I am in the center of the photo next to Chris and in the front left we have my host sister.
In the summer of 2004 I participated in a student exchange through the Sister Cities program to Chino, Japan. I was the first person in 13 years of this exchange to speak some Japanese. This was great for me as I could talk to my host family and strangers and absorb more of the culture.
For example, on our first day in Tokyo we went to a “one yen/one coin” store where everything was just 1 yen. We got so many great souvenirs there. When checking out, the poor young Japanese guy looked up at me and completely despaired about trying to explain things to a group of foreigners. He pointed to a favorite Japanese candy of mine and said “Futari” to me and waited. My mind raced and then I understood! He was saying it was 2 candy’s for the price of 1 coin. I relayed these instructions to the rest of the group, assisting when other items were also “Futari”.
But not many people expected me to know Japanese, so I could listen in while our host brothers and sisters talked about us. One of the other USA exchange students, Chris, kept hearing his name and asked me to listen in. I heard his host brothers laughing and telling a story of how Chris hit his head on a low ceiling and then fell down the stairs that morning, and that it was hilarious. I explained to Chris what was going on, and he laughing talked with his host brothers about not making fun of him for being tall.
But two of the funniest examples of using my language skills occurred during one of the highlights of the exchange which was a “camping trip” in the mountains, staying in large cabins.
The first was when the girls and boys were staying in separate cabins.  That is except for one of the younger boys, who was around 9 years old. His mother kept saying how he was a little angel and would be fine saying in the girls cabin on the women’s room. While all the girls were in one room getting changed and ready for bed, the 9 year old boy stayed in the room, watching us changed. We had given up when his mother wouldn’t believe us when we told her we felt uncomfortable around him, saying he was a little angel. Well while we were changing he sat in the room, playing with a toy, and then said “Stake desu ne!” Which is slang that pretty much mean “Your a hot piece of meat!” So much for being a “little angel”. But because I was the only one who spoke a little Japanese, I was the only one who understood. I responded saying in Japanese in a sarcastic tone “Really? You think we are hot?”  He freaked out when he realized he was found out, and ran out of the room so fast he tripped into his mother.  I then relayed the conversation to his mother, who was so shocked, and she kicked him out of the girl’s cabin.
Later in the evening the girls woke up to hearing noises from outside the window. These were huge screened windows that  could slide. So we slid them open, and could hear all the boys trying to sneak up on us to scare us. Instead we sat on the edge of the window hanging partly outside in the dark waiting. Once the guys got close enough to us we reached out and scared the shit out of them. In the dark, with us hanging out the window, we looked like part of the building. After we all calmed down, I hopped out the window to lead the boys to the front door, while some of the girls went and opened the front door of the cabin.
Once everyone was back inside and in our room, we turned the lights on low and took turns telling ghost stories. I helped translate the stories back and forth the best way I could. Some of the girls got scared and went to the bathroom to avoid hearing the stories. The story I remember the Japanese kids told us went like this:
Nearby to this cabin is a old abandon school. Back when the school was in use, a girl went into the bathroom and found lots of water on the floor. She looked up in the bathroom to see a dark demon spirit in the corner. She screamed and tried to get out, but she slipped on the floor, and the demon spirit drowned her in the bathroom. Kids were traumatized when they found her later, all bloated like she had drowned. A few years later, another girl needed to go to the bathroom, and heard a girl crying in there. When she went to investigate she found water all over the floor and a crying girl. When the girl turned around she was all bloated, and her eyes were dark like she was possessed. The ghost girl then reached out and drowned the other girl. After this happened a 3rd time the school was closed. However it is said that the demon spirit in the shape of a drowned girl still roams the area, looking for victims to join her so she isn’t lonely.
At the end of this story, the guys were getting ready to go back to sleep. After so many ghost stories I was a little jumpy, so I asked no one to leave or turn off the lights until I had a chance to run to the bathroom. I ran to the dark bathroom and when I came out I slipped on lots of water on the floor. Hurting and now freaked out I cried out, but now no one would come to the bathroom to “help a crying girl” as they were now freaked out.
After I came back it was discovered the girls who were to scared to listen to the stories had been playing in the bathroom and had accidentally caused the sink to overflow. They had come in after the story and had no idea they had freaked me out, and the others had heard the story and didn’t want to go investigate the crying in the bathroom. All in all it turned out fine, it was just a funny end to the night.
Travel Missteps is an every-other week series on how sometimes part of the journey is making mistakes and getting lost.
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