The Arrival

I arrived without any problems. The happiest surprise for me was to see the nonexistence of a line to get through immigration. This was the first time that I did not have to stand in this line for at least 30 minutes in Japan. I remember that my first experience here I had to wait for nearly an hour. The entire process from leaving the airplane to entering the public area of the airport took about 20 minutes total. That’s faster than most of my experiences at Incheon International Airport in Korea, which is always relied on for the fastest entry process.

The obligatory politeness was my first reacquaintance with Japanese culture. The immigration and customs officer were very friendly and cheerful for jobs that require intimidation. I got eye contact and broad smiles from both men, making me feel quite welcome to Japan.

I expected the most stressful part of getting to my destination was making my rail connections and contacting my employers about my estimated time of arrival at their train station, Urasa. Making these connections proved nearly effortless. The biggest disadvantage I had was carrying 3 pieces of luggage, but fortunately for me none of them were too heavy. Contacting my employers wasn’t too difficult either, although I didn’t have the time to call them as soon as I got my tickets. I only had 5 minutes to catch the Narita Express into Tokyo. Fortunately, I had an hour stopover at the hectic Tokyo Station.

When I arrived at Tokyo Station, my first goal was to get change for the telephone call. I needed 100 yen, but I only had a 10 yen coin. The phones don’t take bills. So I bought myself a bottle of water and got plenty of change. I soon found out that I really needed that water because Tokyo Station was hot and stuffy. The station information map did not include telephones on its key, so I had to search around this massive station without bumping into anyone with my 3 pieces of luggage. I searched around the central area and found nothing, not even signs directing me to telephones.

I gave up on looking around the station, so I could narrow my search to the platform. I passed through the ticket gates and sat in the waiting room for a few minutes to rest. Within that time, I started sweating as no air was passing through this heat trap, so I left. I expected telephones to be in or around the waiting room as it seemed logical to me, but to no avail. So I went up to the platform where I knew air would be flowing freely. It did prove somewhat breezy up there, so I was a bit refreshed. I slowly made my way past several kiosks until I found hidden behind one of them a row of telephones, so I made the call and completed the task.

After the call, I calmly waited in the breeze with my cool bottle of water and 3 pieces of luggage at the standing area for the entrance to the shinkansen, the bullet train. Here I had time to become reacquainted with Tokyo train travelers, most of whom were salarymen and women. The men were especially uniform in their dress, white shirts and black suits, with their black briefcases. There were several young hipsters that made the platform a bit more colorful. However nothing seemed to different from the last time I was here over 6 years ago, except for the fact that most of the younger generation seemed bigger in stature, getting closer to the average Korean stature that I remember.

When I got on the train, I encountered my first cultural pet peeve. It’s a slight one and I am sure it is mutual. I had a reserved seat next to a woman who probably didn’t want to sit next to me. She made this known with a subtle unhappy face but a noticeable sigh. For the first few minutes, she sighed a lot. I remember certain Japanese people who did not want to have to sit or stand near me would often sigh to signal their discomfort or anxiety. I was overly sensitive to this signal when I lived in Japan, and tried to find my way out of the situation as quickly as possible. About 15 minutes into the ride, the conductor provided me this opportunity as he indicated that I was in the wrong seat. I was in the next train car in front. I was so tired that I looked at my Narita Express ticket for the seat number.

Nearly there, I calculated that the trip from door-to-door was 28 hours. Over six of these hours were spent at the stopover in Minneapolis. I was fortunate enough to get about 90 minutes worth of sleep on the flight. One of my fellow passengers sitting nearby was more fortunate; he got at least 9 hours of sleep! Now here I was nearing my stop and feeling that if I shut my eyes for more than 2 seconds I would pass out and miss my stop.

I stayed awake and made my stop. I was greeted by slightly cooler but slightly more humid air with the fresh scent of mountain pine. I couldn’t be more relaxed and I felt compelled to fall asleep. When I cleared the ticket gates, I met the supervisor for the English program who greeted me and escorted me to my dorm. Also with us was the president of the university who happened to be on the same train and me. I tried to be genki and maintain a conversation on the short trip to the university.

Before going to sleep, we had to make a stop at the office so I could pick up my orientation packet. The director also wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t get lost so he showed me where all the important places were. And then we made it to the most important place that mattered to me most at the time, my bedroom. I said goodbye, unpacked enough to get into a change of clothes, and fell asleep for 7 uninterrupted hours.

As I was falling asleep, I became reacquainted with the thoughts that race through my sleep-deprived jet-lagged mind of the first night abroad. I was asking myself if it was worth all this effort to come this way followed by fears of failure. When I first came to Japan without any real teaching experience, I remember thinking many times during the first weeks that I have at least 2 months in Japan. If they find out I am a crappy teacher, I will be shipped home. This anxiety was unrealistic in two ways. First, I wasn’t as crappy as I feared so I was never threatened with termination. Second, I’ve observed new teachers who were definitely not cut out for the job stay for at least one year. Usually the reasonable teachers who find out that they cannot adjust to their new work or lifestyle willingly leave within a month or two, sometimes against the wishes of their supervisors who have a greater hope or confidence in them. I have witnessed one unreasonable teacher who consistently exhibited poor behavior in or outside the classroom (usually in the form of crying) stay at our school for 2 months before she was transferred to another school. The rumor had it that that school specialized in teachers with issues. Those familiar with the rumor sympathized with the students who had to learn from them and with the colleagues who had to tolerate their behavior.