Takao-san
a l r e a d y : hatachi Archives
Takao-san Sunday April 23
This past Saturday, myself and some of the Center students went to a nearby mountain and climbed it. Sure, there are existing trails, and the whole affair is actually quite painless; it's nothing like climbing Mount Fuji (which I plan on doing early this summer).
Ari-sensei also went with us, so we were using Japanese the whole day. This seemed to amuse the passersby, watching two clearly-American people converse in Japanese as if it were nothing... Hill and I were also accosted by an old man; he said "hello" to us at first in English, but he was taken aback when we spattered back at him in Japanese. He then muttered something borderline indecent about Hill, but luckily for that man's life, she didn't hear him. Dirty old men.
Ashley seemed to enjoy my story about the awkward car situation a few weeks ago, so I'll elaborate more on what came of that. The family and I actually got along on decent terms, and since their daughter Kayuri is twenty-two, she and I hit it off pretty well; we decided we needed to get our friends together to do karaoke. I invited her out (you know, it's like in the States, give-and-take; you get invited, next time you invite) with us to climb the mountain. The bad news is that I didn't tell her we weren't taking the cable car and that we were actually planning on hiking it. Oops. We almost killed her, I think. She said after the fact that she had a good time, and we both conked out on the train on the way home.
But seriously, folks. It's not a big mountain. Totally a "yes, I'm in Japan" feeling. A cable car? We don't need no stinkin' cable car. My legs may have been shaking from exhaustion on the way down, but I didn't need no stinkin' cable car. It took an hour to get up. Yeah. The pictures are in the most recent pictures, which is a new feature I added recently. If you haven't checked it out yet, now's the time.
Today I went to a symposium at Keio University. Keio is an "Ivy League" school in Japan; coincidentally, it's also very close to Michael's apartment. My former Japanese teacher Toyosawa-sensei invited me; it was about the the practice of history. I'm not studying history, and let me add on that it was all in high-level academic Japanese. I understood most of the words; I just couldn't assemble them fast enough to catch everything. To add on to that, the symposium was critiquing a book that I hadn't read regarding the practice of oral history among Australian aborigines. Enough said. The fact that I understood anything was enough to elate me.
I'll say three things about it: (1) I met up with an old teacher, that was neat. (2) I can see how far I have to go yet on Japanese, certainly, and (3) there was a girl there, and man. There was a girl. Mmm-hmm. It was a good thing she was sitting behind me and off to the side, because if I had noticed her sooner I wouldn't have paid attention at all. You know, she had those kinda-thick-frame black glasses -- not to nerdy, though. Just the right touch of "I can calculate the square root of 23 to seven digits in my head", but an equally severe dosage of "I know how to have fun". There was an afterparty at the end of the symposium, but I had previously figured it was only going to be a bunch of crusty professors (who were, by all means, also there), so I didn't RSVP. Doh. Whatever. I happen to know that right now Dream Girl is writing in her blog about the dreamy dude sitting to the front and left of her.
I tell you, though, that's going to be an interesting part of going back to the States. There were about one hundred people in that room today, and I am willing to bet that more than half of them noticed me -- guys, girls, whatever. People. "I wonder why he is here?", they might think. "He looks like he's listening. I wonder how much he understands", "Ew, gaijin". And the like.
It's apparent wherever I go that due to my looks alone, I get a thought or two from people. Good thought or bad thought aside, people are wasting their brain cycles on me (when they could be busy computing the square root of 23 to seven decimals). When I go back to the States, though, I'm just some guy again. In a way, I'm looking forward to being ignored again. In another way, it'll be harder to start conversations with people. As it stands now, I always have something to talk about when I meet new people: where I'm from, etc.
