Received wisdom about bear encounters conflictingly suggests running, standing one’s ground, or playing dead; a selection that seems fatally incompatible.
Author: theunfoldingfan
An accident- and misfortune-prone English woman attempts to adventure in the Far East.
Chapter Eleven: Kitakata
Mountains are quite often used to connote that which is fixed and enduring, but in reality there are few things more changeable than the mountains.
Chapter Ten: Jennie Wren’s Nest
Once in the wake of a contact lens delivery I came back to find a thin cardboard parcel sticking out of my door like someone trying to eat a pizza box from the corner.
Chapter Nine: Gut Reaction
Thanks to simplified biological diagrams, a lack of experience of in situ viscera, and a general naivety, I had previously thought of the oesophagus as a clear drop to the stomach, like a stone well to some distant cavern below. It wasn’t until an unwelcome object needed to make the journey through my digestion that I came to realise how ludicrous this image was.
Chapter Eight: Elementary
One day Nakano-sensei asked which of the elementary schools is my favourite, and it’s possible that I answered a little too quickly with “Matsuyama.”
Chapter Seven: Nichuu
‘Language barrier’ is a phrase well-worn to the point of being threadbare, but it is not until one has experienced the communicative rampart that the barrier in question seems less like a linguistic picket fence and more of a socially impenetrable stone barrack.
Chapter Six: An Education
As an occupation, teaching can take you to soaring heights of euphoria and hell-belly lows of stress and frustration.
Chapter Five: Baptism by Napalm
Coming to the realisation that my plan was considerably flawed, I eventually decided to walk to the station, hoping that should anyone be attempting to find me, a bedraggled Caucasian by the roadside would be noticeable enough.
Chapter Four: Boot Camp
The bastard thing about insomnia is that one begins upon the pretentious descent into philosophy, as the silence offers only a resounding echo on the nature of existence.
Chapter Three: Adrift in Cape Cong
They informed me I was forbidden from marrying a Japanese man and settling permanently in Japan, which was sweet, although they added that given my ‘luck’ in the UK, their concerns were minor.
The Unfolding Fan 