Brenda in Japan

Hailing from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Brenda McKinney is an American living and working in the Kansai region of Japan. This is an account of her life and adventures among the fine people of Nihon.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Spending the Fourth of July Abroad

Wednesday was the 4th of July. While this holiday is obviously not celebrated in Japan, I feel it is particuarly important to recognize substantial or special days while you are living away from your culture. It's part of what defines you and where you are from; something that deserves a little respect (as well as being healthy for your sanity when you have made some major life changes or you miss aspects of being at home). Halloween and Thanksgiving are two other examples.
So, we didn't actually do that much, but it was a nice day. I know there are people at home that don't do much to celebrate, either, but I have always at least gone to fireworks and been with my family or friends. Spending time on the lake or having a BBQ is really popular in MN... not quite the same picture in Japan... but we made it work.
I arrived at school decked out in Red, White & Blue, sporting a "I Love USA" crown (ok, maybe the crown a little over-the-top?). Granted, it was the first day of tests, so I basically sat at my desk all morning (sans crown) and didn't see many kids, but the crown really was a good ice-breaker to talk to people about America* and history while it lasted.
With the exception of school in the morning, I unintentionally ended up spending the majority of the day with only Americans. I left school early and met my coworker (Miyake Sensei), her friend, and her friend's coworker - Kristin (a friend of mine from when I first arrived - she's from Seattle) in Akashi for lunch. We went the this amazing little tofu place overlooking Akashi park (all had the tuna special - so good!) and had a lot of fun just chatting**. I had a really great time.
After lunch, I stuck around Akashi for a while to shop for a birthday present and ran some errands before heading to Tam & Clayton's house (know collectively as "Clam's place") for a 4th of July potluck. I brought sparklers & American candy (Twizzlers - rare here) as my contribution. It was only a group of 6 Americans sitting around and having dinner (comprised of sandwiches, fried chicken, potato salad, fuit salad & watermellooooon!...ahh, American food!), but my friend Chris, who has been living here 4 years, said it was actually the first time he has celebrated the 4th in Japan. This led to another realization: that it was something of a rarity to be around such a large group of strickly Americans. I know a lot of Americans here, but I don't think I've hung out with a group comprised only of my 'countrymen' for a WHILE. It makes me even more glad we arranged the get-together, though. We were originally just going to bring our own food and light fireworks on the river, but a little party was a good decision.
After dinner, some music and discussions, we headed to the nearby pier to set off the fireworks we had purchased. We started with the sparklers, then lit off the bottle rockets and ended with some bigger rockets. We were pretty loud, I almost got hit by a bottle rocket & I swear we almost cut off power to the (industrial) man-made island when we hit a power tower... but it was a ton of fun!!!

That was about the end of the day, but I was satisfied. I hope all of you stateside had a happy Independance Day, as well. Here's to another Happy Birthday, America!


* I am sort of at the point where I use mostly Japanese with a lot of my coworkers (horrible, horrible Japanese, though...), but I am still not sure how to say Independance Day in Japanese (does Foundation Day work?), so at least now half the staff and some of my students know the 4th is "America's birthday".
**I am really so lucky to have Miyake Sensei, and I got the feeling that Kristin and her coworker had a similar repore. It's too bad Kristin is heading back to America at the end of the month and that we haven't done more lunches before now (due to schedule conflicts)...

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