One year in eight pages

Ferris University Batch 2004-2005

YEAR-END REPORT

This is document is purely for selfish reasons. No matter how much I try to disguise the fact that this year-end report is required, it is written for me. I went through so many things, and I never want to forget a thing. Forgive me in advance if it includes a lot of embarrassing moments, or if it gets a tad too long. It’s just me in all my danghag glory in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Here goes.

SEPTEMBER
The first month introduced me to the delights of Japanese pastries and cakes, and the horrors of vegetables. It was the first time I realized that tofu can come in different shapes and sizes (sometimes even wrapped around rice, shudder!) and that green tea is also an ice cream flavor. But I had no choice; when in Japan, do what Japanese do or else they might get insulted. So I secretly passed my veggies to Claudine, my Ferris batchmate, under the table. They never noticed a thing.

Only a few days after we arrived, we were immediately whisked off to ride the shinkansen to Okayama (bitter, bitter green tea and pottery) and to Hiroshima for our educational field trip. The highlight of the month was something I can’t even begin to describe. Claudine and I went to Disney Sea and Tokyo on our own (I’m proud to say Claudine and I never got lost in Japan). It’s just that when you step out of those Mickey Mouse trains and walk pass the gates, and you hear the Disney soundtrack blaring, the kids, the rides, the Disney-ness of the place; you can’t help but smile those big grins that almost tear your face into two. It was magic jud to the max.

There was also this time we met a Japanese lady who works for a, surprise surprise, Filipino NGO. She invited us to a MISHOP Festival in Tokyo because they wanted people who could perform the tinikling dance. Our batch was indeed lucky. We went to ICU, stayed there for the night, caught up with Claudio and Kenneth on how they have been surviving, and the next day hauled them off to the park where Claudio became the center of attention. Butterfly face paint, hula hoops and Spam curry—that’s MISHOP.

OCTOBER
October was a shopping month, the first of many (hehe) for me. Tokyo has this famed electronic district called Akihabara where you can find anything from cameras to vacuum cleaners to massage chairs at duty-free prices. Fresh from receiving my allowance, I bought a camera there. I also discovered some shopping areas in downtown Yokohama, including bakeries (Vie de France’s apple and cheese bread!), cheap Italian restaurants and the ever-welcome McDonalds. I even went to the Bunkamura gallery for a rare showing of the Guggenheim collection (I was face to face with Van Gogh and Monet paintings!).

By the way, classes started now. I walk 20 minutes up and down small hills to the train station, ride for five minutes and change trains to get the one headed for Ferris University. Then I walk uphill to the school. Equals an hour or so; sometimes it depends on how fast you can run-walk.

Ferris is so amazing. Enrollment took me all of ten minutes. The cafeteria food is paid through vending machines. Movies are available at the library. Surf all you can with computers all over the campus. For classes, I realized I could fall asleep in class with no reprimand whatsoever (except Japanese though; Itou sensei was perfectly strict but she’s at Sophia University now). I stared in dismay at the computer screen during my documentary and computer production (or something like that) classes as I realized that the operating system is in Japanese! But then, my adviser there, Takada sensei (leather pants guy) was teaching it, and he’s really nice.

NOVEMBER
It was getting cold in November. I think my favorite season is autumn, when the leaves turn red, and I start taking out the jackets I barely wear in the Philippines. We talked to the people in the community about the Philippines during the Ferris Festival, and they gave us 5,000 yen! I love Japan.

Places I went to include: my first Japanese pub, Tokyo Dome where we watched America’s Major League Baseball and Japan All-stars play a pretty boring baseball game (7,000 yen tickets), LaQua with its centerless Ferris Wheel and Thunder Dolphin (the roller coaster with an incredibly high drop and which passes through a building and the middle of the Ferris Wheel), my first club, Ginza (Gucci! Sony! Louis Vuitton!), Harajuku (Goth girls and my favorite shopping area), Shibuya (my favorite Tokyo stop, so diverse), Shinjuku (shopping, my second favorite Tokyo stop), and Yurakucho to see the Tokyo International forum (I love Japanese architecture!) and Kamakura with the Giant Buddha and samurai swords.

By the way, middle of the night on November 16, I started vomiting bile. I vomited for like eleven times so I went to the hospital where I got x-rayed and checked. It was acute gastritis, perhaps (and I stress the perhaps) caused by overeating. I swear I only ate a McDonalds burger that night. I swear.

Six days later, I was climbing a mountain. Mt. Oyama, I will never forget you. Because of you, I found out that I can feel my heartthrob through my cheeks. Thank you for turning my face so red and making sure the group always stopped to see if I was still walking behind them. But hah! I conquered you! All 2,000 feet of you!

DECEMBER
I started my 19th birthday with a phone call from Kenneth and cake from Claudine. I went to church (the first of a total of four times) in Yotsuya, where there were many Filipinos selling Pangako Sa Iyo videotapes, cuchinta and adobo (500 yen each). Afterwards, Kenneth and I went to a Christmas party for Filipino students in Japan.

One December morning, at around 5am, I woke up thinking there was an earthquake (waking up to earthquakes occurs often), when I realized it was phone vibrating on the shelf. Kenneth was calling, and I mumbled a hello. Then, as if he was jumping up and down, he shouted, “Gasnow yut! Gasnow!”

I ran to the window, jumped up and down, raced to Claudine’s room on the first floor and we both went out and jumped some more. Later, I found out that Kenneth and other Filipinos went out videotaping and jumping on their first snow as well.

Places I went to: Tokyo Disneyland (amazing Christmas parade, electric light parade and fireworks display—I prefer Disneyland because this was the real thing, so many people, only got in few of the rides but worth it to be in Disney during Christmastime), and Chinatown (one of the biggest in the world), and Shibuya where we discovered Shakey’s eat all you can (pizza, mojos, salad, pasta and curry. Guh.).

We spent Christmas eve in ICU, and stayed at Claudio’s dorm’s infirmary room. Claudio cooked noche buena (my first ever) and we sang karaoke and went to church the next day. It was my first Christmas away from home. At the stroke of 1am (12midnight Philippine time), all of us called our parents (soundtrack: “Dance with my father again”).

Claudio, Claudine, Kenneth and I spent the last day of 2004 in Yokohama’s Minato-mirai. It was snowing again (the second time only), and our socks were wet and we had no place to go. We saw this poster for Hikawa Maru, a museum/ship docked on the Yokohama Pier, advertising its New Year’s dance party.

It turned out that the ship was divided into different rooms with different musical performances. We stayed up on the deck, with full winter gear on, waiting for the decisive countdown that would turn the blinking “2004” sign into “2005”, and make the sky explode with fireworks. We counted down with the rest. You can only imagine our faces when we shouted “3. 2. 1!” and looking around as we jumped up and down wondering where the fireworks were. There were none!

JANUARY
Our first meal of the year was McDonalds because it was the only restaurant open before the trains started running at 5am.

January was depressing for me because it was cold, and I was incredibly bored. I don’t remember much about this month except that nighttime started at 4pm, and I’d run to the bathroom to take a bath just to immediately let the hot water run full blast.

During this time, we watched Claudio perform in a talent contest for international students, and explored different stops in Tokyo’s Yamanote Line.

FEBRUARY
February was still cold but more manageable. By this time, my face was like a siopao with hair, honest. There was something about wearing those layers of clothes for warmth that makes you unconscious of how much weight you’ve been gaining.

Only in Japan could I go from a place that is incredibly cold to incredibly humid in a matter of days. We went to Nagano for a 2-day ski trip with Filipinos, and the experience could perhaps only be rivaled by our August Mt. Fuji trip. Nothing else. Skiing was absolutely surreal. I never felt so at home or had so much fun with Filipinos (I couldn’t imagine spending that first time with anyone else). On our first day, after many falls, I made friends with skiers Kuya Aris and company who taught us how to ski. Claudine and I could do the alternative route higher up in the mountains, including the panorama route with matching cliffs, on the second day. Our bodies were sore afterwards, but it was definitely worth it.

On our last night, Claudine and I were the last to enter the dining hall because we skied until we couldn’t last the hunger. The feeling of flying, of invincibility, of cold, stinging air numbing your cheeks and nose as you go extremely fast at night with no other skiers around you is something I will treasure for the rest of my life.

A few days later, when the sore bodies healed, we went to Okinawa on another field trip. When we landed and felt the tropical air, Claudine and I exclaimed in unison how so like the Philippines the weather is. We missed that weather so much. Winters might look great on television, but to live in one is bordering on nightmare.

We found out that Okinawans were formerly of another kingdom, and it reminded me of Mindanao not wanting to be part of the Philippines anymore. They perceive mainland Japan (basically Tokyo) to not care about them because the mainland lets US bases operate on a substantial portion of their island. They have their own dances, language, food, culture, etc., and they are the poorest prefecture in all of Japan. Kinda makes me think.

MARCH
All spring break long, we worked with the Ferris Robot Team, the university’s delegate to the Nagoya Robot Expo. Claudine and I sewed the robot squirrels costumes and painted the set. It was boring, hassling, and frustrating, but had it not been for Uchida sensei, we never would have gone to Nagoya entirely for free.

With the Waseda volunteer center, Kenneth and I picked up trash in the streets of Takadanobaba, and all four of us went to Mt. Takao to cut some trees to let others grow fully. Verna and Grace arrived during this time so there was a total of six Sillimanians in Japan.

As previously planned, Kenneth, Claudio, Claudine and I, with two friends, went to Kyoto and Osaka for the spring vacation. This was during the rush season, when cherry blossoms are supposed to bloom.

I could only stand one day in Kyoto with all its temples and history. The next day, Claudio and Jimmy and I escaped to Osaka to see the Kaiyukan, the biggest aquarium in the world with a whale shark inside. We went back to Kyoto because we were staying in a youth hostel, then went back to Osaka the next day with the rest for the Universal Studios Japan.

The concept of youth hostels is like that of hotels only it’s cheaper, and more often catering to young people. We met backpackers, students on field trips, tourists and more, and we were all brought together because of the hostel.

APRIL
It was springtime and the trend was to go to the cherry blossom parks to ooh and aah at the pink trees. The Sillimanians went to Ueno Park, famous not for its beautiful trees but for the throng of people there, and discovered P50-peso Ferrero Rocher boxes. We sang karaoke all night (it was kinda painful, believe me) and walked back to ICU in the cold, early spring morning.

I also applied and got accepted to the 2005 Harvard Program for Asia and International Relations Conference which will be held on August. The registration fee was P15,000, not including the hostel, breakfast/dinner and pocket money, another P15,000. So I had to get a job. With my savings from the time I won P15,000 during an essay writing contest, I baby sat my teacher’s daughter for a month for P10,000. The kid was a horror to begin with, but at least I got to eat free snacks=)

And oh yeah, the new semester started. I almost forgot.

MAY
Ryokuentoshi, where Ferris is located, has a community association. It is filled with really nice members of the community who want to interact with foreigners. That May, all four Ferris girls went to Hakone for some hot spring action. We went to Yunessun which had flavored hot springs—imagine swimming in tea, coffee, wine—and one high water slide.

For my art fill this semester, I went to the Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba, a sort of waterfront area in Tokyo with great architecture, for the Design Festa. I just saw the posters all over town, and bought a ticket via a vending machine in a convenience store.

The Design Festa brought out a different brand of creativity than that of the Filipinos. It was less flamboyant but more complicated (with a kind of psychedelic twist); with rock and trance concerts, and performance art with a rabbit mascot and nude dancers. Perfect. It was Japanese contemporary art.

JUNE
In Ferris, I got the impression that they gawk at anyone different. I met Eri san, a blind Music major and probably the only blind person in the university. She was part of the Violence Against Women workshops they were holding in preparation for the arrival of Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan.

Since the students who could speak English were few and far between, they asked me to give a lecture in Japanese and English summarizing the 2003 Amnesty International Report. One important thing I noticed was that most Japanese grow up not knowing the World War II atrocities Japan took part in. They were probably in denial at the state of VAW in their country, and were amazed that VAW also happened in America and Europe. Claudine and I got to personally assist Dr. Khan when she went to Ferris.

During this time, I also won a free Tokyo tour after e-mailing Japan Times why I should be the one to be featured in a Sony promotional article. We went to the Imperial Garden, Tokyo Tower, Asakusa, etc., I got to try out their latest digital video camera, and I got my face plastered on the no.1 English paper in Japan.

The laag still did not end especially when Claudine and I went to Disneyland again. The first time we went, the lines for the rides were two hours long, and we wanted to be able to ride everything in Disneyland. I almost died in Splash Mountain, but at least we got to ride Space Mountain three times.

JULY
Claudine and I had been planning to go to the World Expo for quite some time. We were stupid enough to wait until the last minute to make reservations on-line for the different exhibits. There were thousands of people in that huge tract of land. The World Expo, after all, happens only every five years. We were really lucky.

Each country got to exhibit something of their own in their pavilions, and we bought “passports” so that by the exit of each pavilion, we had a stamp on our passports. My favorite was the USA’s because it had a great theme, like emphasizing Benjamin Franklin’s discovery of electricity, and playing it up into a 4-D show.

I also had to wait for three hours to fall in line for another thirty minutes just to see the i-unit (leaf-like personal vehicles just recently featured in the Philippine Daily Inquirer) show at the Toyota Pavilion.

By that time, Claudine and I separated because we had different interests concerning which pavilions to go to. This was extremely fine with me because I am not the type who feels more secure when going in a group to a new place. I was happy exploring on my own, and I’m extremely glad that Claudine is too. By the end of our two-day stay in Nagoya, we both agreed that Japan is a wonderful place (especially after seeing a train magnetically levitate at the Japan Railways pavilion).

AUGUST
Since we had a one-year visa, both Claudine and I just decided to stay the entire month. Most scholars go home early August to bring home the 80,000 yen stipend, but we wanted to make the most of it. Since it was vacation, we were both busy cramming all the places we wanted to go to in just one month.

I gave a lecture to the Ryokuentoshi people entitled 10 Things You Should Know About Filipinos. Throughout the course of my research for my lecture, I wound up learning more about the Philippines than I ever did at home. How come life is weird that way?

Our first adventure began after we received our invitation letters to attend the Japan Tent at the Ishikawa region. It’s a 7-day homestay program in different parts of Ishikawa, all-expenses paid, where you can meet literally hundreds of other foreign exchange students from all over Japan.

My homestay families were really nice. It was a great program too because you would really be able to meet a lot of people, get to visit a lot of places (like one of the most beautiful gardens in Japan and MLB’s Hideki Matsui’s baseball museum), try their traditional arts (like kyuudo or Japanese archery and pottery and making ramen noodles), etc.

Our next adventure was climbing Mt. Fuji. Since the official climbing season just began, Verna, Grace, Claudine and I attempted to climb the stupid mountain on our own. I almost died (figuratively speaking); we didn’t reach the top; it was certainly an experience. I can’t expound because I don’t want to remember the frustration I felt, but for those who heard my Fuji stories, they know I will never forget it. Memories of my Salon-pas plastered body after arriving home after 17 straight hours of walking and hiking in the dark, gravel, rocks, will always haunt me.

The last one is the Harvard Program for Asia and International Relations conference held at the luxurious Ropponggi Hills. It was my first time attending an international conference (a Harvard one no less!), and meeting students (most were older and more accomplished than I was). My workshop was immigration, and even in my application essay, I was questioning why elite minorities could also discriminate against the host country, like the Chinese do with the Philippines and India. When the speaker was discussing this and mentioned that those holding the money/economy end up having the power to discriminate, like the Jews did before; I knew I was in the right workshop. We also talked about overseas workers, and how the pay in other countries really is higher, and that most (who are usually the middle class because the really poor cannot afford the fees for working abroad) have no choice but to work abroad. It was an interesting experience, and it was worth my registration fee. And I totally loved Ropponggi.

So I end by thinking out loud.

The whole year went by so fast. I wasted a lot of time and money, but it was all part of the experience. We were doing everything alone in another country with a totally different culture from the Philippines. It was fun, and I had no regrets whatsoever.

These are just a few things that I noticed about the Japanese people as a whole, and I will mention both the good and the bad.

They are extremely organized, nationalistic and materialistic. They love cute things, novelties. Their pop culture revolves so fast that it can make your head spin. Their youth does not question much because they have been trained not to; they just memorize. They don’t wonder why their cameras cost more at home than it does in New York. Their politics is so mixed with business and a whole lot of other connections. Their homeless people are so few because they are ostracized by the government. Most middle-class mothers don’t get jobs, and just stay at home. A lot of people are unhappy. A lot get drunk by the 9pm train.

They are fascinated with foreigners, but there will always be discrimination. Honestly, there were times when I felt a bit ashamed at the fact that I am a Filipino because we are viewed either as maids or entertainers or troublemakers. The police in Shinjuku’s red light district even learned how to speak Tagalog so that Filipinos caught without their Alien Registration Cards won’t be able to use the “I can’t understand Nihongo” excuse anymore.

However, Japanese are also the most accommodating people I have met. They are smart when it comes to the sciences. They really think ahead. I don’t know about corruption, but everything that should be done for the people, including education for all kids (no street children at all), nationwide health insurance, and safety plans in cases of earthquakes (of which there were a lot) were there.

What I liked most about them was that they knew how to preserve their culture. People still wore kimonos and yukatas; their historical sites were still there; tourist attractions could be found everywhere because each place had something to offer that couldn’t be found in another area.

The Japanese are noticeably more restrained than Filipinos, who are boisterous and jolly to no end, especially when you group them together. There were times when I almost freaked out because Japanese were so serious and silent on the trains, but then I also realize that their restraint is part of their charm. If you watch “Memoirs of a Geisha”, you will see what I mean.

When I first heard about the scholarship when I was in first year, I was mostly interested in the money I could get from it. I didn’t like Japan, have never been interested in it, or in anime for that matter, but I wanted to go for the experience, the money, and the chance to put it in my resumé. I never expected to fall in love with the country, and I am not just saying this. My dream was Europe and not Japan, but there is something about the latter, perhaps the Oriental allure of it all, that I find exquisite, unique, forgivably frantic and sad.

I love its art, architecture, shopping, culture. I love the kindness Japan has given to me by treating me cordially as its exchange student. I love the noisiness of Tokyo and its modernity.

We spent our last day and night in Japan packing up all the junk we accumulated, and rode our last morning train to Narita International Airport just as the sun rose above some buildings in Tokyo. I still have the video to prove it. Claudine was saying she didn’t want to go home, and I was eating melon pan talking about how much I missed Filipino food. From that video, I get the feeling we didn’t want to go home because it marked the end of our carefree existence, and signaled the start of reality.

I love my memories of Japan because for a year, I had no problems, worries, concerns and responsibilities, and I never thought that was possible. My year there is the best of my life.