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A very long time ago, or as they say in Japanese, “Mukashi, mukashi….”, A wealthy samurai found himself caught outside in a rain storm.  He took shelter under the nearest tree.

This tree grew outside the doors to a small local temple.  The monks of the temple were poor and did not have much money for its upkeep, including taking care of the cats, who had to fend for themselves by hunting mice who ate the offerings brought to the temple as well as the monks’ food.

Standing under the tree, the samurai thought he could see one of the temple cats beckoning to him from the gates.  The man thought to himself, “That looks like a friendly cat, and I have nothing better to do but sit here and wait for the rain to stop.  It would be okay to get a little bit wet in order to go over there and pet that nice cat.”

So, the samurai gathered his things and walked through the rain to the door of the temple where the cat sat waiting for him.  No sooner had he reached down to pet the cat, than a giant bolt of lighting shot down from the heavens and stuck the tree where he had been sitting.  The tree was engulfed in fire.

The samurai stood there for a moment silently watching the tree burn, and  contemplated his avoided fate before speaking to the cat, “How lucky is was that I saw you beckon to me, for had I remained where I was I would surely be dead now,”.

“Meow!” said the cat.

“You truly are a cat of good fortune,” he said, “Since you saved my life, a debt which is impossible for me to repay, I will do everything in my power to make your life easier,”.

True to his word, the samurai used his fortune to endow the temple, so the monks were not so poor anymore, and the cats no longer had to fend for themselves.  And when the lucky cat finally died of happy old age, the samurai paid for a proper funeral and memorial to the beloved “lucky cat” who had saved his life.

Generations of cats at the temple benefited from the samurai’s generosity and it is said that the cat who saved his life was actually an incarnation of the Buddist goddess of compassion, Kwan-yin.

Story notes:

According to one version of the story, the events in question took place at Goutoku-ji Temple, and the samurai was Li Naotoka.

This story is said to be the origin of the figures of “maneki neko” commonly found in businesses around Japan.  Cats with their right paw up beckon money, left paw-customers.  Black maneki neko are particularly in favor with women because they are said to drive away stalkers. 

Dedicated to “Midori” the squeaky cat who got left behind while I was in Japan, and to “Aya” the Japanese cat who came back with me…

For anyone who has ever wondered about what its like joining the JET Programme, or picking up everything and moving to a very foreign country, here’s the journal I kept of my first week in Japan four years ago… 

July 26 2007:

Left home in Vermont, the only time I came close to crying was when I gave my goodbye petting to my cat Midori.  She was sleeping in a ball on the spare bed in my youngest brother’s room, blissfully unaware of what was really going on.  Her biggest concern was that my aunt, who had come to visit, had brought her geriatric 19 year old cat Sasha to visit.  Midori thinks that all cats want to be her friends, but Sasha is not a friendly cat.

Mom baked an apple pie at the last-minute, stuffed it in the car and drove it to Albany with us where we had lunch, pie and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.  Felt kind of like the last supper.

July 27, 2007:

My aunt and I lugged my heavy bags to the Amtrak station to take the train to NYC.  I would be staying my last night in the US with a new friend I met at one of the pre-departure activities.  I arrived at Christine’s apartment to discover that she also had a cat, Malka, whom she was leaving behind with a roommate.  Another round of suppressed tears…  It did not help any that Malka was also a love bug.

Orientation: received our flight tickets and everything.  They threw a big farewell reception for us at the Japanese Ambassador’s residence.  I lived in NYC for 2 years and always wondered what the inside of those ultra-expensive townhouses near 5^th Ave. really looked like on the inside, now I know…

There are a lot of rumors about JET application and acceptance rates.  At orientation we gleaned a bit of info: Of about 420 applicants to the NYC consulate only 123 were accepted.  I met the nice Japanese lady who took part in my interview, she said that of all the interviews she did that day, only 3 (myself included) did her group recommend.

July 28 rented a car to JFK.  Christine and I would be separated by flights.  She was on an American Airlines flight and I was going JAL.  The last-minute departure mystery was why the JAL tickets cost $1800+ while the American ones cost only about $875.  Apparently back in the day they used to fly all the JETS over business class.  Not anymore.

Bad case of vertigo on the flight for about 1 hour.  13.5 hours of torture.  Decent food though, and the game console made things better.

July 29, 2007:

Arrived in Tokyo 3:30pm. Eight or nine hours disappeared into the oblivion of time change.  Susan and I, we were both going to Okinawa, roomed together.  We went to our room and passed out at 4pm Tokyo time.  I awoke at 3:30am.  Would repeat this pattern the whole time I was in Tokyo.

July 30, 2007:

Orientation: they served us Western style food for breakfast.  Everyone was asked to assemble in one of the ballrooms to listen to the opening speeches given by government big-wigs.  We assembled at 10am.  The visiting dignitaries arrived at 11am.  Clearly they told us to be there so early so no one had to suffer the embarrassment of having us Americans, etc… show up late.

All the prefecture JETs got together for a night out drinking at a local restaurant.  Restaurant theme was “Hell” or “jigoku”.  It was an all-you-can-drink for 2 hours.  After 2 rounds they gave up on us and brought big pitchers of Kirin over.  What do you expect with an Irishman, a Scotsman, a South African and a Kiwi?

July 31^st more orientation.

August 1, 2007:

Boarded a bus for Haneda airport to take the plane to Naha, Okinawa.  The municipal JETS got greeted at the airport by small crowds of people with signs and cheers.  Our tight-knit group of 2 days was being split up it seemed permanently.  Some of the participants had been placed on remote outer islands. Okinawa was not my 1^st 2nd or 3^rd choice place to go, but I was glad I was going to be living on the main island.

The prefectural JETS, those of us placed in senior high schools or BOE offices (there was only one) were handed a cold beer and taken to the local hotel or youth hostel to spend the night and have more orientation.  The hotel was dingy and hot!  There is air-con almost everywhere here but it does not make the rooms cool.  Because the outside temp is like 90F and the locals have a very skewed idea of what constitutes “cool”.

August 24,2007

Japan was the last country I would have ever thought I was going to be learning to salsa dance in, but there I was at 1am taking lessons from a E. Indian-Canadian fellow JET named Kadija.

August 26, 2007

It’s Okinawa Obon.  Dates are slightly different from the mainland.  I do not have to go to work tomorrow.  The grocery stores were busy with people buying those pre-packaged gift things that are at the front of every store here.  Also the stores have a very nice selection of little mochi tea cakes and pastries out for sale.  I have discovered that anything with anko on the inside is my friend!

On the way home I took what I thought was a shortcut.  I wound up in some small back alley with a lot of single family homes and apartment buildings.  It was dark so I could see inside.  It seems this weekend is a time for families to gather together.  I could see groups of people from children to obaasan and ojiisan gathered around tables watching TV.  There were lots of cars outside the houses.

It seems nice but I felt suddenly lonely, as if I was missing out.

That was only my second disappointment for the day.  I took the bus down to Plaza House.  They were all out of JLPT test applications.