old people

You thought I quit, didn’t you! Well, gotcha!

I’ve entitled this post after the group that I spend quite a bit of time with here in Japan. There are a few possible reasons for this… Japan has one of the oldest populations on Earth for one, though I don’t think that quite explains my case. However, I do live in Gunma prefecture, universally seen by young people as “boring.” The one thing that keeps young people here at all is family obligation, which thankfully in Japan is strong enough to keep a fair number here. I’m fairly certain the real reason is time; old retired people have lots of time, and young working people do not. Also, many old people shed a lot of that Japanese politeness and distance that inhibited them most of their lives, apparently feeling that they did their time and now it’s ok to yell at people, cut in line, and barge in on conversations with personal questions. Younger Japanese people always complain about how annoying “ojiisans” and “obaasans” (old men, old ladies) are, though I find the whole process of learning, being, and then shedding that special kind of Japanese politeness kind of funny.
Two specific sets of old people have been a part of my life here. One group comes from an adult English class Amber and I taught at a community center nearby for about one year. The average age of the students must have been over 60, with a handful of even older, and a couple of younger students. Honestly, we probably taught at a level slightly higher than many of them, though of course it was a no pressure class with no tests or evaluations and I think they paid no more than a few dollars for each class. Some of them were totally hopeless, but came week after week anyway. There was one particular lady who I’m not sure spoke one word of English throughout the year, but maybe just got some sort of pleasure from watching me and Amber speak in our mysterious tongues at the front of class. I was always happy to have her though, since she gave us fresh vegetables from her garden nearly every week! Sometimes I was at a loss for what to do with a large shopping bag full of spinach, but it was always appreciated.

Here's me and Amber with our class at a final goodbye party. We did karaoke afterwards!

The other oldies I met at yet another community center (a pattern mayhaps?) where I went to take free Japanese classes. It turned out not to be a class in the formal sense, just an old couple who sat down and talked with me in Japanese for about 2 hours. Sometimes they would bring me worksheets or grammar patterns or short readings to go over, though mostly it was just talking. There’s always plenty I don’t quite understand from these conversations, and I try to jot down the words that totally stumped me. When I looked them up later at home, at least half of them were plants/trees/flowers/herbs/roots/etc or parks and other place names. Personally, learning vocabulary related to plants and trees isn’t my highest priority, but they of course naturally tend to talk about the subjects they’re most interested in if I don’t have anything specific to ask them. Since retiring they’ve been traveling all over the world, and sometimes we would compare our travel experiences since I’ve made a round or two through Europe myself. But like nearly every other Japanese person that travels abroad, they went in large tour groups that planned everything for them long before they stepped on the plane. I think as a result they in fact didn’t know anything about the places they visited, since they never had to look anything up themselves. This is in contrast to my style of travel, which mostly involves aimless wandering for long stretches of time, and perhaps attempting to look up some of the crazy things I saw later.
My “class” time at the center is just one on one usually (me and the old lady talking about plants or Paris) with a small handful of other students also studying 1 on 1 or 2 on 1 with different old volunteers. Recently I’ve befriended a Vietnamese girl who has a Japanese husband, and came to Japan about a year ago. extremely crappy, which limits our conversations quite a bit. But regardless Amber and I have gone to her apartment for dinner, and went to a park for some bbq just last week. So at least all my old people contact has lead to meeting some young people too.
I’ll make another post to let you know more specifically what’s going on. Not so much because it’s interesting, but because it’s probably best I don’t forget about how weird it is living and working in little Japan. But I will leave with a kind of picture that every person in Japan has been taking these last 2 weeks... cherry blossom. yay!

This is the time of year to watch Japanese people take out their super expensive cameras with tripods ands fancy lenses, and stand around trying to get the perfect flower picture. Although lots of people also just seem happy to use their cellphone camera.