Learning to Ride

By Jennifer Akemi Lee, ALT, Hiroshima 2001-03

Living in Japan was like riding a bike.
On second thought, scratch that.
Living in Japan, for me, was about riding my bike.
My living conditions while on the JET Program left little to be desired. My spacious two bedroom apartment boasted a large kitchen and balcony, perfect for my international taco parties. I was a seven minute walk from the train station, so it was easy to meet friends in the city (shopping excursions and Hiroshima City nightlife) as well as the inaka1 (small town matsuri2, camping weekends and cozy kotatsu3 dinners in).
I didn’t have a car. I didn’t need one – which was fine with me, because there was no part of this Southern California native that wanted to drive on the narrow rice paddy lined roads (on the wrong side of the street, no less). But I did have a trusty mode of transportation – a bright blue beach cruiser. One-speed. With a “granny” wire basket attached to the handles.
So my granny bike with my granny basket took me everywhere I needed to go – to my junior high school, a campus set high on a hill overlooking the suburban town of 75,000. Cycling to school was a privilege reserved for senior high school attendees, so my emboldened second-year middle school boys begged to ride on my handlebars (I politely declined). At the elementary schools, kids recognized me on my bike from the playground, rushed to meet me at the gate and then insisted on chasing me back into the grounds. I fondly recall trekking over to Miyajima4 station with friends, loading our bikes on the ferry, cruising the picturesque island. I felt guilty pleasure in breezing through back roads of the famous tourist site, leaving throngs of crowds – Japanese and foreigners alike – far behind.
Oh, and riding through the changing seasons of my new home! My first few weeks in August, I barreled into my apartment, intense heat too stifling to do anything but collapse on the linoleum – the only cool besides the freezer. My hair frizzed during the muggy June rain; I arrived at school, glanced in the mirror, saw my ‘do standing on end like a fuzzy bad wig. I pedaled in the snow, tires skidding about, and I padded along in the rain (I never could ride with an umbrella in one hand, pleated skirt and makeup in place like a true Japanese girl, so I donned an orange hooded slicker and bright blue rain boots – as if that didn’t make me, the foreigner, even more conspicuous).
My JET program experience was very much about the wonderful people – local residents, school kids, fellow JETs, random strangers – that shaped my tatami5 and rice paddy experience. But my bike empowered me – if only incrementally so – to appreciate Japan with my senses. Here in Southern California, bike rides are limited to the beach, to the mountains, to the sunny weekends – nothing wrong with that. But in Japan, in my little town, biking was my way of daily life, of living abroad, of falling in love with the country.

1 Country
2 Festival
3 Heated table covered by a blanket
4 A sacred island off the coast of Hiroshima Prefecture, known for its famous Itsukushima Shrine
5 Traditional Japanese flooring made of straw



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