Doing What I Want To Do .

"I'm often asked, what do I do for a living? And I answer — I do what I want." Cee Lo

I went for an epic run last Sunday. The sun was out, I was feeling ambitious, and with my reappointment deadline having coincided with a sudden interest in my own future, I needed some time on the open road to think about where I am, what I’m doing and what I want. I parked my bike at Koma station and headed west, running alongside the train tracks and the mountains, stopping for temple-side breathers, mountain views, statues and scarecrows.

Just the backdrop I needed to contemplate life, love and other important things.




Without much deliberation, I'm renewing my contract for a second year. I love Japan, and not for the reasons I expected when I left Winnipeg 4 months ago. I anticipated sushi feasts and outrageous wardrobes. Wild nights in Tokyo, chaos and smoking hot Japanese hipsters.

And while I've found all of these things, they are not what keeps me here. I’m staying because I love Hidaka and the life I'm building here.

On the surface, Hidaka doesn’t have much. A cross between inaka (country) and suburbia, it's mostly houses and supermarkets separated by sidewalks and manicured trees. But I’ve grown to love my life here because of the little things that make me smile — forest bike rides to work; coffee conversations I pretend to understand; the pleasantly slow pace of life.

And the people I'm still getting to know — whose quirks and individuality I'm still uncovering beneath the language barriers. How I would miss my 3rd year girls who don't do their Thursday English homework because they know I eat lunch with them that day and am easily tricked into doing it for them; the joy I get from the 1st year boy who sits front and center and enthusiastically answers every question wrong — and I've only barely scratched the surface with my tofu salesman. He works out of the back of his van in my parking lot and blows a kazoo when he opens at 6 o'clock. What told him that was his calling, I will never know.

Some days I don't feel like facing the blank stares. Some days, I don't really want the only person I have a meaningful conversation with to be myself. And pretty much every day, I don't want to put on a Japanese accent so people will understand me. But there are too many things I would miss if I left in August, and that is what makes me sure that I am where I want to be, doing what I want to do be doing.

These are my thoughts on life. I will save love and other important things for another time.

Intro to Nommunication .

Nom-mu-ni-ca-tion: Noun. \ˈnō-ˌmyü-nə-ˈkā-shən\

• Definition: The Japanese practice of getting to know one's coworkers over a few (or many... or a weekend of...) drinks.

• Origin: A play on words taken from the Japanese verb "nomu" (to drink) and the English noun "communication."

• Purpose: to break down hierarchical boundaries, strengthen team spirit, and create embarrassing situations that no one will speak of ever again.

Forget Movember. It's been Nommunicember for the last 3 weeks, and my, has it been rewarding. Between nights out with the ladies and a staff trip to Gunma, I've been nommunicating like it's my job (which I think it is). Here are a few things I've learned through nommunication:

1. Whose favourite drink is a box of red wine.
2. Who is afraid of me, but only until we yell kampai (aka cheers). Then we're friends.
3. Which teacher is a "player" and "not good to the ladies." I can't tell you how strange this conversation was - mainly because said teacher was nodding in agreement.
4. Who loves hairy chests.
5. Who is disappointed her husband doesn't have one. (Hint - 4 and 5 are the same person.)
6. Who wants to get married (to the counselor who visits the school on Wednesdays, specifically.)
7. Who wears what colour of undies. Not something I necessarily needed to know, but after the first round, the yukatas got a bit loose.
8. Which teachers are too old for me to date (all except one, apparently, which suggests to me that the school nurse has an agenda.)
9. Whose children are certifiably insane.
10. That sake-pajama parties are probably the most fun anyone could have with their coworkers.

Of course, I always let a few of my true colours show for the sake of fitting in. Like the fact that everyone now knows my pajamas consist of Christmas bottoms and a fuzzy cat sweater. But you know what - I'm not even embarrassed about it.


In other news, it's getting a bit cold over here. Winnipeg's dry winters have not prepared me for this wet, cold air, and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it. So I bought myself a wool sweater and a plane ticket to Australia. Just thinking about the beach warms me up!

My Life is a Series of Strange Questions and Answers

Every day I'm blown away by the weird things people say to me. I actually can't believe it sometimes. I just want to ask "does that translate to something normal in Japanese, or is this really what you meant to say?" When I'm not colouring or staring at the wall, I use my spare time at work to document all of the weird things that happen in my life. Here are but a few memorable conversations. Enjoy!

Do you like alcohol?
What a way to start a conversation - and a friendship! It's usually the first thing anyone asks me, and they say it just like that. Not "do you like sake" or "do you like beer." Just alcohol. It makes me feel like they're asking if I drink rubbing alcohol. Which I don't.

What is your hobby?
I hate this question. a) It makes me feel like I have to have one, and b) like I can have only one. And I think there's some kind of hobby standard in Japan, like it needs to be a craft with a significance rooted deep in my country's history. Lately, the only thing I do that even resembles a hobby is putting my pajamas on at 7 pm and listening to reruns of CBC News, but I'm not about to go telling people that. I also like to bake.

What sport do you play?
An endless point of embarrassment, this one. I don't play sports, and don't be fooled by my 8th grade shot-put victory. That was won purely by default. I lose interest quickly, I have no sense of team spirit, and I'm paralyzed by the fear of letting everyone down because I can't throw, catch or aim, and my 70 year old arches get cranky when I forget to bring my orthotics.


Are you going to a drug party?
Canadians have a bit of a reputation in Japan - apparently we like to dabble in illicit fun. But that kind of fun gets you deported over here, so imagine my surprise when the art teacher asked me if I was going to a "drug party" for Halloween. That was our first and only conversation. (Side note: I have since learned that she probably meant "drag party." My bad.)

What about the Freedom Penis?
WHAT ABOUT IT??? I thought as my face squinted, my head tilted and the power of speech escaped me. I'm not making this up. In a recent lesson about flags, countries and national monuments, my teacher threw this curve ball. I just stood there in shock while thirty 11 year olds erupted in laughter, who - if they're anything like my 6th grade class - looked up all dirty words and private parts the first time they got their hands on a bilingual dictionary. The mental image of him doing Statue of Liberty charades while repeating "Freedom Penis" are going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

















And then there are the questions that I ask which, more often then not, lead into a tangent almost immediately. Like the time I asked a teacher about the students going to the gym to prepare for the chorus festival. As soon as I said "gym," I triggered something he'd clearly been rehearsing for weeks, and he proceeded to explain the upcoming school relay, complete with a chalkboard diagram of a student running and passing off the team sash. It was like no chorus festival I'd ever seen. I'm only three months in to my indefinite stay in Japan. This is only the beginning.

My Life (Recently)

I have fallen off the face of the blog-earth in the last month.

In recent days, I have...

1. Watched the spider lilies come and go.
2. Visited Dad in Narita for matcha lattes and Hilton breakfasts.
3. Fallen in love (with a place called Nikko) and befriended all the town's buddhas.
4. Buried my face in my Genki Japanese textbooks in the hopes that I'll learn something.
5. Said goodbye to a dear friend, and learned that it is possible to cry so hard you puke.
6. Broken into the secretary-lunch-lady-counselor circle at school and scored myself a dinner and drinks invitation.
7. Become BFF with the entire grade 3 class of Koma Elementary.
8. Spent too much in Harajuku.

9. Given about 20 hours of my life to Ikea.
10. Witnessed a monkey assault a human.
11. Given up wheat. Then quickly gave up on that.
12. Tweeted. But only once.





13. Made it home for Canadian Thanksgiving via Skype.
14. Finished Breaking Bad Season 4. And yeah, it blew my mind.
15. Experienced the Japanese interpretation of Octoberfest. Thank you Yokohama.
16. Mimed my way through a medical exam.
17. Doubled my collection of plants, and this time not a single one turned out to be fake.
18. Religiously kept myself up to date with Miss Lonelyhearts.
19. Stayed up well past my bedtime so I could listen to CBC Radio's Symphonic Hour of Power with Julie Nasralla.
20. Rediscovered The Temper Trap.
21. Banned myself from the 100¥ Shop.
22. Survived typhoons and double-earthquake days.
23. Spent hours contemplating why everyone at work changes into gym clothes and random hours of the day. You're not all gym teachers. What's going on.


There she is. My life, as of late. Next stop: Kyoto.

Watashi Wa Nihongo O Benkyo. I Study Japanese.

I had a conversation with a praying mantis the other day. It was the best conversation I had all afternoon. No vague hand gestures. No awkward sound effects. And as it ambled away, there wasn't a fear in my mind that I had unknowingly promised to do something, be somewhere,or confessed to doing something I'd never done.

I've been in Japan for a month and a half, and I am slowly making progress with my Japanese so that I will stop embarrassing myself in public by talking to insects. Now I embarrass myself in other ways. I have reverted to Grade 1 Chloe, reading everything I see out loud, sounding out every character until I come up with something recognizable.

Every now and then I bust out a new phrase that blows everyone away. I get a big round of applause and a "Jozu desu ne! Very good!" (Except last night when I introduced myself to my principal's wife in Japanese. She gave me the old Jozu desu ne! and my principal was like "No really, it isn't." Oh kocho-sensei, there is just no fooling you.)

I've found friends in the 8 year olds I eat lunch with at school. Every day at kyushoku (school lunch) I'm surprised by new foods I've never seen before, which is a great opportunity for me to practice my favourite phrase: "Kore wa Nihon-go de nan desu ka? What is this in Japanese?" Now that we're over the "Oh my word, it speaks!" phase, rewarding conversations have followed.

My absolute favourite day for conversation practice is Friday. I sit next to a woman whose purpose in the office I have yet to figure out. She has no idea I can't speak Japanese. It's like she thinks I've lived here my whole life. She explains hand outs to me, goes over the contents of the office fridge, and she can talk to me for hours without a clue that I don't know what she's talking about. The way she often uses miming hand gestures while dramatically yelling out "cry! cry!" tells me I'm something of a therapist to her.

In other breaking news, the end of summer is around the corner and spider lily season is blooming. Life is good.

Everything's Coming Up Milhouse .

I’ve been avoiding my blog for weeks. I haven’t known what to write, or what people would want to read. Do you want to know that for a few days I had that urge to run again? That I was suddenly too aware of how long one day is, and I wasn’t sure I could last another 340? Do you want to know that some days I spend my mornings looking at Skyscanner.com? And that I found a very cheap flight to Manila?

I can think of at least two people who don’t want to read that, mostly because one of them is approaching retirement and can’t afford to support me for the rest of my life.

But don’t worry, friends. I have a hard enough time committing to a beverage at 7-11 (that’s why I buy 3 at a time), never mind a nonrefundable plane ticket. Also, Ned Stark was just decapitated in Game of Thrones, so if I want to see the season finale, I have to stick around at least until Monday.

Seriously though, I’m not going anywhere.

Maybe I’m feeling hyper-aware of what I’ve just done. I’ve committed to something I actually have to stay committed to. I can’t break up with Japan when I lose interest, or quit my job on a day’s notice. I can’t catch the next flight to Nairobi when I get the sudden urge for a change of scenery (...I may or may not have done this before.)

The second I realized this, all of my worries about life in Japan just piled up on top of each other like a massive game of Frustration Jenga just staring me in the face - every piece reminding me of the family and friends I miss, of the chair I left empty in your kitchen where you’re drinking Value Red coffee without me. Of the fact that I’m illiterate, I can communicate with only one person, I break every piece of technology I touch and I’ve set 3 pieces of toast on fire. Cue the violins, please.

But if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that nothing cures the blues like a bit of exploring. I've discovered places in Hidaka that make me a bit less scared of fact that I've signed my life away to an apartment lease and a real job.

For the last 3 days, the other ALT, Johnny, and I have ventured out on our matching battery-powered Bridgestone Assistas into the hills that surround Hidaka. We've explored the town's backroads, hiked Mt. Hiwada, and yesterday we found a cafe that's like all of my favourite places but better - like Safari Village, but I can get a cookie in less than 3 hours; Karl without the French ennui; Common Ground, but no one is trying to convert me. Yep, just a few cruises around town and everything's coming up Milhouse!


To everyone I’ve woken up and kept up; called in the middle of work, choking on tears, with not much to say; for the 2 hour Skype sessions and much needed laughs: Thank you.

Hidaka. The Beginning.

And so it begins. I’ve been in Hidaka for one week and 2 days. I struck gold here in Hidaka and I have no idea what I did to deserve this.

Dad - you know the way I announce every good deed I do (ie. helping old ladies cross the street, saving the children, etc) in the hopes that you will recognize that I do, in fact, have some kind of moral compass... and that one time I tried to return shoes I’d already worn isn’t such a big deal in light of all the good I do? My placement in Hidaka is proof that some divine force has been watching all of my good deeds and has found favour with me.


I couldn’t have asked for a better placement. Hidaka is a town of 58,000 people located in the Saitama prefecture. She’s a quiet town, where the people buzz about, getting work done so they can go home and tend to their perfectly manicured bonzai gardens.

My job as an ALT (assistant language teacher) is still in its formative stages. The students are on holidays until September, so my days at work are spent going around town getting all of my ducks in a row. A woman at my board of education named Shimada-san, who is an absolute angel, has taken me under her wing this past week to make sure I have everything I need. With work not really being work yet, I have lots of time to admire the place I’m going to call home for the next year... at least.

On one end, I have hiking paths and mountain trails. On the other, I have the Komagowa train station which connects me to temples and shopping in Kawagoe, friends in Kumagaya, and when I’m feeling rich and energetic, Tokyo is less than 2 hours away.


My apartment is further evidence of some divine intervention. I seriously thought that everyone in Japan lived in a shoe box. I mean, let’s be honest. This country is 1/26th the size of Canada with almost 100 million more people. Where do they all live? Shoe boxes, I thought. Shoe boxes stacked on top of one another. Totally logical.

Apparently not. At least not in my case. My shoe box is an absolute palace. I have 2 tatami rooms, a massive kitchen, and my entrance way is big enough for a washing machine, a sink, and bathroom, and a Japanese-style shower and bathtub.

My living room and kitchen flow into each other, with 3 sliding doors separating the two rooms. Très Japanese. I eat breakfast everyday on that cushion on the left, and if I angle myself just right, I can see the mountains behind the neighbouring houses. Quite the novelty for a prairie girl like myself.

My bedroom is your standard Japanese bedroom. I sleep on the futon at night, fold it up and store it during the day and Voilà! Hello second living room!

On a more realistic note, life’s not all roses. My grasp of Japanese language and etiquette is minimal, and I imagine I go about my day offending people for not bowing properly or forgetting how to excuse myself from a room. But thankfully, I have a Japanese-speaking Australian buddy to help me out. Johnny triples as my interpreter, sous-chef and friend, teaching me the appropriate phrases, exploring the Yaoko supermarket and hanging out after work. It's a good thing I can cook, otherwise I would have nothing to contribute to this friendship.

So that is life in Hidaka in a nutshell, so far. More stories to come soon.

Dear John Letter.

"This may surprise you, but Winnipeg is not so bad." - Glen Murray, former mayor.

Dear Winnipeg,

I'm sorry to leave you so soon, right after I fell in love with you. It's not you this time. It's me. You're a precious little gem of a city, and it took me 23-and-a-half years to recognize this. We had something special this year, and walking away hurts me just as much as it hurts you.

I'm going to miss those coffee rituals and midnight guitar serenades. The smell of Stella's in the morning and the mix of cigarettes and candle fumes at night. I'm on Calgary's 5th avenue, trying to quiet the part of me that wants to turn back. My head is filled with irrational ideas that romanticize the nine-to-five, embrace quasi-stimulating hobbies and bitter winters, all for the sake of a bit more time in Winnipeg. I wonder when my wanderlust will fade away.

But my other half knows that I've got bigger plans. I'm going to chase the dream that I've been waiting for since I laid eyes on that picture of my Aunt Allison taking Sendai by storm, with her oversized glasses and indescribable fut-fut*. It's time for me to live my own Japanese dream. My hill-top apartment in Hidaka-shi is waiting for me, with a bicycle for me to explore this supposed 'Banff of Japan.'

I shed salty tears when I said goodbye to you, Winnipeg. I hope you're the same when I get back.

Love Chloe





* Literally. I can't actually describe what a fut-fut is. It's some kind of motorized bicycle which was all the rage in the 80s. I plan on buying one.