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My Journal

The Flavor of Japan
1:30 p.m., Tuesday, November 23, 1999
    Shigeto will take care of me. Here is an e-mail I received from Shigeto (I had shipped some of my moving boxes to him from the U.S.) in response to sending him my previous journal:
“At first I Guess It will the picture file. Because it costs long time to dowmlord. In fact I enjoy your brand new life story of the foreign country. I cannot imagine that what kind of trouble will happen to you at the country of oversea. So I read your journal with interest. Also it is the great textbook of English for me. Thank you for your kindness. If you had some trouble with your life, please call me. I want to be the one of your dependable friend.”
That feels so sweet and generous!

10:04 a.m., Friday, November 26, 1999
    To change your personality, speak a new language. Ten Japanese showed up at Keio University to practice English. Moe Saito organizes these weekly gatherings. Almost all of the participants have spent time in English-speaking countries (mostly the U.S.) and they treated me as the “guest of honor.” I plied them with questions (e.g., “What was most surprising to you about American people when you first visited the U.S.?”) and they quizzed me in return. Avid conversation overflowed the two-hour period allotted for our meeting and because we were still going strong at the end, six of us went to a restaurant and continued our conversations as we ate. I exchanged e-mail addresses with the four women I felt the greatest affinity with, and they requested that I return often.
    Several participants noted that when they speak English their “personality” changes. They said they become naturally more expressive of their feelings and personal thoughts when speaking English, compared to when they’re speaking Japanese.

    Japanese seeing me seeing the Japanese. My journal has turned out to be of special interest to some Japanese people who wish to see how an American sees their country and people. A friend of Keiko’s called me last night on my cell phone to request a copy of my recent eighteen-page journal. I e-mailed it to her. I’ll meet with her and Keiko for the first time on Tuesday.

9:19 a.m., Saturday, November 27, 1999
    Vive la telephone and international competition! I set my first gift coaching session from Japan today. It works! I dialed my callback number in the U.S. (strange that I got a 516 area code number — that’s Long Island, New York). I hung up after one ring. Within three seconds, it dialed me back. I entered the telephone number that I wanted to call in the U.S. and it put me right through!
    The first person declined my gift. The second person I will call back again when she’s back home (ten minutes from now), and the third person (in Kansas City, Missouri) accepted my gift!
The callback service is called “Boomerang.” It’s based in New Zealand and uses the competitive telephone rates of the U.S. It was the cheapest I found and costs only 14 cents per minute. The charge comes right out of my debit card.

    Hoping for a non-human. It will be fun to leave a message saying, “Hi, this is Dwight GoldWinde calling from Tokyo, Japan. Jill Hendricks gave me your name. She thought.... I will try to reach you back, or, if you like, you can reach me at 011-813-5827-3556. Just so you know, my time of day is nine hours earlier than yours. Talk with you soon.” The first three numbers I called were answered, so I was disappointed that I couldn’t leave my message! Me, a showoff? Perhaps, but loving it.

    The “no time” issue is not the issue. You know the issue most of us have of not enough time? Even though I’m not working yet, I still have the issue of not getting everything in. And, in most ways, it seems just as much an issue as when I was working full time. I think this is such a good demonstration of how the issue of not enough time is not primarily an issue of “not enough time.” It is more an issue of making clear choices and creating a sense of completion.

    Christmas in Japan. Pay $120 to go to a Christmas party? You’ve got to be kidding! But I did. It is a charity Christmas party. Normally I wouldn’t go, just because of the cost. But something about the woman who invited me, a thought about the types of people I might meet there, and my intuition, had me pay my money and get a ticket. It’s on December 20th.

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