Karma and camping by the river.

I do believe in karma. I used to say that, inside being only half persuaded about the validity of my statement, however the occurrence of recent events (of which recency could possibly date all the way to more than one year ago) did harden the claim of this conviction. Or maybe now I say it with an air of a little bit more inner sincerity.
Why do I mention karma today?
Yesterday, late in the afternoon, a huge storm came, thunders were scaring everyone under the age of 10 (though I am voluntarily and openly letting myself to admit that I did unexpectedly shake with a hasty dash of fear upon the deep throbbing sounds coming from the skies to shake the ground, an unconscious reaction to reading too much of BBC News Online about North Korea making a playground out of the surrounding pools of Seas and toy Islands)...anyway, the storm came, dark and heavy, with huge raindrops flooding our world from the dusty yellow skies. When I came home for my break, I went straight upstairs to pick up something utterly unimportant from my room and as I entered from the staircase I gasped in horror and my eyes filled with dry unshed tears of helpless frustration of meaninglessness of any actions you decide to undertake at any known moment.
The point is as follows. Last weekend, on Sunday (not mentioning how I had sewn a really nice sleeveless top for myself on Saturday, with nicely worked collar and hand holes (since I said sleeveless I wouldn`t like to term them as sleeves anymore) and trying it on I came to know I had sewn it one or two sizes too small (that`s that for LOHAS on my part)) I spent hours making a pottery Christmas present for my dad-a set of six little glasses for his homemade slivovica, nicely formed, nicely decorated and all. Siince it is a つゆ (tsuyu-rainy season) now in Japan anywhere you go it is very very humid. Anywhere you go, you sweat, whatever you do or don`t do, you sweat, it is enough to open your mascara container and you sweat. However in my house, the most humid space is the downstairs, the kitchen and the lounge and the toilet (peeing you sweat). I used to leave my pottery to dry downstairs but recently, because it has become so so soooo humid I decided to transfer it into my room upstairs for my window is open all the time and thus it could get enough fresh air and dryness and could dry better. I thought. When I walked into my room yesterday, after that big storm I mentioned, the plates with my set of six slivovica cups were filled with water, as much as shallow plates can be, which was still enough to make the cups soaking themselves and also entirely unreservedly destroyed. I didn`t cry but I wanted to. (There wasn`t anyone around to pet me and thus I felt it a waste of perfectly good energy).
To get to the point I am trying to make here, I wasn`t too angry about that more skilled woman in our pottery class stealing my ideas, but she could have asked if it was okay. If she had asked I would have said yes, of course, no problem with a smile on my face.
Anyhow I had reached a point of realization, a revelation of some sort. Thinking positive thoughts at all times is a very very very important thing. I am going to try this from now on and perhaps all will turn better and there will be no soaking pottery and no angry chasing of long lost boots*.

On a completely different note I am going camping tomorrow. With myself and a backpack full of food to survive until maybe even Monday morning (can`t rely on making fire since it`s been raining every single day). It is going to be a purgatory trip, an escape into green silence of the woods and rivers of central Japan in order to try to find myself once again, clear the path of future in my mind, affirm fresh ways of thinking and believing and stop being scared of bears.
Am also taking a book by Salaman Rushdie, Midnight`s Children, a book about knitting, some wool and needles, a knife, toilet paper and a raincoat, some letter paper to reply to Tony`s letter and a bottle of water. Since it is a purgatory process I am aiming at leaving slivovica at home (though am still not wholly convinced this is the right decission).
And on Sunday, if the weather permits, Yuko先生、Sachiko先生　and Miki先生 with their offsprings are coming to join me for a summer barbeque by the river.
I am going to the place of one of the first Hideちゃん and mine dates. Moto Ise Jingu, the shrine of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess.


*referring to the `I still don`t have the burnt hiking boots I have left at Chiiori once a long time ago` chapter of my life.

Ideals of the teenage years. What is the truth? Is the truth right?

Today my last class started at 18:30.
This class is a conversation class for two girls, one 15 and the other 17 years old. They both really really want to go abroad, England and Australia (`...because I want to see Grand Canyon.` >__<), but unless I spoke into their adolescent naive-with-innocence minds that doing their homework and getting ready for their English conversation classes is essential for them to at least be able to buy a ticket back from there when they realize it`s not all pizza, ice cream and cocktails at a pool, they would still believe it`s all pizza, ice cream and cocktails at a pool.
But I think we all were like that, such beliefs mark our fragile teenage years, and I do have to admit, that despite appearances, despite what I told them (talking bitter experience), these beliefs still do occupy an honoured space of my mind and I am happily accepting them where they are and that they are for if they weren`t that`s when the bitter experiences would turn the whole self, from head to toes and from toes to head, wholly, irreversibly and crushingly bitter.

And I hate saying, more than that, I hate myself for saying this, that ideals sometimes have to be crushed in order to find the truth in the world. Sometimes other people do it for you (that`s when it hurts but in the end you realize that it indeed was the right way to go, even if you didn`t choose it in the first place and all off your own accord...perhaps something like my Chiiori revelation) and sometimes you do it to yourself. But do you? No, I guess the part that follows is just a phrase and has nothing to do with reality. Maybe it just fitted the sentence. Meaninglessly.

Anyway, the point I am trying to put across is, that with one of the girls (the other one didn`t show up), today we were to listen to her favourite English speaking artist and read the lyrics and try to understand their meaning. She said her favourite English speaking artist is Eminem, she likes him because of his style and the way he dresses, and of course the music. But she doesn`t understand what he sings about, she admitted. And so we printed out a copy of her favourite song`s lyrics, `Shake That` and started reading and translating. I don`t know if any of you are familiar with this song and it`s lyrics, but I personally felt a little embarassed explaining their meaning to a pure(?) 15 year old girl. Nevertheless, I took on the role of an older sister (or whose role should this actually be?) and started explaining to her what `There she goes shaking that ass on the floor
Bumpin and grindin that pole
The way she's grindin that pole
I think I'm losing control`
possibly means. Then came the bit about getting drunk and fucked up and someone getting their dick rubbed, followed by `Get fucked, get sucked, get wasted, shit faced` and then something about a `good pussy`, but thank got we only got to the bottom of the first long verse and I didn`t have to explain anything about cats.
After spending the half an hour with these lyrics, the girls face was wearing a somewhat disgusted expression and I am only grateful we didn`t get any further, and that she didn`t understand anything further herself, because I would be very upset having to explain it and thus having to upset her even more.
I did follow through and told her that in general it was a song that was not too nice to women, and looking at it again, I think it also gave quite a poor picture of what men are or should be like.
Writing this I am a little hurt myself by having to crush this young girl`s ideal, however on the other hand, maybe it was the right thing to do. But was it really?



*I feel in need of referencing, a natural reaction to the remnants of university education:
URL: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eminem/shakethat.html, 12th July 2006

Typhoon and the Matters of the World

Well, what am I to say?
It is a Friday and a typhoon is coming this weekend. Hurray!!!
I have already been warned, by Sachiko先生, before she left the office today, not to, under any circumstances, go out and run around and dance in the streets in rain when the typhoon comes!
I am rather amazed how well someone can get to know you just from watching you play with their kids and occassionally drinking coffee with you. And I promised not to.

And yes, it is a Friday, the first Friday in this month and so, typhoon still no where to be afraid of, I cycled over to the City Hall to take my pottery class.
Usually, if you don`t use all the clay you are given in the class, you can take it home with you and make things at home, and so, then, when you come to the class next time, you bring your works of art and put them on a designated table so they can continue to dry and get ready for the burning.
Before I started coming to the class, and this is just a pure result of observation, no big-headidness in it or anything, only a piece of evidence to support my claim. Anyway, beforehand, everybody, since indeed it is a traditional Japanese pottery class, used to make simple plates, cups, bowls, vases, tea pots, whatever. But I don`t really like making bowls and vases that much and so when I would come home I would make some beads and pendants and little things you can put on a string and hang them all over yourself. And when I did make a bowl or a cup I would decorate it, with flowers or leaves or drawings and so on.
Since then, everybody started trying to do something similar, about which I was happy. You know, giving inspiration and all that.
In the class there is also this woman who has been doing pottery for about 4 years now. Nice girl, she would help me if I asked her something and explain things to me that I didn`t understand and when she saw my beads she showed me one really pretty bead that she made herself some time ago. She is really good. Her bowls or cups or plates don`t crack in the process of drying like ours and she has a good sense, as they say it here.
And so when I came with my ideas of some more beads and some candle holders (or covers) and she said, uh, it`s really nice, you have a sense, I was really happy.
Though the next class she came with some candle holders herself, things that very much resembled mine ones only they were done in a finer manner, they were more worked, for indeed, she has been doing it for a looong time and obviously knows what to do, how to do and what not to do. But I was fine by it. No problems, I take inspiration from things I see around me all the time.
However, this Friday, she came to the class and when we were all looking at what everybody else made, she, standing next to me, started taking things out of a paper tissue, telling me, `Look what I made. I made some beads and pendants too.` And what I was being shown were my ideas, finer copies of my beads in her hands, followed by, I don`t know, a statement, question, simple stating of the obvious, `I copied yours. I`m sorry.`
I didn`t know what to say. I didn`t feel what I should say at that moment yet. I said, `Cute.`
She left me with a miserable evening, and I know I should not be feeling it that way, but I could not help myself feel cheated big way. She is the one who`s been doing this for 4 years. She is the one we, the rest of us beginners, should copy, and so what she did I felt was utterly unfair.

I am starting to wonder about this all-around-the-world-known Japanese politenes. I think it only reaches as far as the `ごめんなさい`, `すみません`, `しつれいします` (`I`m sorry.`) though I don`t think it roots anywhere deeper than the tongue and a pair of lips. I have experienced a very rude karate先生 who accused me of stealing and was prooved wrong and didn`t even appologize and who treated me with an absolute lack of respect, claiming I had no manners because I was not Japanese and she called all this budo. In budo, I believe respect goes two ways, from the student to the teacher, of course, but there needs to be respect coming from the teacher towards the students too, otherwise the communication must fail. She called upon me not understanding anything because all this matter is based in Japanese culture, and budo, however she also hid her hidious behaviour behind budo, and I think it is close to something I`d call blasphemy. I found more natural respect in my karate club in England than in Japan and I am hurt and so disappointed about it.

There is no difference between people anywhere in the world, I think. People have feelings, negative and positive and mixtures of them, there`s loads!, nevermind where they come from, whether they are Europeans, Asians, Africans, whether they are from Russia or England or Brazil or Japan. Some people don`t say anything about anything, some people shout them out, some people hide them behind other words, but the feeling s are there and they inevitably do have to come out somehow. We are people and there is no escape.

I was only taken aback with this realization, I think my ideology bubble has been pierced in yet one more place,...
However there are always things that are real and you can trust and believe and that shall keep me in that bubble, floating on.

(*Though again, I think my world view needs revisiting, detox and new revelations.)