and my mom. I think that’s the best part, as usual, of course.

P.S. I’ll see if I can get a photo of it all tomorrow at some point.

P.P.S. Okay, so it turned out that I wore the yellow pants to bed, because it was so cold, and they were soft and comfortable. Not what I’d had in mind when I considered wearing them soon, but oh, well… 😛

Post-a-day 2017

A foreigner at home?

Have you ever felt out of place within your own culture? As time passes, it happens to me more and more often. Last night, I attended an event with coworkers. The noise volume took me by slight surprise when I first arrived. How can people be this loud? I thought. And then I remembered almost before I finished asking the question: They’re americans (from the USA).

But I’m american from the US, too. Wouldn’t I be used to this, then?

I quickly compared it to a drinking party at an izakaya (like a bar) with nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) in Japan. Yes, the Japanese can get quite loud there. It was never to the point of wanting to cover my ears, though, I hear myself thinking. So, I am very much accustomed to a much quieter environment for parties, then. I’m not just being a bit dramatic and overly sensitive to normal behavior and a normal situation.

Even still… I felt so oddly out of place, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with myself. I ended up semi-hiding in the coatroom (it wasn’t a closet, but an actual room, I promise) to take a breather from all the people and the noise from time to time. I also took extra-long any time I went to the bathroom, because it was cozy and quiet in there on my own. Yes, I could have just gone home. However, I rarely spend time even around people who aren’t high schoolers right now, so I felt it was somewhat necessary – even if just for social practice – to spend time around adults, especially happy ones in a good, safe environment.

I definitely adjusted after a bit, but I still felt quite out of place for most of the event. I guess I’m just not so USA american anymore… which doesn’t surprise me, really. It’s just odd, not belonging in a place everyone calls my “home”.

Post-a-day 2017

My real voice

In college, I spent a summer studying in Germany. It was a language school setup, filled with foreigners, but in such a small town that everyone knew that we were studying German, and so everyone always spoke to us all in German. I had already studied abroad a few times before this adventure, and I had learned firsthand about what works and what doesn’t work, in terms of language immersion. I was dedicated to learning German, and so I made sure that I only spoke in German with others, even if they spoke to me in English. This made friendships hard among the people in my program’s group, since they all used English together; I came across a bit snobby, but I was just really committed to learning German.

I made friends with other foreigners rather easily, though, and especially ones in higher levels of German, which was even better for me. My German was improving immensely. But this led to a unique situation one day.

One day, near the end of either my time at the school or my friend Paul’s time there (he’s British), I found myself faced with a desperate Paul, actually begging me to speak English. Why?! was my repeated question to his pleas.

“Because I want to hear what you sound like!”

I don’t know if he was pleased or not by how I sound in English, but I spoke a little for him. And it was way weird, using English with him, despite the fact that I’d heard him speak English loads, and that it’s our common native language. I had just never used it with him.

And then this brought up a unique and interesting sentiment. He wanted to hear me, and that meant speaking English. I can guess that my native tongue was the one in which Paul believed my identity to lie. I know that it felt like I was setting aside a sort of mask when I switched to English with him. I even felt a little called-out… as though I had been hiding somehow, and it had been behind German. The real me (I) lay in English, in the English part of me.

Yet, years later, here I am, missing the parts of me that belong to these different languages in which I have lived. A part of me, true me (I), exists only on German, and others in French, in Spanish, and in Japanese. So much so that the real me (I) is this whole combination of languages – I feel a huge emptiness and feel not myself when I am using only English in my daily life. I listen to Spanish-speaking radio when I’m in Houston, mostly because I don’t get to use Spanish often enough. I read every night in French, and trade off an English book for a German one at times for my evening reading, too. I regularly pull out a Spanish book to read, or my German audiobooks. And I have noticed that I have been searching for a tolerably satisfying way to have Japanese in my near-daily life, too. (For now, it has just been the occasional music, and a perpetual repeat of a certain song being stuck in my head.) When I don’t have them all, it is as though a part of me is missing, and suddenly getting to speak with someone in them, almost reminds me of that mask I was setting aside in Germany with Paul… like I am again setting aside some mask I have been wearing.

Perhaps it is now a mask of monolingualism, pretending that I only speak English, while I long for the world to talk to me in several languages, all the time.

Anyway… I’m exhausted. And I miss Paul. He was studying opera, and was a really great guy. I wonder if he’s been really successful with opera these past several years. Maybe I can go see him perform one day. That would be awesome. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

a place in our world

Sometimes I wonder about whether there really will be a place for me in our modern, developing world. There so many things that are becoming commonplace that go against so much of who I am. From the simplest tiny things to morals to lifestyle to core beliefs and thinking patterns, I notice a difference between so much of how the society functions around me and what is in me, myself. I realize that, somehow, I will have a place in the world, but I wonder if it is in the part of the world I already know, or if I will find myself in an entirely different society, somewhere else in the world… not in what I consider my home.

I just wonder…

Post-a-day 2017

Am I insane yet?

Have you ever felt as though you were going insane? I have been in the US for four days now. I feel like I am losing it. I have conversations, and I struggle to maintain focus. People tell me things, and I have only a vague memory of what wa said to me, without actually being able to remember anything concrete from the communication. A coworker told me her name today, and I consciously felt as though I had completely lost her name. However, when I threw out what felt to be a random guess at her name, the guess was correct.

Whether I am actually losing it, or I am merely living in a different state of consciousness relating to memory, I am not certain. I am almost certain that it is all mainly due to the fact that my brain has not adjusted to the 14-hour difference in life here yet, nor to the constant English all around me, the combination of which puts me into a real state of confusion as my brain attempts to pay full attention to every bit of English it hears.

It really just makes me feel like I might simply be going crazy. I know that I’m not. It just feels like insanity settling into my head.

Post-a-day 2017

Getting to the airport

So, I still hate living in Japan, and it reminded me of this fact on my way to the airport this morning. However, I also still truly love parts of this place and culture. My trip to the airport reminded me of this fact, too.

As I struggled with three rolling bags and a guitar (I know, I know – stupid. But it was unavoidable.), the terrible signage and lack of findable elevators was driving me insane, along with the constant rumble strips for hard-of-seeing individuals (I don’t blame anyone for that – it merely added to my struggle, is all, with the suitcase wheels constantly getting stuck in them.).

So, rather than just being able to take an elevator to the right level, and walk flat to my airport train, and then take a second elevator down, I took what felt like an insane route, due to poor signage. Struggling to exit the final tiny escalator (width-wise tiny), and get my stuff out of the way for the people behind me, I was totally I surprised to find myself outside with rain. Yes, the whole station connects in a covered and underground area. But this was the only path I could take, based on signs (which I know is false information, because I’ve been to the same area before, just from a different direction). I finally gave up attempting to pull both big bags at once (one had the smaller rolling bag on top of it, and was somewhat impossible to manage off smooth, flat terrain), and just left one sitting near the escalator. I trudged through the rain with the two bags, and wasn’t even sure how far I would go before turning back for the other bag. I was unconcerned about leaving my bag, though, because 1) this is Japan, 2) it’s freakin’ heavy and hard to move, and 3) some station staff were standing right near it, and they saw me leave it there in my struggle.

I could tell the station staff guys were a bit concerned about my bag, so, when I found a spot covered from the rain, just around the corner, I propped my two bags against the wall, and started heading back for the other bag. Of course, there were no signs for the train line I wanted, but that was no surprise – this is Japan.

As I came around the corner, however, one of the old men station workers was heading my way with my bag. I thanked him in Japanese, and started to go to take the bag from him, but he asked in adorable English (meaning I understood, but it was not really correct at all) if I were taking the Narita Express. I said that I was, and he just nodded, kept walking, and pointed up the escalator to the left. I quickly grabbed my other bags and followed.

The big bags barely fit on the even smaller escalator we were using, but we managed. At the top, I expected he might return my bag to me, but he again kept walking ahead of me, showing me the way to a train whose signs I still couldn’t find.

Remember that this is Japan (as if you could forget), so, of course, we came to a staircase now. No alternate route. None. But we took an escalator to where we were, so it makes perfect sense for only stairs to follow. But then, the upside of Japan came again, and a young-ish guy helped us carry the bags up the stairs, once he saw the station worker attempting to pick up one of my bags, as I carried another up with the guitar. I heard the station worker comment to the guy that I was alone and carrying all three suitcases, and I smiled – people really can be super sweet here. I in no way deny that.

So we continued on, and found our ticket barrier for the train. I still had to buy a ticket, so he asked the window worker, and she sent me to the machines. Unfortunately, the 7:13 train that was about to leave didn’t have any tickets available on the machine. The next was at 8:00-ish, which started to put me into a panic. I quickly asked about the 7:13 train, and my old man asked the window people for me. Yet another station worker came from the window, and started tapping at the machine screen for me a few moments later. Eventually, despite various issues, I got a ticket for the 7:13. At least, it would let me on the 7:13.

Again, I heard the conversation happening about my being hitori desu! and mitsu desu ne. The worker who helped me get my ticket then took over for the old man from the other section of the station, and took one of my big bags for me. I thanked the old man profusely, and marveled one last time at his light blue eyes. He wished me luck and courage.

I got stuck in the ticket barrier. Yes, literally, because the one bag was too wide, and so the lady let me go back and bring my bag through the side area. However, that meant that my ticket was eaten by the machine, since I didn’t make it all the way through the barrier. And I only had so many minutes before the train.

The lady rushed over and opened up the ticket barrier, pulled out my ticket from a bin, and handed it to me, wishing me luck and courage, as well. I thanked her greatly, and started rushing after the worker who’d taken my other bag.

We had just barely five minutes, and I could tell we had far to go, simply by the fact that he was checking his watch and hurrying along so quickly. The long corridor that greeted us as we rounded a corner made me a bit more nervous. We rushed down the walkway, though, and he eventually declared that it would be okay. He led me to an elevator (phew!), and we went down to the track. The whole time, he had been talking with me, chatting about my stay and whatnot, and then telling me about where I could sit on the train. Some good final practice for my Japanese, I suppose. It was really nice to have someone to chat with me casually, though, especially with the physical stress and mental workout that had been going on so far today (and that still awaited).

He helped me on the train, showed me the secret seats in the wall, and wished me safety and good health. After a few minutes on the train, the ticket checker guy who’d seen us get on came out of his little room and smiled at me as he walked past. A few moments later, he came back and summoned me silently with the Japanese wave. I followed, and he offered me a real seat in the cabin. I thanked him, and collapsed into the seat.

Now, a bit of snacking and a bathroom break later, I am almost to the airport. I don’t know how much my bags weigh. One is for sure okay, the other concerns me a bit. I’ve never measured 70lbs before, so I don’t know how that feels. I’m a rather good judge for 50lbs, though, and my second checked bag is right close to 50. My carry-on is way heavy. But it might still be okay. We shall see…

I still have to cancel my phone contract at the store, too. And get through security with my Fuji-San hiking stick. And make it on the plane, of course. So, let’s hope for the best here, eh?

Fingers crossed!
P.S. Oh. And, as a side note, I happen to be sick right now, too. It all started with the whole smoking at dinner the other night. My throat started burning then, and hasn’t stopped since.

Post-a-day 2017

Getting ready to time-travel

And so one thing ends, and, with anxiety, something new begins. Tonight, I complete my life here in Japan, and dream one last dream before I move forward to my next step. I felt like I was in “What About Bob?” today, taking my mother’s guidance to do whatever needs to be done next – aka baby steps. I took my baby steps all day long today, and finally got it all finished. I even accomplished a few things I expected not to be able to do.

One of those things being seeing the guitarist I’d seen a couple weeks ago at the nearby train station, who had greeted me in English one night as I was moving my stuff to my friend’s place. He greeted me and asked how I was doing tonight, as I was walking in Shibuya, and ended up accompanying me, with my comfortable acquiescence, to the phone shop to disconnect my phone (It was closed.), and then buying me a Japan-only Yuzu frappucino from Starbucks, and sitting with me as I finally watched the Shibuya Crossing from the Starbucks window (It wasn’t actually very impressive, but I think I never really expected it to be, anyway.), at which point, we finally discovered that we had, in fact, seen one another those two or three weeks back. He was a nice guy, Ryo.

I ended my evening with my last gaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi), on which I spent ¥680 (just over $6 US), and which I didn’t even finish eating. I’ll miss such affordable sushi, but I’ll survive quite well back in Houston, I do believe. Green smoothies and colorful veggie-based juices are calling me.

And now, at long last, I shall sleep. Rest, anyway. We’ll see if it really is sleep tomorrow morning, when my alarm wakes me just before 5am. I hope I wake rested well.

Anyway, this is it, I guess. Tomorrow morning, I say goodbye to Japan, and then I time-travel (departing 11:10am on Saturday, 12 August, and arriving 9:30am on Saturday, 12 August).

Goodnight!

Post-a-day 2017