Adventures in Japan

I wrote this as a part of a "memory essay" for my English class. Its choppy.. but funny



In Comunicato

There are times in your life where your brain goes blank… it is sound tracked by the hospital beeping noise, your brain flat lines. This is usually the time when I make important life decisions, this moment of false clarity and endless hope. Others may make the decision to marry, to have children, to order mocha at Starbucks rather than the usual venti skinny latte. Decisions that can and will change your life in ways you cannot conceive. One such decision was the idea of going camping, in Japan, in winter, by me.

The decision came while I was studying abroad in Kyoto Japan. I had signed my comfortable American life away for two years. No more hamburgers, no more cars, no more un bifurcation socks. I was taking part in a Peace and Reconciliation course. The end result is a Peace and Reconciliation certificate. This certificate is now gathering dust in my closet, along with other Sally Struthers type job skills. At the time I believed this was what I wanted to do with my life.

So I struggled learn Japanese, understand the culture, and comprehend fashion choices. Eight hours a day I attended intense Japanese language class, and nine hours out of my day was filled with frustration. I could not communicate with my landlord; ask for items at a grocery store, order food. I was Koko the gorilla, surrounded by humans, with my hands bound. It was in this vocal isolation that I came to the conclusion that meditation would help clear my mind. I had attended a Vipassana retreat earlier in the year. Vipassana is the mediation of “mindful living”. It focuses on the connection of body and mind.
I felt as though this was the problem. My mind was disconnected from my mouth. A clear mind would enable me to access the hidden part of my mind that was soaking up the language. Since I was on a roll of good ideas, I paired mediation with camping. This was not only a good idea this was a great idea. I had done the traditional Idaho camping with friends. Combing the insight of vipassana and the nature of camping was a guaranteed to lend me clarity.

I researched a couple of local places and decided that Himeji-shiritsu Somendak would be the place to go. This decision did not come easily. When you search online via Google, the website reads your IP address. This geographic key helps search engines orient the language of the land. Since Google had no idea I was an American girl, studying abroad whose language skills were that of a dog who has been kept inside for decades researching was difficult.
The only Japanese camping site that was offered in English, promised that Himeji-shiritsu Somendak would be the place for me. The trip to the campsite was only a forty-five minute bus ride, and it offered isolation.
What I did not realize, was that the Japanese idea of mountain hiking differs from the Idaho idea of mountain hiking.

This was evident in my packing skills. Compass, I don’t need a compass, I can read the stars, Japanese/English dictionary, I don’t need a dictionary this was an outdoors trip. Comb, I don’t need a comb, and no one will see me. It was though this negation logic that I ended up with two Nalgene bottles, a sleeping bag, half a pound of trail mix, salmon jerky, my journal, a small bar of hotel soap, a mini first aid kit, four pairs of socks, and a hunting knife.

The bus ride was non descript. The traditional fringes of society that could not afford cars older people and students boarded the bus. When the rickety bus made its last stop, when the ever present happy conductor chirped the destiation “Awawahi, Awawashi desu” and I exited via the entrance, I knew that I was alone.
So off I went, by myself, in winter, in a place where I barely grasped how to count to ten. It went well for the first couple of days. I made base camp next to a tree that was over five hundred years old and explored my surroundings.
The Japanese give an honorific to mountains. For instance Mtn Fuji is Fuji-Yama. All mountains have proper names, and they are all suffixed with Yama. Yama can be translated from the traditional Chinese to mean “king”. This honorific is meant to remind humans of the unique position they hold in nature.
I knew this concept logically, but, but I did not appreciate the significance until I saw the mountains up close. These were huge, solid pieces of rock. That jutted up from the ground with such force, that the awe that you felt paired with a feeling of insignificance.
It was in this appreciative mindset that I decided to go for good long hike. If the beauty of base camp moved me, then what else would the terrain have in store?
It was on one of these good long hikes that I got lost. Lost, not little girl in the mall lost, but ABCs' Lost.
The compass that I so haughtily disregarded earlier haunted me now, the half a pound of trail mix was reduced to peanut butter, only without the sugary goodness. The water bottles held my last hope, my last 8 fl oz of hope.

The light dusting of snow became an oppressive blanket; the strong mountains were full of cliffs and secret caves. I had been reading about Japanese fairy tales, so images of Oni, the sharp clawed, fanged ogre entered my brain. I hiked up, I hiked down, and I hiked left, right. I hiked for hours I hiked for days. On the third day, I ran out of food, on the fourth day I ran out of water.
I was no longer hiking I was wandering. I wandered right smack in the middle of a mountain village. The village was perched on the mountainside, next to the best soybean fields in the area. The people living in the small homes with patched roods, made tofu. The entire village was a factory. They did not have running water; the idea of the internet was as foreign as the debris in my hair. This was a village that every American dreads, the village with no English speakers. I had no crutch. I could not rely on my friends. I couldn’t rely on my Japanese dictionary, deeming it too heavy to tote around.
I was openly greeted by a wizened old man. I jabbered away in English for ten minutes before I recognized the smile of non-recognition from my own face. I panicked. I knew I couldn’t possibly get my point across is Japanese. Right before this trip, I struggled to explain to the bank teller than I needed to cash money orders. I knew it. I just knew it.
I was going to be stuck, in a mountain village, in Japan for the rest of my natural existence making tofu like some hippie elf. The desperate thoughts of being a tofu elf, and never seeing my computer again transformed fear into action.
I laid down my backpack, unburdening my shoulders so I could take a deep breath. On the exhale, I began to speak Japanese, clear, concise, proper Japanese. My story flowed out my mouth, hiking, getting lost, and running out of water. I explained who I was, where I came from and what I needed. Words were no longer being translated. I wasn’t filtering Japanese though an English net. Japanese had become its own language, with its own meanings. Kaurma was not car, kaurma was metal thing on wheels. The cotton batting that was stuffed between my mind and my mouth dissolved. I could finally communicate with people around me, and I was finally fully human.

It was on this fifth day, unkempt, hungry and exhausted that I learned Japanese.