Sayonaras Begin

There have some really, really great people that found their way into my life over the last two years. I don't know the names of the people in this photo. They are an older couple who run a barbershop beneath one of the schools where I work. For a long time, I would just nod and be polite when they talked to me because I simply couldn't understand what they were saying. As my Japanese ability improved, I began to follow what they were often trying to convey. In turns out, at least for some time, they had been inviting me into their shop to have a cup of coffee before I started a class, and I had been inadvertently refusing each time in my ignorance.

Occasionally the husband would appear at the door of the classroom as I was preparing lessons and make some motions towards his shop downstairs and speak in frantic tones that I assumed could only refer to an impending disaster. I tried to smile and nod in hopes of appeasing him before he left, finally surrendering to the language barrier. My company rents the upstairs room in his building as a classroom space, so I assumed that he was trying to explain something about the electricity or water that I should know. I decided that if whatever he was trying to tell me was truly important, he would either call the head office of my company or wait until the Japanese teacher was there the following week.

When I finally clued in, I discovered how kind and generous the Japanese are to strangers. The teacher who I replaced had also been friends with the couple in the barbershop and would visit them from time to time. After that initial visit for coffee, I began getting offers to park my bicycle in their garage out of the rain, or a take-home umbrella in case I didn't have one. The offers for coffee continued because I think they found me interesting to talk to after I could hold my own in a conversation. My Japanese is broken and stammering at best, but they were able to ask me about Canada and my travel plans.

I took this picture today because I'm now in the last cycle of schools before I finish my contract. After this week, work will not bring me back to the school, but friendship will. I plan on framing the photo above and giving them some Canadian souvenirs as a gift for all of their kindness since I arrived in the country, a nervous and confused young Canadian in search of friends. And although I still haven't learned their actual names, I know now that I had found some.

December is update-a-day month! To read all the posts this month, click on December 2006 on the right-hand side of the screen!