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Stranger in a Strange Land Newsletter Autumn, 2004

Dear Readers,
It has been a very long time. I’m writing on December 16th and the last time I wrote you in the middle of September about the month of August (my travels with my brother and some about the recent extreme natural phenomena in Japan). Unfortunately, I have a very good excuse for the delay: abdominal infection with navel discharge and excruciating pain, followed by a speedy recovery from the physical suffering but a slow recovery of my strength and sanity. I don't relish telling you about it, but it happened and it wasn't fun for me either.

On a Wednesday in the middle of September I finally realized that this strange "stomach ache" I had been getting sporadically, over the last couple months, could not be a stomach ache. By Friday evening I was in some of the worst pain I can ever remember
experiencing (and I've been hit by a car... OK I don't remember that, but still). The worse part was that I just couldn't stop. Not only did I work as normal on Thursday and Friday, but even when I was in the worst of the pain I was still thinking about work and I simply couldn't sit still. But after enough pain you start to learn some things: "I don't care about money. I don't care about making one single yen (worth approximately 0.0105 American dollar which is worth about 0.0001 Euro cent) more while I'm here. And if I have to disappoint some people I don't really care about that either. And I don't care about seeing one more gosh-darn tourist attraction or cool restaurant ever again. I'm really not doing well and all I care about is taking care of myself right now."

So, to make a long story short (for the longer version you can see below), I got better folks, both physically and emotionally. I returned home at the end of September, making it exactly eight months in Japan (with a couple visits to South Korea and Bali). It was great and it was trying and I've been trying to recover for the last couple months. But there's tons of great stuff I experienced and I know a lot more about teaching and I speak a goodly amount of Japanese.

Now, I'm basically taking on bigger questions, ones that maybe I was avoiding a little before. Also after some tentativeness I've been really looking and lots of great options are coming my way recently. (Still, if you know any good work or school ideas feel free to share!) In addition, I've been working on something I really need to work on more: writing. I'm realizing more and more I need to write. So, on that note, I'll keep you posted folks: as I've said I'm a Stranger in a Strange Land here as well so I'll try to write newsletters from time to time even if I do plan to stay in the country for a while.

I've told you all the important stuff so you can stop at this point. But I know you're aching to hear more about that abdominal infection with navel discharge... mmm, yeah, sounds exciting doesn't it?

Take care of yourself,

Happy Holidays,
-Eli

p.s. Always feel free to forward this to other people: I'm always amazed and delighted to occasionally hear about people who have read these newsletters who I haven't even met!

Back to the news: that epiphany about not caring about money, etc. was the exact opposite of my thinking for much of the time I was in Japan and especially the last couple months and I'm sure, THAT WAS THE POINT. Your body tells you what you need to know. My body had been letting me know some things for awhile. But for several reasons I didn't really listen. One simple explanation is the philosophy I seemed to live by much of the time in Japan: make the best of the situation. That's also part of the reason I've mostly kept this newsletter positive: I wanted to look at things in the best way by talking about the good things I experienced (which were honestly cool), without talking very much about the difficulties of life in Japan for a "gaikokojin."

(That is the proper word for "foreigner" in Japanese. The word for foreigner that everyone learns right when they get off the boat is the shortened "gaijin." As I was in Japan longer I started to feel like "gaijin" was somewhat of a derogatory term. Some Japanese people agreed with me but maybe I'm an oversensitive liberal or perhaps a paranoid conservative, we'll get into all that soon.)

Actually, as I write, things get a little clearer about the manner of my relationship to Japan and really the Japanese people. Maybe you can think about this: have you ever had someone who you suspect, or have witnessed, has a really bad temper but you, personally, are on that person's good side? The person likes you and you really want to keep it that way because you're afraid of what might happen if you don't? I think you could say that I felt that way with lots of the people I interacted with every day in Japan! The main reason might be that most Japanese people don't express their anger very openly and for me that means one of two things: they don't really get angry because they are an enlightened being or they have unexpressed anger and I don't know when, how, or upon whom it's going to manifest. I tried my best to make sure it wasn't me, by being as appeasing and polite as possible. Anyone who knows me can imagine how that could be detrimental to my health.

Another simple reason that Japan was difficult is I just wasn't making enough money for how much I was working. I realized this early on and then more and more as time went by but I couldn't get much of a realistic read on my boss so I didn't ever push it because I didn't know what would rock the boat of a job that I was really thankful to have. I just don't understand Japanese people. And it was often very difficult to live in Japan. But I'll continue that in a moment, first back to the story:

Three hours of sleep was about all I got Friday night and I was very grateful for those few hours. I discovered that hot showers miraculously relieved the pain for a short time. Honestly, during some of the worst pain I could feel my abdomen rapidly convulsing which was both an effect and a cause of the pain and so a hot shower probably just relaxed the muscles for a time. In the morning I was even able to go take a hot bath and that really relaxed me and took the pain away. I was just taking on a whole new pace: slow and docile my friends, slow and docile.

And so I walked like a feeble old man to the hospital with my wonderful Japanse grandma and my wonderful girlfriend. Yes! That's right my girlfriend came back on the first day of September with a good tan. It was wonderful and strange to see her again and we had some really good times, but I have to be honest that her being back did not relieve any stress in my life, very unfortunately it did not. But she was very helpful from guiding my hobbling to later cooking me some very nice healing meals. But back to the hospital, we waited for a good hour before we got to see the doctor and in the meantime the pain returned full force and the navel discharge began (just in case you wanted know... I mean I know I was surprised to find out that the belly button was an orifice, I won't get into more detail... but apparently it is). The doctor wanted to cut me open and then apply antibiotics directly to the tissue. I decided that though my mom earlier made sure to warn me that this was very serious and I could actually die, I decided that I wasn't dead yet. That is, I wasn't close enough that other options couldn't be explored. 4

There with Japanese people on all sides telling me to take antibiotics, I talked to my mom on the phone in America and she really highly recommended this ancient healing mushroom from Japan called reishii. (Did you catch the irony?) Still, despite my mom's assurance that we'd be able to find it in Japan very easily, we had to search many stores before we found it. But, it worked. I took about a double dose of what they recommended. The pain was still there right after I took it and so I decided to finish watching a movie we had started earlier, the movie Frida, to get my mind off the pain. Maybe it was the fact that I was watching a woman who was constantly in even more pain than me, but while the pain started out just as bad as ever, by the end of the movie it was really... gone. I have to give thanks to my girlfriend, Tomomi, for getting it for me, my mom for telling me about it, and to the ancestors and the plant itself who work in ways we can't understand. I really would like to do something to offer thanks, because it was amazing.

Also, as I said the disease itself did some good things for me as well: the difference was felt just between how I experienced the pain on Friday and then the next day: the physical pain was about equal but I laid still, calm on Saturday, yes, watching a movie, but mostly just sitting with the pain. I let it be there in a way that I couldn't less than 24 hours earlier. It illuminated the old "there's a difference between pain and suffering theme found in Buddhism and other places.

I would tie that into the difficulties of living in Japan in general actually: Do you remember how I said that my girlfriend went to Okinawa for awhile because she didn't know who she was? Well, she and I deserved each other. The fact is, Japanese people can be whoever they are, with there positives and negatives, but if I knew more who I was, what I wanted, and where I was going it wouldn't have really mattered: but I was pretty out of touch with all of those things. I mean Japan really is a difficult place for foreigners
to live: there's so much I've observed and experienced that many other foreigners in Japan have so refreshingly been confirmed. But if I had been more comfortable and certain of where I was and where I was going then the difficulties may have been the same, but my experience of it would have been different. Still, I don't plan on visiting any large cities in Japan for a good long while, so help me God.

The amazing recent news is that despite us saying good-bye in September really not knowing when we would see each other again, my girlfriend Tomomi is coming to stay in Lexington for at least a month! She'll be here for Christmas and then a few days later my mom will leave for Africa for one month. My mom wanted someone to be here to make meals and do errands, I insisted we didn't need anybody. But while she was intent on doing it I suggested Tomomi helping. And now it's happening. It all seems pretty natural actually: Tomomi and I left things way too suddenly because of my illness and we just need to see each other again. And I love her. There are many factors involved.

Alright, that's all for now folks. You've had to wait three times as long but it's probably three times as long reading to make up for it. Thank you so much for reading this.

Happy Season of Shining Light into Darkness.

Yours,
Eli