Requiem for Hamu-Chan, or, How Cold Our Apartment Actually Gets



Hamchan, my lovely aging dwarf hamster, is no longer with us because Casey killed her. Just kidding. No, actually he kind of did. But I kind of did as well and at the same time, it was an accident and she was pretty frail to begin with.

Last thursday was a mammoth day of wringing hands and intense dicussions about our future in Japan. After reaching a decision, Casey and I were peacefully sitting on the cot in the western room watching Japanese TV. Hamchan was being nippy and after a dinner of cabbage and sesame seeds, crawled into a sock that I fashioned into a sort of sleeping bag for her. With the added insulation of a dish towel folded below and over her, she was warm and very pleased. After an hour, I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. I lifted the towel, Hamchan was sleeping soundly with her little paws folded under her chin. She looked exhausted, content, prim and sort of pious. I didn't want to wake her up just yet knowing it was difficult for her to stay warm and asked Casey to put her back in her cage before he left the western room. He agreed and I went to bed.

The next day, I was having lunch at home and chatting with my grandmother in Seattle. When she asked about my "little rodent" and I noticed Hamchan's cage was open. I lifted up the dish towel on the cot and was greeted by hamster droppings. Frantic, I turned the apartment upside down searching for her while maintaining a conversation with my grandmother. She loves animals more than I do and is the sort of person who builds bunk beds with heating pads for the 3 stray cats in her back yard. I couldn't find Hamchan anywhere, and barely made it back to school before the 5th period bell rang. Casey helped look for her when he came home and we still had no success. Fortunately, Andy the maverick of all trades was coming over that night and if anyone would find a missing hamster in a Japanese apartment, it would be him. Once he came, he asked the obvious question "Well, have you looked in any of your shoes by the front door yet?" and seconds later I heard him yelp. I ran over, picked up Casey's shoe, tilted it toward the heel and her tiny curled up body slid down suddenly like a dried leaf. No life. No movement. Completely frozen.

I ran into the bedroom to look up prayers from St. Francis of Assisi while Casey prepared her for burial. At some point I decided that I needed to see her again to say goodbye and tell her what a good little friend she was to me. I lifted the lid and took apart Casey's meticulous packing and I am so glad I did because one of her legs briefly stirred. The tiniest and meekest of kicks. Hallelujah! I cupped her in my hands and breathed over her body, seconds later I felt her stir. I ran to the nearest space heater and massaged her stomach. She felt like an ice cube, I flipped her over and started massaging her little chest which yielded a little more movement.

This is when things got really strange: Andy's mother holds a PhD and was a leading researcher of the cirrcadian rhythms of hamsters. You can't make things like that up. He actually has memories of a child playing with the syrian hamsters in his mother's lab. So Andy called his mother and learned that when Hamchan crawled into Casey's shoe to stay warm, she went into a state of "torpor." A sort of bad hibernation that only really healthy hamsters can recover from. Apparently, this was not the first time she had gone into torpor, but her first at our apartment. It was so cold and dark in our apartment that she literally freezed. Andy's mother also warned that the fact that she was twitching was not a good sign. After what seemed like hours of heaving and sporadics gasps on her part, prayers and massaging on mine, she tightened her body, winced, and stretched out violently before collapsing and dying in my hands. I was in tears. I felt incredibly irresponsible for leaving her on the cot. Granted, her fur was patchy, her legs were rickety and her health was failing. She was old, and I am just glad she didn't die in Casey's shoe. And this just cemented my feelings about living in this apartment for another year. Yes, for slackers like us, not ever having to put the milk or leftovers away is convenient, our entire kitchen is now a fridge. And it is sort of funny that Casey thinks there is a fire everytime I boil water for tea, but if your home is so cold that your hamster literally freezes to death, then it is probably a good thing that this is our last winter in Sendai.

Sendai, Smeared



Near Sendai station, polaroid through a Holga.

The Final Countdown

I wish I could somehow link to that song; just imagine it for me, if you would. Juli and I have to decide by Friday whether we want to stay for another year. I'm honestly split on the pros and cons.

Pros for Staying:
1. We would save a good bit of money.
2. Would get to travel more around Japan/Asia.
3. Another year of general Japanese wackiness.

Cons for Staying:
1. Juli's school situation.
2. Would we be productive, lifewise?
3. Another year of general Japanese wackiness.

Pros for Leaving:
1. Would get to be back with family.
2. Get an earlier start on real life.
3. Being able to communicate with people on a meaningful level.

Cons for Leaving:
1. Not sure what to do next.
2. Would like to save more money.
3. General anxiety.

I have a feeling that no matter what we choose I will be content, it's just that the process of deciding has been painstaking and slow. If it comes down to it, Juli and I are just going to janken for it.

Now a Cricketer

As mentioned before, I went to cricket practice on Saturday, knowing absolutely nothing about the game. Turns out, it's quite fun, a kind of baseball-minus-two bases-plus-two tabs of acid equation. Here are some facts I learned:

1.) Games can last for days.
2.) The term "wicket" has about 3,287 meanings.
3.) The pitcher is most emphatically not a "pitcher," but a "bowler."

After cricket we caught the train downtown and ate at Namaskar, an Indian place frequently haunted by ALTs and other foreigners. Juli and I are on a first name basis with the manager, so she can generally guess exactly what we're going to order, and occasionally treats us to free dessert. They used to show Bollywood movies and music videos on a giant screen, but that cultural petit-four has unfortunately been withdrawn.

That night we went down to Ewan's apartment to have dinner and play the new Smash Bros. game. We also busted out Wii Fit and I filmed everyone's absurd hip gyrations as they were doing the hula-hoop game (video to follow). On the train home, a few drunk old men started pestering us and so Andy and I pretended we were Finnish and had a long conversation in our native tongue, which pleased the two inebriates greatly.

The next morning, with the onset of a sore throat, I could barely swallow or speak. I ended up staying in bed almost the entire day. Juli made me some delicious potato-leek soup and we watched a streaming, pirated copy of Cloverfield, essentially a handi-cam version of a movie that was shot on handi-cam to begin with, thus doubling the film's inherent nauseating quality.

Some doubt has been cast on whether we will stay a third year or not, but we only have three days to decide. Stay tuned!

Only in Japan

On Saturday I went with a few people to a gym in northern Sendai to practice cricket. On the way there we stumbled across this sign:



Naturally, I thought it must have been a strip club of some sort, but I peeked through the window and it was a regular old Japanese-style bar. Only in Japan.