State of Emergency

The last line of defense in the face of an epidemic: teaching English. A candle in the darkness. A bastion of hope. Everything else may have closed, but my company refused to. I stepped through a dark, abandoned mall to make it to work. It was eerie, but people were truly counting on me in these difficult times. The only other place with their lights on was the supermarket.

In April, Japan extended it’s state of emergency from the hard-hit prefectures to the entire country. Things out where I live slowly started to change. But there was never really any social distancing. Stores measured out and marked how far you’re supposed to stand from each other in line. That’s about it. People were and are still gathering just like before, though it’s quite rare to see people not wearing masks. More recently, everything around here began to close early. And some places have just been closed period. Of note, many of these places are restaurants, which has thrown a wrench in my regular schedule for grabbing lunch at work. This whole corona virus thing may have killed thousands of people and thrown economies into disarray, but now that it’s inconvenienced me, it has gone too far!

I hope everyone read that as a joke.

The number of cases in my prefecture have been at a standstill for weeks. And just yesterday, the government announced that it will be lifting the country-wide state of emergency, and maintaining it only in heavily affected areas. This means things will hopefully go back to normal around here very soon.

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In other news, Golden Week, the week-long Japanese holiday, just went by at the beginning of May. Originally, I wanted to travel to Hokkaido, but with COVID-19 on the radar, I had to cancel. Instead I joined my friends on a surprise hiking expedition that was going to take “two hours” (it was actually closer to six), where we visited three temples in the mountains. The fresh mountain air and the scenery were fantastic. The temples were all unique and interesting. My feet hurt like never before. It was one of those snap decisions that will be memorable for a lifetime. It was a small reminder that no matter what happens, we can always use the time we have to do something worthwhile.

Then, the other day I found myself staring out of the employee break room window, at a magnificent view of lush distant mountains. I longed to be out there in the fresh air, adventuring. And that brought me back to my school days, staring out the window at a beautiful summer day while the teacher talked on, having the same feeling. Every now and again growing up, I would always look back and ask myself if I’d changed, but looking back now I feel like I’m still the same kid I always was: the one who brought a soccer ball out on the playground with the other kids during a snowstorm and slid around the field through the cold white fluff until the school bell called us back in; the mischievous child who, during class, used to take things from his friend’s pencil case, smother glue on them and throw them at the wall until they stuck; who skateboarded as fast as he could to school because he was always late; who was always training for and playing hockey, and ended up breaking his arm twice; who never did his homework, because homework is for chumps. Trying new things, longing for adventure, wanting to push myself, refusing to do things I disagree with. It’s as though all of these things have always been a part of me from the beginning. To me, I’m still the same little kid I always was. But now here I am: an “adult.” Someone who the kids now have to listen to. The more I think about it, the more I realize there were never actually any adults. There are just kids who got older.

Everyone on our hiking trip.

No Men Enter, No Men Leave

April in Japan is beautiful. The weather has been nice, save for a few rainy days. The cherry blossoms are out and so are all of the people. Wait- what? Why are all these people out here? When I scroll through the news and my social media, I constantly see stories about COVID-19. Everyone is talking about the lock down, social distancing and what to do in quarantine or self-isolation. Lock down? That sounds serious. Social distancing? Interesting… Self-isolation? Sounds like something an avid gamer really wouldn’t mind. Plenty of them were already doing that, anyway.

I feel like I’m somehow missing out on something here. Everything in Takamatsu is life as usual. When I went out to see the sakura trees, families and friends were still having picnics under the pink and white blossoms. I was surprised at how many kids were outside in the park. Then when I looked around, I realized it wasn’t only kids. Many people were wandering around. I went to a restaurant a few nights ago and it was packed. Only two tables were open in the whole place. And this is something I’ve been noticing when I pass by restaurants, stores, arcades, and the like: They’re still filled with people.

I have to wear a mask when I’m teaching, and hand sanitizer is readily available in virtually all businesses. Those are just about the only noticeable changes that have occurred in recent weeks. They still aren’t testing people out here. One of my coworkers had a fever and a cough, and when he went to the hospital, they basically told him that since there were only two confirmed cases in our prefecture, that it was probably nothing, and he could return to work. Seems like the criteria is rather high for being too sick to miss work – so again, no change there for Japan. The plan here seems to be to wait until a lot of people get sick, and then reluctantly try to curb the virus. I’m constantly wondering how things will turn out here, and I’m constantly worried about the state of affairs back home. Luckily, for myself, I’m not in a high risk area (as of yet, anyway). But people are still traveling around Japan. Schools are opening again, and apparently, this is the time of year that everyone is moving to go to a new school, or start a new job. Tokyo is on the brink of calling a state of emergency. Major cities and possibly even their entire prefectures will be affected. And this is only the beginning. Does some sort of lock down await all of us? I guess we’ll see how things shake out in the next couple of weeks. Wherever you happen to be in the world, stay safe.

March Madness

Japan: The country where the ATMs are the only ones who don’t have to work overtime. March: Tax season and warmer days are upon us. After winter nearly started in December, but never really seemed to get off the ground, I find myself asking, “is it spring already?”

Currently, fears about the new corona virus are the only thing spreading faster than the virus itself. Everyone is wearing surgical masks, but that behaviour isn’t all that new in Japan. Although these days, masks, hand sanitizer, toilet paper and medicine are suddenly selling out. Why toilet paper?! I’m actually running out of that and now I can’t buy any. Rough times are ahead. The government also suddenly closed down all schools for the month of March. People are confused and upset. Will this really help? I don’t really know, but there sure are a lot of kids hanging out at the mall now. Since I teach for a private company, we’re staying open – and it seems that students are still interested in coming in, which is either a good sign of people’s morale and tenacity, or a gigantic mistake. A big potential problem here is that people aren’t being tested for the virus. The difference between the number of confirmed cases and the number of actual cases may be incredibly different. The truth is we just don’t know. But, so far, there are no confirmed cases in the prefecture I’m living in – they’re only in every surrounding prefecture.

But there’s always a silver lining: due to the corona virus, the deadline for my taxes has been pushed back another month. We can all breathe a sigh of relief. A couple of weeks ago I received a large stack of papers in the mail, written entirely in Japanese. Doing these tax returns is already a difficult affair for native Japanese people, and I can’t even read any of it.

On a more personal note, I’ve been thinking recently about growing up and growing old. I still don’t know where one ends and the other begins. I’ve found some meaning in the old cliche: Be true to who you are. The only problem is that they never told me I had to figure out who I was first. And I expected to have that done by now. I haven’t lived up to young me’s expectations. And that’s one thing that’s made growing up so difficult. But what can I do? How do I relieve the pain? How do I forgive myself?

So I thought, maybe I should start doing things that I’ve always wanted to try. I do need new hobbies out here. So I’ve taken up kickboxing. And it’s really resonated with me. In a strange way, I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to be doing, which has made the experience very fulfilling. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do? Find a way to make it happen. Life is all about learning new things.