Chapter 5 Summer in Japan

8/4/98 Tuesday – This day, Mari-san and I drove to Adatara Bible Camp in order to attend middle school camp week. Another girl named Akemi was planning to come, but she couldn’t after all. Her brother had gone to elementary school camp, and we think he got saved.

After lunch, I played some of my usual games: ping-pong, badminton, and Skip-Bo.

This afternoon, the campers participated in a praise concert. Several church groups had prepared songs, and Grandpa Bishop played a few numbers on the banjo. I played "This Is My Father’s World" on the keyboard. Grandma Bishop later told me, she had been enjoyed the concert music from the kitchen and was pleasantly surprised to see it was Sharon Rose playing so well. I have practiced on the piano in her home in the past, so it's nice to know she thought my playing improved.

8/5/98 Wednesday – The exciting times at camp started at lunchtime this day. Out on the slope behind the lodge, a set-up for flowing noodles was put in place. The noodles came sliding down a chute, pushed along by water running from a hose and down the chute from the top of the hill. Everybody lined up beside the chute, which was made of a hollow bamboo stick sliced down its length. We fished out the noodles with our chopsticks and dipped them into bowls of brown sauce. The process was really funny to watch, and I liked eating my meal.

After lunch, everybody gathered towels and squirt guns and headed for a river about half an hour away. I felt so good, wading in the water, splashing people and squirting them, and getting splashed and squirted myself! Then, when everyone was dripping wet, we ate sliced watermelon. Ooh, that was so much fun!

This evening, the campfire session was held. We played a few games and sang songs in the dark before the message. One of the games I won without even trying. It went like this: Each bench of people had to guess what was “long” about a person, and then send to the front whoever on their bench had that thing the longest. My bench group guessed hair, and so I was sent to the front as the one with the longest hair.

The other benchgroups guessed things like fingers, legs, face, or life. Nobody guessed the real answer, though, which was the longest number of letters in one’s name. Out of all the kids at the front, I won hands down. Most of them had about seven letters in their names. I counted up 13! “Sha-ro-n Ro-~-zu E-n-ta-~-ra-i-n.” N counts as its own syllable in Japanes, while all other syllable are composed of a consonant sound with a vowel added on.

8/8/98 Saturday – This day, when Mama and I went downtown to shop, we ran into a festival. A street was blocked off and lined with booths selling balloons, toys, jewelry, candy, ice cream, and French fries. Colorful streamers, paper flowers, and origami cranes swayed in the breeze. Periodically, a group of men or women in cotton kimonos would march past, clanking or thumping on percussion instruments. The parade was a glorious example of Japanese culture at its most colorful.

8/13/98 Thursday – We’re back at camp again. This time, adults and children are attending together for family camp, so the accommodations are a bit stretched. Once again, Papa & Mama are in charge of educating and entertaining the kids in grades 1-6. Papa is teaching them some stories from Judges, and Mrs. Tajima was enlisted to tell the story of Ruth. I’m glad I get to listen to those stories, too, instead of sitting in on the adults’ message.

A fine surprise it was for me to discover two little blonde English-speaking girls at camp! Not only that, but they’re American and missionary kids! I sure enjoyed talking with the older girl, Jannah (age 10). She liked me a lot, too.

This afternoon, the bazaar was held to raise money for the camp’s chapel project. Mama thought it was funny that Jannah and her sister Juliana kept buying the things that used to be mine. I guess Americans are attracted to the same styles. As for me, I purchased a pretty purple vest, a pink shirt, and a mug with Paddington the Bear on it.

After the bazaar, a bunch of people gathered outside for some games. The one I liked best was a three-legged relay race with one person in each pair being blindfolded. In my pair, I was blindfolded, and Mana from the Koriyama church led me along the course. We did pretty well, and our team won!

Everybody played volleyball, too. At one point, I kept serving the ball over and over. I served six times before my team missed hitting the ball. But however good I am at serving, I’m not so great at hitting the ball when it comes near me.

During campfire time, when we shared testimonies and blessings, I translated from Japanese into English for Jannah. I actually surprised myself with how much I understood - more than Jannah did at least. When it was time to say good-bye, Jannah declared that I was her best friend. Knowing we would probably never see each other again, I felt so sorry for her. I know what it's like to be lonely in a world where you can't communicate.

8/15/98 Saturday – Now I’m 15 years old. Camp is over, but we stayed an extra night at Grandma and Grandpa Bishops’. I opened some presents this morning. Mama got me a pretty lavender wallet. Also, I got a new tape recorder, on which I listened to a new Patch the Pirate tape from Mimi. I know there are a few more present in the mail, but these that I mentioned are my favorites so far.

We left to go home at about 12:00, and Papa suggested that we stop at a fishing pond close by for lunch. At the fishing pond, you catch your own fish, and then the employees of the restaurant cook your own fish for you to eat. It seemed that none of the fish were hungry. We had to wait an hour to catch two fish, and we gave up on nabbing a third one. The fish certainly tasted good, when we finally got to eat them.

On the way home, we stopped off at Abukuma Cave. Even though it was my third time through the cave, I enjoyed it just as much as ever. The stalactites, stalagmites, tree-shaped formations, and underground streams are simply fascinating. I even found a rock that, when you look at it sideways, is shaped just like the face of the cartoon character the Road Runner.

8/17/98 Monday – This day, I went over to Kanako’s house. She has visited Australia for a few days, and she wanted to tell me about it. She had a very nice time. She showed me some pictures of the school, zoo, and aquarium she had visited. She also gave me a souvenir key ring, with a boomerang replica attached to it. I will always treasure it. I had tutored Kanako for her English speech that won the contest that sent Kanako to Australia.

I ate lunch with Kanako and her mother. I also told Kanako about Bible camp, and we played some games. She is such a nice young lady, and I’m glad I met her.

8/20/98 Thursday – Last night, the two Melton families arrived in Iwaki. The group includes Pat & Wanda Melton (Uncle Phil’s parents), their daughter Megumi (8), Uncle Phil, Aunt Debbie, Stephanie (14), Danielle (12), Sharon (10), Nathan (7), Natalie, (7), and Andrew (6). They stopped by on a camping trip which will take them all the way to Hokkaido (Japan’s northern-most island). I’m sure glad we happened to be on their way! We hadn’t seen them in over three years.

Today, we all went to the lighthouse at the beach. We climbed around and up on the stairs inside the lighthouse. At the top, the weather was cool and breezy, and we could look out over the ocean. The colors were lovely – deep blue and purple and aquamarine.

After climbing down from the lighthouse, most of us kids went with Mama across the beach. We shuffled through the sand, waded in the water, and clambered up a great lump of rock. 

Nathan stayed behind in the van. When my mom tried to coax him to come with us, he buried his head in his lap, covered his ears, and said, “It’s too noisy!”

My mom was puzzled. “You don’t like the sound of the crashing waves, Nathan?”

“No! The GIRLS!”

Undaunted by Nathan’s sensitive ears, we rode over to another beach where the Meltons could set up camp. (They had stayed at our house the night before.) Mama & Papa left then, but I stayed to eat lunch and later swim. None of us had a plate or silverware. I felt funny drinking from a can while I had a sandwich in one hand and a cucumber in the other. In any case, we had a great day for eating outside – not too windy, but not too hot.

The best part of this day was swimming in the ocean. Actually, we were floating, rather than swimming. Stephanie and I sat or leaned on a raft that we had blown up. Danielle joined us in riding the waves for part of the time. We rode that raft astride, like it was a bucking bronco, and the waves were tall! What a great feeling to see a threatening wave hover in the distance, screaming and then closing your mouth just in time as you bob upwards. Then you sink back down and prepare to shriek again!

8/24/98 Monday – Jack and the Beanstalk: An Operetta will be performed this coming Sunday. This day was another four-hour rehearsal at the Iwaki City Cultural Center. In Act Two, I play a fairy who tells Jack about how the giant stole treasures from Jack’s family and killed his father. Then I sing a song telling Jack that, if he has courage, he can do anything. He should follow the road to the giant’s palace in the sky, and I will be protecting him.

My costume is fancy – a cream-colored dress with lavender embroidered flowers, wings, a crown, and a wand. I also have to take off my glasses, to be more angelic – and more blind!

8/28/98 Friday – I’d better not forget to mention that Mr. Takenaka got baptized last Sunday! He trusted Christ two or three years ago, having had contact with the church people for six years before that. Mrs. Takenaka came and watched her husband get baptized, looking like she wished she were somewhere else. If only she’d get saved, too! However, at least she didn’t keep her husband from baptism, like Mr. Yamaguchi's wife did. Mr. Yamaguchi had planned to be baptized on the same day as Mr. Takenaka, but . . .

While I’m on the subject of baptism – Mr. Sugawara has finally said he’ll let his wife (who is sister-in-law to a Japanese Baptist pastor) be baptized. God is doing wonderful things for our church.

While I’m still on the subject of baptism – two more people will be baptized this coming Sunday! They are engaged to be married and have taken discipleship courses with my dad privately. This young couple came over for supper this evening. I made blueberry cobbler for dessert. Mmm-mm.

8/30/98 Sunday – This afternoon was the production of Jack and the Beanstalk. I went to the Cultural Center after church, just in time for the final rehearsal. During the actual play, with an audience, there was one mentionable mistake that involved me. In Act One, where Wakana and I are Jack’s neighbors, Wakana forgot to call to me after she went off-stage. I just stood on the stage, looking, I daresay, like I had forgotten my lines, until the pianist started to play the next part. So I left, forgetting to tip my hat to Jack’s mother. 

That was too bad, because I took a lot of trouble with that hat. It was rather small when I had to get all my waist-long, wavy hair under the hat. I made sure it didn’t fall off by skewering it on the sides of my head.

The rest of the play went swimmingly. The finale was the hardest part. I had to march in, playing the recorder. Some of the music was just too fast for my fingers! But three other girls were playing recorders at the same time, so my ineptness didn’t matter much.

For the finale, we all sang two verses of a song about Jack, with a lot of motions. We each had to take a garland from around our own necks and place them over Jack’s (Tomoko’s) and Mary’s (Shiori’s) necks. That was a bit tricky for me, since I was wearing a crown and Mary was wearing a big hat!

I feel glad to be in another operetta, and once again, the first thing I thought when the play ended was: “I can’t wait to see the video!”

Chapter 6 Japanese Culture

8/31/98 Monday – Late this afternoon, we went over to the Buchanans' house. Mr. Eddie taught us a lesson about "the pearl of great price" in Matthew. He translated into English from the Japanese written on the back of the pictures. That must have been hard! We sang a few hymns together.

After that, we ate supper. I had made chicken cornbread casserole. I forgot to add the sauce before the cornbread, so it was a little dry. For dessert, we ate both banana cream pie AND pumpkin pie. After Gerald and Grace went to bed, the rest of us played Pictionary. It was hilarious – girls against the boys, and we tied.

9/5/98 Saturday – This afternoon, I attended a party for the Pikkoro girls and their mothers. The party was held at Big Cabin, an Italian restaurant in town. We started the meal with a toast: "Compai!" Then came different varieties of spaghetti, fried chicken nuggets, French fries, and pizza. 

While we were all eating, each person had to stand up and make a little speech about the operetta. I said (in Japanese) that it was difficult to play two very different roles, one right after the other.

9/10/98 Thursday – This was an ordinary, but busy day. I got up at 7:30am (early for me) to the sound of my new digital alarm clock, which registers the date and temperature. Then for breakfast, I add an egg and cheese to the leftover rice from last night. That was a tasty meal with bacon bits sprinkled on top.

Then for schoolwork: Geometry was an easy lesson about latitude and longitude. That was the last lesson in a long and difficult unit about circles. I got so fed up with Geometry that I gave up way back in May, and didn’t attempt it again until few weeks ago. Anyway, I’d better persevere and finish the last two units. Homeschooling has more ups than downs, but Geometry is definitely the downest of all downs.

I practiced the piano. I’m working on "Sakura," a four-page version. I’ve been practicing for a month or so with Mrs. Takenaka (who is also my piano tutor, besides my drama and voice teacher), and I have gotten only halfway through this piece. This arrangement of "Sakura" (meaning "Cherry Blossoms") is by far the hardest piece of music I have ever attempted.

The other piano pieces I am working on include: "He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child" (which I picked because it looked like the easiest one in my hymn-arrangement book) and "Minuet" by Beethoven.

By 10:30, I was at the church. Papa arrived to teach a Bible study in Ladies’ meeting. Mama was there to listen to him, and I was there because my parents were there.

I took some schoolwork along to study. I actually finished the Literature book, which means I’m all done with the subject of English for 10^th grade. I’m on the last chapter of History, but still have three chapters left in Biology. The books for the new school year haven’t come yet, because we expected to be in Pennsylvania by October, when I could borrow books from West Chester Christian School. 

However, we probably won’t go to America till next year, because my dad’s replacement – a retired missionary – got cancer and will need treatments before he can travel to Japan to fill in for my dad. So our year-long visit back to the States cannot happen yet.

After Ladies’ meeting, my family went out to eat at the Mexico Gallery, a restaurant with delicious food, fair prices, beautiful paintings, and classical music. Consequently, Mexico Gallery is our favorite place to eat out.

We did some errands and got back home by 2:30. I had enough time to prepare for Gerald’s reading lesson. I’m using the Ladybird series. The first books have simple sentences like: “Here is Peter. I like Peter.” 

When Gerald left, I had a snack of apple slices with peanut butter, and then rushed off to Pikkoro Drama Club at the Satogaoka Community Hall. In Pikkoro, we are going to perform Jack and the Beanstalk one more time at an elementary school. 

This evening, Mrs. Takenaka had two new songs for us to practice. One of them was "My Grandfather’s Clock," which I already knew better in Japanese than in English. She assigned each girl a phrase of the song to make up motions for. I had the part that goes, "Chicku-taku, Chiku-taku" [Tick-tock, tick-tock]. I stretched my arms wide and moved one arm like a clock’s hand moving in a circle.  

The other song was about everybody’s friends singing together, or something silly like that. The tune is "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which must have had more different words written to it than any other tune! I’ll be singing the alto part of the chorus.

As soon as Pikkoro was over, Papa & Mama picked me up and drove me over to the church for prayer meeting, to which three church members showed up. We prayed until I was about ready to drop off.

We went home, had some chicken soup, and watched part of the operetta video which I got at Pikkoro this evening. That was the end of a LONG day.

9/13/98 Sunday – This day was the first day for our new afternoon Bible Survey Course in English. The class began at 4:00pm and ended at 5:00. Attendance included: Mama and myself, Kanako, Mari-san, and three ladies who come to Mama’s English classes. 

We sang a number of hymns in English, and Papa talked about the main events of Genesis. I handed out the hymnbooks, as well as fill-in-the-blank outlines. Papa showed us the outline, with answers, on the overhead projector. However, because he used various colors, some of the words were difficult to see. Papa had to spell each word for the listeners. That got a little dull, but on the whole, it was a glad occasion for me, especially since Kanako came.

From 5:00 to 6:00, we also had a little game time for whoever cared to stay. Kanako and I played air hockey. Also, everyone played Jenga and Pick-Up Stix.

9/15/98 Tuesday – During the past week and beginning of this week, I’ve had quite a bit of free time, owing to the fact that I have only two school subjects to work on (albeit the two hardest subjects). I’ve spent a lot of spare time on three of my favorite activities: listening to stories on cassettes, reorganizing, and making crafts. Moreover, I’ve contrived to do these things simultaneously.

Most of the time, I prefer to cross-stitch, but recently, I got out crochet instruction books, yarn, hooks, and needles, and worked on making a little purse for Mama to keep her oldest and smallest Bible in. At the same time, I listened to old-time radio dramas, rerecording them to group the same shows on the same tapes.

9/21/98 Monday – This day was Mama’s birthday. In the morning, Papa and I went to a department store to find some presents for her. It’s a little hard to think of a good present.

"We know she doesn’t need any clothes," I said, as we stepped off the escalator. "Let’s go on up to the third floor. That’s where all the fun, crazy stuff is." 

We wandered through a few little shops, but nothing struck us as a good item for Mama’s present.

"We could always get her some more pretty dishes," I grinned.

"She needs dishes like she needs clothes," Papa replied.

We finally spotted two sale bins and dug through socks and hair clips until we turned over some that looked like they would do as pretty presents for our marvelous Mama.

In the evening, we drove to the Buchanans' house. We had a great dinner of lasagna, homemade bread, and salad (which I surprised myself by not disliking). After Mama had opened her presents, we also ate birthday cake & ice cream.

The cake was angel food cake, which I had frosted with berry blue frosting. The writing on the cake was hard to read, being made from M&M’s. The colors were pastel, because the M&M’s came from an Easter package.

After dinner, Eddie & Wendy Buchanan, Andrew, Papa, Mama, and I played Balderdash. It’s a game where everybody makes up a definition to a real – but rare – English word. Then we try to guess which definition is the real one. 

I had more points than anyone for a while, but I started running out of ideas for fake definitions. Miss Wendy won the game. She outdid us all on the word scorkle. Her definition was: "Romantic dance of flamingos." The real answer was: "To scorch with a hot iron," but nobody felt inclined to guess that. We were all laughing hard by the end of the game.

9/23/98 Wednesday – This morning, we had a time for clean-up at our church. First, I washed some windows downstairs with Manami-chan. After about an hour and a half, I switched to outside work. I was pulling grates of the gutter in front of the parking lot and collecting all the dirt, leaves, and gravel from the gutters with a shovel. I thought it was fun to push the wheelbarrow to dump out the gunk, but I was annoyed at finding an 8-inch earthworm in there. Gross!

I ate a bunch of little oatmeal cookies for a snack and washed it down with strawberry soda. Later on, I got busy popping screens out of windows and rinsing and scrubbing them outside.

We had time for showers and naps this afternoon, which was a good thing, since we went out to eat with friends for supper. The friends were Papa’s buddies, two doctors with their wives and five small children between them. 

The restaurant served chanko-nabe. That sounded ominous to me, but I was willing to give it a shot. We all removed our shoes when we entered, because the floor was made of rice straw (easily damaged), and our meal was eaten at low tables, around which we knelt.

I was pleased to be able to order Sprite, rather than green tea. Dr. Sunose competently decided for us all what our meal would contain. I preferred that to anxious inquiries on my part as to what the names of the foods meant, and which type I was least likely to detest.

When our server brought out two huge platters of raw meat and vegetables, the two Japanese couples, armed with chopsticks, began cooking the feast in pans of bubbling brown broth in the center of our table.

Papa conversed with Dr. & Mrs. Chiba while Mama and I chatted with the Sunose family at the other end of the table. The kids (ages 2-6) slurped and munched, then played around the table. I was beginning to wonder at the fact that the meal contained no starchy food, when the server once again advanced to our table. This time it was noodles and pounded rice. 

The oldest boy, sitting across from me, looked funny, twisting the gooey pounded rice around his chopsticks. This whole evening was painless, because we talked in English, and I didn’t feel obliged to eat anything I didn’t like.

9/26/98 Saturday – This evening, Mama and I went with Mrs. Takenaka and her daughter Urara to a Japanese music concert. We got to the building and squeezed into the elevator with a bunch of other ladies. I could see over all of their heads. When we got to the fifth floor, the doors opened, and they started to get off, but a lady called them back, saying, “The concert is on the 6^th floor!” She pushed the 6 button, but to our dismay, the numbers above the door lighted at 4, then 3, 2, and 1.

We finally got to the hall and listened to the soft twang of koto harps; the whiny, violinlike kokyu; and the breathy, large yellow recorder. Some of the songs were sung, and I tried to follow along with the words on my program. I soon got tired of that, because the singer often dwelt on one syllable for five notes, and it was slow going.

Towards the end of the second half of the concert, a blind lady came in with her guide and sat beside us at the back of the hall. One of the performers let her feel the silkiness of the kimono she wore, as well as twists of her fancy obi and the back curls and pearly sticks of her bun.

9/28/98 Monday – I have been spared having to dissect the worm and frog by myself. I’m not sure that doing the dissections with Paul Yoshida is a big improvement, but here goes! I don’t want to go into details about how my family ended up at the Yoshidas’ home on this particular morning, but we did. 

Paul and I started off trying to fill in the answers in the workbooks while watching a video of a scientist dissecting an earthworm. The question: "What is the function of the pro-sto-mi-um?" stumped us. After scanning all the information about the prostomium, I sensibly proposed looking in the answer key. Paul considered that as cheating, and he hauled out a number of dictionaries and encyclopedias. He obviously hasn’t been homeschooled for as long as I have.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Mama’s hair was being renovated. An American lady was visiting the Yoshidas, and she is a hairdresser. She offered Mama a haircut and a perm. The permanent smelled worse than the pickled worm!

Before we got very far cutting the worm open, Paul complained that the scissors were too tight. Then followed a search for a decent screwdriver. . . . By the time it took us to identify the parts of the digestive and circulatory systems, we were ready for lunch. 

We ate tempura and soba for lunch. The gray soba noodles had an uncanny resemblance to the dorsal blood vessel of our earthworm. Yuck!

After lunch, Papa decided (at Mama’s prompting) that it was high time he stepped in and directed the dissections. After all, we’d been at it for over two hours and gotten precious little accomplished. Things went better with Papa in command. We pried open the frog’s mouth and noted its tongue, which was hinged at the front. We wiggled its toes and looked at the webbing. We analyzed the digestive tract. Then, with Paul probing away with tweezers and scissors, I suddenly wailed, “You’re breaking his heart!” 

But I was just as ruthless with that unlucky croaker. One misplaced whack with the tweezers, and Paul, through his laughter, informed me, “You just smashed his brain!”

9/30/98 Wednesday – I was with my best friend Mary Elisabeth Hudson (age 14-½) all day this day. Pleased as punch about it, too, despite my brush with death at her dining room table last night. But I’ll come back to that.

At about 11:00 this morning, Mary’s dad dropped us off and turned us loose at the Sakuragaoka train station. Mary & I were bold enough to attempt the train ride to and from Machida by ourselves. I had just come in by way of Machida with Mama yesterday, so I felt no cause to worry. 

At one point in the train ride, our train halted and a lot of people got off. The train didn’t seem in any hurry to pull out of the station again. “All those people are probably waiting for the express train,” said Mary, staring out the window and across the platform. “We should get on that train, too. It’ll get there faster than this one.”      

“Why don’t we just stay right here, ’cause we know this is the right train,” I replied cautiously.

“No, look! Here come the express. Let’s go!”

We ran across the platform to the other train, but we chickened out and ran back again. We stood in the train car we had almost deserted, and watched the express whisk away. 

“Look. That train IS going toward Shinjuku,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, we should have been on it,” Mary said, sounded disappointed. Then she giggled. “These people are probably thinking, ‘Look at those stupid foreigners. They just ran across the platform, ran back, and hopped in again.’ ”

The objectives of the excursion were: to go shopping, roam the city, have fun, feel independent, and, well, just do one of those things that teenagers like to do. Yep, we accomplished all of our objectives by walking up & down, around & around, riding numerous escalators & elevators, viewing various items in the stores, and devouring a McDonald’s lunch, plus peanut-butter-filled M&M’s, and two scoops each of Baskin Robbins ice cream. 

I hate to admit it, but after two or three hours of gallivanting, we were both rather bored and tired. So, we devoted the rest of our time (minus the ice cream break) to clothes hunting. Mr. Ron had handed Mary 3,000 yen (about $30), telling her, “See that shirt that Sharon Rose is wearing? Now that looks neat. Buy something like that – something you can wear to church.”

Most of the clothes we saw were either tasteless or too expensive. We finally grabbed two long-sleeved striped shirts for Mary and skedaddled on back to the train station.

On the way back, the train was splitting and going in different directions, so we had to get out and ask which train we were supposed to be on. At any rate, we got back safe & sound, and walked over to the church for prayer meeting.

I met for the first time two American girls who are sisters. They are in Japan for a couple of months. Mary complains, “I’m just getting to know them, and they’re going away again in December!” That sort of thing happens all the time at Mary’s church, where the members belong to the American military. At least she always has people to talk to in English, which is more than I can say for my own situation.

After the service and prayer time, we girls were chatting, when Mary made a sly remark about pizza. Of course, I had to retort, “I don’t ever want to eat pizza again!”

Mary said, with fun in her eyes, “Can I tell them?”

“Oh, OK. . . .” I agreed reluctantly.

“Last night,” Mary began, “we were having pizza, and her mom was talking about people smoking in school, and she said –”

“No,” I interrupted, “She was talking about smoking among the TEACHERS in the USA. So then I said, ‘In Japanese schools, the kids smoke instead, in the bathrooms.’ And then my mom said, ‘Do the girls really smoke in the restrooms at school?’ And I said, “It was a boy – he was standing in the doorway. He was standing in the DOORWAY,” I repeated, to alleviate the surprise on my audience’s faces. “And then my mom goes, “I thought for a minute you were in the boys’ bathroom.’ And Ronnie says, “If you gotta go, you gotta go.”

Mary took up the tale: “And she had just taken a big bite of pizza and a big gulp of water –”

“It went up my nose!”

“And her mom says to Ronnie, ‘Go to your room.’

“Which he DOES.”

“And she started choking on the pizza and mouthed the words, ‘I can’t breathe,’ and her mom goes and does the Heimlich maneuver, and then she started breathing again,” Mary finally concluded.

Chapter 7 Travel and Trivia

10/1/98 Thursday – This morning, I showed Mary the video of Jack and the Beanstalk by the Pikkoro Players. I translated for her, as the story went along. Although I didn’t look up nearly as many words for this year’s play as I did for A Little Princess, I think I understand nearly as well. I hope that’s because I’m better at Japanese now.

After lunch, Mary, Ronnie, and I got busy “cutting an innocent fish,” as Ronnie put it. The fish was the last specimen in the kit. We not only watched the video of “Dr. Scientist” dissecting his fish, but we also used the camcorder to record ourselves dissecting “Maverick” much more messily. 

We did our best to make the dissection process as silly as possible. Our attitude was summed up in Ronnie’s closing remark: “I don’t know, but I’d throw it away!”

Mr. Ron & Miss Sherry (Mary's parents) went out to eat this evening. Mary & I made taco salad and ate it. While we were washing the dishes, Mary told me some more about her life in Arkansas in 1997. I was interested, but somehow, neither of us think we would have been comfortable if I had showed up on the scene in Arkansas. People can play quite different parts when they have different backdrops and props. It’s strange to think that Mary & I have never met on American soil. By this time, I often want to be in America once again, but I hate to think of deserting Mary.

10/2/98 Friday – Let it suffice to say that Mama & Papa are also at the Hudsons’ this day. I was going to leave with them right away, but Miss Sherry persuaded Mama to stay overnight so she could speak at the ladies’ meeting this evening. (Wasn’t it good of Miss Sherry?) 

There’s nothing to be said about this morning, because Mary & I stayed up so late last night, we didn’t wake up till 10am. As for this afternoon, we spent most of it exploring on bicycles. It was reminiscent of when I used to visit Mary at her house in Ota. We always rode bikes around there. In fact, it was there that Mary finally convinced me that bike-riding could be fun. (When, at age 8, I received a bicycle from Mimi, my first thought was, “Oh, dear. Now I’ll HAVE to learn to ride it.”) 

Anyway, back to the present – the best thing we saw on our bike ride was a pen full of pigs. A more pleasant thing to SMELL was our banana ice cream cones from 7-Eleven. That is, I had a cone, and Mary had a cup. She complains that with a cone, she has to worry about the ice cream melting and falling off. I noticed printed on the paper wrapper of my cone, “Everyone loves cones.”
“If everyone loves cones,” I said, “why do they offer a cup?”

Mary continued to spoon ice cream into her mouth. She replied, “Because some people are rebellious, like me, and don’t want to follow the set menu.”

“I knew you’d come up with some silly excuse like that,” I laughed. “Every time I criticize something, you have to give me a reason for why things are that way.”

“If you didn’t act like Miss Critical, I wouldn’t have to,” said Mary, getting in the last word.

10/5/98 Monday – My family is staying at the Bible camp by ourselves for a vacation. Today, we went to a nearby drive-thru safari park. I had fun being so close to the animals. I hadn’t even been to a zoo in years, so it was a real treat.

The most exciting part was having our car surrounded by different kinds of deer and sheep, zebras, llamas, and camels. The one llama was super curious about us. When Papa rolled the window down an inch, the llama stuck its upper lip through the crack. Then when Papa held up a few cheese curls, the llama reached out with its cloven lip and grabbed the snack! Some of the animals were confused about what was edible and tried to eat parts of our car!

This animal park specializes in albino animals. We saw three white lion cubs with their mom, two white porcupines, and some cute white “miniature kangaroos” called wallabies.

I liked watching the wallabies and llamas best, although the zebras were beautiful too. When we saw white tigers and white zebras, we noticed that their striped markings were still visible, but the stripes were gray instead of black.

10/6/98 Tuesday – On this day, we went to see the chrysanthemum doll displays of mannequin figures with kimonos fashioned out of live chrysanthemums. They represented scenes from Japan’s history. I don’t know much of Japanese history, but I did figure out the scene with the Japanese looking out to sea while Admiral Matthew Perry’s ships sailed in. Matthew Perry was responsible for opening trade between Japan and the United States in the 19^th century.

Inside a building, we viewed plastic figures designed as 3-D pictures of Japanese folk tales. I knew about half of the stories, and Papa and I attempted to read the signs telling the stories that we hadn’t heard before.

10/11/98 Sunday – At Sunday school this morning, instead of our usual lesson, we took a quiz. Mari-san has been teaching the story of Abraham since September. The school children are all in one class now, rather than elementary separate from high school. The reason is that I’m the only high school student who comes! 

Anyway, for the quiz, we went looking for the questions, which were hidden in envelopes around the room. Then we wrote the answers down. Everyone got most of their answers right.

10/14/98 Wednesday – This day was a family day off. In the morning, we went and played bound tennis. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. The coach emphasized keeping your wrist straight and moving your whole body when you swing your arm. Two or three times, when I hit the ball back correctly, he said, "Jozu, jozu." ("You’re good at this!")

Mama’s face was red and sweaty enough by noon, so we went home. While we ate lunch with Papa, we took turns reading The Bronze Bow. The book is Biblical fiction, from the New Testament period.

In the late afternoon, we drove to Hawaiians. Papa blew up our raft, and we floated around in the pool. One time, Papa sat up on the raft, but when he scooted back, he fell over backwards with a big splash! 

The hot springs area at Hawaiians has been slightly remodeled. The improvements are: four more showers for soaping up, comfortable chairs in the mist room, signs describing the various features, etc.

10/17/98 Saturday – On this day, Pikkoro Club held our second performance of Jack and the Beanstalk at a local elementary school. This time Wendy Buchanan and her kids were able to attend the play with Mama. We actresses had a little difficulty with going from the Cultural Center stage to a narrower stage, but we did all right.

In the evening, after the show, the club members had a party. The food was simply various meats, candy, cake, and juice.

10/23/98 Friday – This was the big day of the Fall Thrift Shop at CAJ (Christian Academy in Japan)! The early days of the week were spent trying on potentially small clothes and tagging various items to sell. 

Then on Wednesday, Mama and I set off with Andrew Buchanan (age 11) in tow, for the Mitas’ home. I feel bad that Papa couldn’t come – or the rest of the Buchanan family either. But we three had a jolly time in the car, what with Patch the Pirate tapes to listen to and Rummikub, the travel version, to play. 

We spent the night at the Mitas’, and yesterday, we rode with Mrs. Mita to Christian Academy in Japan to drop off our pre-used merchandise. I got to buy four shirts, some flannel PJ’s, and several books. Mama, as a volunteer organizer, got that first chance at finding the best stuff, and I bought my items on her account. Actually, I did attempt to help arrange the items, but the whole gym seemed to be in chaos, and I was so afraid of putting things in the wrong place that I gave up. 

OK, after all that preliminary information, let’s get to Thrift Shop Day itself! Mama and I rode to CAJ on the train early this morning, so I could go to the School Support Services activity for homeschoolers. I met up with two girls and five guys in my age group. Most of them I had never even met before. Mrs. Epley gave us some tips for doing a research paper. We spent a little time in the computer room on the Internet, too, but it wasn’t long enough. My family has only a dial-up connection for sending and receiving emails, so we don't know much about all that goes on in the World Wide Web.

When SSS class had ended, around 11:00am, I went to the cafeteria and had a donut with Mama, Mrs. Mita, and her daughter Elisa. Then I quickly entered the gym, where Thrift Shop was in progress. Right inside the door, I encountered Mary and the three Roberts girls, Hannah (age 16), Megan (age 14), and Bethany (age 12). From then on, we five buzzed all around the campus together, often finding ourselves in the book room. 

I had gotten the things I wanted the day before, so I just enjoyed the company of my friends without a care in the world. It sure wasn’t long enough for seeing them though. As I wailed when I found out that I had to leave, “At this rate, I’ll only see you guys [the Roberts girls] eight hours a year!”

But when I left with Mama and Andrew, it was to chat with a 6th-grade girl on the train (in English!) The first thing she asked me was, “Is your little brother 6 or 8?”

I denied ownership of Andrew as my brother, and explained that we lived in the same hometown and he had come along with us to go to the Thrift Shop. Then I threw the bomb: “He’s 11.” Her eyebrows went up and she nodded.

Watching Andrew shinny up the poles in the train that were meant for people to hold onto while standing, I could understand that girl’s assumption. He sure wasn’t tall enough to be 11, but comparing him in my mind with Paul Yoshida, Paul at age 11 had been just as crazy, just as short, and apparently, as immature as Andrew is now. 

Anyway, coming up, I anticipated some fun with Nadia Ronan, another MK, on the outskirts of Tokyo. So I couldn’t feel lonely. After we had been at the Ronans’ for a while, Mama and Mrs. Ronan left to pick up Nadia from her after-school studies. 

Before long, two hooligans named Andrew and Stephen (age 10) had me handcuffed to a bedpost and were firing Styrofoam arrows at me with their plastic pistols. I could have resisted and fled the room, but I suppose I just wondered what it’s like to be abused by two “little brothers.” Besides, I knew the ladies would come back and rescue me sometime. I simply couldn’t get away once I was handcuffed, but I did distract the boys from their incessant shooting by putting my feet over the arrows and making them come after them. After this harrowing experience, I concluded that I wouldn’t mind one little brother, but wouldn’t survive two.

Nadia and I had a fine time asking each other Bible Trivia questions. I’m probably her best competition, since her parents would find the questions too easy, and Nadia’s school friends, who are Japanese, know so little about the Bible AND the language the questions were written in.

10/31/98 Saturday – Finally, I got some new schoolbooks for this year (11th grade). I started in on History and Chemistry this Thursday. It’s American History this year, rather than World History. I’m glad the USA is a relatively new nation. Think of all the history Japanese kids have to study to learn about THEIR country!

As for Chemistry, the very name of it sounds ominous. The first chapter is similar to every first chapter in every science book, so nothing’s difficult yet.

One problem with studying this year is that we don’t have any prepared tests. I’ll have to write my own tests, or have Mama quiz me on the boldface words orally.

This day, I studied some more of the last half of my Geometry book. I’ll take the final exam on Monday, and then I’ll be through with it (preferably forever!) On to Algebra 2, which is, in comparison to Geometry, the lesser of the two evils.