I had a pretty involved email mostly finished about how Christmas in Japan is similar to the US but there are little things that make it strange and weird and maybe a little unsettling, but I had to go and throw all that out the window. Here's why:
It might have been enough to have Christmas lessons at both elementary schools and a full-on Christmas party at the kindergarten, but there was more. Before you ask though, yes I did dress up as Santa Clauss for the kindergarten and no, I do not have any pictures. Seeing Christmas lights on random houses definitely helped, especially in the face of all the ridiculous consumerism that started the second week of November (gasp!), but that was not really it either.
No, it was Nagao-sensei and his family that really made everything just too nice to be down about Christmas. We had off this past Monday (12/24) and I had asked him last week about borrowing his vacuum to clean my heater, but I forgot to set up a time. I stopped by earlier in the day on Sunday to see if I could borrow but he wasn't home. Later, around 830pm or so, I get a call from someone with a deep voice speaking in English.
-- This is mumble mumble.
-- This is Carlo?
-- This is Nagao.
He was calling me to ask if I still wanted to borrow the vacuum, and doing it in English no less! I really appreciated the effort too, because if you don't know it can be damn intimidating to try and speak a foreign language on the phone. He asked if right then was okay, and I said sure, I'll be right over, but he said that he would come drop it off.
Well, when he got here there was some confusion because you have to manually turn the lights on outside my apartment, so I'm sure that they were a little creeped out. Yes, "they", because not only did Nagao-sensei come, but his wife and his two daughters came too! Nagao-sensei had on the Santa hat that his older daugher had made in (my) English class, and he handed me the vacuum.
He wasn't done yet though, because then he held out something in his hands with a "Merry Christmas". It was a little fake tree, about a foot tall, and decorated with swirling silver garland, white cotton snow, and a big yellow pipe cleaner star on top, secured with ample amounts of red yarn. I was so touched that I didn't even know what to say, I just kept bowing and saying thank you. It was so sweet, I was completely caught off guard.
Really though I should not have been so caught of guard, because that has been my experience here pretty much from Day One: unbounded kindness and friendliness, especially from the people I work with. The kindergarten teachers in particular are really sweet and are always looking out. They gave me this really cute woven Totoro basket from a bazaar they had and Kawaminami-sensei, the head teacher, got me a bilingual origami book for Christmas!
Even though the gifts are nice, it really is the fact that they would even do these things that makes it special. I am not one to often pull the sentimentality card, but this is one occasion where anything else would fall short of the warmth that I feel here. So much love. Wherever you spent the holidays, whatever you celebrate, even if it's nothing at all, I hope you spent it with people that are important to you.
mad love,
-greg.
ps: please enjoy pictures of Oshima elementary school students. adorable!
(flickr)
as always, check the album on the right-hand side.
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