June 21: Time Flies

We were back full-time at Technos following the trip to Green Village, attending classes and having a short discussion with members of the Technos faculty about ideas for furthering collaborations between Technos and the sister colleges. As usual, I appreciated the chance to hear from the Technos faculty and wished we had more time for this conversation. It was a bit of a challenge as I can imagine individual collaborations that I would be interested in but as a member of a very specific department it was difficult to speak with any confidence about projects that HWS might want to explore - especially knowing that anything would require additional labor for folks already stretched to the limit. 

Anyway, I really enjoyed the classes I attended this day. In the morning, I was placed in a visual arts group where we made pinhole cameras, took a few photos, and tried developing them. Although I didn’t do much more than observe this class (due to being completely blinded in the classroom when it was transformed into a darkroom and wanting the students to have the meaningful experience), I really enjoyed the chance to relive one of my favorite high school classes. My parents took a sabbatical to Delaware when I was a first-year in HS, and that meant I attended a school that was at least 3 times the size of the small public school in which I grew up. They had classes like ceramics and photography, and I took full advantage of both, though as the year progressed I spent more and more of my ceramics time in the darkroom. I loved walking through that rotating door into the red darkness with its smell of chemicals and going through the ritual of processing the film I had taken. While I appreciate the ability to take a billion photos and edit on the camera itself that contemporary digital technology allows, it does sacrifice the theatricality and excitement of older techniques: carefully evaluating the worth of a subject before deciding to expend limited resources on capturing it; transposing the image in life to an imagined image in print before taking a photograph; waiting breathlessly to discover if the image in print lived up to expectations as it emerged slowly during the chemical process; the intense emotional response based upon the end result. 

In the afternoon I attended a class on tourism in the Nagano prefecture. One of the issues that multiple events in Japan that the class dealt with is the current population concerns for the Japanese. Japan is in the midst of a massive population decline due to low birth rates and migration from rural agricultural areas to cities. Given that Technos has programs related to tourism, multiple classes I attended discussed the need to develop strategies for encouraging tourism and the relocation of Japanese youth to rural communities. I received mixed messages as to whether or not Japan was interested in developing strategies to encourage non-Japanese people to immigrate to the country. Anyway, the class this afternoon was devoted to thinking about marketing strategies to recruit tourists and Japanese young people to the Nagano region of Japan, especially Saku city. As a lover of dessert, the highlight of the class for me was getting to try two desserts from Saku - both were delicious. 

I’ve neglected to mention earlier in this blog how much I was surprised by the amazing desserts that I had in Japan. As someone who rather loves their sweeties, as my father would call them, especially all things chocolate, I was expecting to be disappointed by Japanese desserts. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The various bean paste pastries I had brought all of the contentment and soul-warmth of what I am used to but with little of the overwhelming sweetness. Instead, they delighted with multiple flavors and textures. 

This was the last free night we had before leaving, and a number of us decided to take advantage of it to go do some last minute gift shopping. I was admittedly a little nervous about this because I was heading out on my own to try and find some local fabric at a store recommended to me by Matt. I joined a group on the bus from campus to the stop Eric, Marynel and I had taken to check out the mega Don Quixote the night before. (That was…intense…to say the least but worth it for some laughs and a trip for amazing ramen afterwards..) From there, I diverged, navigating at least one subway line that was new to me on the way back from the store. I was grateful for Matt’s patience while I struggled to find the shop he recommended - it was in a mall and I discovered that malls in Tokyo feel very different to me than those in the states. So I required a fair amount of clarification. But I finally found it and it was well worth the meandering! Once back in Fuchu I had hoped to meet up with some folks for sushi but was again struggling to navigate my way around - once night hit everything became a struggle for me. While wandering around trying to find them I stumbled upon a restaurant serving pancakes and decided that lemon pancakes and a glass of wine in the quiet were just what I needed. I wasn’t disappointed.

Oh, and while I’m talking about food - this morning Marynel and I decided to try natto together. I didn’t love it but I didn’t find it as repulsive as some folks had led me to believe. The texture is a bit slimy, but less so than the very good okra / edamame salad that was a favorite (along with the eggplant and mushrooms) on the breakfast buffet. The soybeans are incredibly bitter, which wasn’t so bad initially but left a rather unpleasant aftertaste. Speaking of unpleasant aftertastes - I lost a game of hot potato (I can’t recall what the Japanese called this) during closing party adventures and the punishment was drinking an incredibly bitter tea. The folks who lost ahead of me had me very concerned about its taste. Honestly, I didn’t mind the taste going down - I find tea generally too bitter for my tastes and this wasn’t worse to me. BUT the aftereffects, holy moly, that bitterness lingered on the lips forever! Any time I had to lick my lips…shudder.