Tag: home

5:34 A.M.

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The time is currently 5:34 a.m., and the temperature is sitting at a chilling 48 degrees. Unfortunately, I had to scramble my things together at the ungodly hour of 4:00 a.m. and step out into the biting cold to meet my driver. That said, I couldn’t be more excited to be heading home. Home, a place where the temperature still settles in the 70s and the ocean beckons with its warmth.

The flight isn’t terribly long, which gives me some downtime to work on my UC application. The PIQs don’t exactly fill themselves out, despite my hopeful expectation that they would. To speak plainly, I fear them. No, seriously, I am scared. It even makes me recoil to write the word “concrete.” I mean, I hate concrete. It is gray, dull, and brittle. Who wants to read about that?

Pulling myself back from that tangent, I am very grateful to have a week off from school, a rare chance to really focus on my college applications without the pressure of other deadlines. Hopefully, this week won’t shrink down to just two days, like most enjoyable weeks seem to do. Funny enough, the weeks that are grueling love to drag on, while the pleasant weeks fly by in a blink. I guess we will see.

PC: google

What I miss already

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If I leave home, these are a few things I will miss about it:

My sister. It is scary knowing that she will keep growing and changing as a person, and I won’t be able to see her everyday to see that happen.

The weather. 40s and 50s is cold enough for me. I can’t imagine going about your day when it’s any colder than that; the image of walking around outside, going places, while your face and hands hurt from the cold is kind of sad.

Friends. There are still so many things to do together, and it feels there will never be enough time.

The food.

The mountains. When I first came here, my parents oohed and ahhed at the scenery, but I never saw what the big deal was. Now, I feel there is something comforting and familiar to feel wrapped up in the hilly earth. The places where everything is flat feels so lonely; in even large cities built in flat middle-of-nowhere desserts, you can look out on the horizon and see nothing. It almost feels cut off from the world. However, I imagine those cities are more closely knit internally.

Picture Credit: Johanna Zender

Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease

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Have you heard of hand, foot, and mouth disease? I’m from Japan, and there it’s called 手足口病, meaning exactly “hand, foot, and mouth disease.”  手=hand, 足=foot, 口=mouth, and 病=disease.

This disease was very famous in Japan, because we learned in history class that it was a dangerous disease that killed a lot of people in the past. My Chinese friend told me that it was famous in China too, and that it killed a lot of people there.

This virus is currently going around Ojai, but it’s mild and no one has died from it. In our school, since it’s a boarding school, it has spread very quickly. I googled this disease and found out that it’s more common among young children, not teenagers. It’s very odd that it is going around OVS and Ojai.

When it was spreading around the most, we had parents here for family weekend, meaning that parents came to our campus. Our school has students from all over the world, so parents from China, Japan, Germany, and many more places came. In the near future, if we hear that these countries are getting the disease, sadly it might have come from Ojai.

Photo Credit: http://www.zdnet.com

Am I “Half”?

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Hapa, biracial, multiracial, mixed. There are many names people call me here in America. In Japan, where I grew up, people call me “ha-fu,” or “half”, because my mother is Japanese and my father is European American. But am I, and those who are mixed race in Japan, not full Japanese because we don’t look like standard Japanese people? I am a Japanese citizen, and my first language is Japanese. I consider myself to be both American and Japanese. I’m not only half of a country.

Photo Credit: media4.s-nbcnews.com

Ariana Miyamoto, Miss Japan 2015, is considered to be only “half” Japanese to some people. Her father is African-American and her mother is Japanese. She is the first mixed-race woman to win the title. She grew up in Japan, speaks the language and is a citizen. What more does she need to do to be considered “Japanese”? From my point of view, there is no question that Ariana is Japanese.

Here is an interview of her, done by BBC News.

The little Dolphin that couldn’t

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The little dolphin that couldn’t. When he was born his mother was ripped apart by a Great White Shark. Mr. Dolphin now had brain damage. Furthermore, his fins where shredded to pieces he could barely swim, he was slow.

While swimming in the seas of Japan Mr.Dolphin encountered some cold hearted fishermen. Mr. Dolphin was not smart so he approached their vessel slowly and foolishly. The fishermen viciously harpooned Mr. Dolphin inflicting life threating wounds to him. Close to death Mr. Dolphin decided to let the currents carry him westward.

Mr. Dolphin found the coast of Hawaii, where he met an average looking dolphiness, looking for a mate. Mr.Dolphin approached her, Mr.dolphin was instantly rejected by the Dolphiness. The dolphiness would have a child with another dolphin. Mr. Dolphin would swim far out to sea where he would die alone and forgotten.

(this was  experiment made with my friend infamousdolphin to test the power of cooperative creativity.)

The little dolphin that could

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When the little dolphin was born, his mother gently lifted him to the surface to take his first breath.  He had a gifted mind. Furthermore, he was a strong and capable swimmer. He was fast.

While swimming in the seas of Japan, Mr. Dolphin encountered some gracious fishermen. Mr. Dolphin approached them slowly and carefully. The fishermen fed him some of their leftover fish. Having regained all of his strength, Mr. Dolphin decided to swim eastward.

Mr. Dolphin found the coast of Hawaii, where he met a beautiful dolphiness, looking for a mate, Mr. Dolphin approached her. Mr. Dolphin and the dolphiness fell deeply in love and had a child.

Mr. Dolphin carried his newborn gently to the surface, where he would take its first breath.

This was an experiment made with my friend frog3 to test the power of cooperative creativity.

Save the dogs and cats of Japan

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In Japan, all the street dogs and cats, the ones that get lost are picked up and sent to public animal health centers. Some of them were sent because their owners couldn’t handle them anymore.

Moreover, the dogs and cats never know what’s going to happen.

Normally, they have 3 days to wait for their owners’ call, or to look for new owners.

If the dogs and cats can’t find a new family or their old owners, they get killed. It is brutal. But the way they kill is more cruel. They put them into boxes and make the boxes full of carbon dioxide and wait until they die… More than 1000 dogs and cats are killed per day.

How brutal is that? United States protect animals very thoroughly and they can arrest animal abusers. However in Japan, it is easy for animal abusers and shelters get away from being arrested …

I wish Japan was more protective and caring towards animals especially dogs and cats. I hope the number of pets being killed will decrease in the future.

Depressing Monday

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I hate Mondays. I get depressed because the weekend is over and I have to tolerate another 5 stressful days.

Here’s an interesting fact: the Ministry of Health in Japan compiled statistics on the suicide weekly rate. The statistics show that about 80.7 male and 27.3 female on average commit suicide on Mondays. On the other hand, the numbers go down on Saturdays to 53.5 male and 21.2 female. In Japan, this is known as the “Blue Monday Symptom”.

FYI: Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

More interestingly, people get myocardial infraction; higher blood pressure, as well as they get into car accidents more often on Mondays.

People in Japan feel a lot more pressure and stress than they should. They excessively sacrifice themselves in order to succeed. My impression of Japanese is that they don’t simply enjoy their lives, but work and try to be beneficial for others more than they should. I want them to be more easygoing and cheerful instead of thinking about committing suicide…

Strange family

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So during this winter break, I went home back in Japan. It was so great to see my family and friends and I enjoyed hanging around with them.

Some of the days, I chilled at home getting yelled by my mom for sleeping in. My mom would come into my room and wake me up at 8 in the morning, and I yelled, “Mom, it’s only 8. Let me sleep.” And she would always say, “Everyone is up and done eating breakfast and I don’t want to wait for you to do your dishes. You know what? If you don’t get up now, then you’re going to clean your dishes, wipe the table and do garbage disposal.”

Gosh, chill out. It’s only 8.

Well, my dad wakes up at 3:30 AM and gets ready to golf every single morning. My mom wakes up at 5AM to cook breakfast and get ready for the day. So basically we’re all morning people.

More surprisingly, my dad goes to bed at 7PM so the curfew he sets is 6PM for me. I want to say, Dad I’m 17. Are you kidding me? But I would never say that because he is so strict and frightening when he gets angry. I could never disobey him. Yes, a typical Asian dad.

My mom and my little brother Hosei (it is a Spanish name but we pronounce it “Housei”, which is also a Japanese name) go to bed at 8:30.

At 9PM, my house is dark except for my room. And I get so scared by myself going downstairs because we all sleep upstairs.

Well, this is my family and I know they are little strange.

Randoseru

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In Japan, all the kids in grade 1 to 6 have to have the same back-pack, or “ransel” in Dutch (but later it was called “Randoseru” by Japanese), to go to school. It’s our tradition. Some schools provide them for free, but most of them don’t, so parents have to get their child one. It costs about $100-150. It is made of leather, girls have red and boys have black ones.

Ransel has an interesting history. Back in the Edo period (1603-1868), trading between Japan and the Netherlands was prosperous. At that time, the bakufu (the Japanese government) provided the backpacks imported from Netherlands to the Japanese armed forces, so they called it in Dutch, “ransel,” And today, we still have this tradition.

For me, the school supplied me one, and 6 years later it all worn out; leather was peeled off and cotton inside was visible. I remember when I was in kindergarten I wanted the ransel very bad and couldn’t wait to get it!