I think my brain exploded: An attempt at picking up the pieces.
So.. . Umm, usual Sunday. NOT.
Well, I guess... ... never mind.
Scratch that.
Starting at the beginning: Saturday.
Yesterday, I had a lot of fun. I went and hung out with a friend in the evening, and then I went home. You know, the usual thing you do after having fun, I suppose. Well, I went home, and in between doing laundry and tidying my room, I tried to make progress through "precipice of darkness" a penny arcade game (for those of you not aware of its humor... it IS off-color a lot of the time, sadly). I got sucked into the game and suddenly it was 1 am.
"Great," I thought. "I'm already tired, it's late and I have church in the morning."
So, of course, to start things off on the wrong foot, I woke up at 9:10. Mass being at 9:30 and a brisk 10-15 minute bicycle ride away. Flying down the road, I was still about five-ten minutes late. Why? Well, I had to get dressed right? So, besides that, Mass was uneventful and cold as usual (really Japan? We have 10 small heaters to warm up a small Cathedral?)
The next events are not so interesting so they will be casually retold in numbered bullet-point format:
1. Went to Matsuya and ate food.
(Pork and rice and cabbage and miso soup.)
2. Went to Round 1.
(Blew things up at Border Break)
(Am now level B1 )
3. Wandered around
4. Went to grocery store and bought food.
(I mean.. what else would I buy?)
5. Went home.
6. Realized I had 30 minutes to meet my fellow teacher.
7. Arrived five minutes late. (Pattern? Quite possibly yes. )
8. Joined meeting for one hour.
At this point the numbering must digress so that I can properly express what happened at the meeting.
First, the result of the meeting is that I have a volunteer translation task. That task though is helping alongside other volunteers to translate some 28 or so written experiences of people who were in Hiroshima when the bomb blew up. Not a problem there because I rather think this will be a good experience for me and my Japanese. However, I got handed a book to look at to help with terminology. It was to distract me while they determined some of the more complicated aspects of the meeting. It worked.
The book was titled something like "Why was the A-bomb dropped." Great... nothing like a touchy subject told from a Japanese perspective. It was surprisingly fair concerning matters of Russia getting involved, casualty calculations, and general political reasoning. However, I started to notice a certain line of thought that irritated me: America was constantly being noted as "covering up" the facts about the bombing. (ever been to the museum in Hiroshima? Most of the detailed photos were taken by the US military.)
Then it hit me. There was absolutely no mention in the book about two things: The messy experience America had in Okinawa (where Japanese civilians and soldiers killed themselves rather than be taken prisoner). Secondly, anything about the Japanese unwillingness to surrender being related to their belief that the Emperor was god was left out.
For those of you that are going to ask: Yes, I read the entire thing, but sadly, no, I didn't read the Japanese half. I didn't have that much time.
My mood was now severely downtrodden because I felt the truth was actually being covered up by the Japanese government. While I was in my funk, the teachers determined that it was best that I see the museum in Heiwa Koen (Peace Park). Why? I might learn something that would be helpful in translation, and apparently it was "nearby." With the one teacher from my school, we walked a good thirty minutes. Then we went to Peace Park's museum which, by the way, details all sorts of gruesome things about the Hiroshima bombings.
My mental position on the bombings just so you know is basically this: War sucks... sucky things happen in war. When in the museum though, my mind was more so like this: Do Japanese blame America? What is the reasoning behind this exhibit in their minds? Man, what does peace really mean anyway? Essentially, I degenerated to a questioning mass of nonsense.
(Still sorting myself out on that currently.)
Then, we left the museum.
I thought, "Yay, breath of fresh air, I can think now." Nope.
I got shown around the park and constantly reminded that this used to be a city.
PAUSE. You are thinking right now, something like "suck it up," I mean, we've all talked about the bombings before and those of us in Hiroshima have seen the sights, right? YES. Exactly. I agree.
This whole Peace Park thing was nothing more than a temporary jarring of my mind as I tried to shift around and see the whole thing from a Japanese perspective. I thought of ways to explain the logic and reasoning for why such a thing happens during war. I thought of explaining that a worldly peace is nothing more than an ideal. An ideal that if ever realized will only be taken advantage of by some sad party. I also started backtracking on my thoughts, because there is no way to explain to people connected with a tragedy anything about the tragedy. It becomes further impossible as numbers of innocent are increased: children especially.
Random: Am I the only one creeped out by the fact that Sadako holding her paper crane looks like a Cross? Besides her actual paper cranes are like the tiniest ones I've ever seen too. There full wingspan isn't even an inch!
RESTART. Wait, didn't I just do this by explaining more.
No. Sadly, I didn't.
My day is actually only beginning from here.
This next part also only deserves bullet points because it equates to the silver lining for the day.
1. Went to MotoYasu (an Italian Restaurant)
2. Discovered they had Guinness on Tap
3. Convinced the other teacher to try it.
4. Had a Guinness
(note: wearing Jameson whiskey cap at the time)
5. ... rephrase: Had the Guinness on an empty stomach.
(Bad idea)
6. Chatted about life, youth, and the future.
(blame it on the beer? nope....)
7. When leaving, I found out that there is a genuine Irishman who works at the place. He just wasn't in at the time
8. Parted ways for the day after being shown the Hypocenter for the A-bombs blast....lovely.
For those of you who have read this far, I commend you and I must tell you the real story is now.
I went and joined up with some new friends that I had never connected with before. Actually, to make this complicated there are three factors. I had only met two people in this group before, and briefly at that as they are actually the friends of another friend. Secondly, I was feeling quite relaxed from the beer (sadly). Thirdly, I had this odd feeling like I was walking into a trap because I thought I was meeting one maybe two people but now it was five unknown people.
After some typical wishy-washy Japanese decision making,
("Where do you want to go"
"I don't know, where do you want to go"
"I don't kno- HEY don't start that again.")
We went to Tullys on Hondoori. (That's like saying I went to some Starbucks knock off.) With our drinks in hand, we found our seats and started to "get to know each other better."
It started off nice. You know, the cliche barrage of "what do you do?" "oh my gosh your Japanese is great!" "How long have you been in Japan? etc etc. Then we hit hobbies. Easy enough right? Well, it was easy for me and the other guy there to talk about our gaming interests. Movie interests went over their heads. Then, music, well, let's just say I'm not a fan of most top 40 Japanese pop music, so it was a complete surechigai (miss). It did start to make me wonder just what this one "she" did for fun; So I asked.
Oh.. mistake. Wonderous, glorious what-the-heck Mistake.
I cannot translate very well what the answer was, but it basically came down to "my hobby is effecting peace into the parts of the earth that are in need of it." Yeah, I think I made her rephrase, re-say, and repeat that so many times too.
Initially, I thought she meant that she likes to sit around, like many people do, and simply discuss the problems in the world and look at the ways to help said people. Nope, that was a nice thought, but not what she was getting at.
So, foolish me and my curiosity had to ask more questions. Ask a simple question in Japan and get a long-winded explanation about everything but the actual "How."
I got asked "do you believe, well actually it really doesn't matter whether you believe or not, but .. a thing that, well "thing" isn't right either... a power for peace?" Seriously, derp? What was that supposed to mean? She back-pedaled on nearly every word of substance when she opened her mouth.
"Umm, yeah I believe in a power for peace, but could you tell me what the subject of your sentence is? Of perhaps what kind of power you are talking about?"
Progressing from the vague to the slightly less vague, after about ten minutes, I got out that they focus on peace as members of their group. AHA! So these five are a group. Yup, it's a trap... where was admiral Akbar when I needed him?
"Great... this is starting to sound like a religion" so I said that. They denied it, but informed me a little bit later that one of their original members is now passing the word on to people in a office in Brooklyn. "Therefore" they said, "our group has members in America that are just like you." Just like me? American? Or what? Foreign?
Ugh.. I didn't like the sound of that. Then, it happened...
They invited me to join... why? Because, well, anybody can wish for peace, so regardless of what I believe I can join their group. Or so they took the time to inform me.
I had to resist laughing (why this makes me laugh is because it showed to me the complete lack of thought on their part because of the "regardless of what you believe" part). I explained how that might work from their perspective but that people with religion are going to see that as a conflict. Using Islam as a example because one of their close members is apparently in Afghanistan, I explained that peace is not something you bring about, but something achieved through Allah. I could be wrong about that since I'm not a Muslim, but I thought the example would help.
Nope, it didn't communicate. So, I tried to get them to explain what "peace" meant to them. I mean, I had to start somewhere. They didn't do a good job explaining, but I think they were trying to say that peace basically consisted of "no war" and everybody sharing everything equally. Err.. isn't that a socialistic Utopia?
Using that as a sounding board, I tried to explain that the Christian and Islamic concepts for peace were radically different. I explained that this was mainly because the goal was not a simple external no-war peace but rather a next-life/internal peace. Their response? They were giving me strange looks like I had just defined a grape as as watermelon.
In fact, the lack of understanding towards other perspectives was leading me to wonder what sort of brain-washing these people had experienced. I say that now only half-joking. I chalked it up to cultural background at the time, but now I wonder otherwise.
So, I tried to explain that religions in Japan were passive towards people with their kind of thinking. Specifically, I menat Shinto and Buddhism. Either of those two would see no problem with you "effecting peace in the world" (however it was that they were doing that) but that most western religions would see that personal attitude of self-causation as in direct opposition to their religious fundamentals. This again, didn't communicate...
(I'm thinking right now: Who the heck is going to read this far...?)
This is when it got weird.. and I started getting some real information. They, personally, aren't the ones effecting peace. That was just a nuance in the wording. They act as gathering points for an unexplained(origin-wise) energy (presumably positive) using pendants that they have around their necks.
Ah, new agey wiccan type stuff, I thought. WRONG. I asked why they thought these pendants had power. (I was still foolishly thinking that they and this small office in Brooklyn were the extent of their group.)
They informed me that these pendants were inscribed with characters of "power" by a person who had power. That person is also apparently deceased at this time. They even claimed that this person and these pendants have caused miracles (they couldn't give me any real examples though).
O_O . . . I hope my eyes weren't bugging out too much at this point in the conversation, but I had to ask "who wrote on the pendants?"
Okada Mahikari.
I had it pegged it as a religion from the very beginning and, oh boy, was I right. I informed them that since my thoughts are otherwise on these matters and that I'm Catholic (as soon I as figure out what that means exactly). I apologized for the directness in my approach, but I let them know that I felt I needed to be fair.
The conversation continued on the same topic for maybe another 10-15 minutes because they were convinced that I was just plain not getting some of the Japanese they were saying. I can tell you know that I was understand every word. If anything, the toomawashi (beating around the bush) and what wasn't being said was perhaps not being communicated. The topic thankfully went elsewhere from there. However, as you can see, I'm still picking up the pieces.
What is Mahikari? Simply, it's a cult. Furthermore, it is the great DAFT cult that is stupid enough to profess a belief that Jesus is buried in Japan.
I like this link:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~skyaxe/mahikari.htm
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