The long-awaited-for day dawned rainy and a bit chilly this past Monday morning.   After sleeping in a bit to make sure we weren’t too tired that morning, we ate a healthy breakfast of eggs, pineapple, and yogurt – all designed to help stimulate our brain functions to the highest level.  Then, after making sure we had two sharpened pencils, the timer set, and our heads on as straight as possible, we began to take the first of our Japanese language tests.

We started with the kanji and vocabulary section.  For those of you who don’t know, kanji are the Chinese pictorial characters the Japanese use in their writing system.  In this section of the test, we had to identify the correct readings and kanji for various words.  We also had to choose which answer was most similar in meaning to the question.

Next came the grammar section and reading section.  Here, we had to identify the correct particles, verb tenses, forms, etc. to complete various sentences.  At the end, there were two short articles for us to read and answer comprehension questions about.

Lastly, was the listening comprehension section.  This was the part we were most nervous about.  It involved listening to dialogues on a CD and answering various comprehension questions.  Because of some of our prior listening practice, we were afraid that the dialogues would be fast and difficult to follow.

After having completed the test, I am pleased to say that each section was actually much easier than we thought they would be.  We understood both the kanji and grammar parts well, and the listening dialogues were actually a very good speed.  We took our answers to our language tutor’s house the next day where she graded them and we found that we both passed!  It is a wonderful relief and weight off our shoulders to know that this first of many milestones is now behind us.

What is next you ask?  Well, because of preparing for this test so much last week, we actually did enough study to cover last week and this week.  With that in mind, we are going to take a bit of time off the rest of this week so that we can catch up with various things around the apartment.  Next week we will begin with our religious language studies with the help of one of our friends here at the church.  We will focus primarily on that for the next few months until we have gone through that material and then we will continue on with regular Japanese study at an intermediate level.  We are excited for the change of pace and look forward to continuing on in our learning!

Thank you all for your many prayers for us concerning this test.  Praise the Lord with us that we were able to pass it.  Please pray that the grammar concepts and words we worked hard to learn would become second-nature to us in daily conversation.

So we just had our first dentist experience here in Japan this past Friday.  It was both interesting and insightful for us foreigners who are mindful of culture.  First let me say that thankfully no cavities were found and that Colby and my brushing habits need little improvement.

We had been warned by our teammates to try to get an early morning appointment since later appointments mean waiting longer beforehand.  We arrived promptly at ten of nine and were given paperwork to fill out.  Here was the first cultural note: the receptionist handed us a pencil with which to write our information.  A pencil!  In America, it’s always with a black pen that we fill out forms so that years from now the information will still be legible.  Ah well, maybe they’ll just ask us for the information again if it ever becomes hard to read.

Very soon we were both taken to separate rooms for our cleaning.  As I sat down on the chair, the hygienist asked, “Kenshin desuka?”, which I thought sounded an awful lot like “Genkin desuka?”, which would mean, “Are you paying by cash?”.  I happily replied that I was, but then as I sat back in the chair I realized that the question was different than what I thought.  Quickly getting my dictionary, I looked up “kenshin”, which turns out to mean (at least this particular entry in my dictionary) “devotion”.  “That’s odd,” I thought, but I still decided that I had given an appropriate answer because, after all, I do feel very devoted to cleaning my teeth.

Finally, I worked up the nerve to ask her what “kenshin” actually was (because unfortunately, my dictionary is not an exhaustive one), and after she looked in my dictionary herself, we realized that the word she was using wasn’t there.  She giggled and then explained that it meant cleaning.  “Oh, phew,” I thought, “I guess ‘yes’ was correct then!”

She then set out to clean my teeth.  Here came the next two cultural notes: Instead of the paper throw-away bib that American dentists put on their patients, she put a cloth bib on me!  Not at all that I mind, but it seems like it would take them more work to wash them than it would to just throw them away.  Who knows, maybe the paper ones in Japan are too expensive.  Also, in Japanese, store clerks and company employees seem to have set phrases that they use often in various situations.  For example, as the hygienist lowered the chair, she said, “I’m lowering the chair,” and she did the same thing when she raised the chair.  When she started to clean my teeth, she said “I’m going to begin cleaning now.”  Maybe they have these set phrases in America as well, but here it seems like these phrases replace any conversational chatter that American employees sometimes strike up with customers.  At any rate, it’s easy to follow because they are usually short and simple sentences.

In Japan, people usually close their eyes while the dentist cleans their teeth.  Knowing this beforehand, I purposely tried to do so myself, as I am a typical American who likes to know what’s going on.  I could hear the dentist talking to Colby in the next room.  Another cultural thing about the Japanese is that they often say things like “yes,” “uh huh”, and so on to affirm that they are listening.  The dentist must have had his hands in Colby’s mouth while he was talking because Colby’s responses came through the wall sounding all warped and garbled.

Next, the dentist came in to take a look at my teeth.  Thankfully I didn’t need to try to respond when he was peering into my mouth.  He said that it looked like I didn’t have any calculus.  “Calculus?” I thought, wondering if it was an English word he was trying to say.  I quickly tried to look in my dictionary for the word but to no avail.  Then the dentist took my dictionary and started to look for it himself (I love it when the Japanese use our dictionary to find words!).  At last, when he could find it, I heard Colby shout over, “It’s calcified plaque, Theresa.”  The dentist and I both looked at each other as if to say, “Now how did he figure that out?”

All in all, it was a gratifying experience as we found that we were able to go to the Japanese dentist by ourselves.  It was the first time I have ever sat in the dentist’s chair with a dictionary on my lap though!

Praise the Lord that we are continually able to conquer more and more tasks in Japanese.  While we are sad at the Burwell’s departure, pray that it will help continue to push us “out of the nest.”

This past Sunday was both a happy and sad time here at the church.  The church turned 10 years old in January, and this past Sunday held their birthday service.  Like they do every year, they had a giant cake which everyone got to add a candle to.  However, it was also the farewell party for our teammates, the Burwells, as it was their last Sunday with us before they went back to America.  As you can imagine, we had a big crowd and the normal tradition of having everyone share something was reduced to one person from each group represented sharing a little.

Please pray for the church as they continue to adjust to not having a missionary to help them out full-time.  There will be a number of responsibilities that will have to be absorbed by a small number of people. This year, also, will be the end of some grants that have helped to support the church as it has grown.  They continue to trust the Lord for additional growth so the church can cover its own expenses and would appreciate your prayers on their behalf.

The Japanese have a unique and fascinating culture that goes back almost 2000 years. But what is equally as fascinating is the way the Japanese process foreign trends and cultures. Yesterday was a good example.

Since 2004, Chuck & Jan Burwell (our teammates here in Ube) have participated in a gospel musical group that meets here in Ube. The interesting part is the connection the members of the group have to gospel music. All of the people in the group are Japanese. Most are not Christians and a few speak English, but none fluently. They discovered gospel mostly through recordings and videos on the internet and were attracted to the upbeat tempo and all-around energy in the performance. The group is part of a network in the region run by a Japanese woman. They meet every week for practice and perform at various events in the area. Other than the fact that their pronunciation of English songs (around 75% of their repertoire) can sometimes be hard to understand, they are really pretty good. The catch is that, unlike the spontaneous outpouring that gospel music usually is, their performance is largely scripted. They have rehearsed when and how to sway back and forth and do various motions; when to give little God shout-outs and do the occasional rap; and many of the details of the solos that might otherwise be free-form. They watch videos of performances and try to copy as best as they can to the original.

You can see as the choir performs two songs, first in Japanese and then in English.

This particular performance had an interesting second dimension as well. It was held at “Kaze no Mieru Oka – Feliz” which roughly translates “Feliz (the Spanish word for happy): the Hill Where You Can See the Breeze” It is a Spanish-themed wedding spot complete with restaurant and wedding chapel that looks like it was pulled out of the Catalonian hillside. It has a faux alter, stained glass windows, and Latin inscriptions painted on the walls. For a while now, it has been trendy in Japan to have a Christian (i.e. “Western Style”) wedding. Because of the obvious absence of churches, businesses catering to wedding parties complete with elaborate churches have sprung up all over Japan.

The Japanese have two dueling attitudes. On the one hand, they are a very tight cultural group. They have great reverence for their own culture, which they see as unique in the world. But they also have a great openness to foreign cultures and readily adopt elements of them. They generally seem to enjoy traveling overseas and trying foreign foods. The Japanese language uses many words borrowed directly from other languages. It was interesting to learn the words for hair clipper (barikan from French) and sleeping bag (shurafu from German).

Pray for the members of the gospel choir. Over the last few years, they have been exposed to the message of the gospel many times. As Chuck & Jan return to America, one of their greatest burdens is to see many of these people, who have become some of their closest friends, become true followers of Christ. The Burwells’ departure has given them the opportunity to have some good conversations. Pray that as they depart, what the Burwells’ have shared with the choir members will ring in their ears.

At this point, many of the Japanese are headed back to their homes after being away for the New Year’s holiday. (Yes, I said New Years.  In Asia, it’s much more important than Christmas.)  Although we didn’t travel anywhere ourselves, we heard reports of a lot of traffic which was compounded by the freeway being closed on New Year’s Eve due to snow (very light, but the Japanese are very cautious).

Amidst the celebrations, Colby and I had the chance to visit with one of our English student’s family, the Hiraishis.  The owner of a small take out restaurant, Mr. Hiraishi invited us for dinner at his house with his wife and daughter.  We had known that Japanese people like to make a variety of foods for their guests, but we were still taken aback when we arrived.  We were served avocado, oden (various egg, tofu, and fish items simmered in soy sauce) two kinds of sushi, noodle soup with shrimp patties, chicken wings, pizza, and a sweet potato soufflé for dessert.  Thankfully they were all small portions. They even had prepared a second pizza just in case and gave it to us to take home!  Everything was delicious and they were wonderful hosts.  We enjoyed getting to know the Hiraishi family better as we practiced our Japanese and they their English.  A highlight of the evening was when Mr. Hiraishi showed us his heirloom samurai sword that had been in his family since the 1800s. Because it is the real thing capable of causing severe injury, he is actually required to have a permit for it.

We kind of look like pirates, huh?

On Christmas Day we had dinner with our teammates, another missionary family, and the Japanese pastor and his family.  Because whole turkeys and hams are hard to come by in Japan, we decided to have Mexican food for dinner.  Colby and I also celebrated our 5^th Christmas together with our pentannual Lord of the Rings movie marathon.  It made for a long day, but we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to middle earth.

On New Year’s Eve night we gathered with all of the other missionaries for the annual appetizer and BUNKO night.  As it was our first New Year’s Eve on the field, we soon found out exactly what BUNKO is.  Not a game for the strategist – BUNKO is played by quickly and aggressively rolling dice to get the right numbers and patterns. Even though our luck wasn’t the best, Colby and I were amongst those who received prizes for various categories.  Mine for the most losses and Colby’s for winning at “Rock, Paper, Scissors” amongst all the other people who didn’t qualify to compete for a prize in any other category.  It was an interesting game.

All kinds of goodies.

Please pray for us as we adjust from vacation mode back into our normal routine.  Pray that we would start afresh with Japanese study and English classes with renewed energy and purpose.

It has been interesting to sing Christmas songs in Japanese this year.  Because we sing them every year, sometimes Christmas songs can become old hat, and I, for one, don’t often pay attention to their meaning.  This year however, because I don’t know most of the words I’m singing, the words I do know jump out at me and I find myself paying a lot more attention to the meanings of Christmas songs now than before.

One word especially has caught my attention.  Sukui is the Japanese word for help, aid, relief, or salvation, and it happens to be in a number of Christmas songs I have sung.  Now, singing the songs in English, mind you, I probably would never have given this word a second thought, but because it was one of the only words I understood, I spent some time thinking about it.

And in thinking about salvation, I began to realize afresh how this is the entire point of Christmas.  It was for our help, aid, relief, and salvation that Christ came.  So much meaning wrapped up in such a small word.  Truly, the English equivalent is longer, but oftentimes we say it so quickly that maybe we don’t give the extent of its meaning much thought.

And so because of God’s help, aid, relief, and salvation given long ago, Colby and I wish you a wonderful Christmas celebration.

The Lighthouse Ube Christ Church 2009 Christmas Photo

For quite a while now, we have been studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test 3 and we are hoping to be ready to take it toward the end of January.  This test is over approximately 150 grammar forms, 300 pictorial characters, and about 1500 vocabulary words.

Colby and I are feeling that by the end of January we’ll be decently ready, but will have to work quite hard until then to master everything.  We both feel comfortable with the pictorial characters as well as most of the grammar forms.  For Colby, the listening section may be the most difficult, whereas for me, getting all of that vocabulary into my thinking and usage might be most difficult.

It has been interesting studying for this test in comparison with the tests I studied for in school.  Always in school, I would study to get a good grade and then invariably after the test would not remember hardly any of what I studied.  Here, not only is it important that I get a good grade on this test, but even more so I desire to use what I’m learning in conversation.  It has given a whole new meaning to learning.

A funny language story before I close:  At Colby’s Japanese class the other day, they were talking about various transitive and intransitive verb pairs.  The teacher showed a picture of a vase of flowers that had fallen over.  She pointed to the picture and asked Colby what it was in English.  Thinking that she meant the verb, he answered that it was “to topple”.

“Oh, that’s interesting,” she replied, “because, at least in British English, this is called a vase!”

Needless to say, language learning is sometimes funny for both us and the Japanese!

Please pray for Colby and Theresa as they prepare to hopefully take their test at the end of January.  Pray that they would learn the material well not only for the test but also for daily conversation.

Most of the emails that I had received from the US in the last two weeks have ended with the same line, “Hope you have a good thanksgiving! (You do have thanksgiving in Japan, right?)”

Well the answer is Yes and No. On November 23rd Japan celebrates a holiday of appreciation. It was previously the imperial harvest festival, but was changed in 1948 to be oriented toward the collective efforts of the Japanese workforce. As such, the best way to translate it would probably be Labor Appreciation Day, similar to Labor Day in the US. The fourth Thursday in November is just another day in Japan and most of the Christar workers did normal things like church activities and English classes.

That being said, the enterprising American is able to whip up a decent Thanksgiving feast, and most of us do. The hardest thing to find here is the Turkey. Japanese grocery stores don’t seem to sell anything whole (except fish) and so finding something to roast can be difficult. For people living in Yamaguchi prefecture, the best place is the Costco in a large city about two hours south. Our teammates had gone there for an event a few weeks ago and bought four turkeys to get them through all their holiday entertaining. There is also a fairly large Marine Corps air station about two hours north of us, and we recently found out that the KFC on the base also sells small rotisserie Turkeys.

Ready to dig in to our delicious dinner.

We actually ended up celebrating, not once, but twice. We had planned our own dinner with our teammates and some Japanese friends for this past Saturday, but were also invited to the home of some other Christar workers after we finished with our regular church activities on Thursday. It was nice to enjoy fellowship, some laughs about language learning, and, of course, the turkey with all the fixings.

We are thankful for all that God has done in our lives and how he has worked to bring us here and provide for us in many areas over the last nine months. We count you, our supporters and friends, amongst our many blessings!

Before we started full-time Japanese study, I had this subconscious mindset that if we spent X number of years in earnest language study, we would get to the place where we would be able to speak like a native speaker.  It makes sense, doesn’t it?  Once you do your due diligence, you are then able to open your mouth and (without much effort) out flows beautiful Japanese. Ah, the thought of it!

While that may eventually be true for the cross-cultural worker who has spent most of their life in Japan, speaking realistically (which we have been learning to do in addition to speaking Japanese), there is a lot more to learning another language than you would think and it takes a lot longer than most people would anticipate.  One reason I didn’t understand this was because (like most Americans), I had not done much foreign language learning. What little I did have was in a European language which (when compared to Japanese) are very similar to English.  Because grammar structures are similar, it might be easy to switch the words in an English sentence with the French or Spanish words and have a similar meaning.

Not so with Japanese.  Part of what makes it such a fascinating language is that the thought processes are so different from English.  I have literally had times when the Japanese sentence I’m working on is opposite in structure to its English counterpart.  For example, if I were to say, “The shirt I am wearing is from my friend”, I would say in Japanese, “Am wearing shirt, friend from received.”  Interesting, huh?

Colby and I were remarking today that one reason why we have trouble incorporating some of the new grammar forms we’re learning into our everyday conversation is because they sometimes don’t have an equivalent in English.  If they don’t have an exact equivalent in English, then our minds don’t naturally think in that particular form.  For example, in Japanese, whenever you want to explain what someone has done for you or what you have done for them, you always use the main verb and then one of the ‘to give’ verbs.  So, if you wanted to say, my friend washed my car, you would say “My friend my car washed gave”.  It’s essentially saying, “My friend gave me the service of washing my car,” which is understandable, but never used in English.

Amidst these language difficulties, I have seen how God has blessed Colby and me.  He has provided a wonderful Japanese tutor and helpers for us to study with.  We have found some really great language learning resources that we use all the time.  The Japanese people are very patient with us when we attempt to use new forms and words.  Most of all though, Colby and I enjoy learning Japanese.  Studying is usually interesting and encouraging, and we are able to look back and see how far we have come.  I really don’t know how it would be if we didn’t enjoy it and we count this as a blessing from the Lord.  Learning Japanese is a task that we will never be done with; we will never “arrive”.  There will always be more to learn, even after years and years of being here.

Thank you for continuing to pray for us as we study. Pray that we would be able to understand Japanese thought patterns and ways of saying things even when they are very different from English so we can communicate as accurately as possible and be easily understood.

After we passed our driving test, we were chatting with the traffic officer. “That was pretty good.” he said, “You only had to do it three times. That’s rather quick.”

“Oh, really?” I said.

“It’s usually 5 or 6 times. I think the most I ever had was someone who took it almost 30 times before they passed,” he replied.

Theresa and I had decided to start the process of getting our Japanese driver’s licenses a few months early because we knew it could potentially be a long process and we wanted to make sure we had them before our international licenses expire in February. In order to do that, we had an official translation of our American licenses made and then we went in for a pre-screening appointment to see if our documents from America would be considered valid here in Japan. “The paper test you should have no problem with – I’ve only had 2 people fail that in all the time I’ve worked here. The driving test, well…” the officer said, sucking in through his teeth and giving the often used Japanese understatement “that’s a little difficult.” The good news was that we didn’t need an appointment to take the driving test and could retake it as often as we needed to.

We arrived at the center at 8:30 AM the following week and began our processing. This involved going to various numbered windows where various things were verified or information collected, paying our testing fee, and purchasing official application photos (different from our actual license photos) at the on-site photo both. The Japanese government seemingly loves paperwork, which is done almost all by hand using rubber stamps. At one of the windows, our applications were stamped in no less than ten different places. The eye exam which was part of this process involved looking into a machine and then telling the traffic officer what color the ‘C’ was and which way the opening was facing (ironically, the letter “C” isn’t used in Japanese). Then we went up to the second floor of the center and waited until they called us in for our paper test. It was indeed quite easy, with questions such as, “When you’re tired, is it okay to drive?” and “If you get into an accident, do you still need to call the police?” Needless to say, we both passed and then started to prepare for our driving test, which was schedule for that afternoon.

In Japan, the driving test is administered with kind of a different philosophy. Japanese roads are narrow, windy, and often have many bicyclists and pedestrians (as opposed to most American roads, which are wide, straight, and comparably empty). The traffic laws in Japan are such that the larger vehicle yields to the smaller, going from semi’s all the way down to pedestrians. The Japanese driving test is less about your demonstrating your ability to handle a vehicle safely on real roadways, and more about demonstrating your ability to drive precisely and cautiously and observe the various traffic rules. The driving test is administered on a specialized course at the driving center, designed to simulate actual roads and conditions, only without other cars or pedestrians. There are certain procedures the testee must follow in order to pass. However, they must not just be completed – rather, they must be done perfectly.

The Yamaguchi Traffic Center driving course.

First, before you get in the car, you need to look underneath the back and the front of the car to ensure that there are no objects, animals, or children in the way. You also need look before opening up your door, in order to avoid putting it in the way of a passing vehicle (keep in mind we are on a fake road). If you go more than 30 kph (18 mph) for most of the course, you will probably be dinged for going too fast (although, as Theresa discovered, you can also be dinged for going to slow). Before making a left-hand turn (remember, they drive on the left-hand side here), you must look in your side mirror and out the passenger side window for any mopeds or bicyclists that might come up alongside you. With each turn, after looking left and right carefully (and exaggeratedly so that the traffic officer will know that you have actually looked), you may then proceed cautiously to turn.

The course includes a very narrow set of curves that look like an “S” and a right-left turn combination that looks like a crank handle. These are meant to portray some of the very old side roads in Japan that are both twisty and have houses close to it on either side. They are lined with wind chime like pipes on both sides of the road so the traffic officer will know instantly if you hit one of the hypothetical houses.

Upon return to the start point, the traffic officer will give you “driving advice” which is his list of all the things you didn’t do quite right. Each time we took the driving test, the police officer had different advice for us including:

• that we made our left turns (and also some right ones) too wide
• that we didn’t turn left correctly so as to check for and prevent hitting a moped or bicycle
• that we looked before pulling out into the intersection, but not a second time as we were going through the intersection
• and finally, that Theresa needed to go “just a little faster next time.”

You then go inside to await your fate, parting with the standard Japanese phrase (although especially pertinent in this case), “Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.” which means essentially, “Please treat me well.” After a little wait (which of course seemed like an eternity), an officer comes out and says gokaku or fugokaku (passed or didn’t pass). I passed on my third try and Theresa (having made only one error her third try, but a fatal one) passed on her fourth. After that, we paid the license fee, had our license photos taken, received our licenses, and were on our way – relieved that we are now able to drive indefinitely in Japan.

Theresa and I show off our new licenses.

Praise God that were able to get our Japanese driver’s licenses. Pray for safety as we travel on the busy roads of Japan.