Here's a question: Is the person who wrote this really an egotist? This is a leading question.. From one point of view, everybody's an egotist, and may God help those who aren't. Anyway,
A cautionary note here: everything I write gets used sooner or later.
I live in Japan with my wife and our two children. We used to live in Canada. Originally in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and then more recently in Fort Nelson above the 58th parallel. Now, we live in Oita, on Kyushu Island. And attend a real Japanese Christian church. It's called Chapel Noah, because Noah is a popular story in Japan. There's even a car model here with that name, just to give you an idea.
The landscape here is neat! Many little mountains, everywhere, with roads swirling about them haphazardly, and the Pacific Ocean not far away. The air here is wet, which makes it a struggle not to feel like I'm walking around in Pampers. I miss the dry air of Western Canada. But, the people here make up for any personal discomforts we have.
These days I work as a teacher of English, but competition has been high among English teachers as there have been many english-speaking foreigners come here to teach. My children go to public school, and do not have too many difficulties to overcome yet, but we are watchful parents. So far, so good.
The food in Oita, and in Japan in general, is surprizingly different from Canada. Cereal boxes are too small, and the Japanese taste runs deep for oily mackerel (I kid you not!!), but if you like that kind of food, then you would probably like this. Sushi here is nothing like sushi back home. It is more expensive, and again tending toward that oily taste.
Technology is not as advanced here as I had thought it would be: flat-screen televisions are not common, and 12 years after Vancouver's Expo 86, the magnetic-levitation super high-speed japanese train is still in the experimental stage.
In Oita City[WO], the danger is not volcanoes, or tsunamis, but typhoons followed by some flooding due to peak rainy periods. One year later, the 'El Niniyo' phenomenon seemed to change that a bit, but just recently we experienced one whopper of a typhoon, the biggest recorded apparently since 1940 in Japan. Oita got through it with minimal damage, though Kumamoto-ken did not. However, generally, the rain is about the same as it was in 'Sunny Vancouver'; before 'El Niniyo'.
The Japanese don't have provinces or states, their equivalents are called prefectures, and Oita Prefecture is preparing a large domed stadium to co-host the World Cup in 2002. If you get a chance, this would be a nice time to visit.
Driving is scary here but after about a month you tend to get use to it. Because of the terrain, roads are not developed in a grid pattern, and blocks are not squared. Traffic lights are not positioned in the middle of intersections, and cars operate on the left with signal and windshield wiper controls reversed. We can always spot the new foreigner, when a car suddenly swerves into or out of the lane in front of us with its windshield wipers operating on a clear day.
I have been forced to revise this [not by threat, but by conscience]. However the first impression I had of the music industry here was that it "tends towards being underdeveloped", with "oldy, moldies" being played intermittently from the West, and most of the new groups sounding limited and inexperienced. Actually, the music scene is becoming very well developed, but the promotion tends to be fast and geared to the very young (10-16), quickly losing all sight of any temporal masters in its quest for the primal market share. If you listen to the radio as I did at the time, your opinions could be easily skewed too. Since I last wrote this page, I have listened to many more great groups and artists, some new, some old, like Ryuichi Sakamoto, and YMO, Yuzu, The B'z, Mr. Children, Shogo Hamada, and the very impressive Southern All-Stars. However, I still have favourites. I really like the Dreams Come True album "Sing or die." Have you heard of "manipulating" as a job description? Anyway, these are the Beatles of Japanese music. Nice! I also still like Seiko Matsuda's old albums, with her child-like voice. I became a fan of hers 15 years ago, as of this writing..
On the other hand, I still listen to Billy Joel though. And for relief, Larry Norman, although there are others. My favourite Canadian artist is Gord Johnson. So the West hasn't exactly been replaced -- just complemented.
It's kind of nice to be away from NA culture, although Hollywood is big here, with video stores common-place, and you can watch anything you would normally watch back home, at comparable prices. I'm afraid that prices are not comparable for CDs though; which are consistently equivalent to $30.
All in all, Japan is trying very hard to live the Western ideal (as I see it through my NA eyes).
Spiritually, things are about like they are at home. Most religion is pushed way, way down. Buddhism, is submerged in culture, and is hardly religion at all. The old Japanese animism which was represented in our eyes as Shinto, can be seen in shrines that are generally slightly outnumbered by temples, and not so much intimidating as cute. There are ceremonies, and very little feeling beyond duty. Remind you of anything? It's culture.
There is no discernable hatred towards white people here. Though, I think we english-speakers have been pushing the envelope by not trying to speak the native tongue, and some tension has emerged. I think we should take care not to ignore people.. maybe this should be an universal maxim.. maybe it is! What do you think? Anyway, we are trying not to be Japanese, but to relate or maybe acculturize. We are old though, and slow.
Patience, patience. Atleast, by now I think we have acclimatized. The truly ugly months for us are July and August because in Kyushu this is the muggy season.. 'Hello Toronto!' ..about as bad.
So why are we really here, why don't we go home?? We are missionaries. Our purpose is to introduce non-believers to Jesus Christ, and encourage believers in their faith in Him. But God must have a sense of humour! I questioned why he would want us to come here. We are so limited, and we clearly listed our limitations 5 years ago: young family - no time for aggressive campaigns, poor memory - little chance of speaking in their native tongues, not adventurous - I mean 'come on, Lord?!' But, we listened, we tested his will, we followed, we're here. Does this seem strange to you? Well, it's really strange to us - but that's life! I can tell you this though, we will no longer be haunted by feelings of 'not having done'. We share the quest of living for Christ, day-by-day. It feels like climbing a mountain. It feels good. Healthy. I can't explain it better than that. Science isn't everything. Some knowledge is deeper (not that I espouse Gnosticism)!
