Weekend in Karuizawa

We spent a beautiful fall weekend in the resort of Karuizawa, 70 minutes from Tokyo by shinkansen, as guests of Tatsuo Tsuda (Otterbein '55) and his gracious wife.













Our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Tatsuo Tsuda

The historic "Mampei Hotel"

Karuizawa History. In 1886 a British missionary visited Karuizawa; two years later, he built a summer residence. By 1930 Karuizawa had become the place missionaries and expatriates summered to avoid the heat of the Kanto Plain and Tokyo. During WW II the cabins and hotels were a haven for German and neutral country citizens.

Today Karuizawa has several golf courses and many summer and year round homes have been built in the forested mountains. It has been visited by many celebrities, including members of the imperial family and prominent figures in politics and the business world, and has gradually grown into the prominent Japanese resort.

The Nagano shinkansen line built for the Olympics brought Karuizawa closer to the capital and made it easier for couples and families to spend a day or weekend shopping, relaxing, and sightseeing in Karuizawa.

Meg with Tatsuo Tsuda looking toward Mt. Asama










Mt. Asama, an activte volcano. Those volcanic fumes, not clouds. The volcano last erupted in 2004.


The magnificent view over the mountains of Nagano Prefecture.

Tatsuo-san's favorite, "the most beautiful house in Karuizawa," former residence of author Murō Saisei

Karuizawa Hachiman Shrine, where we happened on a festival to pray for a prosperous autumn season, featuring "kagura" shrine dances.

Ancient "kagura" shrine dancing. This fox passes out sacred rice cakes to the onlookers.

The unusual "White Thread" waterfalls.

Settling back for the swift shinkansen ride back to Kyoto

Mt. Takao, Jingoh Temple

West of Kyoto, Mt. Takao is famous for colored leaves in autumn, a rushing river gorge, and an ancient temple associated with Kukai, founder of Shingon Buddhism. Chieko and Kordy Iwazaki, who performed koto and shakuhachi music at Otterbein last year invited us on a September excursion, too early for "leaf peeping" but just right to avoid the crowds and experience the serenity of the temple.

The climb up is really strenuous, but rest spots along the way offer a cool drink and a place to catch your breath. We were kindly treated on this trip, especially because everyone knows Chieko from her annual October weekend koto performances at Takao.






Jingoh Temple is a place where Kukai (Kobo Daishi after his death) spent 14 years before founding the temple complex at Mt. Koya.

This is the main hall, and the subsidiary buildings are equally impressive.


Rev. Seigaku Taniuchi, head priest of the temple, recognized Chieko and Kordy, and asked us to come into his dwelling for tea. He studied Sanskrit and English, and is a member of Rotary. He is a fan of American culture, especially "smooth" jazz (KennyG), old movies (Audrey Hepburn) and Broadway musicals (My Fair Lady).

This is the entrance to the priest's residence -- his grandfather's calligraphy.

We had the quintessential Japanese experience of old and new, while Rev. Taniuchi spoke learnedly about facets of Shingon Buddhism while playing KennyG for us on CD's.










Dinner was at a riverside inn with a dinning platform out over the river. A river fish called "Ayu" was served.









Kordy serenaded with his shakuhachi.

















Next morning we visited nearby Kohsan Temple, another Kukai location, and were invited back to Rev. Taniuchi's home for a delicious "bento" box lunch and more good conversation and music. Some parting gifts of Buddhist books will be a good addition to the Otterbein Library.

Rev. Seigaku Taniuchi, Head Priest of Jingoh Temple









Our night's stay in the Japanese style in ended with breakfast brough to our comfortable tatami mat room with river view.

Our Apartment in Faculty Housing

The university provides Asian Studies Program faculty --that's us--and all of the Intensive English Program faculty with furnished apartments in a housing complex on campus. These were newly built in 2002 along with the rest of the new campus. There is some grumbling among long-time faculty that the free-standing houses they formerly lived in were preferable, but for us the apartment is ideal.






Come on in, this is our "genkan," entryway with a "noren" curtain offering a welcome and privacy from the hallway.














Put on a pair of guest slippers. Japanese never wear shoes in the house or in other special places. Even high schools require students to take off shoes and put on slippers. (For some reason, universities don't.)

Next is the living-dining room, which looks out onto the veranda.
















The kitchenette is well-equipped, but we miss a full-size oven and a gas range. The stove is magnetic induction -- it heats steel pans with a strong magnet. Aluminum won't work, we found out after we bought a new skillet.

Everything for comfortable living was already here, dishes, tableware, cookware.







The most "Japanese" room is the tatami (rice mat) room with sliding paper-covered screens. This is where we lay out our futons and sleep at night. It can also be used as a sitting room. There is also a western style bedroom, but since we're in Japan, we'd rather use this one.











Of course, all appliances and instructions are in Japanese only, so a basic knowledge of Japanese--especially katakana used for foreign words--comes in handy. We have to admit to using "trial and error" quite a bit, and more often than not trial results in error. Our washing machine's control panel below will give you an idea


The toaster has a mind of its own, and it decides to wake us up in the middle of the night with a beeping signal if we forget to unplug it. There's some timer function that we don't understand.




The "Toto" ("Total Toilet?") Company has cornered the market on this item. More than one non-Japanese has criticized this toilet as "wretched excess," but it's seat warmer, derriere washer and bidet functions, air drier, full or partial flush, and spigot on top for handwashing may be hard to give up on return.

No "maybe" about it,the deep soaking tub is going to be missed! The Japanese way is to wash outside the tub and then get in for a hot, relaxing soak--up to your neck in our "ofuro." A digital control and heating function keeps the water at a constant temperature of our choice.

Classes Begin

September 4. Classes Begin.
After a manual registration procedure in which the staff worked all weekend and on into the night to make course assignments, classes in the Center for International Education began today. All the students must take spoken Japanese, and they are strongly encouraged to take written Japanese, a requirement if they plan to stay on for the next semester. They are placed in 6 levels based on a proficiency test, and we were pleased to see that the Otterbein students were at level 2 after one year of Japanese at our college. They matched up well with the students from other similar colleges.

Courses fall into three categories:
1) International students here on study abroad, mostly humanities and business courses. Japanese students with appropriate English skills are also admitted
2) Pre-departure. Japanese students who will study abroad next semester. A kind of rehearsal of doing academic work in an English-speaking environment
3) Preview. Japanese students who are thinking about studying abroad but not yet approved.

Lyle’s course in comparative culture for the international students, is “Love, Sex, and Death in Bunraku, Kabuki, and Opera.” Field trips to performances are an important component. Meg is teaching one section of Japanese pre-departure and one section of Japanese preview students in “Japanese Men and Women at Work.” We both like our students a lot and have interesting groups. Lyle’s is very cosmopolitan, with students from Russia, Japan, Chile, Canada, and Korea, as well as the US.

International students are very lively in class, and some of Lyle’s students have a strong backgroup in one or other of the topics of the course. He has especially been fortunate to have a student who has done Noh Drama training and can demonstrate and involve his classmates in its techniques. The first field trip coming up in a few weeks will be to a Noh Theater in Kyoto.

The big challenge for his students, especially those who have experience with and interest in theater, is to accept the validity of an almost 100% stylized form of artistic expression, at the opposite ends of the pole from the American tradition of acting in which they have been trained. They did respond enthusiastically to a visit from the Iwazaki family, who played traditional Japanese instruments for them—koto, shakuhachi, and shamisen. Chieko Iwazaki has performed on the Enrichment Series twice at Otterbein with shakuhachi master Michael Chikuzaen Gould.

Meg is working hard to draw her Japanese students into discussion in class and to help them get the courage to express opinions, especially opinions that are contrary to what someone else in the class has already stated. Her students have high levels of English skills, and that is due to Kansai Gaidai’s focus on language learning and international studies. That Intensive English Program has a staff of mostly American instructors who are hired on full-time for up to 5 years. These instructors all have a background in English, ESL, or linguistics.

While our class hours as visiting profesors are not a heavy load, we both spend pretty much 9 – 5 in the office doing class preparation, seeing students, and carrying out other tasks related to being here. There has only been one meeting to attend so far -- is anyone envious?

Outside of Kansai Gaidai activities we’re making contact with as many alumni in Japan as possible, and we'll be representing Otterbein at a college fair. Lyle is investigating the local Japanese folk-song tradition, min'yo.

Faculty life at Kansai Gaidai is not all work and no play. The Japanese and foreign teachers in the Center for International Education gathered in the tatami mat room used for teaching sumi-e (Japanese ink painting) at the end of the first week for lots of beer, sake, and snacks. The young Intensive English Program instructors have lots of kids in their families, and they like to organize informal potlucks. A bar not far from the university knows them pretty well, too.

Japanese and international staff and instructors enjoyed a farewell at that place, “Bar Nagu,” for our “shepherd,” the staff member responsible for the visiting professors, a bright young man who is moving to Canada to continue his pilot’s training to the next level of commercial pilot's license.

Transportation and Shopping

関西外大
Kansai Gaidai University





September 7.
Transportation and Shopping.

Bicycles are a convenient way to get around our town, and the university has several bicycle parking lots, each with space for hundreds and watched by security guards. It's said that bicycles are sometimes stolen, but it's never happened to us. The Asian Studies Program that we teach in has bikes for the visiting professors, although they had lost track of them. Sure enough, we were able to locate our trusty iron steeds from our 2002 visit, dusty and needing pumped up, but otherwise none the worse for wear. One tricky thing -- remember to ride on the left and look right for oncoming traffic.

Stores provide parking for bikes, but at the stations bikes have to be parked in pay garages that cost as much as taking the bus. The result is that everywhere there's a "No Bike Parking Here" sign, there are a hundred bikes parked. The "bicycle police" swoop down occasionally and cart all the illegally parked bikes off to an impound lot, but that doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent. A new development since 2002 is that there are pay "stanchions" for bikes at some of these spots around stations. Lock up your bike, then on your return type in your location number and pay the machine so that the "stanchion" will release your bike. 90 minutes are free, but after that it's 200 yen ($1.75) for 24 hours. For regular commuters, that can really add up. In 2002 almost all bikes were basic 1-speed city bikes, like riding in low gear all the time, with a few mountain bikes making inroads. Now in 2006 the variety is much greater. 3-speeds are getting popular, and I've seen some 7-speed Shimano enclosed-gears-hub bikes as well as exterior derailleurs ingeniously covered by a guard that protects trouser legs. Electric-assist bikes are common among older folks. Hmmm. I'm thinking about that hill up from the train station.

The university is on a main road where many lines funnel down toward the station, so we have bus service every 5 minutes. 220 yen ($1.90) is the fare, but we can cut it 10% with prepaid cards. In 25 minutes we can walk to the station, but the highway is so congested and the walking path so narrow that it it's an unpleasant experience, maybe even dangerous. Walking may seem more appealing when the weather turns cooler.

The way to get to Osaka (25 min.) and Kyoto (35 min.) is the electric commuter train of the Keihan Line. These commuter line companies are an interesting business concept, because the corporation makes lots of its money from its department stores that are located in terminal stations and principal stations like ours at Hirakata. The system is cleverly designed with limited express service and local service integrated in a way that maximizes speed and efficiency for all. In the years since we were here last, more limited express service has been added to Hirakata's schedule, a nice convenience for us. We find that we spend about us much on transportation here in Hirakata as would would maintaining, insuring, and fueling our car at home.

Shopping is a fascination and yet a frustration for us, even after having returned to Japan several times. Stores really put on great displays with real artistic sense, and the customer receives an almost unbelievable level of service. The variety and quality of food and merchandise is high and getting higher. The frustration, partly responsible for culture shock, comes from well, being an incompetent shopper. Those of us in responsible positions in our jobs aren't usually in a position where we don't know the answer, can't find things, have to ask for help, and generally feel stupid. Living in a culture with a different way of seeing the organization of things is a humbling experience both in high art and at the grocery store. Just because the package looks similar to a US product doesn't really count. We have bought pickling salt for sugar, chocolate for coffee, and some things that we really couldn't tell you what they are! Why isn't the confectionery sugar with the sugar? It's with the cake decorations, logically enough. The kanji Chinese characters used to write many Japanese words are a stumbling block in the grocery, too. How do you write "low fat milk" in kanji? Now we know, although for the first time today we saw a carton that also said "low fat milk" in Roman letters. It's a big help to memorize katakana, the syllabary used by Japanese to write foreign words. We needed cream today, and it's クリム, the equivalent of ku-ree-m(u).

As in many European markets, we bag our own groceries and take our own string bag. That's a little eccentric, because everyone else is happy to waste more plastic bags. At another time I'll write about the paradoxical situation of recycling--way too much unnecessary packaging, but a complex, strictly enforced recylcing procedure.

Japan still has many shops run by people who take a lot of pride in producing and selling a limited product -- tofu, for example. The small cafes and bakery shops are everywhere and display wonderful-looking goods. It can be a pleasant diversion just to drop in and try something new. Maybe it looks like a donut, but there's sweetened red bean paste inside. Generally, the Western-looking baked goods disappoint us, but they fly off the shelves to the Japanese customers.

Bakeries have fanciful "French" names such as our market's "Maman de Marché." We're still looking for a good stiff loaf of German sourdough bread, but a Japanese company called "Vie de France" has got some French recipes down well.

Settling In

関西外大
Kansai Gaidai University



August 23rd. Columbus to Osaka. The "magic" of frequent flyer points brought us our first ever business class flight to Japan on the upper deck of a stretch 747. (No, that's not us in the picture.) We're not sure if it was a good idea in one way, because it's going to be tough going back to "steerage." The fourteen hour flight arrives in Japan the following evening because of the international dateline, and the body's circadian rhythms are pretty well demolished. Is it age? Jet lag from switching day for night seemed to take a week to go away this time. In the meantime, we were prepared with good books to read at 3 am.

Our first week was spent settling into our university-provided apartment on the edge of campus. With a "2-LDK" in Japanese terms (2 rooms plus living-dining-kitchen) on first floor with veranda, large bath, and laundry, we're living more than comfortably. The apartment is furnished but with just the basics. ("Where is the toilet brush?"). The Japanese version of the "dollar store" is the "100 Yen Shop," and we filled a couple of bicycle baskets there on several occasions. We can find everything we need in the neighborhood, and we have our choice of shopping at large supermarkets, medium-size convenience stores, or traditional "mom and pop" stands for everything from tofu to fish.

September 1st. Opening Ceremony and Reception

The unversity consists of about 10,000 Japanese students focused on international learning and careers, and 455 international students, including 3 from Otterbein this year. The international students are from all over the world, including many sister institutions who have exchange agreements such as our college's. Here are some photos of the opening ceremony in which we were formally introduced. Speeches by the president and the general consuls of the US and of Australia followed.

The excitement among the students was obvious as they began this adventure. Both consul generals related stories of their first encounters with Japan at the same age, around 20, and touched just the right themes with humor and perception. After the speeches were over, the crowd moved to a reception lunch at one of the student centers, where never-ending supplies of sushi, sashimi, veggies, noodles, and desserts pleased faculty and students alike.

Hot Weather and No AC!. This region of Japan has very hot and humid, almost tropical summers, and when we moved in the temperature hadn't been below 90 degrees for a month. We had an AC unit not working. I told the office staff, and I suppose they were thinking: "Oh no, not another visiting professor who can't figure out how to work the AC." So the man in charge of the visiting professors came over to the apartment only to learn that it was indeed not working. Next he sent the equivalent of the Otterbein Service Dept over, who was probably thinking the same thing. But, they agreed that it wasn't working. so they sent a professional repairman-- who only needed to open it up and change a setting that caused it to dehumidify but not cool. As in most modern Japanese buildings, the unit is a "ductless split" high on the wall in each room that heats as well as cools. It's very efficient and fits the tradition of heating or cooling only the room you're using at the time. That's some adjustment to make for those of us used to central heating and cooling, but it influences the statistic that a Japanese person puts out about half of the global warming gasses that a US-American does.