As we come and go in our new neighborhood we’ve been getting lots of friendly greetings from all the neighbors that we see. People seem genuinely pleased to have an “international couple” living there, which makes it even easier to get comfortable.
One of the favorite pasttimes of the mothers in the neighborhood is to stand around out on the street in the late afternoon watching their kids play together. Since the street is a cul-de-sac there are hardly ever any cars, and it is a quiet and safe place for the kids. The mothers talk, the kids play, and the fathers work overtime.
Since we don’t have any kids to mind it is a little weird for us to walk out there and strike up a conversation, but sometimes I am out sweeping, watering plants, or cleaning and the kids flock over to talk to me. I’ve already taught them all “hello”, but after that we switch to Japanese. The next thing to teach them is “how are you?”, but I haven’t got around to it yet.
The other day Kuniko and I were lounging in the living room with all the windows open (but the blinds shut) and from outside we heard a couple of kids come to the front of our house and start saying “hello!” over an over. I thought it was cute that they were trying to get me to come out and play. I didn’t go out, however – if I did they’d expect me to come out everytime they chanted “hello” outside our house and we (and our neighbors) would get no rest.
Last night I had a good class at Kawasaki, but for the rest of the week I’ll be suffering from a wide open schedule. I’m using the time to study Japanese, do housework, and of course to continue the job search. It is really tough finding job opening during this time of year in Japan – the major hiring period is over, and now there are fill-in jobs here and there that I’ve applied for, but nothing really exciting yet.
More later…
