Oh Lord, Hokkaido...

Back in my carefree days on the JET Programme (google it), I once edited a newcomer's guide to life here in Hokkaido. Although Japan prides itself on having four distinct seasons, here in the great northern wilderness, I wrote, we only have two: winter and August.

I wasn't kidding.

Despite today being the 14th of April, Hokkaido got beaten up by a big bad winter weather pattern that bullied its way in from Siberia and whipped snow and wild winds across the island. We awoke this morning to this:

Out came the winter coats and boots, the show shovels and gritting sand, the curses and oaths at living in such a sub-arctic hell.

You would never think that Muroran (top temperature today, 3 C, snow, feckin piles of it!), lies on the same latitude as Marseille (top temperature 17 C, partly cloudy, no snow, haven't had any for years).

Home thoughts from abroad

Finatan O'Toole wrote a damning (and despairing it must be said) piece in yesterday's Irish Times about the state of the nation - a link to the article is here.

He concluded that, given both the country's present economic difficulties and the stubborn fact that they are due to continue for some time, the only option open to most young people is to emigrate.

As someone who has emigrated (though for a long time I never thought of my situation in such a way), it is not the sort of thing I would glibly recommend. As some of the subsequent comments from readers point out, emigration is as much an emotional decision as an economic one.

Leaving one's country, the place you were born and raised, home to your family and friends, is an ongoing exercise in displacement. You are forever a foreigner in whatever country you settle, yet visits home leave one feeling like you are an actor in a familiar drama, but one to which you no longer know the script.

I think this sense of displacement is further heightened when you have a children. I look at Cian and think in three years time he will be starting school and that, more than anything else, will mark his identity as more Japanese than Irish. He will begin formal learning in the Japanese language, he will learn about Japanese history, he will be taught his roles and responsibilities as a future Japanese citizen. After school sports will begin, and given the pervasiveness of the game, that will most likely be baseball. Or maybe soccer. But it won't be hurling or Gaelic football. And as a father, who passionately loves all things GAA, not being able to see my son catch and kick a ball, or puck a sliothar, that breaks my heart. His sense of Irishness will be limited to what I can pass on to him, but that will be severely constricted by both time and space.

I have always harbored the hope that in the not so distant future, I might return to Ireland with Sanae and Cian and start (continue?) our lives in the place I truly call 'home'. But given the events of the past two years or so, that hope has become very dim indeed.

Seven hours in Tokyo

April 1st, early Thursday morning...
4.30: Alarm goes off. Arrghhh. Turn off alarm. Five more minutes, just five more minutes....

5.17: Oh Christ! Feck!! Shite!! Fecky shite feck!!!! Jump out of bed. Well, would have jumped out of bed if I hadn't been sleeping on the floor (Cian was sick so he shared the 'big bed' with Mammy. I had to sleep on the kitchen floor. And who bought the bloody bed, eh? Who? Who?)

5.18: Wake unconscious Japanese person in the 'big bed'. Tell her the time. Greeted with the Japanese equivalent of 'Oh Christ! Feck!! Shite!! Fecky shite feck!!!!'

6.00: Car crunches gravel as I shoot down the driveway like Jason Button on steroids. It usually takes us 90 minutes to get to the airport. The plane leaves at 7.30. That gives us, math's fans, exactly 90 minutes to get there. Envision us tearing down the runway forcing ANA Flight 470 to abort its takeoff while Sanae tries to wrestle open the emergency door.

6.34: Pass under a flyover bridge with a banner announcing that April is 'Safety Driving Month' in Hokkaido. Or rather, pass under a flyover bridge with a banner announcing that April is 'Safety Driving Month' in Hokkaido at just over 125 km/h.

7.05: Arrive at New Chitose Airport. Other banners seen along the way include 'Drive safely - keep within the speed limit'; 'Hokkaido - the safety driving land'; and my favourite, 'Beware! Bears!'.

7.30: Safely on plane.

9.05: Arrive in Tokyo. A different country. Spring is here - greenery everywhere, cherry blossoms too. Take the into the city centre. Buildings, people, cars, trains, more buildings, high buildings too. And trees, green trees, lots of them. Try not to act too excited in case locals realize we are Hokkaido culchies and start mocking our backward, sub-arctic ways. As the sun is shining and the temperature is well into double figures we throw caution to the winds and decide to walk from the train station to the bank. Mistake. Am sweating when we arrive at the bank. Make mental note to shave too abundant chest hair next time I come to Tokyo.

10.20: Shown into rather plain meeting room on the 11th floor with a partial view of Hibiya Park. Still trying to hide out mucker backgrounds so act suitably unimpressed.

10.35: Nice woman who approved our homeloan from Nice Johnny Foreigner Bank comes into the room. Want to act reserved and aloof but end up simpering our gratitude for her beneficence. Have to restrain Sanae from groveling before her.

11.25: After some arcane financial speak about 'mortgage repayments', 'fixed term interest rates', and 'disembowelment penalty clauses' , I sign some documents in Japanese I don't understand and leave the room in hoc for what will probably be the rest of my life. Sanae seems happy though, and that is what's most important.

12.15: Go for a walk. In the searing, nineteen degree celsius heat. That's middle of July weather up in the great frozen north. End up at Zojoji Temple which is garlanded with white and pink cherry trees in full bloom. Sanae attempts to tell me a potted history of the temple. I, as per usual, pretend to listen. As far as I can gather it involved this samurai killing another samurai and then 49 of the dead samurai's family, friends and assorted hangers-on coming to the temple and avenging the death of their relative, friend, and dude they used to know, by killing the first samurai. I'm not too sure why it took 49 of them but obviously they were leaving nothing too chance. Too celebrate their successful homicide, the 49 then built Tokyo Tower behind Zojoji as a monument to their murderous intent. As I said, I'm surmising here.

13.05: Being in Tokyo, the culinary capital of Japan, we have lunch in a Chinese restaurant.

14.00: Nice lunch too.

15.00: It's too hot to walk around so we retire to a cafe, eat ice cream and watch the bullet trains go by. Ahh, the excitement of urban life.

16.30: Fly back to Hokkaido all aglow with our new found bright-lights, big-city cosmopolitanism.

18.05: Arrive at Shin Chitose Airport. It's dark, cold and raining. Our 'aglow' quickly washes off.

20.00: Arrive home (but not for much longer!) No bears seen. Cian excited to see Mammy and Daddy again, but way more excited by the ANA airplane set we've brought him back.

22.00: Before falling asleep on the floor (again), realize that today was the easy part. From now we have to start packing and preparing to move house.

Wish I were a bear.

Have enough chest hair to pass for one.

Apologies

Apparently my yahoo email account has been sending out spam messages to all and sundry recommending various, eh, 'performance enhancing' medications (as if Colin Farrell needed them anyway). I have upgraded my security settings, downloaded virus protection software and sent out some big men with even bigger sticks to find those responsible. For the cumulative effect to, well, accumulate, may take a few days, so if you continue to receive messages from me saying "re: Angelina Jolie's desire for you" etc., please delete them without opening them.

Apologies are also due for the paltry number of blog posts I have written this year. A quarter of 2010 has already been consigned to the past and I have barely scraped into double figures. April, I promise you faithful readers, will see a notable increase in both quantity and quality (similar to what the various spam messages promise, but with no need to change the sheets afterwards).