The Magic of Christmas

Christmas is anticipation. We all look foward to the romantic trappings of Christmas, giving and receiving presents, mulled wine, log fires, turkey dinners, lights on the tree, aromatic candles, greeting visitors and paying visits, festive cheer, fosty mornings, Bulmers and Baileys (if you're me!), misteltoe, holly, and perhaps the chance of some snow. Above all, Christmas time brings the excitement of reunions, spending time with family and friends, reflections and catching up. For me, Christmas 2006, was all about the catch up. While I looked foward to the usual Christmas fare, I was most excited about seeing my family and friends. The type of excitement that comes about only after spending 18 months away from those who know you best!

Touching down in Dublin airport felt familiar, arriving home was exciting, seeing my family at arrivals was a special moment, just as I expected. There was great ease in being around the people who know exactly why I am who I am. Suddenly communication was easy. I could feel all the familiarity of home again and share all the same jokes with friends and family. We all drank together, we enjoyed Mum's homecooking, we went racing and met up in our usual bars and resturants. I was catching up on all that I'd missed and living out many of the longings of home you get while you are away. I knew my way around and was in direct contact with the world again. There was no barrier between me and what I wanted to do. I had becomed so accustomed to tuning in and tuning out to Japanese all around me everyday in my life in Japan, that a part of me felt redundant to be using English freely and at natural speeds now. When I was home I was interacting with people in the same way as I had always done. Small interactions were so easy to do that I savoured my chances to have quick chats, a joke with a shop assistant as she totalled my bill, for example. Furthermore, most of my family and friends were on the same time zone as me again, and so most of my nearest and dearest were never more than a quick call or text away. I took advantage of this to the point of becoming irritated by the same treat towards the end of my trip. It was as though I spent 2 weeks taking a deep relaxing breath of fresh air, the fresh Irish air of home.

Although things at home seemed not to have changed much and my familiarity with the people and the place made it all very easy, these same familiar faces and places somehow felt very different to me now. While everything felt easy and familiar, I noticed curious differences in everything I know so well, all the old had taken on a new dimension. I was noticing things that I had previously taken for granted. There were differneces in how I noticed people, aspects of our culture and even distances between places. People around me seemed strange to me for the first two days. I was suddenly aware of how blonde everyone looked. I noticed people's highlights , their 'tall' noses and their blue eyes. I was seeing that stereotypical image of foreign people that is help by so many Japanese. I also felt strange in a group of people who looked like me, spoke like me and had similiar mannerisms. I suddenly became aware of my own weight again. This surprised me as I hadn't realized i lost sight of my own size. Somewhere along my 18 month journey, the size of my jeans had stopped mattering to me. It seemed I had subconsciously lost the barometer of my weight in a land of people of incomparable size. In Japan I never compare myself to Japanese girls in looks or size. It is hard to explain why. They are in a different league especially when it comes to size, style and the way we carry ourselves. You don't catch me tittering along in leg warmers and stillettos, clutching a Louis Vuitton purse. At home, however, i was struck by a sudden awareness of the size of my jeans again, slightly depressing as always but this time taken with a sigh of relief. It was all part of 'fitting in' again perhaps.

The JET experience is as much a lesson about appreciating your own culture as that of learning to appreciate Japanese culture. I was suddenly drawn into the green world of souvenirs flowing out the door of O' Carrolls and happily traded 80euro of my Irish currency in return for bags of their tacky goods to bring back for friends of all nationalities! What's more, I noticed our language more than before. Irish was everywhere, something I had taken for granted before I left. I now noticed every bilingual signpost or document and loved hearing the Luas stops being announced in Irish. It awoke a sense of pride in me to see that we have retained this hallmark of Irish culture.

We have all watched Ireland's recent transition from mono to multi- everything in culture. At Christmas this change in the Irish landscape stood out to me even more than before. I felt I noticed anyone who was not Irish and found myself noticing it alot. I even found myself looking for foreigners in crowds ot when walking down Grafton street and I always had a successful search. I had a heightened awareness for foreign languages I heard around me and I enjoyed listening out for a different tongues. I looked for chances to help strangers to the area, compelled by a dutiful urge to give them a good impression of the local Irish. I had developed a traveller's compassion for battling with maps no doubt, but had also become proud of Ireland during my time abroad and felt a certain obligation to promote the local as friendly and helpful. Living in Japan, my nationality has played an important role in the early stages of any friendships.

The island where i live in Japan, Hokkaido, is about the same size as our own little island, Ireland. The city where i live and work in Hokkaido is about the same size as our own capital, Dublin. I am used to being on a small island, whether I'm at home or in Japan, and I'm well accostumed to living in a small city, but suddenly distances at home felt much smaller to me than any of the same distances in Japan. I found that knowing where everything is, and knowing the way there took the work out of distance. I could get around with great ease again. Dublin was not only small but also very familiar terrority and so the commute from The Southside, The UCD side, back to Navan, felt like just a tiny hop. I remembered back to the Friday evenings when that same commute home as a student from college had felt like a big undertaking, and I was usually struggle off the 46A on O' Connell Street, grit my teeth, chrug off the cold and trudge that 7 minute walk to Bus Aras as though I were en route to the 5th station of Everest.

Being home meant I knew how things worked, the location of my favourite places, what taste to expect from each dish put before me. I could once again read people's emotions and judege people's reactions. The normality of home was so easy for me that it felt very strange. Not only that but I was on a two week holiday in my own counntry which allowed me to see everything through the eyes of a tourist. I had the chance to see Ireland in a way that comes only from living in a culture so different to our own. It was finally become apparent to me that Japan had changed me in some small ways, not in a great ostensible way but in a way that felt noticeable only to myself. This short trip home and the chance to see my own country through a different lense is yet another gift I could only receive through my experiences on the JET Programme. My visit home was almost as interesting an experience to me as stepping into Japan in the first place.

As the plane lifted off from Dublin airport, i was filled with a whole new sense of anticipation.

With recontracting deadlines looming a few weeks after my return, I was excited at the prospect of choice. Signing would mean expanding my life in Japan to a whole new realm of possibilities, taking things to the next level. Yet coming home, would mean a whole new set of adventures with my own new set of perspectives. I knew that if I sorted my priorities then a list of priorities would help me determine the right path but I knew that this would require some careful reflection. The plane took off and as I made my way back to the land of bowing, rice, my own patchy communication and small meaningful interactions, I was happy in the knowledge that although I was still the same Maeve who had left Ireland 18 months ago, I could also see the benefits of leaving and looked foward to the excitement of another return in the near future. A welcome break and yet another learning experience brought to me by newest friend JETo. みんなさんあけましておめでとうね！