My brother asked me to write up a little post for his blog. Here it is.

This was my fourth visit to Japan. My first visit, when I was 1 year old, doesn’t count. My second visit, six years ago, was a short two-week scouting trip to prepare me for my year in Japan to come. Then, three years later, I spent a full year in Japan, training with the Tokai University women judo team and learning Japanese.

This fourth visit was a jam-packed two-week trip to visit my brother, relatives and friends. Six years ago, we only had family and my father’s friends to visit. However, now, on top of my father’s old friends, I also had many friends to see (thanks to my year in Japan) and my brother had friends of his own he wanted us to meet. That made for a long list of people to visit! But overall, although we didn’t get to see everyone we would have liked to, I’d say we did a formidable job.


My brother is doing a great job over there. We were able to see him practice with the men’s club, despite the two injuries he suffered since his arrival. Sure, the men’s team is extremely strong and they can throw my brother around easily. But my brother’s judo has definitely improved, and from the matches I was able to see (it’s hard to see when there are 150 men on the mats!), he’s able to hold his own. I know it isn’t easy for him. Dynamics in the men’s judo club are different from the women’s team, and I get the feeling that the we-have-to-prove-we’re-better-than-you attitude is much stronger among the members of the men’s team. So I give him lots of credit for making it this far. Keep it up Mamoru, you can do it!

I’m also pleased to see how much my brother’s Japanese has improved. He studies hard and does a great job of really immersing himself, talking in Japanese almost all the time, even with other international students who can speak English. Seeing how much he’s improved motivates me to keep learning the language because, come on, I can’t let my brother become a better speaker than me, right? :P

Since my last trip three years ago, Japan hasn’t changed much. The streets and trains are still extremely packed. Whenever I think there’s no more room for anyone else to board the train, five or more people step in and shove the rest towards the other side. The weather remains hot and humid. Japan is still the best place to lose something. If ever you do lose something, even a wallet or a cellphone, the chances are shockingly great that either the lost item will still be in its place or it will have been taken to the lost and found by a citizen. I was amazed when my father and I ate at his former university’s cafeteria. There, you get to order and eat your food before paying. We’re not talking about a restaurant here, but a university cafeteria!

The best part of the trip was reconnecting with family and friends. I skype with my grandmother a couple times every week, but it’s not the same as seeing her in person and being able to give her a hug before going to bed. I met a few of the judo girls I trained with. They’ve all graduated now and are working. This time, it felt like we got along so much better, conversations were much more animated, and they were really interested in what I was up to in Canada. In contrast, when I was there for a full year, the girls were much more guarded and kept to themselves most of the time. My father tells me that Japanese like to have a common history. Once you do have a common history, Japanese are much more open and welcoming. I definitely experienced that on our trip.





Sayuri France

About a week ago, I finished my first Japanese Manga.

Now I've read mangas before, but they were in English. Around the age of 14, I fell in love with a manga serie called Prince of Tennis. I used to play a lot of tennis back then, and so it made sense that I read about it. I read all the Prince of Tennis books they had at my local library and when that wasn't enough, I had them order the rest for me. I also then found out they had an anime series. So I started watching that. At first, I was watching it all in English, but those became hard to find, so I took up the Japanese versions, with English subtitles. I watched hundreds of episodes.

Since I've been in Japan, I didn't really think about it until my friend mentioned it to me. I then went out to look for it, and I found the first volume of Prince of Tennis (テニスの王子様  in Japanese). Now, even though there are "furigana", the spelling of the kanji characters, next to every kanji, the vocabulary and also the slang word they use in mangas made it very difficult to decipher. I had to use the dictionary the whole way through. But I finally did it. I can now say that I have read a Japanese manga in Japanese.

So since mid-April, it has been getting very warm here in Japan, reaching up to 30 degrees celcius, which has made quite a change in my wardrobe, but also in class.

But despite this hot weather, I have caught a cold since the beginning of class and up to today, my throat still hurts. I've been to the doctor, twice now, and I've been taking loads of medicine but it doesn't seem to get much better.

I also went to go see a dermatologist because I've been getting dark spots on my face. He also gave me medicine, and a few recommendations.

I'm not going to say I am thankful for this, but I'm kind of glad I had the chance to do this. You see, going to the hospital is something we take for granted back at home. But this time, I had to go to a Japanese hospital, alone, and figure everything on my own. I had to fill out papers with characters that I didn't know yet. I had to listen carefully to what the doctor was telling me to make sure I answered correctly.

If I could have avoided the whole thing, I would have, but on the positive side, it gave me an experience while testing, once again, my Japanese.

About two weeks ago, there was an announcement at the end of practice: an offer of a part-time job for the following week's Friday's fourth period. It caught my interest so the next day, I asked the announcer about it. I told him that it might be odd, but I would like to try this job. He said he would enquire if it was possible.

About two days later, he informed me that it would be possible for me to go, but there would be no payment, just food. I told him I would think of it, although I was pretty certain that I would go. After verifying I had nothing that night, I told him I'd join, and on Friday April 17^th, I walked to the front of the university's gymnasium to catch the bus picking us up.

I wasn't the only one going of course, 20 other judo members had also been selected. There were others that had already walked over there. I stopped at the new convenience store near Comsquare (where International Friday Night was held), bought some cough lozenges and masks, and then got ready to ride the bus.

I got a seat near the front, and no one else sat next to me. I guess that has its ups and downs. We were given "bentos" which is the Japanese word for packed lunch, and ate while we received an explanation about our job that day. After confirming with my friend Kato, I found out that our duty that day was to bring a "o-mikoshi", a portable shrine all the way up a mountain, pulling it using ropes, that it would take 3 hours in total, and that some part of the mountain were up to 45˚, which made it fairly steep.


We arrived at the city of Oiso, and were immediately directed to a lounge room to wait until the beginning of the festival, which was about one and a half hour later. We were given cookies, and our outfit for the evening. Everyone then pulled their phones out to relax and chat. I just laid down on my back pack, and grabbed about 20 minutes of sleep. After that, we started getting ready. This was the first time I would wear something like this. I had never really thought much about the outfit before, but it is true that the festival's workers all wear the same thing. I was glad to be able to take part in this. Not many foreigners get to do this, especially be treated like a Japanese and not a foreigner.








Just the first climb up the mountain was ridiculously steep and dangerous. Soon, we got the signal to start and we pulled a little bit on the rope. Now I thought it was going to be much harder, but with the staff there, and everyone, we had quite a lot of breaks. The whole way up, we would pull for about 10 seconds, then wait for 5 minutes. They needed to anchor the ropes all over the place to ensure the safety of the shrine and so that the rope wouldn't get too tangled up. They would called out: "Hippatte!" which I found out means to pull haha, and we would then all pull until we were told to stop. We did this the whole way up.

Now soon, it got really dark, and we couldn't see too much, which made it even more dangerous. You would often hear someone say: "Abunai!" which means dangerous, when they slipped or fell. Some of the old town folks were walking around with head lamps.

The whole thing felt like we were a team, which made it quite cool since like I said before, normally, I never could have been here. Thanks to my effort in class, this is what I get.

At about 5 minutes before reaching the top, the squad stopped us all to take a break. We were given onigiri and water while reporters and cameramen shot reports on the shrine and some of the judo guys. I was probably filmed in the background somewhere, but I didn't bother asking when it would be aired.


After that break, we carried the shrine up the last part of the mountain and the celebration started. They started bouncing the shrine up and down, like they do very often during festivals here in Japan. But what was even cooler is that I got to carry the actual shrine myself and bounce in a circle with everyone! It got quite heavy at one point, but I must say I was quite happy to have done it!

After that, they brought the shrine under a tent, and the formal part of the ceremony started. A man dressed in interesting clothes walked in and out carrying things, saying long monotone sentences which might have been a prayer? Names of the important related people were called out. When this whole thing was happening, I had found a spot higher up a tree so that I could see better. One of the man in front of me gave me a look, and told me to take off the ribbon I had on my head. After that, I looked around, and everyone else had done so already. They must have announced it, but I didn't even catch any of it or noticed when everyone took it off. Maybe it's just a custom during festivals.

Once that was done, we were served champagne, and were soon on our way down the hill. We all grabbed a part of the rope and walked slowly back. This was also dangerous but I made it back without injuries.

We handed the outfits back, and were served a meal. We only had about 20 minutes to eat before the bus left, but it wasn't too bad since I was given two bentos in total, which have since served me as lunch. We were dropped off in front of my dorm, lucky for me, and I walked back home, to my room, feeling accomplished and happy!