Momma and Me

Today concluded the tourist portion of my two weeks with momma. We spent the morning outside of Hiroshima on an island called Miyajima. It is, and I’m not exaggerating, the seminal Japanese tourist spot. It has everything. A really cool Shinto Shrine neighbored by an equally cool Buddhist Temple and pagoda, big mountains with excellent views, good food covering all the Japanese cuisine worth eating, shops where you can by almost anything associated with Japan that would be anticipated as gifts for friends and families back home, (chopsticks, fans, samurai swords, etc.) and as an added bonus MONKEYS on top of the mountain!!!

Now we are riding back on a bus to my little nook in the greatly less populated Shimane (prefecture), and I am happy. Up to yesterday, almost everything we visited was just as new to me as it was to my mother, at least in a sense of the places we were going to and things we were seeing. As for the cultural idiosyncrasies, that’s different. The things that I have long sense become accustomed to, Mom is either amazed, in disbelief or just plain stunned. The plethora of girls walking around in high heels, the wet towels handed to you before each meal, the dead silence on train cars and buses, the masses that ride on bikes daily, the tiered farms (be it rice, tea or vegetables), politeness of the society and of course the toilets (especially those on the floor).

Of these, not a one have I written about in my previous posts. I can remember being floored by some of them as well (maybe not the bathrooms, which moms seems just taken by) but too quickly I just ‘forgot’ about how different it all is from where I come.

Really it is invigorating and fun to watch someone go through what I did some 18 months ago. Mom has said she would have never come to Japan if I wasn’t living here and able to show her around....and understandably so. Diving into a completely different culture is not easy, and I imagine it becomes increasingly harder with age. My peers and I who came here were given a great opportunity and its great that I have been able to share it with my family. I told mom this and its kind of hard to explain, but her being here makes my experience more ‘real’.

In my past travels of America and abroad I could only come home and relay stories to her about the experiences I had. Tell her about adventures and misadventures alike and she could only imagine from the details and few pictures I could provide. With this upcoming week, she will get to meet most of the people who have made my time thus far in Japan what it is. My kindergarten students, my eikaiwa (adult conversation class) my fellow JET comrades and others who don’t fit into broad categories...all these people mom will be able to put a personal experience with by the time she leaves.

This is invaluable.

Everyone has stories to tell, and some can tell them better than others, but I think that when you can tell a story that your ‘audience’ can relate to personally or even better, know the characters of said story personally, its makes it better.

So yes, life is good and we’re both having a ball. We definitely have our luker/momma moments where she tells me to ‘chill out’ or where I’ll become exasperated with her because she wants to take yet another picture of an old woman, group of bicycles or even a bathroom stall with its varying buttons with a new function (yes, really).....but those moments are soon laughed off and we’re on to something else new and (hopefully) interesting and/or exciting.

I’m very happy she is here, and more so excited to show her my Japan life over the next week.