crazy

Did our risk-taking pay off?

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I’ve written a note about how disturbing the loud noise that a neighbor kid made by shooting hoops on the street was, and dropped the note to the kid’s crazy family for four times. Nevertheless, he started it again and this time I consulted my partner as to what to do. He said he would visit the family to complain face to face and went out in the evening.

I began to be worried when he hadn’t come back after a while. I went out to see what happened but a hush fell over the crazy family’s house and there was no sign of my partner. An ominous feeling seized me. Did they come to blows and was he killed? Is he lying dead inside the house? Or, is he being carried away by the family’s car to be buried? I came back to my apartment after searching for him in the neighborhood and thought I could save him if I called the police right now. When I was about to make the call, he returned, safe and sound. According to him, the crazy family told him that they didn’t care that they let their kid play on a public road as if in their own yard, or that the noise annoyed the neighborhood. Because they had no concept of morality or legality, he left. Then, the kid’s father followed him cursing out loud. As the man acted like a crazy animal, my partner ignored him and detoured back after losing him. My partner could have been killed or imprisoned for assault by countering, for such a frivolous matter like this.

The noise of a bouncing ball stopped the next day, the day after and the day following. Did our risk-taking pay off? I have the feeling that the noise will return sooner or later…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

move out of this inconvenient life

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Since radiation leaked from the nuclear power plant and I refrained from going out, I’ve been consequently able to speed up my packing for a move to my new apartment. My strong wish to move out of this inconvenient life impelled me to pack eagerly without lingering.

But as the temperature has risen, the scheduled blackout hasn’t been carried out these days. Also, the amount of radioactive materials in water supply has declined drastically. I was beginning to feel that I could slow down packing when a kid of the crazy neighbor family resumed shooting hoops on the street. The family set up the basket facing the street so that the kid plays on the busy street between crammed houses. That’s why I call them crazy. The noise he makes by bouncing a ball is loud and extremely annoying. I’ve complained about the noise by a note several times. He stops playing each time, but starts again a couple of weeks later.

I was about to regain a comfortable life here and the noise began to disrupt my life. This must be another sign to move out quickly…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

the indigenous god

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An explosive sound woke me up at 6 a.m. I thought a war broke out nearby. But it turned out to be firecrackers. It was the day that locals of this area celebrated a festival every seven years to bless their indigenous god, who preserved the area. My hometown, which is far away from here, has a similar god and festival but they never use firecrackers. For some crazy reason, locals here cracked them every hour on the hour all day long, and I jumped at the loud noise each time. I believe the indigenous god also jumped for disturbance rather than for joy…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

it’s close to the limit of my patience

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Photo by Edgar Colomba on Pexels.com

Despite the ceaseless agitation that Japan’s population has been decreasing and its birthrate has critically dropped, a population explosion has been happening in my neighborhood in particular.

People keep moving in, kids keep being born, and houses and stores keep being built. Only the space around me is the exception of a Japanese trend. The more the people, the higher the odds of crazy ones.

I introduced here my neighbors who used the street as their own yard and let their kids shoot hoops from the busy street to their house. The noise of a bouncing ball was so annoying and I dropped a note to stop in their mailbox one day. It worked and I had retrieved peaceful sleep for a couple of weeks as I usually sleep in the daytime. A sad fact is that crazy people don’t learn. They resumed playing basketball on the street last Sunday and I had to drop the note again. This neighborhood was once quiet and sparse, but now, it’s close to the limit of my patience…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Podcast: crazy

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crazy
I was born at the small hospital in a rural area. Although not many expectant mothers checked in there, two baby girls were born on the same day, one of whom was I. We shared the newborn room, sleeping in a bed side by side. Before the birth, I’d had a possibility to have severe jaundice of the newborn.
My mother was told it would either leave a brain defect if I had it, or make me extremely intelligent if I didn’t have it. Instead of jaundice, I was born with a hip joint dislocation. My right leg had been regularly dislocated and hung loosely until I was one or two years old and my mother had to take me to the hospital each time.
About the time when my leg finally stopped getting dislocated, there was a piece of news in a local newspaper that a little girl was thrown into the river and killed by her parent. The victim was the baby who was born on the same day as I was and slept in the next bed to me at the hospital. Since both the town and the hospital were small, my mother and my grandmother remembered the name of the baby and the area she lived in. I was luckier and I outlived her without any more dislocation or jaundice. The latter should have resulted in me being extremely intelligent but my parents consider me simply crazy…
 
Episode from The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods
HidemiWoods.com
Audiobook  : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total.