2. fugiri: the opposite of the above.
My flatmate and I often joke about how there are a lot of words in Japanese where you just add the character "fu" (anti-, un-) to the start of a word and the word will turn into the opposite meaning of what it originally was. When learning Japanese you tend to hit a stage where you suddenly notice this pattern and, if you're really clever, you'll start trying to make new words from the ones you already know by adding or dropping this character. Sometimes this works (e.g. the above words, or kanou "possible" and fukanou "impossible") but why we find it so funny is that often it really doesn't work at all. For example, fushigi means mysterious, but dropping the fu just makes a weird bunch of characters that mean absolutely nothing. Or fusoku means "inadequate" or "not enough" but dropping the fu character just leaves you with the word "foot."
Well, on that note (or, not at all related), let me share a little bit about how things are going starting off work with Japan International Food for the Hungry (JIFH) here in Hiroshima.
Actually, there's a lot to tell, so let me sum things up in a few simple words.
1. Dusty. The office is really dusty. So I am sitting at my computer with a throw-away surgical mask on, knowing you would all fall over laughing if you saw me like this. These are actually hugely in fashion right now as it is also hay-fever season and these masks are great for filtering the air so you don't breathe in all the pollen and cough and splutter all the time. They actually keep your face quite warm as well, so sometimes I use one in winter to keep my face warm even when I'm not sick... hey, when in Rome...
2. Messy. The office is really messy. We're on the second floor of an old renovated house downtown (two minutes from the most central shopping street - amazing location) and below us, on the first floor, is the Hiroshima Christian Bookshop - only one in the city. There's only been one or two staff members here in the JIFH office since it's been opened, and this has resulted in the place being used for dumping/storing/pretending to have disposed of unwanted stuff. For both JIFH, and the bookshop downstairs, and yes, my old fridge and washing machine are here too... It's hard to believe we're going to turn this place into a little cafe - we're trusting in a God who can make amazing things out of nothing to help us out here a lot!! First on the to-do list was organizing regular rubbish collection (done) and second is oosouji, literally, "big cleaning."
3. Surprise. My second day of work I had a phone-call from a staff member in the Nagoya office.
Y: "I need to book the flights for your trip to Malaysia, can you tell me your passport number?"
E: "Oh, you mean the trip to the Philippines. It's in May."
Y: "No, your trip to Malaysia. It's in April."
E: "Huh? No, it's the Philippines in May."
Y: "Has no-one told you? You're going to the International Food for the Hungry Federation Conference in Malaysia."
E: "Oh, okay. Sure! Yeah, no-one told me."
I got two phone calls after hanging up, informing me that I was going to be attending the international conference in April with some others from the JIFH team. This makes three overseas trips in my first six months of work, and apparently I'm not an official staff member until I have worked for six months anyway. Phew! So the international travel schedule for the year is now:
April 22nd - 30th: International Food for the Hungry Conference and Malaysia ministries site visit (Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia)
May 22nd - 29th: Global Discipleship Congress and Hands of Love Philippines site visit (Manilla, Philippines)
August 18th - 31st: Volunteer Work Camp with Reach ministries (Houses of Reconciliation), (Kigali, Rwanda)
It's going to be fun trying to keep up with the pace of this organization!
4. Explode. I just got back from a week-long orientation in Chiba. I attended as part of my training as a new staff member, but the majority of the attendees were Christians in their twenties and thirties who were interested in learning about the current state of world poverty, hunger, development work, and ways to get involved. In Japan it tends to be not your typical personality that gets involved in work like this, so it was fun being around such a mix of "slightly un-ordinary" people and hearing their stories and what God is doing in their hearts & lives.
The training was intense though, and it confirmed that I can look forward to learning a whole new vocabulary in the new future! I don't know how to talk about politics, development, or the causes and symptoms of malnutrition in English, let alone in Japanese yet!! I felt like my head was going to explode after the first two sessions "World Hunger Today" (big numbers, statistics, and lots of jargon). I was relieved though that most of the Japanese participants found it difficult too, and then relieved again when we moved on to the next set of classes on things such as a biblical worldview regarding poverty & hunger, emergency relief work, and servanthood.
It's great though that JIFH encourages us to learn slowly and surely at our own pace, and to start work and ministry with what we can do "now," taking little steps towards what we will be able to do "later."
5. Giri. This is all about relationships, and often ends up meaning "doing the hard work to maintain relationships," especially with people you are indebted to or who have helped you out in some way. After my training finished, I was able to visit some good family friends in Chiba who have always been incredibly kind to me and have helped me out with work, language, culture.... treating me like a daughter or granddaughter and spoiling me whenever I've seen them. When I think about it, I actually have so many people like this in Japan who've really taken care of me, and who I owe quite a lot of giri to put it that way! Often though, in Japanese culture, this feeling of being indebted to others or needing to reciprocate for being taken care of can be a huge source of stress, especially for young people or when you're in a situation where you feel like you actually can't reciprocate. I struggled with this a lot last year as barely scraping by financially and being unable to take holidays made it impossible to go and visit these people. I had a year full of fugiri, and I managed to let it stress me out pretty badly.
It was great to see the Soga family though, and they encouraged me that sometimes it's important to be in a state of fugiri, otherwise you can't cope with all the pressure life throws at you here. At the same time, I was able to call other mutual friends and acquaintances across the country to let them know I was in Japan and what I was doing. This is something I hadn't been able to do last year, but I am feeling in a much better state of mind more settled in Japan now and with this new job, so I look forward to trying to visit or at least correspond with more of these people. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with people, and learning to manage relationships and communication in a way that becomes a source of joy, an opportunity for testimony, and not so stressful!
Sorry for the very "practical" update - I will finish off with a few photos to make up for all the text!!
1. Brainstorming causes and solutions for starvation. 2. Washing each others' feet on the last day of training. 3. After an evening of great food and fun conversation, Takayuki painting some suibokuga artwork 4. The finished product - a golden apple!
