Party at the Izakaya: 飲み放題 All the Way!

Last week, I learned how to say "all you can drink" in Japanese. Nomihoudai! In kanji, it looks like this: 飲み放題.

My thoughtful friend Jim in Tucson had put me in touch with his friend Dan who's a student at the UofA studying abroad this semester in Tokyo. Dan was kind enough to call me last week to invite me out for a night of nomihoudai with his friends from school at an izakaya in Ikebukuro. It was pretty cool to be able to hang out with kids from the UofA in Tokyo.

Here's Lonely Planet once more:

"An izakaya is the Japanese equivalent of a pub. It's a good place to visit when you want a casual meal, a wide selection of food, a hearty atmosphere and, of course, plenty of beer and sake. When you enter an izakaya, you are given the choice of sitting around the counter, at a table or on a tatami foor... Izakaya can be identified by their rustic façades and the red lanterns outside their doors."

I had work the following day, so unfortunately, I couldn't participate in nomihoudai as much as I would have liked, but it was definitely some much-needed socialization nonetheless.

I was definitely the most sober one by far.

Take Me Out to the Barrrrgame!

I saw the giants play last Wednesday. No, the other Giants--the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants. It was pretty awesome. It didn't exactly relieve the angst I've been feeling about missing the baseball season in the U.S., but it helped a little.

The Giants, from what I can tell, are the Japanese equivalent of the Yankees, the most popular team in the country. In fact, as the monk at the temple was handing me the tickets, he asked me what my favorite Japanese baseball team was, and I quickly muttered that I liked the Giants, hoping that it was the answer he wanted to hear. It was actually the only Japanese baseball team I could name.

I'm not really sure why the temple folks gave me the tickets, but as I was leaving work on Tuesday, one of the monks approached me, and without saying much, placed the tickets in my hand. The seats turned out to be really great--just twenty rows behind the third base line. I eventually figured out that the tickets have a pretty high market value. So, the temple seems to be providing me with expensive baseball tickets but not internet.

The Giants were playing the Chūnichi Dragons from Nagano, and as far as baseball games go, it wasn't terribly eventful. A few observations: first, all of the cheering and rowdiness occurred, like so many other things in Japan, in perfect harmony; second, I was amused to see the scantily-clad beer girls kneel into traditional seiza position every time they served a drink; third, the concession stands served ramen and rice (c'mon, no peanuts and crackerjacks?).

The Japanese love baseball. Along with sumo, it's by far the most popular sport in Japan. In fact, often, when I tell people I'm from Arizona, the first thing they say is, "Oh, Randy Johnson state!" It happened as recently as three days ago.

I don't know quite what to make of the tremendous popularity of baseball in Japan. Were my internet working, I might try to read up on it a bit, but that's not an option right now. I wonder to what extent it was homegrown and to what extent it was imported by Westerners. My guidebook tells me this: "Baseball was introduced to Japan in 1873 and became a fixture in 1934 when the Yomiuri started its own team after Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig had swung through town." Westernization in Japan began in 1868 with the restoration of the emperor, so that's a pretty short time window! I've always found the insane popularity of cricket among Indians to be a bit funny, a sort of ironic legacy of British imperialism. I don't think baseball in Japan is exactly analogous, but it still seems strange to me. I know Israel has been attempting half-heartedly to promote a professional baseball program, but aside from that, I can't think of another country outside of the U.S. where baseball is enormously popular.

Lastly, I think it's interesting/weird that whereas in the U.S. sports teams are commonly referred to by their hometown, teams in Japan are referred to by their main corporate sponsor. It would be as if we spoke of the Microsoft Mariners playing the General Motors Tigers. I suppose one could interpret this as in indication of the ubiquitous corporate presence in modern Japan, but I won't go there. I'll just have to look forward to the next time I get to watch the Diamondbacks play at Bank One Ballpark.

The Giants lost to the Dragons 4-3, but I had a great time. I won't mind going again.

Also, my internet is still non-operational at the temple. As I said, I really would have liked to have been writing more over the last couple weeks, but the lack of internet is pretty tragic. Still hoping it gets resolved soon.

Go Giants! And note the Princeton colors! Fortunately, I was wearing my black and orange Princeton Beirut baseball-T, so I fit right in.

Lots and lots and lots of Japanese people. I think the Japanese:foreigner ratio was about 25,000 to 1.

Not quite sure what that says, but the guy's name next to the "7" is Ramirez (ラミレズ).

Big stadium, eh? And the field is a bit different...

Back to the Stone Age

My internet has been down for a few weeks at the temple. I've stooped to a new low and found an internet cafe, but the keyboard is too confusing to write much. I'm hoping to get the problem resolved soon. It's definitely been an interesting few weeks...

Sports Day: A Drama, in Twenty-Two Parts

Last Sunday was the big day! As I mentioned to a friend earlier in the week, let me assure you that the Japanese really know how to put the “day” into Sports Day! I arrived at 9:25 a.m., and I didn’t get home until 6 in the evening!

For weeks now, I’ve watched my kindergarteners’ heads jerk violently back and forth as they struggled to stay awake in English class after hours of Sports Day rehearsals. I had previously thought this kind of thing only occurred in college lectures, but it appears that even adorable 5 year-olds are not immune from the myoclonic jerk (I learned that fancy word in my college neuroscience class—maybe those science distribution requirements actually are useful!) Anyway, I’ve been a tad concerned about my kids’ inability to stay awake in class, and I’ve even been a bit prone to interpret it as a sign of over-exhaustion, but I had been reassured that, head-jerking or not, a little tiredness was a natural part of the preparations leading up to Sports Day.

So, I showed up to Ryogoku Elementary School around 9:25, figuring I’d have some time to look for a space as everyone settled in. Of course, though, everyone else was already there, and at 9:30, to the second, the Sports Day opening ceremonies began. As I looked around the courtyard, the first thing I noticed was the huge number of people present—probably five- or six-hundred. This seemed pretty massive to me, given that the event was essentially a pre-school performance.

I was pretty content standing anonymously in the crowd, enjoying watching my kids perform, but then the principal of the school saw me and gestured for me to come over. She explained that it was my responsibility to be helping, so with a polite smile and a little bow, she sent me over to the sidelines, where the mother volunteer squadron didn’t look too pleased to see me again. At first, I really tried to help a lot, carrying heavy equipment onto the courtyard between numbers, but it soon became apparent that I was really just getting in the way, and the mothers seemed to be getting frustrated with me since I couldn’t understand any of their instructions. I was feeling dejected and tried to hide in the corner, not knowing quite what to do: my boss expected me to be helping, but the people whom I was supposed to be helping didn’t want my help!

Eventually, the mothers seemed to take pity on me. One of the mothers tapped me on the shoulder, gesturing that I should follow her into the gym, which was serving as the holding pen for the children throughout the day. I realized I had been chosen to participate in some kind of Sports Day mother-game. I stood there, trying hard to figure out what was about to happen to me when one of the mothers threw a bright red sash around my chest. I had been voted captain of the team! If only I knew the rules of the game… The red team and the white team formed two parallel lines in the gym, waiting to enter the courtyard. The mother in front of me in line again tried to explain the game to me, but I couldn’t quite follow.

The next moment, the lines began to move, and I could see the mothers processing into the courtyard. As they entered the courtyard, I noticed that they all began to dance—in unison! No one had explained the dancing part to me. (Or maybe they had?) I could feel my heart pounding, and before I had another moment to think, I found myself marching and dancing into the courtyard, hands above my head, fingers wiggling, legs kicking. The second I entered the courtyard, I could feel five hundred pairs of Japanese eyes on me. I stole a glance around the perimeter for a friendly face, but everyone I saw seemed to have a camera glued at their face, snapping away at the awkward foreigner trying to dance. I tried to imitate the other mothers the best I could, but very quickly, it became clear that they all knew this dance very well. There was nothing I could do but smile and dance.

I was pretty relieved when the dance ended and the game began. It turned out to be fairly simple (anything would have been compared to the dance!). The game was a relay race that involved running around a track while holding a rubber ball between two 2-liter soda bottles. I again noticed everyone taking pictures of me as I was running around the track, but it wasn’t so bad after the dancing.

From thereon, relations between the mother squadron and me thawed a bit, and the mothers even began assigning me simple tasks (“hold this,” “carry this,” “stand here”). Later in the day—around 1 p.m., after the lunchtime intermission—the fathers even picked me to participate in the father-game.

Sitting in line in the gym with all the Japanese fathers, waiting once more to march into the courtyard for some sort of "game," I naturally was feeling a tad nervous, in light of the surprise dancing event that was sprung on me earlier in the day. Surrounded by all these stoic-looking Japanese men in parallel lines, I felt a little like a kamikaze pilot waiting for takeoff aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, not knowing exactly what was about to happen to me, not knowing if I would make it through the next fifteen minutes alive. As it turned out, no dancing was involved, though the father-game was slightly more demanding than the mothers'. It was also a relay race but entailed kicking a soccer ball through a hoola-hoop, jump-roping a quarter-way around the track, and then slamming my face into a bin of flour. For my efforts, I received a goody bag that contained a pen, a faux Burberry handkerchief, and laundry detergent samples. Cleanliness and imitation haute couture, all in one bag—how Japanese!

Sports Day (finally!) came to an end around 4 p.m., and I couldn’t believe the kids were still able to move. I was definitely ready to pass out. I hung around for a while to help clean (which involved a lot more hanging around than it did cleaning). I was looking forward to spending a quiet evening in my apartment, but as soon as I got back to the temple, one of the monks spotted me and ushered me into the after-party—which involved sitting around a table drinking lots of green tea with Enchou-sensei and some of the other teachers.

One thing that I haven’t talked about yet is the teachers at the temple school. It would be an understatement to say that the Japanese are into uniformity. Every day, all the teachers at the school wear matching baby-blue apron/dress/smocks. You may have noticed in my pictures and videos from the rehearsal that all the teachers are wearing matching purple and white Asics track getups. This really wowed me. Further inspection even revealed that they each had their name stitched into their sweatpants. The teachers’ coordination, however, extends far beyond attire. Whether they’re dancing or cleaning or huddling around the copy machine, the teachers never fail to synchronize their movements beautifully, sort of like a pod of Japanese dolphins. This never fails to astound me. They actually always remind me a great deal of a team of Charlie’s Angels (no, not just because they’re Asian!). They all seem so warm and gentle-natured, but I’m convinced that they’d transform into ninjas the moment someone tried to harm the children.

How's that for choreography?!

More adorableness.

The flags strike me as not-so-subtly Olympic...

I'm pretty sure the only reason the kids are barefoot in this number is to increase the cuteness quotient.

One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish

I thought I’d provide some weekend highlights. In the interest of full disclosure, though, I confess that the title for this posting—as much as I love it—is not original. It comes from the title of an episode of The Simpsons, but, considering sushi and Dr. Seuss are two staples of my daily life here, I feel it’s pretty appropriate, so I’m going to borrow it.

Friday: I didn’t get off work until after 7 p.m., as usual. A good friend’s father was in Tokyo on business and kindly e-mailed me to invite me to dinner with two colleagues. The four of us met in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel (Tokyo’s equivalent to The Plaza) and enjoyed a really nice dinner together in Ginza, Tokyo’s famous upscale shopping neighborhood. Dinner was wonderful. First, I was overjoyed to see a familiar face in Tokyo, and I was touched that my friend’s father thought to contact me. The two colleagues also had interesting lives and interesting stories to share, so the conversation was great—a huge change from what I’ve become accustomed to. There was a Swiss guy who’s lived in Japan for thirteen years and is married to a Japanese woman, and there was also a Chinese woman who works in Beijing but seems to have lived and worked all over Asia and the U.S.

The most interesting part of the meal, however, was the food. The menus, of course, were only in Japanese, so the Swiss gentlemen ordered us all a set meal. In typical Japanese fashion, the set meal featured about twenty ultra-petite dishes (mainly sushi), one after another. As each course was served, the waiter slowly and dignifiedly explained (in Japanese) the contents and preparation of the food. I was feeling sorta proud that I could understand snippets of it.

My ears perked, however, when I heard the waiter say something about fugu. I knew that fugu was blowfish, and I didn’t know much about fugu except that it had the potential to be lethally poisonous. In fact, the only real knowledge I (along with the rest of mainstream America) had of fugu came from the famous Simpsons episode, where Homer eats a Japanese blowfish and is then told he has 24 hours left to live. The fugu looked innocuous enough—it was just thin white slivers of fish, not entirely distinguishable from the million other variations of sushi I have eaten in Japan. The Swiss guy explained that only certain parts of blowfish were poisonous and that restaurants have to have a special license to serve it, and I remembered hearing at one point that there hasn’t been a fugu death in Japan for thirty years (Wikipedia seems to disagree... hmm). Still, I hesitated (only for a second) before popping the first piece of fugu into my mouth. Unsurprisingly, it also didn’t taste that different from every other kind of sushi. Thus far, I’m feeling pretty OK, so it looks like I’ve survived my first fugu encounter.

Saturday: The temple folks had asked to come along to the Sports Day of the sister school of the school where I work, out in the ‘burbs. I was supposed to meet Keiko-sensei at 8 a.m., and we were going to head out together. Around 7:30, I got a phone call telling me that the event was going to be postponed because of bad weather. Relieved, I went back to sleep and slept in.

In the afternoon, I had a Japanese lesson, and on my way home, I stumbled upon a street festival on the main road outside of the temple. For a people known for not having a lot of fun, the Japanese seem to have a lot of such occurrences. I think the festival was some kind of celebration of the history of the neighborhood… or something like that. There were a lot of booths of vendors selling toys and food and beer, and the main stage had some high-quality entertainment: old guys singing the praises of famous sumo wrestlers (I think); a pretty impressive Japanese magician (been a long time since I’ve appreciated a magic show!); and a guy juggling bowling pins on a tightrope. I was extremely impressed. I also bumped into one of my favorite students, an adorable third-grade girl who offered me a bag of rice cookies.

In the evening, I met up with some friends from Princeton in Shinjuku (Tokyo’s busiest and craziest neighborhood). Jenn is on a PiA fellowship in a city down south near Hiroshima, and she was in town visiting Jessica, another PiA fellow who lives about 40 minutes outside Tokyo. Ami, if not for whom I still would not have a cell phone, also came. On Jessica’s suggestion, we hit up Golden Gai, this tiny neighborhood in Shinjuku that’s really nothing more than a network of miniscule alleys and hundreds of bars that can each only hold about 5-7 people. I think it’s a pretty hip area, and I really like it. My Lonely Planet says this of Golden Gai:

“By night, the closet-sized bars, some accessed by stairways sleep enough to bruise your shins as you ascend, light and fill up, mostly with off-duty office workers. There’s been much speculation about the demise of Golden Gai’s rickety structures and narrow alleyways, but for the moment it seems a new generation is buying in and quietly setting up shop.”

Jessica led us to this place that you see on the right, and bizarrely, she bumped into this drunken Japanese couple that she had met the last time she was in Golden Gai two weeks earlier! We had some beers and okonomiyaki (Japanese omelette-like dishes) before hitting up some karaoke around the corner. I smuggled in some drinks, but it turned out the karaoke machine was broken, so we called it a night. I had to be up early the next day anyway for Sports Day…

Jeff, Ami, me, Jess, and Jenn at a bar in Golden Gai.

Shinjuku (backgroud) at night with Shibuya in the foreground. I took this picture from the top floor of the Morgan Stanley building in Ebisu. Very, very different from the part of Tokyo where I live.

Learning to Speak Really Enthusiastically

There have been a few days in the last couple of weeks when I’ve missed my family and friends a great deal (if you’re reading this, you’re probably someone I miss!), and it’s been a little rough at times, so in an effort to stay upbeat, I want to try to focus on what is (momentarily, at least) a pretty solid part of life here: my job.

First, I should apologize for not having updated the blog recently. Enchou-sensei and Keiko-sensei are in the process of renovating their house at the temple, and it’s left me without internet for a while and subsequently cut off from the world. Having the internet go down when you’re alone in Asia is definitely ten times worse than when it happens to you in the U.S. Anyway, the internet kami have restored my connection, so I hope to resume blogging…

The whole Japan thing aside, I really think this is a pretty sweet job to have scored my first year out of college. It’s challenging, rewarding, and stimulating. Compared to the summer jobs I held in college, this job never leaves me feeling bored. There’s always work to be done. Maybe that’s just a sad reflection of what jobs in politics and diplomacy have to offer, but I really think it has more to do with the peculiarities of spending my days with children.

Short-term results are always immediately transparent. Children, I’m learning, display an amazing aptitude for language acquisition, and it’s incredible how quickly they can learn. The youngest children, the kindergarteners, even seem to have the easiest time learning vocabulary. There’s a certain satisfaction to be derived from watching my third-graders, for example, quickly master a grammatical construction that I had considered pretty challenging. It’s somewhat ironic, I think, that the kids will probably have a far greater impact on my life than I’ll have on theirs, considering I’m supposed to be the teacher. In a few years, I’m sure they won’t remember that they don’t like green eggs and ham in a house or with a mouse, in a box or with a fox, here or there, or annnnnyyywhere, but I’ll remember them, of course.

While teaching is no science, I often see my lessons in objective terms. The end-goal will be to convey a certain concept, and it’s up to me to create the appropriate game, song, coloring activity, or dance to do so. When the children learn quickly, I feel as if I’m succeeding, and when they’re floundering, I realize I need to reexamine my methods.

For the most part, the kids are genuinely a joy to be around. With the waku-waku kids, I always have to remind myself that they’re only 5 and 6 years old; each one seems to have a distinct personality. I definitely have my favorites. I think teachers must always lie when they claim they don’t have favorite students.

There are, of course, downsides to the job. Salary: it’s not stellar, but considering I don’t pay rent or utilities, it’s not as bad as it first seems. Exhaustion: it is incredibly difficult to smile and stay enthusiastic for hours and hours on end. Vacation time: the Japanese seem to hate vacations, so I don’t get much time off in a year. Punctuality: unlike in other jobs, showing up late to work can’t be made up by staying later in the day; it means keeping students waiting.

I’ll wrap up with a photo of a portrait I was given by one of my favorite students this last week:

The text, in kindergarten scratch, says "Rob-sensei." As for the scruff, the children are endlessly amused by my facial (and arm and leg) hair. I guess they haven't seen a lot of Jews up-close before.

“Genki, damnit!” — Sports Day Rehearsal

Yesterday was a Sports Day rehearsal for the Kindergarten. I can’t imagine anyone coming to Japan and not experiencing the fanfare and the drama that is Japanese Sports Day, yet I’m sure few visitors have the occasion to witness a Sports Day. As much as I enjoy the comfort of my daily routine here at the temple, it is the moments that make me go “Ohhhmygod, I can’t believe this is happening” that I really cherish. Yesterday morning I had such a moment.

My Wednesdays are by far my easiest days; I only teach 2 adult classes in the morning, and then I’m free for the rest of the day. I expected this Wednesday to be like any other. As I was leaving work on Tuesday, Takahashi-sensei mentioned that all schools in Tokyo would be closed on Wednesday for a city-wide wide holiday. I was excited. Then one of the students mentioned that the temple school would be open anyway. I wasn’t excited anymore. I went home and saw on my schedule that I did, in fact, have Wednesday off. I was excited again but also very confused. I decided to return to the school to see if I could ask the principal for some clarification. She had already left, so I was forced to run my question by one of the teachers whose English is nonexistent. She, too, was confused and offered to call the principal on her cell phone. She got off the phone and tried to explain the situation to me, and after about 10 minutes of sllllloooowww Japanese, I think I finally understood what was happening: the kindergarten would in fact be closed on Wednesday while all the students participated in a rehearsal for Sports Day at Ryogoku Elementary School down the street.

I was under the impression that I didn’t need to go, and I was looking forward to sleeping in on a Wednesday. I realized, though, that it couldn’t hurt to go, and it could only score me some brownie points with the temple. Besides, I was feeling guilty about having shown up pretty late to work on Monday, so I felt like I needed to pay penance; I woke up early today and headed over to the elementary school—as always—not knowing quite what to expect.

Sports Day (undoukai), from what I’ve read elsewhere and what I’ve been able to infer, is an important Japanese tradition that every school holds once a year. One of the mothers explained to me that it’s the most important celebration of the school year, and it’s an opportunity for every school to display itself proudly to the community (i.e., to students’ parents). Sports Day entails students marching around in formation on a large field singing sings and doing a variety of tricks like making human pyramids and engaging in elaborate choreography.

As the rehearsal got underway, it seemed to me that Sports Day was simply the Japanese version of the kind of “holiday shows” (always thinly-veiled Christmas pageants) that are ubiquitious in the American school system. Then, the synchronized choreography kicked in, and suddenly I felt like I was watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. All these 3-6 year-olds knew exactly where to stand, when to march, and what color flag to wave at the right time. The amazing display of such blithe conformity momentarily—but only momentarily—struck me as a bit, well, Stalinist, but then I realized that there was no reason to be so cynical about it: these kids were incredibly cute, and they seemed to be having a good time. I recalled once reading a Western analysis of Sports Day as a pedagogic exercise in individuality suppression, and while I am loath to imbue my own observations with that kind of heavy-handed analysis that is sometimes rewarded in Princeton precepts, it certainly was not difficult to see the Sports Day show as a Confucian ideal: like the specks in a Seurat, students repeatedly formed small groups that joined with other small groups to form progressively larger groups, finally forming one large composite image.

Also, the kids were insanely adorable. I was actually thinking about how nice it was that Sports Day lacked the competitiveness of the three-legged races and egg tosses of American field days. Then, I saw the squadron of mothers race into the courtyard for a set change with nets, balance beams, tumbling mats, and climbing blocks. At the sound of a starter gun, the little future Olympians began dashing around a track performing athletic feats. It was definitely competitive.

After the American Gladiators event was over, the mothers, sporting matching Ryogoku Kindergarten Sports Day Committee t-shirts, raced back into the courtyard to remove equipment and to begin re-drawing chalk lines for the next number. And so it went. The children would march, twirl, and dance, and then the mothers would sprint onto the field to erase the old chalk lines and draw new ones—in under 90 seconds. On a few occasions, I tried to help with the set changes by carrying what appeared to be the heavy or most cumbersome equipment, but I think I really just got in the way more than anything else. The mothers each had a 16-page schematics packet showing exactly where on the field chalk lines where to be drawn and props placed for each number; the folks operating the Super Bowl halftime show would’ve been put to shame.

Throughout it all, the children were encouraged to remain genki. Genki is a special word in Japanese that merits some explanation. My Japanese-English dictionary gives these words as translations for genki: vigor, spirit, vitality, cheer, heart, bounce, pep, with good cheer, cheerfully, and vigorously. Genki, though, is really a state of being more than anything else. In Japanese, to ask, “how are you?,” one literally says, “are you genki?” If one is doing well, the polite response is “I’m genki.” In class, if my students are giving me half-hearted responses, I’ll instruct them to reply again in a more genki fashion when I want a heartier, more cheerful answer. Roughly, then, telling the students to perform their rehearsal genki-ily meant that they should do it enthusiastically.

For the first hour, I imagine it was pretty easy for the kids to stay genki. It all looked like a lot of fun. The second hour was long, but I was proud of the kids for hanging in there. By the third hour, my own genki-ness was definitely fading; I couldn’t believe that these 4 year-olds could keep on marching around with smiles glued to their faces. By hour four, I was dying for it to end, but the upper class was having difficulty with a particularly demanding maneuver in which two small spinning ‘+’s merged into one giant spinning ‘+,’ so they kept on practicing over and over—and over. Finally, after nearly five hours of standing, watching this, the rehearsal came to an end with all 230 little Japanese Von Trapp children doing a run-through of—what else?—“Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music.

I was definitely exhausted, but the mothers have assured me that the children had a great time for the duration of the rehearsal. The best part is that I get to see the whole show again for the real Sports Day!

The American Gladiators event. Seriously, how adorable is this? These kids are 5 and 6.

Genki, genki, genki!

Awwwww...

The 3 year-olds perform.

The upper class practices spinning plus-sign formations over and over and over...

Wasn't kidding about those schematics diagrams.

If you're feeling sad, this will cheer you up. Don't let the boring formation fool you--this is just the warm-up routine!

“Yūki, please come up to the bima.”

Celebrating the first night of Rosh Hashanah in Tokyo was a real trip. This post, I suppose, will continue the Jew thread that I began earlier.

After my previous experience staking out the temporary offices of Tokyo’s congregation, I was a bit nervous about returning for Erev Rosh Hashanah services. I also realized that the congregation wanted to charge me an arm-and-leg for membership fees, Holiday attendance, meals, etc., but I think I’ve negotiated some kind of student rate.

It was pouring today, and it’s really a haul across town to Omote-sando, so I had plenty of time on the subway to imagine what services would be like. I thought I had left Ryogoku with plenty of time to spare, but the commute took much longer than I expected, so I was already running late by the time I arrived in Omote-sando. I hustled over to the JCC’s offices only to learn that services had been moved to another building ten minutes away.

I found what I thought was the building and was trying to figure out if it was the right place when an Israeli guy approached me (I could tell he was Israeli by the curly hair, unnecessary display of chest hair, untucked shirt, and sandals). “Shanah tovah?” he asked cautiously. “Shanah tovah.” I replied. “I guess this is the right place, then!” he said.

I was directed to a medium-sized event room that was being used for services and shown to the “guest” seats, behind the “B section” which was mostly empty, and well behind the “A section,” which was only half full. I thought it was pretty strange. Most of the people in the room were in the guest section, creating a large void between the people in the very front rows and those in the very back rows. There weren’t nearly as many people there as I was expecting (or hoping to see); I had read that the congregation numbered in the hundreds, and I figured that if there were actually any Jews in Tokyo, they’d come out of the woodwork for the High Holidays. There were no more than 70 people in a room which looked like it had been set-up to seat 200. Still, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Yom Kippur.

The other astonishing component of the room was the diversity of worshippers in attendance. Of the couples present, about half looked to be an American guy with a Japanese wife. There were even several couples in which both spouses were Japanese. Hearing Japanese people sing Hebrew was both really cool and really odd. The Israeli ambassador to Japan was also in attendance with his family (I guess there aren’t very many options for Rosh Hashanah services in Japan).

The familiarity of the services was strangely comforting, but the speeches by the rabbi and the president were pretty lame and uninspiring. I wondered exactly how one came to be the rabbi of Tokyo’s congregation, but I never got a chance to ask him. After services, I started meeting people, which quickly became pretty fun. Everyone had an interesting story about what they were doing in Japan, and people were quick to inquire. I met an older South African woman, who’s lived in Tokyo for 30 years, with a 29 year-old half-Japanese daughter; a 30-ish year-old American banker from St. Louis, who’s been in Tokyo for 8 years, and his Japanese fiancée; an American guy named Chris (weird, right?) and his Japanese wife who have lived together in Tokyo for 11 years and who were both in the process of converting to Judaism.

At dinner, I found myself bizarrely seated between a French woman who lives in Tokyo with her husband and two young sons and an unrelated (!) young French software engineer. They began speaking French over me, so I tried to join in, and I was pretty surprised by how easily it came back to me, especially considering I haven’t spoken it in several years and I’ve been “speaking” (i.e., bastardizing) Japanese every day. They were both exceptionally friendly, and I had a great time talking it up with them. Across from us sat an older couple from Manhattan who were preparing to embark on a 30-day Asian cruise; apparently, they had just arrived from New York a few hours ago and had come directly to services.

Not quite sure what to make of my rando Rosh Hashanah experience, but I had a great time, and I’m looking forward to returning soon. L’shanah tovah!


This is unrelated, but here’s my favorite photo that I took over the weekend:

Five-storey pagoda (second-largest in Japan!) in Asakusa at night. Yea, it was pretty amazing.