So I went to Japan....

Well I have now been in Japan for a week. There is so much to say about this country, the project, the work I am doing and the crazy Japanese language. Everyone has been bugging me for an update and I have been thinking about the best way to capture all the insanity around me. I don't even know where to start so I will do this via pictures.

So here we go!

The Work:

I am working for an organization called IsraAid. The project is working with people who have been victims in various forms from the Tsunami/earthquake last year. Some went through the actual tsunami, so

me lost their homes and communities, some lost relatives. Others did not go through the tsunami but are living and working in areas that have high radiation levels and are d

ealing with different stresses and complications as a result of that. We work with children, with adults, with elderly. Some of the people we work with are living in temporary housing areas, some are professionals (social workers, nurses counselors) who are learning techniques on how to deal with their stresses and how to deal with the stresses of those they treat and work with. We are currently working in 8 cities in Northern Japan. They include; Watari, Iwanuma, Ishinomaki, Koriyama, Shinchi and others (yes, now is the time to open up Google Maps). The work is very enjoyable and fufilling but also incredibly intense and difficult. In the last 4 days I have: danced a waltz with a harmonica-playing 80+ year old toothless Japanese man who is living in the second floor of his home (the ground and first floor were destroyed during the

tsunami/earthquake. It is a miracle that the structure is still standing), I have seen grown men and women cry and talk about intensely personal fears and issues- many of them said that they had never spoken aloud of these things before in their lives, I have played with Japanese children (who are ridiculously adorable), I have played drama games and done art projects and danced around many a room. I was also felt up by 2 Japanese grandmothers, but more on that later. You truly feel that there is something big happening here. The Japanese are a very closed people and do not talk about emotions or feelings and they are opening up to us, outsid

ers, which is unheard of in this society. Everyone new (Japanese) who comes and sees the workshops gets very excited and wants to bring it to his/her community.

The therapists come in pairs for periods of 3 weeks. There are 4 here currently (2 ar

e just leaving and 2 have just arrived). I really like the ladies who are here now and they are doing great things professionally. I hope that the future ones are just as nice and successful.

I work closely with Yotam and Celia (they can be seen in the pictures above, in the IsraAid t-shirts); Yotam is the Israeli coordinator of the project and he is extremely dedicated and easy to get along with. It is unbelievable to me that he has carried this project on his own for the past 10 months. Celia is a character. She is Indonesian-born and has been in Japan since she was a teenager, she is married to a Jewish American and converted to Judaism. She serves as our Japan coordinator and our translator. She is quite simply a fireball. She missed her calling as a Baad 1 (IDF officer training school) officer. She can be prickly if you don't get on her good side. She is also very motherly towards Yotam (and now me). She picks up the group's morning coffee on the way to the train and then on the train hands Yotam and I sandwiches w

hich she has bought for us in addition to our coffee.

In addition to the sessions and workshops, we have lots of different meetings both in Sendai and Tokyo. I am currently on the train (cruising along at 200+ Km per hour) to Tokyo fo

r 3 days of meetings. We meet with potential donors, partner organziations that we work with and want to work with, various governmental and media people and more. The project is on the cusp of expansion into many different fields (leadership training, archival memory and more) so this has been a very interesting and exciting time to join the work.

Japan- Living, Eating, Accommodations

I am spending most of my time in Sendai in the Miyagi province (yes yes, like Mr. Miyagi) in the Tohoku district (yup, bust out Google maps again). Sendai is a city of 1.2 million people that was partially affected by the Tsunami (it is close to the coast). The area we are staying in (the heart of downtown) was not affected and it is bustling with people and very modern and urban. In Sendai we stay in a hotel called the Smile Hotel which is nice and clean and simple. The rooms are small (think of what a single person room on a cruise ship would look like) but perfectly satisfactory and I am in the room only to work at night and sleep so its fine. The area around our hotel is bustling and full of bars and restaurants and Starbucks and 7/11's. We go out to eat at night after we return from our workshops and the food here is really good. There is plenty of Japanese food (so much more than Sushi) which includes different kinds of fish, tofu, seaweed and obv lots of rice. Some I like, some will take time to grow on me. There is also many different kinds of international restaurants including the Italian one right under our hotel. Its funny to go into an Italian restaurant that is staffed fully by Japanese people with English music playing. Sounds like a joke....

We are in Tokyo for a few days every few weeks (like right now). In Tokyo we go to lots of meetings and do work. We meet with current and potential donors, partner organizations, and different media people. In Tokyo, we stay at the Tokyo Hilton which is pretty incredible! Th Hilton is a big supporter of our project and Tonight in Tokyo I ate at a Nepalese restaurant with Yotam who speaks Nepalese and Japanese. It was almost too much.

Tokyo is quite possibly the most insane place ever. It is absolutely enormous and insane. I have come to the conclusion that "Lost in Translation" is possibly the best named movie ever. On the one hand you feel very at home because it is modern and urban and very much like the US/Israel/Europe in that sense but on the other hand it is incredibly foreign. The language, the signs, the people are totally different than anything I have ever encountered. The city is incredibly clean, the trains are on-time to the second (yes yes, it is possible that I may return from this experience an on-time person) and the people hustle and bustle about their business without looking around at anyone else.

Japan has all kinds of funny things- the toilet seats are heated (awesome) and they play music (bizarre). The subway seats are also heated (which is awesome when its FREEZING). there are entire bookstores full of comic books and people of all ages read. You take off your shoes whenever you go insided a house or a community center or school and pad around in provided slippers (if you know how much I like to walk around barefoot/in socks, you know I love this). People can smoke everywhere but not on the street, also- they drive on the South African side of the road.

Language

Japanese! AAHHH!!!! This was the first thing I thought when I first heard about this trip. How the hell will I learn Japanese?? Well lets start with the writing- not a chance that I will learn this. there are 3 different sets of characters and it all looks like, well... Japanese! The speaking, however is a different story. After a week here I have begun to get some words and it now sounds like a language to me. I can decipher words and sounds when I hear it spoken or over loudspeakers as opposed to a week ago when it sounded to me like (and I quote my beloved but highly politically incorrect departed grandfather here) "ching chong cha".

Very few people speak English particulary up in Tohoku where we work. The workshops are also a great motivator for learning Japanese because I really want to communicate informally with the people we work with, particularly the elderly and the children. Hopefully I will learn quickly and be able to communicate soon. Me!? Speaking Japanese?! Who would have thought...

To Sum Up...

Well thats a pretty damn long rambling of my first thoughts and impressions of this place. I will try and post fairly frequently although no promises... I am working very hard and around the clock (literally) (Over 5.5-6 hours of sleep a night is overrated!). Don't worry Ima- I am taking care of myself and am healthy. I am really enjoying the work and the greater goal and where this project could develop. No word yet on ehwat will happen after May but it is looking pretty good that I will stay on in a role of somesort, here or in Israel but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Stay Tuned...