The Return Flight

As many of you already know, I made the decision to quit my job as an ALT and return home a few months ago. My reasons for doing this included a desire to get a master’s degree and teaching certification, as well as a need for close family around me. I was terribly lonely. I also felt that my career as an ALT was really going nowhere. I had no opportunities for further development or training as an English teacher, and I wanted to have control of what was going on in my own classes. No matter how hard I tried, I was always doing what other people wanted me to do. In addition to my own professional development and personal life, it seemed as though the company I was working for wasn’t always completely honest or organized with their employees. One major instance was the number of contracted working hours versus the actual amount of hours I was at school working during the week. The company would not include the 10 minute breaks between class periods and the lunch period as contracted working time, despite the fact that I was still in the building and was not permitted to leave. Instead of working a full 40 hours a week (or more) the company said that I was still at part-time status (or as they like to say, “semi-full time”) so they would not have to pay for half of my national health insurance or include me in a pension plan. Once I realized this, after all of the time I had been spending at school, working through lunch periods, and spending significant amounts of time beyond my contracted working hours, I no longer felt entirely comfortable working for them. In fact, I felt sort of cheated. I liked working at the school I was at despite my small salary. But, my taxes were pretty high, and so were my health insurance payments (over 15000 yen a month!), the rent my company was charging for my apartment was ludicrous compared to other apartments in the area, and my salary just wasn’t cutting it.

With the advent of the great Tohoku Earthquake that occurred on the 11th of last month, I made a big decision and returned home ahead of schedule. This meant I left before the end of my contracted working days, before I could say goodbye to so many friends, and before I even had a chance to settle myself after the earthquake. I had to forego a trip to Kyoto I had planned, and just so so many other things. The earthquake was the catalyst that broke me out of work and sent me on my way home.

The Monday after the quake, I took the day off since the trains were not moving, but it appeared as though the trains would not be running for some time. If I didn’t go to work, I would not get paid. I wasn’t entirely sure why the Board of Education had decided to continue classes as usual – especially since the grading had been finished for the third term, the third-year students had graduated, and we were basically just wasting time with meaningless classes until the closing ceremony the following Thursday. It seemed as though people wanted to continue operating as usual despite the blackouts and gasoline shortage. However, when there was no real need to operate as usual, was it purely to to give ourselves something to do to take our mind off of the after-effects of the earthquake? Perhaps it was to give the kids a sense of normalcy or a place to go when parents (who had gas in their cars) were away from home and trying their best to continue on at work despite the rolling blackouts.

So, until the end of the week, one of my co-workers was generous enough to let me stay at her home with her parents and golden retriever. It was really nice not to have to go back to an empty little room every day, but I was stressed out from the aftershocks, I was stressed out from staying in a new environment… and I was unfortunately allergic to the dog. I really tried my best though, and it was fun to do a little homestay, and it was so comforting just to have other people around.

In the meantime, I’d been in touch with my family, who were overly awash in the sensationalized news reports from the foreign media. I tried explaining to them that I was far away from the disaster areas. I was a 125 miles as the crow flies from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. I was fine. However they yelled, they screamed, they constantly Skyped and hounded me to change my flight plans. I felt as though I had no choice but to relent. So, I did. I changed my flight. I called my company and said my last day would be Friday. After that, I’d lose 3 days worth of salary, but I was no longer concerned about money or contracts. I just had to leave.

Friday finally came. After days at school of doing absolutely nothing, teaching one class and then sitting around in the cold blackouts, I was really ready to leave. I said goodbye to my students, friends, co-workers… It was bittersweet. My friend from Ashikaga drove to Kiryu station to pick me up and take me back to my apartment. When we got to the apartment, he called another friend and I called some friends to help me clear everything out and pack up to leave. It was a miracle. We cleared out the apartment. I packed my important belongings into one suitcase. The rest were in other bags to be either sent home via parcel post, donated, or thrown away. Most of my clothes, towels and bedding I put in bags to be donated to help the tsunami and earthquake victims. I gave my food to my friend who had picked me up in Kiryu. I gave him the keys to my bicycle to be passed on to another friend. The apartment was cleared out except for the things it had originally came with. It was a little dusty and dirty, but nothing ridiculous. I slipped the key in the slot and said goodbye to the Leopalace.

That night, I stayed at my friends’ home. They took their grandson and I to dinner and told me they’d help to get rid of the things I would have no way to take home. They also had my other belongings (mostly books) sent to me here in the U.S. My things arrived about a week after I’d been home. Just.. amazing. I tried to give them the money to send the things home but they wouldn’t take it from me. I just.. I have to repay them somehow.

Saturday morning they drove me to Tatebayashi. There were plenty of trains running from there. I took my one suitcase and headed toward the airport praying there wouldn’t be another aftershock or a blackout or anything that would prevent me from getting to the airport. The scariest part was being in the subway in Ueno switching to the Keisei Skyliner. I was so paranoid that I’d get crushed in the subway tunnels if a big earthquake hit Tokyo while I was there changing trains that I ran from the Hibiya platform to the Skyliner turnstiles like a madwoman with my big suitcase.

So I got on a train. To the airport. I sent dad an e-mail to see if there were any flights that day and if he could get my flight changed to that day or the next. My boyfriend called me via Skype to my phone while I was on the train. It was so lovely to hear a voice from home that wasn’t yelling at me. For the 30 minutes I was on the Skyliner, I actually felt somewhat relaxed for the first time since the quake.

I arrived at the airport. My flight had been changed to 5:55 that very day. I checked in and made my way through immigration. Surrendered my alien registration card and headed toward the gate. No regrets.

So I’m home now. I’m worried about everyone I left there. I feel guilty leaving the way I did. No one seems to understand that I was far enough away from the nuclear plant that the radiation was not an immediate threat. I can’t watch American news reports at all. I read most of my news from Mainichi or Japan times.. and well.. the best sources are the people I know who are in Japan. They know what’s going on better than any of the news networks.

I was interviewed by a few news outlets, I won’t name any specific ones. But I will say I was contacted quite a few times by international, national, and local news channels. The questions they asked me in the interviews were so pointed, and so charged, that they CLEARLY wanted me to say “Japan is in complete discord and we are all going to die” which was entirely not the case for me, however it was the case for many many many others up in Tohoku, and I made every honest attempt to make that clear, but to no avail. The lack of knowledge of Japan’s geography (and much else about the country) stunned me. I’ve learned that many people know very very little beyond what they are immediately familiar with, and it’s difficult for them to visualize or learn about places and things outside of their bubbles.

So I’m not in Japan anymore. I’m trying to re-adjust to American life. It’s hard. I’m having trouble with it. Mostly driving to places (I miss trains), food, and just… a lot of other things. Like I said before.. I feel an immense amount of guilt leaving the way I did. I know  I’ll be back someday. Not anytime soon, but I’ll be back, don’t worry. また来るよ。絶対に。

Maybe I’ll have to change the name of this blog, right? Any suggestions?