My summer of marriage proposals and ice-cold mugi-cha

I sit, envelope in hand, with my first paycheck. Although "check" would be a misnomer, seeing as how I get paid in cash. I am now 68000 yen richer, for what amounts to a week of reading about children's games, and trying to figure out how to kill the hours between 8:30 and 4:15. Killing time. What a wonderful expression. I taught it my new friend on the island, EMT by the name of Masahara, Masa for short. Spent most of the weekend hanging out with him and his friends (he and his friends? I teach the language damnit, I can't be expected to speak it.), which was a riot and a half. And a much needed confirmation that I will not have to continue anthropomorphizing the furniture and discoursing with the ants.

Masa was friends with my predecessor, who left a note on my fridge informing me that I should call him ASAP because he's hyper-friendly. He's a pretty funny guy. While we were driving around the other day he says to me in English "So you are kind of famous on this island, but it is good that you are friends with me, because I am famous too on this island. Because EMT, there is only one, and also I am young and attractive." Had my first night out bar-hopping in Kikai, which was surprisingly ok. There's a little live house down by the beach, where I drank an obscene amount of jasmine flavored sho-chu (because hell if I'm going to let a scrawny Japanese guy out drink my might gaijin stamina/I am stupid).

I also met a pretty cool Filipino gal by the name of Evan, who has an awesome voice, speaks pretty decent English, and three kids who hate the ever-loving-hell out of English despite this. I told her to come by and I'd see if I could think of something to try and get them motivated, but I don't really know what I can do. The basic concern is that their grades are bad, and just because their mother can speak it, they still basically view English as an exercise in abuse inflicted upon them by the Japanese government. I don't know how their finances are, but I was going to ask if she's looked into sending her kid on a homestay in an English speaking country, perhaps Canada because it seemed much cheaper when I was flipping around researching it instead of not working. One of the basic problems of motivation here in Japan is that English is a classroom language, not a practical one. It's EFL (English as a Foreign Language) not ESL (English as a Second Language). Most of the people I know who are really good in English, went on some kind of homestay thing, or had close contact with a lot of English speakers. Though I can't say which way causality runs, so, I suppose we'll talk about it. Either way, it is refreshing to have someone around I can more or less speak with in my native tongue. There are...very few people on this island who can do that.

It also turns out there are 24-hour karaoke-kan here, which blew my mind. English songs and everything! Kikai has a nightlife...who knew?

The next day, after the "WHAT DID YOU DO, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!!!!!" hangover died down a bit I went swimmin' down at the really pretty beach in the South of the island, which has a coral breaker making this calm little lagoon with little coral cliffs you can dive off, very cool. The resulting sunburn, not so cool, but hey, I mentioned that I'm stupid right? Lesson learned: I am a marshmallow, and should fear the sun accordingly. Met up with some of Masa's friends from the hospital and an absolutely gorgeous (but married, curse my luck) friend of theirs who was visiting from Tokyo. Spent the day driving around the island.

Highlights include: stopping at a mango farm, and having the owner shower us with literally 5000 yen (50 bucks-ish) of free mangoes, and mango juice, while he and his son sat around and chain smoked and talked about their farm. They gave Masa's friend Higuchi a pet beetle as well. They had a bunch of little terrariums. I couldn't tell you why. It was a very odd little farm.

Going up to the highest point on the island, and looking out over the Pacific side of it. The ocean just going forever. You could see for miles, and miles, clouds and their shadows, and the ocean rippling out to nowhere. Then we went down to Somachi port, and made like little kids, climbing all over the big stone breakers, up 8-foot walls on half-foot wide ladders, and watching the waves come flying in and just explode on the coral. Kikai is a fairly calm little island, but the waves over by that one harbor were...beautiful, powerful, chaos.

Met up with another one of their friends Keiko, and had a little dinner party over at Keiko's place. I don't know if I ever mentioned the giant prawns? The fabled half-meter prawns? Yeah, they exist. This one was maybe a foot, but my god, once you got past the fact that you were eating prawn meat in a stew made mostly of its own brains and innards, it was amazing.

At some point the fact that I am single came up, and Masa proceeded to (to translate directly from the Japanese) recommend Keiko, much in the manner one would recommend a bowl of ramen, or a type of snack. Same word. My brain found this very odd, but everyone kind of proceeded as if this were normal, and not in a sarcastic way. Keiko agreed. I, filled with confusion, kind of awkwarded myself out of that conversation. Masa then suggested that maybe I should marry his sister instead, because she was 23 and cute. The sunburn probably hid the blushing. I...I really think somehow that entire exchange happened in real-world, not sarcasm-land. Japan is a strange place. And I live here.

Then we all went down to the beach and set things on fire, and waved them around in the sky, and opened the camera shutters and let all the light in. We watched the stars, and the ferry lights coming in to the harbor, and Amami glowing just faintly off on the horizon. More of Masa's friends and coworkers showed up, and I was by-this-point-customarily recommend to marry two of them. I wonder if this trend will continue.

It was a fantastic night. I also picked up a Japanese name. I told Masa that some of my friends back at school used to call me AG because they're my initials, but aside from that I don't really have any nicknames. But AG with a Japanese pronunciation sounds like Eiichi, a Japanese man's name. So they all started calling me Eiichi. I kind of like it. I can pretend, just a little, that I am not the whitest (currently reddest) thing within 25 kilometers. And it's weird, because I've only been here for a few weeks now, but I really feel like I've got this charming little group of friends, when just last week all I had was a charming horde of ants and geckoes.

My fridge is full of eel, and noodles, and ice-cold mugi-cha (barley-tea) in a great big pitcher. It tastes like summer ought to, and I live on an island, surrounded by increasingly familiar seas of people, and water.

P.S. wanna know what looks really really funny? A really tan blonde guy, especially since my hair is starting to sun bleach. Just picture it. Yeah, it looks more or less like what you're picturing. We'll see if ridiculousness continues once the red-tones fade.