A Place To Stay

For today's post, we bring you a second installment of vital statistics about 泊村 Tomari-mura Tomari Village, in no particular order:

• The kanji that gives the village its name (泊) literally means "stay overnight," as in "stay at a hotel" or "stay over at a friend's house." I originally thought this was a sign of the village's enduring obscurity-- even its name implies only a place to stop on the way to somewhere else. However, it turns out that in the olden days when the names were being handed out, Tomari was quite the fishing town, and the name comes instead from the aboriginal Ainu. The original was "Hemoitomari," or "Trout Bay," according to the village website-- at least I hope that's what it says, because it's only in Japanese.
  

(As with literally everywhere in Japan, Tomari has its own special manhole covers. In Tomari's case, they depict the local rock outcropping "Kabuto Rock," a few seagulls, and some boats out on the sea.)

• There is almost always wind in Tomari. Explanations for this fact range from the proximity of the East Sea/Sea of Japan, to the mountains just to the east influencing the airflow, to the prevailing weather patterns swinging at us off the Russian coast. Whatever the case, it has come in handy for cooling off my house (which is not equipped with an air conditioner): just open one window to the west and one to the east.
  

P.S.-- To anyone confused by "the East Sea/Sea of Japan:" it is actually a matter of considerable dispute. I don't feel like taking sides, so feel free to take your pick of names. (Thank you Georgetown SFS for making me take "Map of the Modern World.")

(I get the left half of this building as my house, plus the red car. A pretty usual sunset is in the background.)

• My house is located in the 滝ノ澗 Takinoma, or "Valley of the Waterfall," subdistrict of the village. I am assuming this is another transliteration from Ainu, because there is no evidence of a valley, much less a waterfall, anywhere near here. The rent is cheap, the water is cheap, and electricity and Internet services are both paid for by the electric company Hokuden (more on them later.) All in all, not a bad deal for being able to open my windows and have a view of the sea every morning.
  

(The junior high school at which I teach. The grounds are still undergoing massive construction-- just the other day I think they were breaking up asphalt while we were trying to play the telephone game in English class.)

• The educational system in the village of Tomari consists of one elementary school and one junior high school. There used to be four elementary schools: two got demolished entirely, one was turned into a skating rink/athletic complex (more below), and one was knocked down and rebuilt into the currently-used elementary school. Tomari JHS (junior high school), roughly equivalent to US grades 7-9, was the most recently reconstructed. It now sports a computer lab, broadcast room, library, Home Ec. room, science lab, art room, carpentry room, full-size gymnasium, two sets of locker rooms, three practice rooms, three student club rooms, two sets of student bathrooms, one set of teacher bathrooms, and a pantry stocked with emergency supplies to supply everyone in the area in case of nuclear emergency. This is all for exactly 60 students.

(A nice view down the road from Tomari JHS, with Kabuto Rock on the left and 公民館 Kōminkan/public building where I do my English conversation classes on the right.)

• The speed limit for the one major road that goes through Tomari (Route 229) is 50 kph (30 mph). Originally I had no problem with this, especially given that I was still getting used to driving in a strange car on the left-hand side of the road. However, over time, it has become more and more obvious that a 30 mph speed limit for a major (if one-lane) thoroughfare is pretty ludicrous. Most people seem to just ignore the speed limit altogether, but you'd better believe when a police car comes around, nobody's going to try and pass it. In any case, once the snow and ice of winter come, I have the feeling 50 kph may be faster than I'm willing to drive anyway.
  

• There are, I think, five or so stoplights in Tomari. Most are just for show, and I have never seen them come up anything except green, but I have stopped at a couple of them before.
  

(The 役場 yakuba, or village hall. Literally translated, it means "useful place," which is generally the last thing I think of when contemplating government bureaucracy, but I have no complaints with this "useful place" so far.)

• Life in Tomari is touched in various ways by its hosting of a nuclear power plant-- some obvious, and some less so. There are shacks in a few locations that give readouts on the ambient radiation level in nanograys per hour (these hover around 30-40 nGy/h, which I understand to be a normal background level.) The village hall has both radio and television broadcasting facilities, which would be silly for just 2,000 people except that it might come in handy in case of emergency. Every household in the area also gets a booklet on what to do in case of a nuclear accident, helpfully illustrated by an cartoon character called Tomarin, who is the shape of a nuclear cooling tower. (My copy is hanging in my living room along with the 地震に自信を Jishin ni Jishin wo "Confidence Against Earthquakes" booklet-- it's a pun in Japanese, since 'earthquake' and 'confidence' are homonyms.)
  

(とまリンク TomaRink, the creatively named ice center/athletic complex that was once an elementary school. Many people have emphasized to me that the rink is large enough and properly equipped to host an international hockey game, but they are just as quick to note that no international hockey games have actually ever been held here.)

• Probably the biggest way that Tomari has been shaped by its hosting of a nuclear power plant is that its revenue streams are very comfortably arranged. Up to this point you may have wondered how this 2,000-person village could afford to be rebuilding all its schools, maintaining its public hot springs, fishing museums, ice rinks, etc. The answer is simple: it is all covered by the rent from the nuclear power plant. This, incidentally, is how I got here too: somebody had a surplus in the late 1990s, thought it might be nice to have a real live foreigner help teach English at the junior high school, and voila! You have a new JET ALT post serving exactly 60 students, plus a few more through English conversation classes.
  

(Even the sign on the trash bin outside my house features the slogan 村を美しく、あなたの生活を支える原子力 "Keep our Village Clean: Supporting your Lifestyle with Atomic Power.")

• The sunsets here are pretty awesome. I think it was my vice-principal who told me that they are nicer here than anywhere else he had ever visited, even Hawaii. So: sorry Hawaiians, but your sunsets have been defeated (I will have to think of another reason to visit instead.)

As always, you can click on any of these pictures to get higher-resolution versions of them.

Finally, in striving to be always at the forefront of modern technological progress, I have found that I can use the Google to create a virtual map of Tomari. By directing your browser to the following URL, you too can participate in this symbolic recreation of geographical reality. I recommend the satellite imagery over the road map version-- we only have one major road-- though the terrain view is pretty cool too.

http://tinyurl.com/tomarimap

Wonders never cease.