Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Encounters

Haus der Begegnung, or in English house of encounters, is the name my international student house carries. As for encounters, it means to come across something you have not come across with before. This name does not only refer to just the encounters with the students and researchers residing in the dormitory, it also implies that the dormitory actually stimulates those kind of encounters. To give this words a concrete meaning, my dormitory has certain institutions to ensure that those encounters take place. One of those is, that our dormitory has so called house parents, a professor and family living in our dormitory, as well as a team made up by the people living in the rooms. I’ve been asked to become the secretary of the team during this spring semester, so this makes me even more active in the activities the dormitory is employing. Because the new school year has started almost the half of the 33 residents of our dormitory is new. And the task of the team is to coordinate that all the chores that have to been done are organized as well as carried out. One of the recurring events of encounter, is a thing called common meal (which is actually not correct English, but it does convey the meaning of eating a meal all together) which takes place every other Friday. And all of the residents have the task to cook one time and to help one time during the semester. But there’s more to be organised such as a seminar, a sports day and a weekend trip.
But the 2 events that have occurred up till now, the first common meal as well as a welcome party were placed into the hands of the new team members. Now was it not organizing those events, but preparing the actual dinner for those. And those having any experience with my methods of cooking (also included those, not having any experience because of fear of my cooking methods) knows that I am the type who looks in the fridge to find out, what is in there and is still eatable, and tries to make something eatable out of it. And here in Japan, the need that I actual cook declined even more, because of wonderful inventions such as onigiri (riceballs), sushi, as well as instant noodles which you can get your hands on 24 hours a day, as well as the numerous small restaurants that offer you a good deal for your money.. Because it was required that I actual would cook I decided to look for recipes on the ever so wonderful internet. Recipes always have a tendency to either include at least one ingredient of which I have never heard of, let alone have any idea where to find it. So I decided to stick to those dishes which fall under the category very easy to make student food i.e. pasta and crepes. With the ingredients were readily available, I knew what to do, the only thing I forgot that preparing dinner for approximately 20 persons takes some more time than for 4 persons.
So there I was, together with 2 friends, at 3 o’clock still baking crepes. But all hardships were forgotten the next day when we sat around the tables, having nice conversations, and I saw all the food that we had prepared disappear into hungry mouths.
Pleased with the success of my pasta during the common meal, I decided to stick to that, as my dishes for the welcome party. Perhaps because of the common meal experiences it was decided that we would cook even more, because more people were expected. The only thing I had forgotten was that more pasta, also meant that I would encounter even more onions and garlic that needed to be peeled and to be sliced into little pieces according to the recipe. And so I spend 5 hours on Saturday cutting onions, garlic, spinach, ham and cooking 4,5 kilo’s of pasta. And finally at the party my encounter with all kinds of foods that I was neither hungry nor wanted to encounter many other people. As always after the party was over a number of people stayed behind drinking and chatting, and with a group we decided we were going to continue the party in a karaoke box. And there I sang all my tiredness of me and luckily I did not encounter somebody who felt that he should expose any critic on my singing abilities (which I admit are fairly limited). Tired but satisfied I went back to my dormitory, and made use of another function, which is not in the name but I always feel is part of all the places I consider my home, namely retreat. Back in my room, made cozy by books, cd’s and some works of art, I felt happily asleep. And for all of you, especially those who I promised I would cook once, I hereby invite you to come over when I’m back and encounter one of my pasta’s.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Home Far From Home

Back in Kyoto, after spending a very pleasant time in Kagoshima, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it was snowing. But luckily the weather was no parameter for the time I was going to spend with my parents, who arrived one day after I got back at Kansai Airport.
Although it was very real, even now in hindsight it seemed rather a dreamlike experience that my parents really made it all the way to Japan. I am talking here about my parents who went for more than 20 years in a row to Germany and until than I haven’t been able to find much urge to explore the huge parts of the world where they had never set foot on.
When I was for the first time in Japan it was discouraged by my exchange organization that the ‘real’ parents were going to visit there child because it might harm the integration process of a child into their host family. And it’s true that when I went to my host family in December I felt at home. But at the same time, I feel also at home in my own room here in Kyoto.
Back in the Netherlands, I felt like home when I went back to my parents, but at the same time I feel my room at Leiden is my home.
The transition from one family to another family was a much bigger change then from living in a dormitory in Leiden to living in a dormitory in Kyoto.
Adapted towards living on my own, doing my own things at my own space, my parents came and naturally a kind of family life, how short lived it was, occurred. Of course during the years our ways of living became different, but we very soon adapted and kind of went back to a kind of situation like 3 years ago.
The major change was that because we are in a country, where I speak the language, I know the way, I know the things to do and see, I know what kind of food is available, I was guiding my parents around. So in a sense the parent child relation changed, and I became the one who on the one hand felt responsible for the welfare of my parents, that they were enjoying Japan, that they could understand a little bit of my fascination. On the other hand I am still their child, and they treated me in this way, warning me to dress warmly enough and so on, which is in it’s own respect kind of sweet.
And although the environment might change drastically, and I sometimes to rub to believe that it were really my own parents standing in front of a huge temple, people don’t tend to be so much different even if you haven’t seen them for half a year, one year and even four years.
And so my mum had brought her camera and more than 20 rolls of film to catch everything which caught her attention. And to no great surprise, she was extremely thrilled to be exactly in Japan during the time that the cherry blossoms are in bloom. My personal opinion is that this Japanese obsession with the cherry blossoms is a little bit too much, as is the number of cherry trees. But my mom turned into a faithful follower of the cherry blossom forecast.
And as a thank for the very pleasant time we spend together the page underneath this gives a little peek into our explorations in Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and Himeji. And especially for my mom a picture of her and a very big cherry blossom. (just to make up for the 6 months you have to miss me ;-)

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

A Peek Into A Short-Lived Family Life



























































Saturday, April 08, 2006

Dostoievski On The Shore


With cheeks red of shame, I see that the last entry of my blog is somewhere in February while we now entered April. And one way or another I have to try to bridge the gap, not only to update for those faithful readers, but also for myself to recall my experiences, feelings and thoughts of the last month, which I want to share with you, and not just give a brief account of all the places I have visited. Like many others, I decided that I wanted to flea the cold, and go to the more subtropical Okinawa. Okinawa, advertised as being paradise on Japanese soil, with wonderful weather, great beaches and laid back people. But Okinawa also has a history, which many of the people still carry with them and also is clearly to be seen on the island. I’m talking about the American Occupation. After World War II whole Japan was occupied for almost 7 years, until 1952, but Okinawa stayed under American Occupation until 1974 and a lot of the land is still occupied by military bases.
We stayed in Naha, the major city, which is just like all cities in Japan, a tumbling of buildings in ugly greyish colours. While the main street was bustling with tourism, it became very evident the majority of the people were pretty poor, judging by the houses they were living in. Next to tourism, many are reliant on the American soldiers for their income. Many Okinawans on the one hand want to get rid of the American soldiers because there happened some accidents and also the bases occupy a lot of land and destroy the beaches and natural landscape, and on the other hand they don’t want them to go because then they loose their main source of income.
Looking for paradise beaches, we went to the first beach we saw on the map, and we ended up at a beach of which I still do not know whether it was natural or not, but in the see the Japanese had made a huge fly-over, destroying whatever possible beautiful view we might have had. The weather was still nice but the view was bad, so it was a great moment to indulge me in the book I was carrying for a week around Okinawa, ‘The Idiot’ by Dolstoivski.
This being the first day of our trip to Okinawa, we were sure to find more beaches, and hopefully the one’s with a coral blue sea and sandy beaches. And two days later we decided to give it another try and we took the bus in the direction we were told, and we got out at a place where the beach seemed nice to us. It was a wonderful sight as long as you looked in front of you, to the sea and the beach and not back to the hotel to which the beach seemed to belong. And almost the minute we had changed clothes and laid or self down for a laid back time at the beach, some Japanese youngster came and asked us if we were willing to join them in a game of beach volley. And of course in our sunny mood but not total confident about or once at high school acquired volleyball skills we would pass the test. But or challengers turned out to be as skilled as we, so there was more diving for the ball than anyone being able to return it.
So long Dolstoievski! Although fairly sunburned, tired and with sand in our shoes, this was still not exactly what we came for to Okinawa. We were looking for beaches with on the background nature and as less tourist as possible. Our last resort was a little island in the sea, with only 300 inhabitants. We went there by ferry, and almost the first thing we were confronted with, when we arrived were broken down cars without any number plates, perhaps in some ancient past used to cross over the island, which seemed rather strange to us, because the island was tiny. The beaches were almost deserted, loaded with all kinds of subtropical shells which we of course started gathering. The island inhabitants were mostly elderly people, still tiling their own vegetables. It seemed to me a nice way to spend the time after one’s retirement, although, I could not exact imagine me tiling my vegetables, but I could imagine me reading nice books.
But not before long the sky turned grey, and the rain started pouring out as if to make sure that every living creature would be soaking wet. We did not have a single dry thread on our clothes, and hurried our way back to the ferry to get back to the mainland to have a shower and nice dry clothes. I finally read ‘The Idiot’ not on the shore, but on the 20 hour trip by Ferry which brought us back from Okinawa to Kagoshima. And what has an Idiot got to say about it: Even in paradise it can rain.