I haven’t written anything here for a while, and I’ve done a lot of things since I last wrote!
First off, I want to note that I encountered the difference between and today. According to Deaf in Japan by , JFD and D-Pro have opposing approaches to sign language, Deaf culture, and so forth. JFD supports a middle-of-the-road approach, to encourage as many D/deaf people into the fold as possible; D-Pro has a more radical approach that is often called “Deaf Power” in the US. Both organizations have the best interests of D/deaf people in mind, but much like and , they have different views on many subjects. (I want to point out that JFD is not an oralist organization like AGB, I only make the comparison to clarify the relationship between organizations for American readers.) So anyway, someone asked me today if I had been to the JFD or met any Deaf people around Tokyo. I said I had gone to DPHH, but that was it; the person encouraged me to look for events or something. They said, “you need to meet some good Deaf people, not like those other Deaf people.” I tried to hide my astonishment, and said “do you mean like D-Pro people vs JFD people?” And they did mean exactly that. See, in the US, this wouldn’t happen, because there is a language barrier between the AGB and NAD camps. Oralists and signers have a hard time communicating, so they just don’t mix much. But the person was talking about two separate groups of signers. In the US, a signer is a signer. You don’t have to be friends with everybody who signs, but you’re not going to call them “bad people” because their philosophy is a little different from yours. I was really surprised.
Anyway, so what have I been up to? Hmmm. On Tuesday night my friend from NYC flew into town, and I met him at his hotel in Shinjuku. We walked around KabukichÅ a little bit, ate at a very sketchy place with “pig rectum” on the menu, and called it an early night because he was pretty tired. I had already requested the next day off, so I stayed over at his hotel, and we went to Ikebukuro and Akihabara on Wednesday.
And then this weekend we went to Kyoto! I was very fortunate to catch the bus from campus to the train station; it turns a 30-45 minute walk into a 5 minute ride. I don’t mind walking, I’ve gotten used to the distance, but it’s not a good use of time! I want to hurry up and get places! Miraculously, I also caught the bus back, because I spotted one of my students getting onto the bus. She even showed her disability card for me and I got to pay only Y100 for the ride instead of Y190. (Yes, disabled people register in Japan, it gets them lots of benefits beyond just SSI-type income.)
So, Kyoto! Our shinkansen departed at 7:00am, so we rode the Maronouchi Line from Shinjuku to Tokyo station, got there extra early, and took the train. I was a little disappointed…it was fast, but it wasn’t holy crap this is amazing fast. I fell asleep most of the way, I think. But when we got out, presto, we were in Kyoto! We weren’t exactly sure what to do next, and while I’m fine with just walking around and finding stuff (not like I can read directions anyway, and addresses are wacky), my friend needed to know where he was going and what he was doing. He bought a guidebook and a map, and we decided that we would do my maiko transformation while he looked over the book – the session takes about two hours, so he would have plenty of time.
We took the Kyoto subway one stop and then walked over to which was a total bust. Maybe we were in the wrong place, but all I could see was a whole bunch of people climbing all over each other, grabbing kimono, the place was hectic, and they were booked all day. We left quickly and I decided to go to the one near our hotel…it was a completely different experience, just what I had expected. is located in Gion, the traditional geisha district of Kyoto, and it was absolutely wonderful. I felt so special having my attendant take care of only me, doing my makeup, hair, and dressing. The hair was a half-wig, with my own hair making up the front part of the wig. It was a really amazing experience, I had pictures taken, and it was so much fun. Until…I got sweaty and the makeup got in my eye. Ow. Fuck. I had a little bit more free time, but I went back upstairs and had them take off the kimono (much faster than going on) so I could hustle back downstairs to have the wig removed and then get into the locker room to remove the makeup. I had geisha makeup in my eye for about 20 minutes, and it burned like hell! But anyway, I am supremely proud of the photos that resulted, which you can see .
After that, we wandered around Gion for a short while, but it was broiling hot and we quickly made our way over to our hotel, the ryokan. We got there a little early, but they kindly let us in and we sat on the tatami and cooled off in the nice air conditioning. Later, after the official check-in time, they brought some tea and water, and then at 6:00pm it was time for dinner. We had an absolutely amazing spread, really wonderful stuff, and they managed to put together something great for me even though I had only called the night before to say I was a vegetarian. I really wanted to lie down, but of course the futons weren’t out yet! My friend went to watch the tea ceremony – I saw one in Hawaii last year, so I just had a nice shower while he did that. The entire shower room was wood, and as far as I can tell it just ran into the ground (?!). They had sprayed my hair black to blend it with the wig, so my hands got all black trying to get it out, but eventually I finished up. When my friend returned, we went for a little bit of a walk, but we were still tired so we went back to the hotel.
In the morning, we had Japanese breakfast served in the room. I…was not a fan. I’m glad I had the experience, but relish and enokitake are not what I would call breakfast. Also, what I thought was toast was actually egg, but that’s because I misheard when she said “tamago” (Japanese word for egg) and assumed that the biscotti-shaped thing was, well, biscotti.
When we emerged from the hotel, we discovered it was raining quite a bit, and it continued to do so all day. We wandered around a bit, and managed to find ourselves in a covered shopping arcade, which included a food market with lots of interesting smells; this turned out to be . After that, we just went to the Kyoto station and waited for the train home. Unfortunately the bathrooms did not have any toilet paper anywhere (and explicitly stated this as soon as you walked in), and they were not even washlet toilets, so I had to buy tissues at a convenience store. Delightful! The ride home was uninteresting, which you can take to mean that I slept all the way back!