時間があれあば... Time is a peculiar thing

When I left to Japan, I brought with me 100 名刺 (meishi, namecard, which are vital in Japan. Not least for the reason that your katakana name might cause some confusion if not seen in written form. After the first four months, I had run out of meishis and was only in half way of my stay here. Of course, I gave cards also to people that I never contacted nor have they contacted me. But for the sake of argumentation, let us say that to 60% of those who I gave my card to have either sent or will be sending some sort of greeting by e-mail, mainly in Japanese. (I'm bad at mathematics and estimating numbers, so this is truly hypothetical estimation.) Perhaps around 35-40 of those have stayed more or less regular contacts, either through e-mail exchange or Facebook contacts. (I will write more about Facebook and the role of a researcher later.) Writing an e-mail in Japanese takes me 10-45 min, depending on the familiarity of both the topic and the receiver. So, writing a short mail to all of the 100 people I gave my meishi would take 1000-4500min, from 16 hours to 75 hours. Now I survive with, let's say 600-2400min for one round, since not everyone uses e-mail.

So, you can imagine, there have been days during which I have mainly responded to e-mails or tried desperately figure out a way to express something in written form. I do not remember any fieldwork guide mentioning this, but, then again, I might be wrong.  Lately, I have not been able to do even that, since I have been commuting to Yamamoto nearly daily and I do not have internet access there. At this point somebody might note that there was a promise of finishing an article draft during my stay here... Getting there, it is all ready in my head!

Mobile mornign coffee in train. We have lived through good and bad times together with this thermos bottle bought from my previous trips to Japan. We have grown together. 

Before having "all the free time" to commute to Yamamoto (3-4hours per day, during which I write mail drafts or notes or simply practice the previously-mentioned train meditation, which I have become rather good at.) I had my hands full with homework from Japanese classes. Classes stimulate brain, you learn new words etc., but in exchange you have to cut off time from your research (e-mail correspondence?). So, I ended up multitasking, doing everything a bit and dreaming about long hours in archive, throughout preparation for field trips and intensive studying. 

Now the Japanese classes are over and I can fully concentrate to research. Not studying Japanese has reduced my language skills closer to survival level, but frequent visits to Yamamoto during the studies have paid of: lately I have noticed that the circle of my contacts has grown. More often than once I have met acquaintances in different events and on the way to here and there in the town. It does give you certain sense of place and connections, when every now and then you can accidentally bump into a person you know or when your contact from different contexts are connected to each other, usually for everyone's surprise. However, this has lead to rather positive time management problem: there is a lot going on in Yamamoto, so deciding to which activities to take part, is rather difficult. Altough the net is tightening around the most active key persons in the town, there is still a bias in my contacts: In addition of these extrovert and active people - mostly elderly or citizen activists - there is a more silent population, such as people unwilling to move out of temporary houses, young families that are busy taking care of their jobs and children and all those people, who are not willing to take part in different recreational circles. These people who do not participate in community-building are still a bit out of my reach.

I did imagine being able to do a lot more, also personally: dragged my basketball shoes here (Of course I would join the university's team!) and packed also tennis rackets (Of course me and my husband would play every weekend!). In reality, we played once and both the rackets and shoes travelled back home... To be able to fully concentrate and work on foreign language (which is, to be honest, quite exhausting), I personally need a good night sleep. The more busy and tired I am, the more slower my brain get. (This post was written in the last train to Sendai and returning tomorrow morning on seven o’clock train on iPad and ublished few days later. Please excuse possible typos. )

Mobile morning coffee in bus connecting Watari-station to Yamashita-station, since the Joban-line damaged by tsunami will be reopened in 2017.

The lesson to be learned from this posting is not to make the writer to sound like a martyr, tough some sort of enlightenment of the true meaning of "being busy" is reached. Furthermore, as the name of this blog suggests, I am for the first time on the field for a longer period and do everything alone, so the there is probably a more economical way of doing this - money-, time- and energy-wise. There is also a certain endemic uncertainty embedded to all my conducts here. Part of the business, I guess...

The main point is that there are only 24 hours in one day and time management and preparation before going to field is important. And despite all this, you will be busy! At least I feel like gold panner... Or like eating with only one chopstick: doing lot of things in vain, consuming energy, but finally the result of all efforts combined will be something good. I hope. This might make somebody less skeptical to believe in some sort of predestined fate: some visits to Yamamoto seemed meaningless or even frustrating at the time, but they paid of later. For instance, by participating in different local meetings I showed my face (and determination) and was offered a great accommodation solution for the last two months here by an acquaintance. What is even better, the accommodation is in Yamamoto, so I can use my commuting hours to something else! Praises go also to my husband, who has been understanding, keeping our place in Sendai clean, laundry washed and managed to even feed himself, while I have been in Yamamoto. And, oh yes, I have a new set of 100 meishis, of which nearly half is already "in the circulation" already.

Ps. The reason for using time to write this post is to have sometimes an opportunity to express my thoughts in more or less comprehensible manner in foreign language. I am feeling like a superwoman when speaking, reading and writing in English! From time to time I forget that I can communicate with foreign language at ease. And I do love Japanese local trains, could ride them endlessly. It is the stuff outside the trains that makes me tired.

First time researcher's survival package: painkillers (for chronic headache), calcium (dairy products are expensive), omega and magnesium tablets (to prevent heart palpitation caused by stress and lack of sleep), electronic dictionary in iPad (name of the application is Midori) and most important of all, mobile morning coffee. (Forgot interview recorder from this picture.)