Notes from Japan

It's time to say goodbye...

2008-07-17T15:41:00.002+09:00

It's Thursday afternoon. It's 30C in the staff room - aircon is only used in August, so everyone is left to sweat and fall asleep. This is my last day at Toyohara ES. I've only been here for one year, so not long enough to develop a true attachment to the students or staff. The kids at the schools I left last year felt like my own children - I'd seen them grow up, if only for a couple of years. I felt like I had helped some of them come out of their shell and shown others how to treat people with respect and be polite. I doubt I will have another job where the people I'm working with hang out of the window to say good morning as I walk to school. I say goodbye to Yamabe ES tomorrow.
However, leaving the schools is emotional. Part is that I will miss the students, and even some of the teachers, but partly is that I know my time in Japan is coming to an end. It's been an amazing three years. Life anywhere becomes routine after a while, but I am still fascinated by this country. I learn something new every day and the language is a constant battle. It's hard to know how well I can speak Japanese, but I can go out of an evening with my Japanese friends and speak pretty freely. How did that happen? I didn't know my konnichiwa from my karaoke when I came here, but I feel like I've given the language a fair crack.
I have very mixed feelings about leaving. I will miss many things, others not so much. I am looking forward to being back in my home country again and close to my family, but there are aspects of life in the UK that I'm not so keen to get back to.
Some people say that the world is a book, and if you don't travel, you only read one page. I'm very glad to have read the Japanese page. I may even come back and re-read it sometime.

Stinking in the rain

2008-06-27T15:28:00.006+09:00

May and June are a funny couple of months in Japan. April is a month of great change and upheaval - it's the end of the business year, the school year, and it's when cherry blossom arrives heralding spring. By June, the blossom is long gone, changes at work lose their novelty and everyone settles into their old routines. Just to add insult to injury, June is when the rainy season hits Japan. It rains a lot in Japan, but in a different way to Scotland. Here, when it rains it pours. I think (and Google me if I'm wrong) that it's something to do with the hot air working it's way north across the sea and then hitting the mountainous chain of islands that is Japan. The moist air is forced upwards and falls as what you and I call "rain." So, at the moment it's raining a lot and it's really humid, in a two-showers-a-day type way. I drove to school the other day and when I got out my glasses steamed up, that's how humid it is. The younger students are quite sensitive to the weather - it drains their energy and it's really difficult to motivate them while they are sat bathing in their own sweat. This weather shouldn't last more than a couple of weeks though, as it moves it's way across the country just like the cherry blossom did in early spring. At least I can put off washing my car for a big longer. Every cloud...

Let's get reflective

2008-06-26T13:19:00.009+09:00

I started this blog three-ish years ago. Stepping off the plane at Tokyo's Narita airport, everyday brought a new adventure - a new taste, a new cultural experience, a comedy anecdote, and many moments lost in translation. As my visa was stamped at immigration, I was reduced to being a child. Bear in mind that I had no previous experience of this country. This has more meaning when the country in question is Japan, as opposed to America, Australia, or Germany for example. Japan is famous around the world for having a unique culture, cuisine, etiquette and language. I couldn't use chopsticks, I had never used a squat toilet, I didn't know my karate from my karaoke and I certainly couldn't speak, read or write. This meant that your average three-year-old walking down the street could function better here than I could. It's a very humbling experience. You are completely at the mercy of other people. Even if you came to Japan for a short visit, perhaps to Tokyo and Kyoto, then you would have some understanding of my situation. However, being in those cities you are among the most cosmopolitan Japanese - you might actually find people who can help you with their stumbling English. Get on the bullet train and whizz out west for three hours, get another train for an hour and the English level drops a notch or two. I don't demand that those around me speak English - when in Rome, and all that - but being without a language to communicate in does make those first few weeks and months a struggle. It was a very steep learning curve and an amazing thing to experience It gives you a shake (the graph here gives an idea of how your emotions change during these months - note that the same process occurs on re-entry to one's home country, "reverse culture shock").
You develop a new understanding on interpersonal relationships. You discover what it is like to be in the minority. You find things you can't imagine you have been able to live without. You begin to remember the things you miss from home (curry and cereal for me - not at the same time, though (but I would probably eaten it if it had been offered up...)). You learn how to function in your new surroundings - how to buy a train ticket, how to use the ATM, how to eat (sounds strange, but lifting your bowl to your mouth to shovel food in, and slurping your noodles are the norm here and us foreigners have to learn how to do it). There are lots of don't dos in Japan, too. Don't point at people, don't pour your own drink, don't stab your food with your chopsticks, don't wear your shoes indoors, don't make eye-contact when you bow, don't forget to say "itadakimasu" before your eat and "gochisosamadeshita" when you finish, don't talk on the trains, and don't mention the war...
Japan being the oldest population in the world, there are still many people living near me who remember the war, the hardship and food shortages that followed it. They may even have relatives who died during the war. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki mean that many Japanese will view themselves as victims, and the history books in Japan often don't convey the true actions of the Imperial Army. These are wounds that take time to heal, but textbooks which run a little short of the truth certainly don't help matters. The English third grade English textbook tells the story of people living peacefully in Hiroshima. All of a sudden and for no apparent reason a large bomb falls on the city and the young girl in the story never wakes up. I am not going to justify the actions of the allied forces, it is above me to make such justifications, but a balance is required. Propaganda exists everywhere, however, and the UK is no exception. Communication is the key. Japan is very cut off from the rest of the world. Being an island and speaking it's own island, communication has several barriers to overcome. This has led to quite an ethnocentric society. Often I am asked - "what is your favourite Japanese food?" "where have you been to in Japan?" "can you use chopsticks?" "do you know sumo?" Such questions heavily outweigh questions like - "what is your hometown like?" "what sports are popular in your country?" "what did you study at University?" This naval-staring can be seen as arrogance, but I think it is more insecurity - it's the girl who is always fishing for compliments to boost her self-esteem, it's the child pulling on your shirt tails for attention. The Japanese have a misguided sense of their own uniqueness, but many of the famous Japanesey things have they origins in other countries - sushi, sumo, ramen, Buddhism, kanji, rice farming, green tea, martial arts, and my favourite - "Japanese curry". Needless to say, mentioning the origin of these items doesn't go down well... The Japanese consider themselves Japanese long before they say they are Asian. This reflects attitudes in the UK - before the EU, how many Brits would have been comfortable with they term European?
Japan has been a revelation to me. It has opened my eyes to many new experiences and taught me many new skills. I believe I am a more patient person (as much a result of teaching as living in Japan), kinder, culturally sensitive, better at communicating. I will remember the smiles of my students and their desire to have fun. I get the feeling that kids back home are more jaded than the ones I have taught here. There is still a degree of innocence among Japanese children and (without trying to sound like a dinosaur) young people do respect their elders more...
I don't want to turn this into a rant. It's more a way to fill the last 45 minutes of my day. Japan has been very good to me and I will treasure my experience and the friendships I have made. The place and it's people will always have a very special place in my heart. Visitors and short term residents almost always leave with a love for Japan. Long term residents often have a love-hate relationship with it. One explanation I have heard is that the Japanese are always kind, but rarely warm. To make a good Japanese friend takes a lot of work and time, something that sound a bit redundant to those who haven't lived here. To be invited into someone's home, for example is a major event. I have been in three Japanese homes - that's one for every year I've lived here. Longterm residents may tire of always being treated as the guest, despite the length of time they have lived here. At times, special treatment is nice, at times it can have a dividing effect - you just want to be treated like everyone else. Then there is the discrimination. Certain things are waived for you, as you are foreign and you wouldn't understand, or you don't know Japanese. Refusal from a guesthouse, not being told about events happening at school, your BOE telling you to just pay X, Y or Z without listening to the reasons why you shouldn't have to, and there is a list of assumptions as long as my arm that people make about you as a "gaijin" (outside person). These are the things that develop your patience, and I hope I never forget them.

New restaurant...well, to me at least

2008-04-20T18:29:00.006+09:00

Russ, Luke, Daigo, Tomo, Emi, Emi's bloke and I met up for lunch today. Tomo was charged with finding a suitable establishment. She doesn't know downtown Joetsu that well, so she chose a place down near us in Arai. It turns out that they don't do lunch on Sundays, so we went over the road to a rather inconspicuous restaurant. Much to my surprise it was a great little yakiniku restaurant - one of my favourite styles of Japanese food. Yakiniku just means grilled meat. The last few weeks might be a little pricey...the food is pretty good.

Yakiniku originated from traditional Korean barbecued beef dishes brought over by immigrants to the Kansai area of Japan. Red meat isn't a staple in Japanese cuisine, so a trip to the yakiniku shop is quite a treat.

Eating meat was actually banned in Japan for many years on religious grounds, which partly explains why they eat so much seafood. Meat was only legalised in 1871 following the Meiji Restoration. The Emperor Meiji himself was publicly observed eating meat in 1873 to promote beef consumption.

At the yakiniku restaurant you order a selection of meats - beef, pork, offal, chicken, seafood, etc - and then slap it on the built-in grill on your table. You cook the meat as you go, dipping each bit in the tare sauce (my mouth is watering just thinking about it). If you drink too many beers it's easy to take your eye off the ball and your dinner will go up in smoke. Nice to discover a new restaurant just down the road, even though I've lived here for three years!

Kodo

2008-04-19T15:59:00.003+09:00

Well, the clock is a ticking. Fifteen weeks and counting. One thing I won't get to do this year is visit the summer Earth Celebration Festival on Sado Island. I've been lucky enough to attend the last three and it's definitely one of the best experiences of my time in Japan. Have a look at this video of Kodo that I tried (and failed) to post a while back. They tour the world for 8 months of the year, so if you get the chance go and see them live.
My parents arrive next week. I'm not sure who is least prepared for this event - me, my parents or Japan...

So, yeah...

2008-03-07T15:20:00.002+09:00

Well, it's fair to say that I sort of fell out of the old blog habit over the last 10 months. I've got another 5 months in Japan, so I might as well put together a few entries for old times sake - I know it's all going to feel like a dream once I've been at home for a few months.
How to sum up the last 10 months... Well, I'll fill you in on the last few weeks and then over the next wee while I'll chip in with the odd amusing or interesting biographical incident as the feeling takes me.
Right bang up to date - it's Friday, it's sunny, and I've got nothing planned for the weekend other than snowboarding interspersed with bouts of beer drinking. We have entered the final few weeks of boarding in Myoko - next week promises sunshine and warm temps, so the snow quality will likely drop off pretty fast. When will I get to board again? When again will I be able to buy a season pass for 60GBP? I have very much enjoyed that side of life in Yuki Guni (Snow Country).
Last weekend a group of us went to Nozawa Onsen in Nagano Prefecture. It's only about an hour over the mountains from Joetsu. Nozawa was one of the resorts used for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. The weather on Saturday was awful - thick fog, heavy snow and high winds. With the wind-chill, temps at the top were around -20C. Sitting on the lift was a test, let alone trying to navigate down the mountain with 20m visibility. Anyway, the day concluded with a trip to one of the famous public onsen (hot springs). We chose the closest one to the pension. Unsurprisingly it was jam-packed. There were only two small baths, each about 6sqm in area. We stripped down, as is the style of onsen in Japan, and proceeded to wash in preparation for going into the bath. Luke was first to go and he gracefully lowered himself in. "Ah, can't be that hot" I thought. I finished washing and plopped myself in next to Luke - it was bloomin' hot! It would have peeled the skin off a rhino! Turns out Luke had slipped and had little choice in the speed of entry. He grinned and bared it - this is a test of manhood in Japan! We sat there trying not to move in fear of causing fresh water to lap up against our bodies. After about 5 minutes my whole body was tingling. After 10 minutes I felt a searing heat on my right knee - now is a good time to leave, I thought.
This was the most rustic onsen I have ever been to. The onsen in Nozawa are free to use - you just wander around the town in a dressing gown (well, yukata-type thing) and onsen hop. Good times.
Sunday was a different affair - blue skies, deep powder and warmth! We took the gondola to the top of the mountain and then split up to do our own things. I was with Luke and Russ for most of the day. We had a great time doing a run through the trees from the Yamabiko four-man lift. It was really challenging and every run was different - you find yourself popping out at totally different points every run. I got a call from Luke's phone at one point - he had dropped it on the slope the day before and miraculously someone had found it. A white phone dropped on a foggy ski slope during a blizzard.
The views on Sunday were awesome. We could see our local mountain, Myoko-san, in the distance. The trees were covered in a winter frosting. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. Managed to get nicely sun burnt, though...
To top it all off, Russ was driving, so I could enjoy a cheeky beer during the drive home!

KODO

2007-05-17T16:32:00.000+09:00

Now, I had written a big, waffle-filled blog entry about how good the taiko group Kodo are, but then I realised that it went on so long that even I got bored reading it. Much better to whack in a few pictures and a video (having killed the radio star, it may see the end of the blogger, too). So, what you see below is the edited highlights, le crème de la crème, if you will…
I have had many great experiences while in Japan and there are many wonderful annual events and festivals here. However, the one thing that I really look forward to each year is the Earth Celebration Festival on Sado Island (about three hours by ferry from my home town of Joetsu). The festival takes place over three days every August and people travel from all over the world to enjoy the combination of art and music. Drumming is the dominant feature of the festival and I have many happy memories of sitting drunkenly on a warm beach, unsure if the drumming is in my head or if it’s coming from the people sitting around the camp fire. Cloudy was here for the festival last year and had a great time – he’s got the scars to prove it! The organisers of the festival are the Japanese drumming group, Kodo, whose training centre is on Sado Island.
This year is the 20th anniversary of the festival, so all the stops are being pulled out. There are stalls, workshops and live performances around the port town of Ogi, but there are performances each evening from Kodo and their invited guests. Last year it was a dance group from New York; the year before it was a bagpiper from Spain – which was awesome, believe it or not – you had to be there, man! The evening show on the Sunday night is one of the most atmospheric experiences I have had. The stage is set in a forest clearing on a hill behind a shrine. The humidity and sounds of the forest really add to the experience. And then the drumming starts…
Kodo performed in Joetsu last Wednesday and I had to go and see them. This is the fifth time I have seen them, but I once again I was left wanting more. The video clip should give you a small insight into what they do. It’s truly breathtaking stuff.
Speed. Timing. Power. Endurance. These four words sum-up what Kodo are about, but they are much more besides. Kodo use many different drums and drumming styles. For me, the most exciting is Miyake-style. Miyake is one of the seven volcanic islands south of Tokyo and there is an annual festival there based around this drumming style (taiko drumming is often used as a gift to the gods in prayer for a safe year and a bountiful harvest).
This style involves three two-sided drums set low to the ground. Two drummers play each drum, one at either side. Due to the height of the drums, the performers must maintain a strenuous crouching position with the drum set off to their right-hand side. As they play they transfer their weight from one foot to the other by straightening and bending either knees. This movement affords them maximum power in each stroke. The drummers take it in turns to beat a basic rhythm while the other breaks into powerful, martial-art-esque drumming pattern. Each stroke begins at the bottom of the feet and then explodes through the end of the drumstick (bachi). Following each stroke, the bachi is drawn back either in front of the body or up behind the head to enable the fullest strike possible. From these positions, with a subtle transferring of weight, the drummers unleash unstoppable blows one after another. Then, at the signal of the lead drummer at the back of the group, all six men go to town.
The timing is impeccable and form is crucial to that. This synchronised routine is amazing to watch. This is not men thrashing aimlessly at a drum to make a lot of noise, every blow is choreographed and the look of pain in their faces is genuine as their muscles start to burn. The effect that these six men create makes you wish you had six pairs of eyes to take everything in.
The most awe-inspiring performance is made on the o-daiko – “the big drum” (sorry to demystify the language for you). It is big. The drum was carved from a single tree, weighs over 800lbs and is four feet in diameter. Sat atop a cart, two men play the drum – one beats out a basic rhythm, while the main drummer improvises. The drum is raised such that the drummers stand in a semi-crouched position and play the drum above their heads. The thunderous sound generated from this massive drum is astonishing. The low, powerful sound shakes you to the core. During his performance, the drummer’s bare back transforms into a knot of muscle and sinew.
He passes through phases of intense drumming followed by softer movements where he sets a mood of suspense and recovers his strength for the next onslaught. Once this performance is finished he jumps down off the cart and begins another 10-minute piece with five other members – this time in a half-sit-up position with his feet hooked around a smaller taiko drums. I have nicknamed him “The Beast.” The endurance he shows is unbelievable. My arms got tired applauding for their encore, so whacking above you head at a huge drum with a pair of rolling pins for 15 minutes is extraordinary.
It is a musical performance, but the visual element is crucial. Listening to a CD, one might imagine a solitary drummer tapping away, improvising as he goes. The reality is that you have two, four, eight or more people working together with split-second timing to make the sounds you are hearing. Whereas one might expect a live performance from their favourite artist to be less than perfect and different to the post-production CD version, with Kodo you get far more from a live performance than you could ever get from a CD.
All Kodo apprentices train at the groups Sado Island centre day in, day out, for two years before they can perform for the public. I’d love to join Kodo, but you have to have fluent Japanese and a semblance of musical talent. I don’t know which is further from my grasp!
Sorry, I was going to edit this, but I didn’t – you got le crème, le crème de la crème and all the all the leftover bits that nobody wants. If you’ve read this far, you need to get out more.

Let's eating!

2007-05-14T21:06:00.000+09:00

I’m getting old. We have a new school lunch lady at my Junior High and she has introduced a feedback system where students and staff can tell her what they think of the food. Today’s lunch was rice, “spring rain salad” (which has some lettuce, cucumber, ham and clear noodle-like things in it), a tofu-based plate of stodge (it’s lovely stuff, but stodge is the best descriptor I could think of) and a carton of milk. When asked what might make this meal better, I said “maybe a little bowl of soup on the side…”. The students said “a pudding would be nice!” It never even crossed my mind. There was a time when it would have been an almost reflexive response. “How can you make this jam sandwich better?” “Add some chocolate cake?” “This black pudding is a bit dry, what shall we do?” “Put a little cream on top?”
Things have been a bit fishy of late. Out of my last six school visits, I have had fish five times (I've been hopping between three different school lunch schedules). The photo is of my lunch at Hari Elementary. It’s shishamo, rice, wakame seaweed salad, a potato and konyaku soup and a carton of milk. All the kids get the same and nobody can bring a packed lunch. Shishamo is where the line is drawn for many foreigners. They are about 15cm in length and resemble a willow leaf, apparently, hence their Japanese name means "willow leaf fish." They are grilled or deep fried whole, often while full of eggs (ko-mochi-shishamo). It used to freak me out a little when I arrived, but I’ve gotten used to it – eating the skin, head, tail, eggs, brain and bones of something is a good monthly challenge for me.

Where is the love?

2007-03-07T21:53:00.000+09:00

The love – hate relationship in Japan is a constant confusion. In the cities, foreigners are 10 a penny (roughly ¥2.4). You can walk down the street and people don’t bat an eyelid. It’s not quite the same out in the countryside. Being stared at is just something you have to learn to accept after a while. The fact is you look very out of place, so people will wonder who you are and why you are in their little town. I’ve experienced very little hostility in Japan – bizarrely, the most hostility I have experienced in Japan has been from the nurse at one of my elementary schools, but that’s for another blog entry! However, being stared at by most people you pass does make you feel a little uneasy and self-conscious. Also, the wonderful phrase “gaijin da!” is a delight – literally “it’s an outsider!” However, if a group of Japanese people walked down the high street in Stornoway, they would attract a few glances, too, so one shouldn’t be surprised by the situation one faces…should one?
Old people stare because they are old and the don’t care if you know they are staring at you (or maybe they are unaware they are doing it (or maybe they haven’t been told that the war is over)), kids stare out of curiosity, and middle-aged people don’t stare so much as shoot fleeting glances. While you can’t call this behaviour hate, it is enough to make you feel a little unwelcome if you happen to be having a bad day already.
The love in the love – hate relationship comes from the students (and the all-singing, all dancing petrol pump guys, but I get the feeling they treat everyone the same – but they do make me feel special).
I’m not a full teacher and I’m not a student, so I fall somewhere between – kind of like an uncle who comes to your class once in a while (but not in a creepy way). I have no say with regards to discipline in class (that is responsibility of the Japanese teacher), but fortunately discipline is not an issue at my school. So, my job is to try and banter with the students and encourage them as much as I can in whichever way I can – obviously, this is my interpretation of my job description!
The third grade graduated from my JHS yesterday and I was chuffed to find a big card on my desk with messages from about 30 students. They all seemed to enjoy my classes and find them interesting, but the quality of the writing makes me wonder how much was actually learned! Still, the gesture was very sweet and it was nice to know that they had fun in class. At the graduation enkai (drinking party – crap translation, try banquet, dinner, etc) many of the teachers cried. Only then was it clear how strong the bond between teachers and students is in a country where keeping your emotions hidden is encouraged. Apparently the recent graduates were a bit off the rails when they came to Itakura JHS three years ago, so seeing them mature into responsible and capable students was a great reward for the teachers. I should point out that the enkai is only for the teachers, not the students. Anyway, back on track…
The more embarrassing form of love in the love – hate relationship is when people try and pair you off with one of their friends, pretty much because you are foreign and, by default, a gentleman – not the worst stereotype to be tarred with (there is another stereotype about foreign males which isn’t bad either…).
Just this morning the vice principal at one of schools asked me what I thought about moving into her family home and dating one of her daughters – one is 18 and the other 21. How does one respond to that? “Sounds good, but have you got a picture of the girls and do you have Sky Sports?” I’ve found that if you haven’t got the language to swerve an embarrassing situation like that, laughing it off works wonders.

“I’m from Uzbekistan!”

2007-02-28T17:19:00.000+09:00

The role of those on the JET Programme is two-fold. The first is to teach English; the other is to facilitate internationalisation. I don’t hold a teaching license and I rarely spell internationalisation the same on consecutive occasions. My knowledge of English grammar is questionable. I can tell you what sounds right and what sounds wrong, but I probably won’t be able to tell you why one is better than the other. I learnt grammar in a very passive way. I grew up in a sea of English and the grammar just seeped into me through my pores. I don’t know an intransitive verb from my elbow, but give me an example of one and I’ll give you a list of examples of where you can and can’t use it.
My credentials as an instructor of international issues are even more tedious – basically, I’m not Japanese. Therefore, I am an expert on history, culture, flags, languages, current affairs, travel and world sport. However, this part of my job is soon to increase as my area within Joetsu has been chosen as one of eight areas in Niigata prefecture to receive funding for a three-year internationalisation project. How exactly this funding will be used and what initiatives will be introduced has yet to be decided, but the wheels are in motion.
Hari Elementary School has been the first to put the money to use. A carpeted room (an international touch in itself) has been set aside as the sekai no heya – The World Room. It has been rammed full of all sorts of bits and bobs from various countries: clogs, hats, masks, maps, flags, photos, books, globes, clocks, etc. all in a merry jumble. I was at the school for the room’s grand opening recently.
Now, you might think that Japan is a super high-tech country with neon lights and whizzing trains and such. This is certainly true in places - you can buy a Big Mac with your mobile phone and then scan the packaging (again, with your mobile) to get the nutritional information. However, technology is markedly absent in the school and also, strangely, on TV. In school we still use chalkboards, wooden tables and chairs, and overhead projectors are seen as something to be suspicious of. I am still amazed by news and entertainment shows that rely on homemade props to illustrate things that would be much better served by a little digital display or a neat graphic. Having said this, Hari EMS has gone from the dark ages to the 21st century in one foul swoop. All of a sudden we have “smart boards” – a projector whiteboard hooked up to a computer so that by touching the board you can select different option on whichever software you are using.
Moreover, Google Earth has made it into school. During the grand opening I showed the school my house in Lewis using a huge 58” colour TV that appeared out of nowhere. I then took them on a whistle stop tour of the world using the 3D function on Google Earth. We were soon whizzing past the pyramids and the Eiffel Tour. By doing things like this I feel like the students minds are broadening. Japan feels very cut off from the world at times, and the rest of the world can often feel like something that happens on TV or in your geography textbook. Also, Japan doesn’t have the greatest relationship with those countries it is surrounded by.
Today’s lesson with 2nd grade focused on the phrase: “where are you from?” We had the lesson in the world room and students were asked to pick a flag each from the selection stuck on the wall. They then had to answer the question with the name of the country they had chosen: “I’m from dokodoko-land.” Obviously, the students picked the strangest looking flags they could find, so the 6-year-olds learnt some interesting country names: Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Israel, The Democratic Republic of Congo, North Korea, the Seychelles, Eritrea, Iraq, and Andorra. Trust me, it was an auditory delight!

Mickey Mouse is a rat and there’s no Santa. Have a nice life kids.

2006-11-17T18:53:00.000+09:00

I was given free reign with the sixth grade at Yamato today. They graduate from elementary school (they even “graduate” from kindergarten here) in March, so the teacher wants them to learn something that will help them when they start learning English proper in junior high. I immediately chimed in with phonics. Top idea Colin, shame you know nothing about it. Never fear, google is here. A week later and I’d put together a nice little lesson plan for learning all the basic letter sounds. They know A - B - C, but that’s no use if you are trying to sound a word out. So, we learnt a - b - c. I was impressed. They picked it up and seemed to really enjoy it. I was hamming it up like a freak, but you’ve got to give a little if you want them to respond – there’s no such thing as a free lunch, after all.
I chose a few words that they knew (or should have known) and then, having practiced individual letter sounds, we tried to sound out the words by looking at the letters on the board. Nothing too crazy: dog, ten, pig, sun, car, cup, hot, etc (we didn’t do etc, I just meant that there was more to the list that I have written). The beauty of this is that they can now read words that they have only known how to say up until know. Phonics is the Rosetta Stone for the English language learner.
We came to r and my example was rat: “r-r-rat!” Awesome, I thought, they’ve cracked the r sound. A voice from the back piped up: “rat te nani?” (what does rat mean?). Colin: “it’s a kind of big mouse.” Student: “ah, Mickey Mouse!” Um, well, not really. If you go to Disneyland you will see that Mickey is indeed a big mouse, but it would be un-PC to call him a rat. But, I thought this was hilarious, so I said: “yes, Mickey is a rat.” I know that I’ve got an express ticket to TEFL teacher hell, but it’s f-f-Friday, so why not have a giggle? I can’t wait for the Christmas lessons next month, I’ve got a few crackers up my sleeve (not literally, of course).

Some mothers...

2006-11-10T20:10:00.000+09:00

You have classes at elementary school that make you think that it is the perfect job – the children are attentive and a joy to be with. I for one would definitely consider primary teaching as a career back in Scotland – if it weren’t for the snotty noses and stupid questions. Snotty noses are a daily hazard, much like being swept off a ship is a daily hazard for north Atlantic fishermen. All you can do is try and keep the little’uns at arms length. Then again, this is difficult when the kids jump all over you like you are a walking assault course. Eating with first graders is an absolute charm. Today I saw more half-chewed rice than one should see in a lifetime – mouths chomping away on rice while they discuss the price of origami paper. I mean really, what can be so important in a 5-year-olds life that can’t wait until they finish a mouthful of rice? One student, who I had the great pleasure of sitting beside, had rice in his hair. How does that happen? It wasn’t clear if it came from his bowl or whether it came, projectile style, from the mouth of the girl sat next to him.
I miss a lot of the stupid questions I’m asked, because I can’t understand what the kids are saying, but I catch enough to keep myself entertained. Three things fascinate them: whether I have a girlfriend, what my favourite food is, and how tall I am (I tell them I am 3m tall and they all believe me). Outwith these topics ("outwith" seems to be a Scottish word, so sorry if it sounds a bit odd), the questions get a bit random. Classics are: “Do you eat rice?” Why are your eyes blue?” Today I was asked, with all seriousness, “how do you come to school – by plane or by car?” I thought catching the number 73 down to Angel and walking to Clerkenwell was a tough commute; this kid thought I came from Scotland every week just to teach him animal names.
I learnt an important lesson today – don’t let 5-year-olds try to arrange a game of football. The whining, cheating and match fixing that goes on makes the Italian FA look principled. Football-wise, I’m on a bit of a golden streak at the moment – 3 goals in three games. This is actually better than it sounds. The games are pretty short, only about 15 minutes. That works out at 6 goals per 90 minutes. Paul Le Guen, I’m only a phone call away if you need me…and I think you do.

2006-10-21T17:59:00.000+09:00

Pitagora suicchi

Well, I'm taking this blog places it's never been before - posting video youtube video pod links. I don't know what I'm doing to be honest, but let's see what happens. Let's youtube link!
Right, this wee video is part of a kids TV show here that I catch now and again. It may have been the inspiration for the old Honda advert. I find these immensely satisfying. Enjoy.

The tears of a clown

2006-10-13T16:45:00.000+09:00

Today is another elementary school day for me. I used to compare working at elementary school to being a rock star, but I’m more like a clown – a rock star clown! I’m not trying to be big headed, but the 1st – 4th graders love me. The 5th and 6th graders pretend they don’t, but they really do. I’ve found that the young kids will remember English better if the class itself was memorable (I’m sure there are some redundant words in there, but I’ll leave them in at no extra cost to you the reader). As the kids can’t understand most of what I say, I can’t fascinate them with anecdotes or have them rolling in the aisles with witticisms and word play. No, I have to become a clown for 45 minutes. This involves thinking at their level. What would I find funny if I was a 7 year old? Would it be funny if sensei walked into the blackboard? Yeah! Would it be funny if sensei kept trying to stick stuff to the board, but it kept falling off? Yeah! Would it be funny if sensei pulled funny faces and pretended to fall over a lot? Yeah! I never actually pretend to fall over, but with 30 kids sat spread out on the floor, I inevitably find one to trip over. If the kids are laughing and having fun, the more they will play the games you’ve prepared, and the more they play the games, the more they learn.
The way I learn is very different to how they learn. I sit down and slowly struggle my way through a rather dry Japanese textbook. I see the word for “rabbit” and I try to remember it and maybe even use it in a sentence. The kids bounce around the room with their hands flapping next to their ears shouting: “I’m a rabbit! I’m a rabbit!” I know who’s having more fun.

Ps. you know you’ve worked your first graders hard during lunchtime football when half the players come back bleeding. I’m glad to say that none of them cried – they just bounced back up as though nothing had happened. Had they been with a female teacher, maybe they would have gone for the sympathy vote. That’s a borderline controversial statement, but I’m going to leave it in there to spice things up! There are no holds barred in this blog! Nothing’s taboo!

Pps. see how I linked the clown thing and the crying thing? Check the title again. How’s that for a slice of deep-fried gold? I should charge people to read this.

Consciousness: that annoying time between naps

2006-10-11T20:50:00.000+09:00

In Japan, I am a girl magnet. Literally. But only on trains and buses. And only when the girl next to me has fallen asleep. The Japanese have a great knack of falling into a deep, comatose sleep whilst in public. When Cloudy came over in the summer I took the night bus to Tokyo. I had an hour or so to kill from about 5am in Ikebukuro, one of Tokyo’s many cities-within-a-city. The capsule hotel is pretty much designed for the salary man who has had a few too many after a late night at work and has missed the last train home. Stroll up to the hotel and check in to your coffin-esque “room”. These, it would seem, are the lucky ones. There are those who don’t make it as far as the capsule hotel and simply collapse and fall asleep as is on the pavement near the train station, hoping that they can get the first train home and that the Mrs will be none the wiser. It’s very odd to all these suited and booted homeless (albeit only for tonight). The August nighttime temp in Tokyo will be between 25 and 30C, so there’s no risk of hypothermia. Also, as Japan is such a safe country (although, how safe is any country whose neighbour is North Korea), you’re unlikely to have anything nicked. Anyway, back to the story.
On the way back from Nagoya this weekend I took the local yokel train to Arai from Nagano. Being a small, tinny, countryside train, it didn’t have pairs of seats in rows. Instead, it had seats along the windows facing the centre aisle, like a tube train. The girl sat next to me had clearly enjoyed the national holiday by doing a stack of shopping in the big smoke. Now, she could have dozed in any number of ways. She could have fallen directly forward, but this hardly ever happens. She could have flipped backwards out of the window, but this is rarer still. This leaves a 50-50 toss up between left and right. 99 times out of 100 the girl will roll straight into me.
You can see it coming quite far in advance. It usually starts with a distinctive slouching and relaxing of the shoulders. Next comes the “concurring drunk” as I like to call it – the continuous and exaggerated nodding of the head. Once the head has settled and is slumped forward, chin on chest, then it’s just a matter of time.
The initial tentative swaying starts. I try not to look. I’m not going to wake her up, because I hate that. I also don’t want to tell her friend: “Can you please wake your mate up, before she rolls right into me?” The other girl is doing her best to subtly wake her heavy-eyed friend. She clearly thought that coming inches away from rolling into a stranger, and a foreigner at that, was something akin to poking a lion in the nose with a wooden chair. Defending her friend’s right to dose off in public, the girl made a few gentle attempts to rouse her. Unfortunately, her friend was beyond help. The course was plotted. ETA established.
Thud. What’s the etiquette? Just let her have her forty winks there on your shoulder? Cough or twitch and hope that that is enough to wake her? Hold out for the next big bump to startle them conscious? (note: this is not possible on a Shinkansen). I chose to let her sleep it off, whilst pretending that I hadn’t noticed what had happened. I must have seemed truly engrossed in my book, but I had long stopped reading and was merely staring at the page, willing the girl to join us in the land of the living.
Luckily we weren’t far from Nihongi Station, the one point on the journey when the train does a bit of a three-point turn, reversing back up the line to where it can change tracks. This change in g-force (all of 1.2G), was enough to joggle her back to life. Realizing what she had been doing and thoroughly embarrassed, she was now über awake, seemingly taking in every detail of her new found surroundings. I started to read again.

"If you go down to the woods today..."

2006-10-05T16:18:00.000+09:00

The morning meeting is an important part of the Japanese working day. It doesn’t matter if you’re a government worker or pumping gas, you will have your morning choukai. It’s a way of making sure that everyone is starting the day on the same foot. It’s probably the most formal part of my day. We stand at our desks, turn to face the principal, vice-principal and the head teacher who sit at the head of the staff room and then bow deeply whilst bellowing out ohayou-gozaimasu (good morning). We then sit down and pretend to listen intently to each announcement.
I’m sure that the other teachers are actually listening. I have developed a Japanese filter, so my mind is able to wander to more pressing issues for the duration of the meeting. Did I put the milk back in the fridge? What’s for lunch? Are Rangers rubbish because I’m not in Scotland and will they get good again if I go back? I pick up 5–8% of what is being said, and only about 0.7% of that is of any relevance to me. My ears do prick up from time to time, however.
Today I heard the word kuma being repeated several times. Kuma means bear. I looked up and the vice-principal was holding a sheet of paper with an annotated diagram of a rather sinister looking bear (they always get a bad press). I felt that this was a topic worthy of further investigation. I asked Akatsuka-sensei what the deal was. Apparently bear sightings in nearby Myoko have spiked (spuk?) of late. There have been 19 bear sightings in the last month. Bears are unlikely to attack an adult, but they aren’t averse to taking a pop at an elementary school student if they are hungry (the bear, not the student).
The wife of the former principal of my school who retired this year (the principal, not his wife) was mauled whilst walking in the forest near her house. As a deterrent, students are advised to wear a bell on their school bags. The hope is that the ringing will reduce the chances of students happening upon a bear, startling it and thus provoking an attack (by the bear, not the student). My concern (as a freelance psychologist) is that the bears will start to associate the sound of the bells with an easy, bite sized snack.
Speaking of fast food (fast to eat that is, the students themselves are not especially fast), McDonald’s use the same slogan here as they use in other countries: “do, do, do, do, doo – I’m loving it!” However, because Japanese people can’t pronounce the letter’s l and v the slogan becomes: “do, do, do, do, doo – I’m rubbing it!” Quite what you’ll find at a Maccy-D’s in Japan, and how fast the service will be, I don’t know…

Yeah, it's English, but...not

2006-10-04T18:54:00.000+09:00

Computers are seen as the blight and the blessing of the modern world. However, it’s not the computers that are inherently evil, it’s what you do with them. I have found that the most evil thing that you can do with a computer is use it to translate an elementary school lesson plan from Japanese into English. Here is an excerpt from today’s lesson plan.

1 – A teacher teaches the right, the left, the front, the back, a word of sit down, stand up, jumping to children while gesturing you.
2 – Sit down on the one step jumping place to the back where one step jumps before where one step jumps to the one step jumping left to the right; stand up.
3 – Close: Mr Colin gives instructions three times last. The last is said to “put up the right hand” and does goodbye in spite of being a swing.

Personally, I love the ballsy use of the semi-colon in #2, following what can only be described as a certificate 18 butchering of the English language. So, we can put a man on the moon, and we can bounce information around the globe at the touch of a button, but we can’t design a program capable of translating Japanese to English (or vice versa). It makes me feel better about my linguistic failings when a computer capable of a billion calculations a second can’t differentiate between a verb and a noun.
I poke fun at this translation, but it’s tongue in cheek – no one, man nor machine, is perfect. Just today I straight-facedly told a six year old that: “I read a lot of water.” I obviously meant to say: “I drink a lot of water”, but this is an easy mistake to make in Japanese (the difference is yomu (read) versus nomu (drink). However, being the teacher, and thus (largely by default) her superior, she didn’t question my statement. A look took over her face, which told me she was thinking “wow, foreigners can speak English and READ water!!”
I have a good friend who once told a table of terrified students that he eats children for breakfast. He meant to say fruit.

Ah, autumn...

2006-10-01T18:39:00.000+09:00

Autumn is here, heralded not by the vibrant reds and oranges of the Japanese maple, but by swarms of dragonflies. Although you see them during other times of the year, autumn is when dragonflies come stage front and steal the show. It’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting on my tatami enjoying a coffee and the gentle breeze passing through the open windows of my apartment. The only disturbance is from the occasional intrepid dragonfly that flits in through the window, bumps curiously into lampshade, wall and paper screen before departing out of another window.
Had they been discovered after the advent of the helicopter, I’m sure they would have been called helicopter flies. They have four wings (albeit not at 90 degrees to each other as on a helicopter), their bodies resemble the tail of a helicopter (albeit without a rotor on the end), the head and eyes look like a cockpit (albeit without little men inside steering) and they can hover (actually, just like helicopters). Hm, maybe I’ve drunk too much coffee and maybe I’ve been staring at dragonflies out the window for too long…
The Japanese for dragonfly is tombo and the kanji is made up of two characters, both of which contain the character for insect. One kanji has the character for blue in it, but I can’t break down the other kanji (flying thing, maybe, at a guess). The Japanese find it fascinating that we call them “dragonflies” – it seems quite a dramatic name for an essentially harmless creature, certainly more dramatic than “blue flying insect.”
At elementary school this week one of the students (most probably a boy) discovered an interesting visitor, which looked as though it belonged in Alien 3 rather than an elementary school. The principal brought it over to me and said: “Excuse me, what is this in English?” I’d never seen anything like it. It seemed equally surprised to see me. They told me the Japanese name and I had a look in my dictionary. It turned out to be a mole cricket. After initial confusion regarding cricket the insect and cricket the sport, I got down to explaining what a mole was. I have a little Nintendo DS that allows me to draw in kanji or English, which the software will then translate into the desired language. I wrote in “mole” and showed my colleagues the kanji. It has two characters, the first I recognised as the kanji for earth (as in soil, not the planet). I then checked what the second kanji meant. Turns out that the Japanese call the humble, blind, bumbling mole, the “earth dragon.” I’m guessing there must have been a period several hundred years ago, during the construction of all the famous Kyoto Zen gardens, when the mole population reached infestation proportions, reeking havoc among the temples and bonsai. Gardens torn apart from below, the torment faced by shogun and gardener alike, surely a punishment from the gods. Yes, earth dragon makes perfect sense when viewed in this historical context.
One day I will sit down and learn the names of all the animals that I share my apartment with. The newest member of the gang goes by the name Argiope amoena or, would you believe it, the “St. Andrew’s Cross spider” given it’s English name. I first saw this spider on Sado Island and convinced myself that it must surely be confined to the island, in a Galapagos-type way, and that there was no conceivable way it could have made it across the sea onto the mainland. I clearly overlooked the thrice-daily ferry that runs from Joetsu to Sado… I found my fat, striped friend on the door handle of the apartment. As much of an animal lover as I am, my apartment is simply too small to share with a spider as scary looking as that. I rolled up a newspaper and swung baseball-style, hoping to send spider-chan for a home run into the nearest rice paddy. Sadly, he simply rearranged his footing slightly and settled back down into his web. On the fourth attempt I managed to get him onto the floor. I won’t describe what happened next, safe to say that he won’t be bothering us any more. I have since discovered that this species, though large and brightly coloured, is harmless, feeding on insects rather than humans. A website reassuring states that “their venom is not regarded as a serious medical problem for humans.” Phew!

First day on the job, again

2006-09-20T19:30:00.000+09:00

I have a new school this term. I have inherited Yamato Elementary School from Stacia (and Heather before her). They haven’t said this in so many words, but I gather that they weren’t happy with her teaching methods - “fall” instead of autumn, “recess” instead of playtime, “footpath” instead of pavement, etc). No wonder the kids couldn’t understand a word I said when I arrived.
It’s been a while since I’ve had to visit a new school, so I was a little nervous. At least this time I had some Japanese to help me get / scrape by. I got a very warm welcome from the staff, and the students were very curious as you might expect (you’ve got a new teacher and he also happens to be from a different planet – I’d be intrigued).
My first duty (as you’d expect on your first day at any place of work) was to watch a unicycle display in the sports hall. Unicycling is immensely popular among elementary school kids in Japan. So much so, that I think it must be government policy to make all children proficient unicyclists by the age of 12. I imagine that they discovered some deficient balance-related gene that exists amongst the Japanese and that this was the scientist’s recommendation for overcoming it. As a result, expect Japan to wow the world with their unicycling prowess soon. The money that Japan saves from having no army, they seem to have invested in unicycles. It’s keeping people in work I guess. Think of all the arms factories that must have seen the demand for their tanks and missiles drop so sharply.

Koizumi: “Ah. All that expensive machinery sitting idle…what should we do?”
Chief Scientist: “Hm, it’s certainly a problem…”
Koizumi: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Chief Scientist: “Hai! Have the factories make unicycles and then sell them to elementary schools!”
Koizumi: “Exactly! If they can build a tank and a cruise missile, then knocking out a unicycle or two shouldn’t be too much of a stretch!”
Chief Scientist: “Hai!”
Koizumi: “Chief Scientist-san - make it so!”
Chief Scientist: “Hai!”

I like many things about teaching elementary school, but there are also things I don’t like. One thing I like is that come lunchtime your day’s work is often done. Three or four classes in the morning, lunch and then the afternoon is yours for the head-in-hands desk napping. When I’m not napping, I usually study or write this.
It’s Wednesday today. It’s really hot and I’m sitting next to the window. After lunch I was sat at my desk letting my lunch settle. I’m sure you won’t blame me, but I started to feel a little heavy-eyed and actually fell asleep with my head in my hands. As I was knocking out the zzz’s, the other staff had gone off to start their afternoon lessons. I awoke to a lady shouting to get my attention from the staff room door. In my bleariness I managed to make out that she wanted me to follow her and that 1st grade were doing something. OK, I’ve not seen 1st grade yet at this new school, let’s go! I had never seen this lady before, but I’m new, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. We marched our way through the school. She kept chatting, in the way that only old Japanese people do. Then, it became unclear exactly who was following whom. There seemed to be a lot of checking with me about where we were going for someone who knew the school. After a little indecision and numerous, silent stairwell stand-offs, we arrived at the 1st grade room. The old lady I was “following” then sat down next to one of the kids. Turns out that today was “family comes to school day.” Parents and grandparents come to play with the kids and see what they get up to. I had been cajoled from my gentle slumber and thrown into a 1st grader class playing with ye olde toys such as the spinning top, juggling and bamboo helicopters. It got me points for enthusiasm from the first grade teacher, who was somewhat perplexed by my presence, and also from the O-baasan that I had followed through the school.
The day finished up with a concert for the old folks. There was some singing and music from the 6th grade and then some acapella from students at the local University. The later included a lot of beat-box. Whether it was aimed at the six-year-olds or the grannies, I don’t know…
Apologies for the gratuitous rice shot. It was included because it’s harvesting season here (and also because I wanted to use the word gratuitous).

Facto del dia

2006-09-08T17:48:00.000+09:00

The pulpit in a Mosque is called a mini-bar.

This is true. Except for the second i and the hyphen. Look, all I’m saying is that if I were Muslim, that’s how I’d remember it.

Normal service will resume shortly.

The circle of life

2006-07-18T13:26:00.000+09:00

In order to sustain my self-esteem during difficult times, I like to give myself a little pat on the back whenever I overcome a challenge. For instance, I am now able to conduct a conversation with a Japanese three-year-old. “So what?” I hear you cry. Well, my personal triumph stems from the fact that it took merely one year to reach this level of proficiency, and not three – ergo, I am three times more intelligent than Japanese people. The figures speak for themselves.
Another accomplishment is my ability to eat a variety of things that came out of the sea. My parents will attest to the fact that I couldn’t even be persuaded to eat a fish finger when I was a child (or an adolescent for that matter). I put it down to going fishing as a child and seeing gutted and bloody fish bobbing around in our kitchen sink – but that’s a discussion for my psychiatrist and I.
My most recent achievement is being at one with nature, in particular the creepy-crawly part of it. The most gruesome insect that I came across on a semi-regular basis in the Outer Hebrides was the slater, or grey woodlouse, to be found under any medium-sized rock. At all of 1cm in length and incapable of flying, or biting or doing anything really, I found that I was able to assert my authority upon this little creature with little more that a sheet of kitchen roll. This experience somewhat failed to prepare me for what Japan’s heat and humidity would eventually throw at me.
Once the snow has receded and the temperature begins to creep into double figures, all the creatures of the forests and the rice fields begin to waken from their winter slumber. The spiders are first off the mark. Every window and door now has it’s own arachnid-in-residence. Each one is huge, agile and thoroughly fascinating to watch, providing they are on the right side of your bedroom window. I actually become concerned if I open my screens in the morning and George, Bert and Henry are nowhere to be seen.
Next come the little green unidentifiable paddy field flies (padicus unidentificum, to give them their Latin name). They are only about 3mm long, but what they lack in size, they make up for in number – there are thousands of them. For two nights I thought it was raining as I sat in my apartment. Only later did I discover that the pitter-patter I heard was none other than thousands of these little things banging into my paper screen.
Next up are the frogs. The nighttime chorus can be pretty intense if you happen to live right next to a rice field. I do have a soft spot for the little blighters; they are a comical sight when you come home and they are stuck on the glass sliding door at the entrance to the apartment.
A creature that I am less fond of is the cicada. They produce a sort of buzzing / whining sound in excess of 100db (those of you who are married may be familiar with this sound). The cicada’s “voice” is among the loudest insect produced sounds, I’ll have you know. The beasts are about 5cm long, but I have yet to see one in the wild as they seem to have evolved the strategy of staying well clear of humans – the one’s who didn’t were surely killed-off by cavemen with throbbing headaches. They only kick into life when the weather is really baking hot. It’s raining today, so it’s nice and quiet.
Other things to note here are: centipedes, beetles, mahoosive moths and bees, snakes and bears (thought they deserved a mention somewhere).
The test of just how Ray Mears I have become, presented itself the other night. I had laid my futon out on my tatami and had turned the lights off ready for bed. Knowing that the aircon always leaves me feeling a bit dry in the morning, I decided to go and top-up my bottle with some water from the kitchen. As the kitchen is no more than three steps away, I didn’t feel the need to turn the light back on for my little jaunt. As I filled my bottle, dressed in nothing but my boxers (apologies for the mental image), a not too small insect landed with a thud on my upper-thigh. Needless to say, I screamed like a girl and proceeded, then and there, to freak out. I swung like a drunken hooligan and managed to swipe the unidentified flying insect off my person. I had sent it flying towards the kitchen cupboard door, which it was now clambering up. In the semi-darkness I could make out that the insect was between 7 and 10cm long and had four or six long legs. It also had wings, as it had managed to right itself and land plumb on the cupboard door after I had sent it spiralling through the air. Luckily, I managed to get a grip of myself and calm down. This lasted approximately two seconds as I then swung my half-full bottle of water and smashed the thing into a gooey pulp. Had it been daylight, and I was able to look the insect in the eyes (all 4000 of them), then maybe I would have tried to delicately capture it and release it out of the window. Had this been the case, I envisage that my dying words would have been to none other than myself: “Colin, don’t be a hero…” as the unidentified flying devil insect launched itself towards my throat and latched on to my jugular. I feel assured within myself that I dealt with the situation well and used acceptable force to combat my enemy (in a kind of George W. type way).

“Old Yamaguchi-san had a farm, A I U E O…”

2006-07-13T14:04:00.000+09:00

It’s a balmy Thursday afternoon. I’m working through my Japanese textbook for the umpteenth time and once more disillusionment fills my weary soul (well, that’s a little deep, but you get my meaning). I conclude that maybe I should take a step back in the hope that I can move forward later. Before I can converse effectively with a full-blown Japanese person, perhaps I should try to communicate with those slightly further down the food chain first – and I don’t mean the North Koreans.
As I touched on before, animal sounds, or at least the human interpretation of those sounds, vary from country to country. Here is a rundown of who says what on Yamaguchi-san’s farm.

Dog – wan wan
Cat – nyaa nyaa
Mouse – chuu chuu
Crow – kaa kaa
Rooster – koke kokko
Horse – hihiin
Pig – buu buu
Sheep – mee mee
Cow – moo moo
Frog – kero kero

It’s likely that I’ll never be formally tested on my knowledge of Japanese animal sounds (unless my career takes a strange “Japanese Dr. Dolittle” type twist), but it’s a handy elementary school survival tool.

The Japanglish poetry corner

2006-07-11T15:35:00.000+09:00

Today weather’s rainy
I’m very happy because I can fly.
I’m slept.
I want to go to bed.
Shall me dance?
Let’s go!
Oh yeah…!

Anonymous
3rd Grade
Itakura JHS

Culinary swings and roundabouts

2006-07-07T14:16:00.000+09:00

No matter how foreign a country you live in, after a while things start to get old. So there’s loads of squiggly writing everywhere that I can’t read – ok. There’s a special set of slippers for me to put on when I go to the toilet – well, why not? One thing that never gets old in Japan, however, is food. Every mouthful is an adventure.
On my desk I keep a copy of the month’s school lunch menu. Over half of it is written in kanji that I can’t read or even say. The rest is written in a combination of hiragana and katakana syllabic characters – with these I at least have a fighting chance minimal comprehension as I can check them in my dictionary.
For school lunch, there is a healthy balance between western and Japanese cuisine – usually 10% western and 90% Japanese. Yesterday we had deep-fried cheesy-chicken along with plain white rice and the ubiquitous bowl of miso soup. Such a meal is a mixed blessing. While I enjoy the break from Japanese food, I fear as to what they are going to feed us the following day in order to correct the western-Japanese balance…
So, today I looked at the menu and saw loads of hiragana – "great," I thought, "it won’t be too Japanesey." Oh, Colin… have you learnt nothing in the last year?? I read the first line of the menu: “unagi go-han” (go-han means “rice”) “Hm, that’s odd,” I thought. I knew the word unagi from elementary school; Miyajima and Hari both have pet versions – unagi means rabbit (or so I thought). “Rabbit rice? That’s a funny one; I didn’t think they had that many rabbits in Japan what with all the rice fields. Oh well, stranger things…” So, off I trotted for lunch.
I got to the dinning hall and the first set of students I meet rushed over and said:

“Unagi go-han, can you eat?”
Sure, I’ve eaten rabbit before.
“Rabbit-o?? No, no – unagi... sea snake.”

Sometimes you only pick up on things when other people say them. Unagi is not rabbit, it’s eel. Usagi means rabbit. At this point my stomach did a triple backward summersault with a twist. “Eel rice… I can do this; it won’t be too odd, so long as the rest isn’t too Japanesey.” I saw the other trays of food that the kids were dishing out – curled up pieces of white flesh with a kind of criss-cross pattern on them. That’ll be squid. “That’s ok, at least I have my miso soup.” I decided to check out the piece de resistance, the unagi go-han. Well, what do you know? Very thoughtfully, they’d liberally sprinkled it with shirazu – whole baby fish, about 30 of them.
I’m proud to say that I managed to put it all away, but at about the same speed as the girliest of girls – I’m sure I’ve lost some manly respect from the 3rd grade boys…if there was any there to lose in the first place.

Ps. you know you work at a Japanese elementary school when… people hang out of the window shouting your name as you walk to work.

Pps. the photo is of me on a big communal (but flat?) bouncy castle. As you can see, much fun was had.

Coming to a zoo near you!

2006-07-05T19:21:00.000+09:00

I teach at two elementary schools regularly, Miyajima and Hari. They are less than a mile from each other, but they are worlds away in terms of the students who study there. Miyajima is a friendly little countryside school with classes of between eight and 12, while Hari, on the other hand, feels like an inner-city comprehensive – cocky, unruly kids and classes average about 28. The children’s personalities stay with them after elementary school. I can look at my junior high 3rd grade class and 99% of the time I can guess which school they went to – the clever, pleasant ones went to Miyajima and the brats went to Hari. Why is this so? I’m not sure. Bigger classes? Maybe. Different teaching philosophies? Perhaps. I have spoken to three previous ALTs and they all had similar experiences of the two schools. So, when you have a sprog, think hard about what school you’re going to send them to. Anyway, that’s my elementary school self-therapy-through-blogging over.
Today, I’m at Hari. First, second and third grade all studied animals today. The little ones know the English for a surprising number of animals. They know the usual ones like dog, cat, rabbit, but also tiger, kangaroo, koala – the ones borrowed from English and katakana-ised. Panda is taken from Chinese, so that too is written in katakana – pa-n-da. If you say “panda” to a Japanese person (outside of an animal name lesson, that is), they will think you have spotted some bread – “pan da!” Literally, “it’s bread!” The Portuguese introduced bread to Japan, so they call it “pan” rather than “bured-o.”
Now, if the kids were not freaked out enough by English and how alien it sounds, then perhaps teaching them that animals abroad make different sounds is probably not a good idea. You see, in Japan, dogs go “wan-wan,” cats go “niyaa-niyaa,” birds go “piko-piko” and mice go “chuu-chuu.” While teaching the “English” sounds that animals make (and I’m at a loss as to why they need to know this in the first place), I showed remarkable restraint by not inventing sounds for goldfish and camels.
In class, instead of just telling the kids the name of a new animal, I always ask them if they know it first, because you never know what random stuff they actually know. For example, while reading a book called Fuzzy Little Duck to 1st grade, they saw a picture of a lizard and screamed “iguana!!” About halfway though the list we came to a picture of a sort of long-necked horse that completely stumped the kids, but the Japanese teacher wanted to have a guess:

“Suteeban Supirubergu mubie?”
No, not a clue where you’re going with this.
“Ano… big-u dinosaur-san…”
Oh, um, Jurassic Park??
“Ah, so, so, so - Giraffic Park-u!!”

Now that’s what I call lateral thinking.

Other news, the North Koreans have started to test their weapons in the Japan Sea. Apparently they are just doing it to “get attention.” Yep, they’ve got my attention all right… What about Buraiaa-san? Buushu-san? The news this evening seamlessly went from this as the headline story, to something about a circus school that is visiting the city – the video to accompany the story was a girl bouncing on a space hopper whilst playing the saxaphone. Channel 5, all is forgiven.

Ps. you know you’re an elementary school teacher in Japan when… you burst into an acapella rendition of “Twinkle, twinkle little star” when you’re alone in your flat cooking dinner. I really wish that were a joke…

SUMO!!

2006-05-26T14:18:00.000+09:00

Sumo was one thing I really wanted to experience when I came to Japan – only on at spectator level though. While baseball is undoubtedly popular in Japan, sumo should not be overlooked as one of Japan’s most important national sports. Its history goes back some 1500 years.
In this ancient form of grappling, rules are few and simple. Shoving, slapping and tripping are employed, but punching is strictly prohibited. The bouts are usually over in less than a minute; it's the foot-stamping and salt-tossing rituals that precede them that take up most of the time!
There are six major tournaments a year – three in Tokyo and one in each of Hakata, Osaka and Nagoya. Some ALT friends and I managed to attend the penultimate day of the recent tournament in Tokyo.
Each tournament runs for 14 days and the wrestler with the best record is crowned champion. Each day’s action begins around mid-morning. Thanks to a tip-off, we arrived at the kokugikan (sumo arena) before lunch. By doing so we were able to spread ourselves out over the cushioned boxes (which cost a pretty yen or two). Their rightful owners don’t occupy them until much later in the day. The arena is almost empty in the morning as the lower-ranking wrestlers battle it out. Still, as a novice sumo spectator, it was tremendously exciting to have a front-row seat.
This is a raw, one on one clash. No gloves, boots, helmets or bats, just an explosion of immense human power. It’s tough to appreciate the power of this sport. Imagine two 20-stone men getting a yards start before running straight into one another. Fortunately, each competitor is padded with a layer of fatty flesh, which absorbs the impact. Flabby they may be, but there is vast muscle underneath to power forward during a bout. Smaller wrestlers use their superior speed to launch an onslaught of slaps, disorienting larger opponents. The resulting bouts are a fascinating battle of strength and wit. Youth and speed win more often that you might expect, but the bigger wrestlers are sometimes just as quick and have sheer mass to back it up.
After the crash of the initial contact, the referee, in ceremonial dress, shouts "nokotta, nokotta" ("keep going, keep going"). A combination of pushing, slapping, pulling and lifting ensue. It happens so fast that you resort to reviewing it in memory and checking with fellow spectators about what happened.
At around 4pm, the top division wrestlers step into the arena, first for a parade in full ceremonial garb – heavily embroidered apron-like attire, each costing up to £50,000. Popular designs are fierce animals and sacred mountains – anything that depicts an unstoppable force of nature.
The final bouts begin. People cheers for their local hero. Unfortunately, the Niigata representative, Shimotori from Arai, lost in a keenly fought battle. The top wrestlers are bigger and ooze superiority. They take their time. Sumo is closely linked with Shinto and the ceremony and ritual is carried out to the full for the main contenders. Salt is thrown, hands are clapped and each wrestler squares up to his adversary. Eyes meet while they are in the couching position and then both men rise, faces giving nothing away. Back at their corners they flex their muscles and then spray the ring with more purifying salt, every movement adding tension, which the crowd laps up. Applause breaks out. You make your choice - blue-belt or red? Prospects are judged from the pre-match posturing.
Bouts are over in a flash. A clever or unexpected throw or a locomotive-like barrage of power forcing an opponent backwards out of the ring. Other bouts rely on finely placed slaps to the throat, more than enough to disorientate an opponent for long enough to manoeuvre him either down onto the clay or out of the ring.
Few rise to the rank of Yokozuna, but those who do become legends and their images are displayed around the arena for all to see.

Can you guess what you’re eating yet?

2006-04-26T18:33:00.000+09:00

“Be careful what you teach people, for they will use it against you.” I’ve put that in quotation marks, because I’m sure that someone important (even more important than me, perhaps) has said it. It is, however, never more true than for the English teacher in a foreign country. In an attempt to have an interesting, non-textbook, culture-type class, I taught my 3rd graders a few casual English phrases. Rather than the usual “hello, how are you?” I taught them “alright mate?” What was I thinking? This has caught on big style. Every walk down the corridor makes me feel like I am walking through the Peckham High Street branch of the Cockney Appreciation Society, greeted as I am with a barrage of Alright mate? Alright mate? Alright mate? Alright mate? Alright mate? Alright mate? Alright mate? Alright mate? I’m not sure if this was the “culture” that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had in mind when the JET Programme was established… It got them talking at least – every cloud.
I have become a bit more aware of some of the peculiarities of Japanese life of late, having gone through a spell of taking everything for granted. On first viewing, a lot of things in Japan elicit the “huh?” reaction, but this fades after a week or two and you stop questioning things (or perhaps you forget that things are different anywhere else).
Take the humble loo for example. In Japan you can be presented with a space-aged toilet with numerous buttons, options and displays befitting a NASA shuttle one minute and then a squat toilet the next. With such a range of possibilities, every bowl movement is an adventure; you just don’t know what the next public convenience will bring. It might be something crazy, something you’ve never seen before. If I find myself on a heated seat (and as a general rule, if you can sit on it will heat up), I always like to whack the temp up to max, just to see if I can take it. I’m unbeaten thus far. This could be my thing, my special superhero power – I have an arse made of asbestos! I think the standard superman costume would be fine, but maybe with the cheeks cut out to highlight where my power lies, or a different colour at the very least.
In the same way that Japan has embraced the heated loo seat, perhaps India could corner the market on the chilled loo seat, for those post vindaloo mornings. On a side note, does the name vindaloo come from combining the word “vindictive” with the word “loo?” Your thoughts on a postcard please.
Food is another one. My taste buds have completely changed in Japan. At home, everything I ate had to have some kind of spicy kick to it, be it a hamburger, a curry, or even a packet of crisps. Here such intense flavours are harder to come by. Japanese food seems to be centred on texture above flavour – take the wasabe out of sushi and you have something that’s pretty bland really.
A tip for anyone planning a trip to Japan is to eat first and ask questions later. Chances are, if other people are eating it then it probably won’t do you any harm either (fugu (puffer fish) and raw chicken being notable exceptions), and if you knew what it was you probably wouldn’t want to eat it (whale and sea urchin being prime examples). I’m having one of those weeks where every second meal has something dodgy and / or unidentifiable in it. I have eaten grilled chicken skin (yes, just the skin, on a stick, grilled), marinated scallop shell (yes, just the shell), squid (twice – legs and body / head (depending on how you look at it…) and some sort of fish. Don’t get me wrong though, I enjoy the food here and I eat well and healthily, but what I am eating now is what I would have turned my nose up at last year. I’ve stopped asking about veggies – in a country where bamboo and lotus flower root are staples, what hope do I have of remembering the unusual stuff on my plate?
Well, it’s home time for me and I’m on holiday as of tomorrow for about 10 days, but I’m sure I will have more to report when I return.
Until then.

Out with old. In with the new.

2006-04-19T19:10:00.000+09:00

It’s official; my Elementary Schools are the unofficial sponsors of my blog. I only seem to blog (it’s ok as a verb, right?) when I’m at ES. Typically I have three classes during an ES visit. They tend to be in the morning when the students (and teachers) are at their most attentive. This leaves me with the afternoon free, so I dutifully study Japanese until I fall asleep (about 45 minutes usually does the trick). I spend the rest of the day making coffee and tapping away on my konpyu-ta. Anyway, this is a long way of saying: I’ve not written in my blog because I’ve not been at Elementary School. So, with excuses out of the way, let’s begin.
The ES break was due to the wrapping up of the school year at the end of March. Schools, Universities, the fiscal year and winter all end at the same time in Japan, this is the land of uniformity after all, or so they say. This neatly ties in with the haru-yasumi (spring break). School holidays are only holidays in name in Japan. Everyone still comes to school, the students take part in their club activities and the staff shuffle paper and try and look busy. The English teachers from around Joetsu got together for a few viciously productive meetings during the spring break.
The employment practices of the Japanese education system and the UK education system are somewhat different. In Japan, rather than being employed by a specific school, you are employed by a Board of Education, which oversees a number of schools. This means that where you work is in the hands of the BOE, not you. If you are a new teacher, you might want to work in one of your local schools. Sorry, because you are a newbie you’ll have to work two hours up the road (in band 3). Once you have done three years there (and three years is the max you can do before being moved on), then we’ll shift you to a new school a little closer to where you ideally want to work (band 2). Another three years later and we might put you in a local, band 1 school. More experienced teachers get to stay at a school for up to seven years before being moved on. Who gets shifted where is entirely in the hands of the BOE and the school principal announces the details of the moves during a rather intense morning staff meeting.
The way I see it (if you ever see this combination of words in my blog, it’s usually a hint that you might want to skip the rest of this paragraph as there may be little value in it for you…) by having the ability to move people around as they wish, Japan avoids having those truly awful problem schools that exist in some places. By placing the right teachers in the right school at the right time, I believe that you can completely reverse the fortunes for a school. Admittedly, successful schools will lose good teachers, but the hope is to maintain a level playing field across the board. I’m sure there are many other pros and cons and reasons for their methods, and the google-web is there for those of you who are interested.
At any rate, out of a staff of 26, seven left Itakura Junior High School, including the Principal, Vice Principal and the head of English – all of my bosses basically. The end of the Junior High School year culminated with a ceremony. Without meaning to generalise, there’s nothing the Japanese like more than a ceremony at which they can be all solemn and intense. Great pleasure is taken in doing things in a regimented way, with lots of bowing and sporadic bursts of manic applause. There was a special separate staff leaving ceremony, where the entire 3rd grade came back to see off their old teachers. It was a very sad affair (sad – upsetting, not sad – pathetic). The departing teachers said a few words and cried; the students said a few words and cried. I remained stoic. The teacher-student relationship in Japan is much closer that in the UK. It is viewed as the responsibility of the school to bring up a child, not the parent. Flowers, sad music and a tunnel of clapping students only heightened the tear-jerking quotient. A staff party followed with lots of drinking, raw fish (as well as jelly fish and deep-fried chicken cartilage (not together, but separate is bad enough I think)), and the full version of the school song sung in an uncomfortably tight arm-in-arm circle – I felt like John Redwood trying to bluff his way through the Welsh national anthem.
Anyway, those days are past now and autumn leaves lie thick and still, as they say. New teachers have arrived and desks have been re-arranged. I feel like a veteran at Itakura now. All things considered, I have been there for longer than one in four members of staff! Best of all though, the 2nd grade from last year, 3rd grade this year, have surprised me enormously and seem to have finally grown-up, which should make for a fun year. Moreover (check out my vocab), I know a lot of the first grade students from the two Elementary Schools that I work at, so I know them better than any of the other teachers, so they aren’t scared of me, which is important in the teacher-pupil relationship if you ask me! Still, the new kids remain terribly nervous and it’s very amusing to see the cocky ones from 6th grade ES who are now bumbling around without a clue. In their defence, a shiny-new school uniform that’s three sizes too big for you does little to make you look or feel cool.

Who’s half-inched my motor?

2006-03-15T18:33:00.000+09:00

We have a saying here in Japan, don’t count your cherry blossoms until the fat lady sings. That has certainly never been more true than on Monday morning. Saturday was a day full of glorious sunshine. A group of us had a picnic in a friend’s garden, everyone trying to get some colour back into their translucent winter skin. After a few sandwiches and cakes, conversation got around to speculation about when the cherry trees would blossom this year. Cherry trees blossom (the blossom is called sakura in Japanese) in early spring, but only for about two weeks or so. In Japan this heralds the start of spring and the end of months of snow. We have had a run of good weather for the last few of weeks, and the many mounds of snow around the village have started to disappear, albeit at a glacial pace.
On Saturday, the clever money seemed to on April 10th for the first sight of sakura. Some contested this and said it would be on the 9th. Those who suggested the 8th were laughed out of the village and instructed never to return. How they can be so precise about when the buds will open? Hundreds of years of viewing sakura must give you a good feel for that kind of thing, I guess. The Japanese word hanami means flower viewing, and the two weeks that the sakura are in bloom are referred to as hanami. When it will happen is always a big talking point, but even more so this year as the winter brought the most snow Itakura has had for over 20 years. The debate continues…
Sunday was a miserable day weather wise, so I didn’t venture far, or indeed out of my apartment for that matter. You can imagine my surprise when I walked out of my apartment on Monday morning. After a preliminary glance at the car park, I couldn’t see my car – I asked myself whether I had parked it up by the school as I sometimes do when we have a lot of snow. That wasn’t the case, however. My car was there, outside my apartment, it was just under half a metre of snow!
I just walk over the road to get to school, so most days I don’t have to use my car, but on Monday I had a meeting at the City Office, so I was forced to dig it out. Not only was it in 50cm of snow, but it was 5m from the road and each of those metres was 50cm deep too. I make that around 4 cubic metres of snow between me and my meeting (if you haven’t got to grips with metric yet, that’s about 14 fluid miles in old money). Back in Scotland, you wouldn’t have seen me for a week, and during that week I would have been reliant on survival packages heli-droped in by the Army (beer, curry and things of that sort). Unfortunately for me, things don’t stop for snow in Japan…
My Suzuki Alto has 4wd and it’s extremely light, so you’d be amazed at what this thing can get through. Foolishly, I tried to use it as a snowplough, which has worked quite well in the past. Although I made fabulous progress for the first seven or eight centimetres, I soon came to screeching, wheel-spinning halt. I had managed to place my car on top of the 50cm of snow, rather than push through it. The next 40 minutes were spent trying to chip away at the snow under the car, in the hope that my tyres might make contact with something a little more solid than fluffy white snow. It was a lesson learnt, shall we say.
The top photo is of my car on Monday morning. The second picture is a warning about what could happen if you don't clear the snow off your roof - and I thought I had a bad start to my day!

The class of 2006

2006-03-08T16:32:00.000+09:00

The school year in Japan runs to a slightly different timetable that the one we are used to in the UK. The school year draws to a close in the last week of March and the new year commences in the first week of April. Without sounding like too much of a tree-hugger, spring seems to me like a good time for the school year to begin, being the season of new life and, erm things. The students have about a week or so between one grade and the next, so they haven’t got time to forget how to write or anything like that – I remember going to school after an interminable amount of time only to find writing to be a real struggle. The principal holiday comes in August and all students, even the littlest ones, have homework to do. Children in northern prefectures like Hokkaido get shorter summer holidays and longer winter ones, as the immense snow can force schools to close at the height of winter. Even though there was almost 3m (10ft) of snow in Itakura, not one school day was cancelled due to snow. When you know you will get such a volume of snow every winter, you create ways to live through it. I will certainly never look at snow in the same way again!
My third grade students from Junior High School had their graduation ceremony on Monday. The Japanese have their own unique style for doing even the most mundane of things (tea ceremony, for example), so I didn’t know what to expect from a Junior High School graduation. The Japanesey-ness of the day was kicked off with the female third grade teachers all wearing kimono. From what I understand, putting a kimono on makes putting a kilt on seem like a walk in the park. Being incredibly tight and involving many layers, Miura Sensei told me that she was up at 5.30am to get the whole kit and caboodle in place. I, on the other hand, pealed myself off my futon at 7.30am and threw a suit on. I reiterate once more, it’s great being a bloke.
One thing I was expecting from the day was that it would be chilly in the gym hall. Only classrooms and the staff room are heated in Japanese schools, so it gets a bit nippy elsewhere. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the school had acquired what seemed to be four jet engines for the purpose of heating the hall. Get too close to these mammoth beasts and expect all your clothes and body hair to disintegrate in a puff. Anyway, with these beauties growling away in the corner, things were toasty enough.
So, to the proceedings. First and second grade, along with staff and parents were sat awaiting the arrival of the graduates-to-be. This period gave ample opportunity to practice saying ohayougozaimasu (good morning) nice and loudly, and also to make sure that the level of clapping was suitably frantic. That done, the third graders were clapped into the hall. At this point the heaters were turned off to preserve the silence and reflective aspect of the moments to come. Once the students were seated (boys with hands in a fist on top of their knees and girls with hands clasped on their lap), the principal got up to say a few words. Following this, it was straight into the graduating. A line of students was formed, with five marked stages between their seats and the stage where they would receive their certificates. That way the students knew where they ought to be standing at each given moment. As names where called, students replied with a vigorous “Hai!” They then walked up to the principal who held their certificate outstretched. Bow, right hand, left hand, receive certificate, side-step right (or left, depending on what side of the hall you are seated on), new student takes your place, you and the new student bow together (I think this was to reduce to amount of bowing the principal had to do, he’s getting old you see). There was no clapping during this part of the ceremony, but it was done to the music to the Hamlet cigar adverts (one for the UK readers).
Next, a very old man got up to say something and then the head of the Parent-Teacher Association said something – I’d love to fill you in on finer points of what was said, but it was all in Japanese. It was then over to the students to give their thoughts. Obviously it was a very emotional time, but it was multiplied ten-fold for the students thanks to the accompaniment of very slow, let’s-slit-our-wrists style piano music. The first girl to speak got about half way through her speech, but broke down while recalling her second grade school trip to Kyoto. This opened the floodgates and soon most of the females present were sobbing. I was able to remain emotionally neutral thanks to not being able to understand what the girl was saying, a cunning ploy of mine.
Next the students sang the school song for the last time and then another song that seemed to be specifically designed to make as many of the students cry as possible. This worked like a treat and many of the students left in tears. A line was made outside the school and the third graders were given a rapturous send off.
The staff was then treated to a sushi lunch. Luckily, Suzuki Sensei had given me a heads up on this and I managed to avoid the octopus, fish eggs and eel, which decorated the plates of other staff. At 5.00pm, after an afternoon spent wrestling with the sandman, the staff took a bus to a hotel in the nearby village of Arai. Another feast was laid out and alcohol was flowing freely. I successfully searched out some pork and chicken and was tucking into some clear noodles when I asked the teacher next to me what style of noodle I was eating (they looked sort of fat and udon-like to me). “Sou da ne, hm… how do you say in English… ah, jellyfish!” I could not believe it and spent the next five minutes looking like a muppet whilst trying to get everyone to admit they were having me on. No, true enough, it was jellyfish – not the tentacles, but the head part (or body, if you look at it that way) sliced into strips. It had a jelly-like texture, but there was something hard that you had to crunch through if you wanted to chew it. The flavour was negligible at best, but Japanese food seems to be about texture over flavour a lot of the time. In Japan, westerners have a reputation for being culinary prudes, and I bear this out from time to time. When in the company of others though, it’s better to get the food down you and ask questions later! If the Japanese have been eating the stuff for eons, chances are that it won’t do you any harm.
The meal ended with some staff members giving their thoughts on the day and the previous year as a whole. After each speech, three rounds of “banzai!!” are called, much in the way we say “hip-hip hooray!”
A good night was had by all. Tuesday was equally as emotional as Monday, but for somewhat different reasons.
Note: as you can see, the girl in the centre of the top picture (one of my favourite students incidentally) is giving the "double-reverse-peace-sign." It doesn't carry the same significance here as it does in the UK...

It’s not just Rock, Paper, Scissors – it’s a way of life

2006-03-05T20:01:00.000+09:00

As I creep into my seventh month in Japan, I am starting to have issues with very basic English. I don’t think I’m alone in this, but have you ever looked at a common word and for a moment been unsure about whether it’s spelt properly? For some reason or other it just looks weird. One of my students had written the sentence “Let’s read a books at my house.” Being the highly trained professional that I am, I quickly spotted this schoolboy (schoolgirl, in this case) error. No, the mistake wasn’t anything to do with the fact that Japanese people start most, if not all, of their sentences with the word “let’s,” (let’s snowboarding, let’s drinking party, let’s tea ceremony) it was in fact the a book / books chestnut. However, once this grammatical disaster was averted, I was left staring at the word “book” thinking “b-o-o-k?? that’s not right, is it?” Rather than saying anything to the student and thus making myself look like a prize plum, instead, I said firmly, “OK, very good” and strode purposefully on to the next punter. Anyway, this has nothing to do with the price of tofu, so I’ll move on to the main topic of today’s ramblings.
Far from being a Western phenomenon, the game rock, paper, scissors thrives in Japan, but under the name janken. Janken is the oil amongst the cogs of the Japanese machine. Say there is some desirable object that five people believe they have an equal right to, the last beer at a party, for example – how do we decide who gets it? Eeny, meenie miney mo? Perhaps. What we’d probably have a lengthy discussion and try and work out who should have it: John, you’ve drunk so much you can’t feel your feet, so you shouldn’t have it; Al, you only brought a half bottle of Buckie to this do, so you don’t deserve it; Bob, you earn loads of money, so you don’t need it; Steve, it’s your birthday on Tuesday, you can have it. Fair enough, a compromise was reached, but surely not to everyone’s satisfaction. Following this exchange, one or more members of the group might rightly be feeling hard done by. In Japan, any decision of this type is made through the medium of janken.
“Saishou gu, janken poi!!” is the call, at which point you display your gu (rock), pa (paper) or choki (scissors). If there’s a tie “iko deshou” (in English "the same, perhaps...?") is called and round two is done in a flash. The best part is that janken is law. No one argues with the result of janken, and no one moans about “best of threes.” Whatever the result of janken, it’s written in stone, end of.
Elementary school is the breeding ground of this cultural phenomenon. A game I play to practice new vocabulary with students is called karuta. Students sit in groups of five or so and flashcards of the new vocabulary (animals, fruit, sports, etc) are spread out on the floor in the middle of the group. Colin Sensei calls out a word and the first student to slap their hand down on that that card gets to keep it. Rinse and repeat. However, suppose two or more of the littl’uns put their hand on the winning card at the same time, how do you decide the winner? Janken, of course. Say all five kids slap their hands on the winning card at the same time. The teacher calls “Janken”. All the kids start their chant. Round one is over – nobody is out; round two is over – three kids are out and only two are left; round three is over and Yumi-chan has the elephant flashcard. How do they do janken with five people? I’ve no idea, it’s just a blur of hands to me, but kids as young as five can calculate who is in, who is out, whether they need to go to second round, etc, quicker than you can say “yeah, but my paper wraps around your scissors.”
The redeeming feature of janken is that it removes all the responsibility, pressure and potential bad feeling that comes from having to make a decision. This is not to say that the decisions made are better than the ones we make, but they are made in a no-one-can-feel-too-bitter type way. Does this have anything to do with the fact that Japanese people don’t like being confrontational? Well, that’s the chicken and the egg scenario – do they dislike confrontation because they do janken or do they do janken because they dislike confrontation? Although I am a fully qualified freelance psychologist, I couldn’t possibly comment – I might get deported.
A conservative estimate would be that your average Elementary schooler will janken between 30 and 50 times a day. Little Takumi, a primary two pupil does janken with me as we have lunch and he gets a kick out of it every time. He is genuinely thrilled every time he wins. I would go as far as to say that janken is a Japanese reflex – catch a kid off guard with “saishou gu, janken poi!!” and they’ll be finished before they realise that they’re not competing for anything!
Janken permeates through all levels of society. You might find yourself doing janken with a stranger for an empty seat on a bus. It is not inconceivable to me that some government policy is decided through janken. Koizumi: “Shall we send more troops to Iraq? I don’t know. Saishou gu, janken poi!!” “Shall we change the constitution to allow a female to ascend the thrown? Hm, not sure. Saishou gu, janken poi!!” As sure as kelp is kelp, some decisions are made this way.
Maybe other world leaders can learn from Japan. Who should have the disputed territories in the Middle East? “Saishou gu, janken poi!!” In an instant the decision is made and no one can feel bad, because no one actually decided - it was left in the lap of the Janken Gods.
On a side note, I did janken five times on Friday and won four. Not too shabby, I think you’ll find.
Oh, and winter’s back again. I walked out the front door Friday morning to find four inches sitting proudly on my car. This enabled to reach new levels of laziness. Rather than clear the snow properly, I scraped a letterbox-sized hole in the snow and drove the 300 yards to school whilst enjoying the same viewing capacity as a Challenger II tank. It felt like I was advancing over the Siberian wastelands deep into the Russian frontier. Well, that was my escapism for the day…

“Chocolate?! You should have!”

2006-02-17T14:12:00.000+09:00

Ah, Valentine’s Day has swung by for another year, and again there seems to have been some awful mix-up at the post office and none of my cards arrived on time (or at all, in fact). I thought it was just a Royal Mail thing, but the problem seems to be prevalent in Japan too.
A country not renowned for it’s Catholicism, Japan has, however, embraced Saint Valentine – the Patron Saint of marketing. However, it’s not so much love that’s in the air, but obligation…
Japan has taken the concept of Valentine’s Day and wafu-ed it up a bit (wafu means “Japanese style” in Japanese). Guys, if you have had a hard time living up to your partner’s Valentine’s Day expectations (maybe your flowers weren’t dazzling enough, or the restaurant wasn’t fancy enough, or the weather in Rome wasn’t sunny enough), then come over to Japan, where the shoe is firmly on the other foot – well, for a month, at least.
February 14th is the day in the year when Japanese women show the men in their lives just how much they care, while the guys put their feet up and wait for the gifts to roll in. Chocolate is the customary gift, but it’s not only for your husband, partner or even that special someone you haven’t plucked up the courage to ask out yet… there is a special kind of chocolate for your boss and male co-workers, too.
Yes, Japan has successfully marketed the “giri-choco” or “obligation chocolate.” The giri-choco is big business here, and boxes can be found in all kinds of shops, all with “obligation chocolate” emblazoned on the front. Company Chiefs will receive dozens of boxes from female colleagues, which are then taken home and shared amongst the family. The female boss, though still a rarity in Japan, can provide a bit of a dilemma for male employees…
The exchanging of gifts is a crucial element in strengthening social relationships in Japan, and it is a very important part of one’s working life. O-miyage (the “honourable souvenir”) is used to keep maintain good working relations, so should you take a trip anywhere during company time, be sure to bring back a generous box of speciality cakes or treats from wherever you went for your colleagues to share. Shops specializing in o-miyage can be found at airports and train stations, so you needn’t go out of your way in order to meet your obligation.
The chaps don’t have it all their own way, however. Men must keep track of all women they have received chocolate from and return the favour on White Day, March 14th (a fried slice of marketing genius, I think you’ll agree). Originally known as Marshmallow Day, where the gift of choice was, you guessed it, marshmallow, chocolate manufacturers got in on the act and white chocolate is now the accepted gift (marshmallows and lingerie are also ok, but perhaps not together). Be careful though, you have to give chocolate to everyone who gave you chocolate in February, not just those whose feelings you reciprocate…

Going to town on the pearly whites

2006-02-15T18:15:00.000+09:00

There are certain things that one takes for granted in Japan after a while. What may seem curious at best on first viewing is rapidly regarded as par for the course after the third or fourth encounter. Some examples include: buying ready-made peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts already lopped off (a possible reason for the lack of hairy chests in Japan); the wearing of a white medical mask if you are ill in order to prevent those around from becoming ill too; a special pair of toilet slippers to don for your trip to the porcelain throne; and who could forget the communal public baths where everything is left to hang out.
Today’s visit to Elementary School brought one such matter to mind – synchronised tooth brushing. I don’t brush after lunch – I’m a morning and night guy and all my teeth haven’t fallen out yet. I’m not suggesting that my dental habits are better than anyone else’s, but they have stood me in good stead and given me the winning smile I have today. My students all brush after lunch. At Junior High School this left to the students’ discretion, but at Elementary School they have a brush-in-time-to-the-music method.
After the post-lunch “gochisousamadeshita!” (it was a feast!) cry, the students reach for their brushes like a samurai would his trusty sword. Then, a designated kid hits play on the CD player and we’re off. Rest assured that it’s a suitably upbeat rhythm we dance to here, no room for slouches. The same kid who got the party started then dashes over to grab a massive cardboard arrow and wheels out an equally massive map (if you like) of a good, healthy set of nashers and guides everyone through the two minute drill, thrusting the arrow from molar to canine with the grace of a daddy longlegs. The kids don’t understand why Colin Sensei doesn’t join in with the fun, but I am here to add the “international” element to their school experience…

Winter on a plate

2006-02-14T22:16:00.000+09:00

Oden (n) – a Japanese winter dish utterly devoid of flavour. However, if pushed, I would suggest that it tastes like a beach, if you can imagine what that would taste like if it were served up on a plate. If you’ve followed me this far, think specifically of Bayble Beach on the Isle of Lewis on a balmy Tuesday afternoon in November. Seconds anyone?? At school in Japan, no food is allowed to go to waste and every pupil is allocated the same amount of the same stuff – there’s no choice in the matter, you get your portion, end of... As a result, any food left over is put up as a prize in a “janken” contest (paper, scissors, stone to you and I). This works well on a good school lunch day, but today, the leftover oden was the booby prize, so the loser of janken “won” the right to the food, not the winner.
Oden comprises of, among other things, a hearty slice of Japanese giant radish (think rolling pin giant), potatoes, carrots, a boiled egg, konnyaku (“transparent yam starch cake” – get any thought of “cake” out of your head and think “tough, speckled jelly made from recycled cardboard” – if you ask me, there’s simply not enough triangular grey food), soggy fried tofu (which melts on your chop sticks long before it has a chance to melt in your mouth), seaweed in a comedy bowtie shape, and chikuwa (fish paste tubes – which resemble a cow colon with something unmentionable in the middle…).
Now, once you’ve assembled all of the above, throw it in a pot and simmer for an interminable length of time in a kelp-based stock. Accompany with white rice liberally sprinkled with seaweed flakes and mini-(but whole – head, tail, ears, the lot)-fish. Considering simply how much food is there, it’s amazing that there is next-to-no flavour. As a possible dessert, try a tangerine or a bag of lemons to wake up your dormant taste buds.
I don’t often rant on Japanese cuisine, but this is a winter treat that I wanted to share. Winter is a tough time over here and anything that’ll make you warm is a bonus. If you are really stuck I’ve found that you can boil a whole octopus, put it on your head and tie the tentacles under your chin. Also, chikuwa tubes can be worn on your fingers a la hula hoops…
Good luck and happy cooking!
Colin.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2006-01-26T19:08:00.000+09:00

Wow, that's two days on the trot, check me out! If nobody else is going to big you up, don't be shy about bigging yourself up, that's my motto. Today was a spilt school day. I was at Ogata JHS until midday and then went to Kakizaki ES in the afternoon. Ogata was good. I'm new to the school and the kids only see me once a week, so they are quite shy, but they are coming around slowly. Two of my three classes are great and they really try, but the other class has a couple of bad apples in it, so that affects the other apples / students in the class. I'm working on it though. If I can find a bit of common ground with the rebels in the class then at least they might shut up when I tell them to, well that there's the theory...
Today's classes were about the "present progressive," or "...ing words," as I called them until last week. "What are you doing?" "I'm cooking / playing video games / listening to music," etc. Lots of miming and jumping about like an idiot a la elementary school, but it got the point across - even the bad apples learnt the grammar point, so maybe they aren't all that bad.
Lunch was udon noodles in a meat sauce, which I wolfed down. It was certainly one of the few Japanese meals that I've had where I could positively identify 100% of what I was putting in my mouth. A day to remember, I think you'll agree. Post lunch is always a bit of a circus, as ten minutes of manic teeth brushing ensues. Kids and teachers alike brush their teeth next to long trough-like sinks in the corridors. Watching people trying to talk to eachother during this is hilarious, as they resort to grunting and gesturing.
I have been replying to some letters that my JHS 2nd graders wrote to me last week. It's great practice for them as they can write about whatever they like and not just the grammar that we're trying to teach them. The letters are really sweet and the students seem to have taken a long time writing them, pictures and all.
On to Kakizaki for English Challenge Club. These kids are really good for their age. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar today. Thanks to the Japanese katakana syllabary the kids can sound out English words, even if they can't understand what they are saying. The star of the class has to be little Moto. I was handing out the books at the start of the class and while the other students all said "thank you" as I handed them the book, Moto pipes up with "Japanese okaki!!" which is what they call the rice workers. He shouts that out at least ten times in each class. I'd love to know what happens to him as he gets older - there's no doubt he is switched on, but he's just completely mental.
Well, no rest for the wicked - I'm off to teach my adult conversation class.
Best,
Colin.

Elementary my dear Wat-san.

2006-01-25T21:54:00.000+09:00

Happy new year. I've figured that little and often is the game, so rather than writing a review of the last 5 months, which I'm sure you would only read this first two paragraphs of, I will tell you about what I did today. What a novel concept that is!
So, today was an elementary school day. I go to three elementary schools in total. One day a week I go to either Hari or Miyajima (they alternate week by week) and I also teach the "English Challenge Club" at Kakizaki elementary school. Hari and Miyajima are right on my door step, but Kakizaki is about 40 minutes away, right next to the sea. The difference in weather is incredible. Hari has about 2.5m of snow, but Kakizaki barely has more than a few centimetres. While we're on the subject of schools, my base school is Itakura Junior High School, which I visit 3 or 4 days a week, and I also teach once a week at Ogata Junior High School, but only until April, which is the end of the school year.
Well, that paragraph told you nothing about what I did today except that I was at Hari ES. Sorry. I'll move onto the meat of this yarn now. At ES I generally teach 3 or 4 classes per day, either 1st grade to 3rd grade or 4th grade to 6th grade depending on the week. First graders are about 5 or 6 years old and 5th graders are about 10 or 11. I had the little'uns today. If you're in the right frame of mind, ES can be the most fun you'll have all week. The wee ones are genuinely excited to see you, and it's just a case of maintaining that excitement and not boring them with flashcards of fruit names. If you can do that, it's great, you leave school at 4pm thinking that you're rock star! The ES classroom is the place where you can forget that you are a grown-up. There is no room for inhibitions. You really have to get down to their level and mess about and be a kid. English-speaking kids that are 5 and 6 will lose interest in you in 10 seconds if you are boring; with kids who don't speak English I reckon you have about 3 or 4 seconds on a good day! Yes, jumping around like an idiot is how I spend my time at Elementary School... The kids are completely adorable, and you can't leave the class without 10 of them trying to climb on you or pull you in different directions.
Anyway, today... After 10 minutes reviewing the vocabulary that they have learnt over the last few weeks, I taught them how to tell the time and how to say "what time is it?" This, natuarally, was conveyed through the meduim of "what's the time Mr Colin?" more commonly known as "what's the time Mr Wolf?" Imagine how afraid/excited you would be if you're 5 years old and the biggest person you've ever seen in your life is chasing after you shouting "dinner time!!" in a language you don't understand. The game went down a storm, so much so that at lunch time I played it with all three classes together in the gym hall, much to the bemusement of the other teachers!
I have some of my best Japanese conversations with my ES kids. The teachers prefer us to only speak English at JHS, but that's not an option at ES. However, the ES kids assume you understand Japanese, as they've never met someone who doesn't. They rattle away at you at 100mph and then tilt their heads to one side when you look back at them blankly.
Monday and Tuesday this week involved the Niigata JET midyear conference up in Niigata City. The Monday morning drive to Kasagayama station in Joetsu had the most hazardous driving conditions I have ever seen. With the snow being blown off the ricefields and across the road, we had zero visibility in parts and just had to stop the car and wait for it to pass. Anyway, the conference... All the English teachers from across the prefecture get together to bang there heads together about various teaching-related topics. It was pretty useful all in all, and it was nice to get up to the big city for a couple of days.
Well, that's all for now. I'm going to do some prep for my visit to Ogata JHS tomorrow.
Best,
Colin.

Sweet Home Itakura

2005-11-29T22:55:00.000+09:00

My tipsy little house has grown on me. Despite the harshness of the Japanese winters, the house doesn’t appear to be overly sturdy at first sight, but I have been reliably informed that it has withstood what nature has thrown at it so far – earthquakes and typhoons. The rain lashing down on the tin roof and the tin roofs of the nextdoor buildings has quite a relaxing affect when I’m curled up on my futon. When the wind starts to blow, there is always a good 20 minutes of fun to be had trying to shove paper between the shoji screens and windows to stop them rattling.
My apartment is on the small side, but this has its good and bad points. Whereas I’ll never have space to host a big party, I am able to heat my place in the fraction of the time it takes some people. I have one tatami room where I sleep, study, eat and relax in. Tatami is the tightly woven straw matting that is a commonly used in Japan. It’s a no shoes zone – socks or barefoot only please… It’s a much warmer surface than a wooden floor and easier to clean than a carpet. I have a decent sized kitchen, a bathroom and a fair bit of storage for all sorts of bits and bobs. The only furniture I have is a chair, a bookcase, a wardrobe and a low table called a kotatsu. It’s basic, but I don’t like having a lot of clutter around me, so it suits me fine.
The place is reasonably traditional. I’ve got the tatami floor, sliding doors and shoji screens (paper walls / blinds – I fully expect to drunkenly put my hand / foot / head / all of the above through it in the not too distant future, so I don’t count them as a permanent feature of my house…).
Aircon is a man’s best friend here. As there is no real insulation in the building, you seem to be either too hot or too cold, except for about four days in October when the temperature was perfect.
I got a wee car. It’s a four wheel drive… um, Suzuki Alto… It might not look it, but it’s a dream to drive, honest! Slightly concerned that I won’t be able to find it in the morning after a heavy night of snow. It’s a bit of golf cart really, but when the studded winter tyres are on her, then the true beast will be revealed! With a bit of persuasion I should be able to get it up to the slopes in winter. Driving around has helped me orientate myself. It’s also nice to have the freedom to just shoot off into the hills whenever I want.
There is not much in Joetsu to be honest, so I’m quite glad to be out in the sticks. I’m in the village of Itakura, which has a population of 2000 or so, but it is quite spread out. It’s far nicer to go for a run amongst the rice fields than down the streets of a rather non-descript town. Joetsu City reminds me of a sprawling US town that doesn’t really have a town centre.
The town is too sparse to just walk around and all the streets look the same. There aren’t an abundance of street signs, even in kanji, which makes it’s a tricky for those new to the place. There is an area called Takada, however, that is quite nice. There are a few nice shops there, a big park with castle and a massive lake covered in lotus flowers. There is also an area in town called Honcho, which has lots of shops – it should get quite Christmassy there soon, well, by Japanese standards at least…

Proper Crimbo (shopping)

2005-11-27T18:44:00.000+09:00

Well I’d better try and get into the habit of the blog lark, so here are a few words on my trip to Tokyo this weekend – well, Saturday to be precise.
My home prefecture of Niigata is on the west coast of Honshu and sits next to the Sea of Japan. Tokyo is on t’other side of Honshu, but thanks to Shinky the Shinkansen you can get across to the capital relatively swiftly. We (Heather, Stacia and I – the three of us live in the same building in Itakura) left our sleepy mountain village before sun up in an attempt to cram in as much as we could in our brief visit to the city, the principal aim of which was Christmas shopping.
Squeezed into Stacia’s tiny Suzuki something or other, we weaved our way through the misty mountains and numerous tunnels on our way to Nagano City in the next prefecture – along the expressway it takes a little over an hour. We parked the car up at Nagano train station and head off for the Shinkansen line just as the sun sleepily lifted its head from behind the horizon.
If you are a kid in the UK and you say that you love trains, then people will think you are a geeky trainspotter. Not so here. Boys in Japan love trains, and rightfully so, because the Shinkansen is a very cool thing indeed for numerous reasons.
Firstly, they look like space shuttles more than trains; secondly, they travel at around 200mph; and thirdly, they are always on time. Your ticket has your seat and carriage number on it and indicated on the platform is where you should stand and wait for the train. The Shink then whispers its way up to the platform at precisely the scheduled minute and, as if by magic, the carriage door you want is tight in front of you. Once on board you have bags of legroom, plenty of space for your bags (and legs) and the ride is so quiet and smooth that you nod off within a few minutes – none of this screeching of wheel on tracks that cuts you right to the core. Anyway, enough of this waffle – the moral of the story is that the Shinkansen is quite cool. It takes about an hour and a half to get to Tokyo from Nagano.
Once in Tokyo it was time to see whether I still had all the city-slicker skills that I’d picked up in London. Not so, it seems, as I tripped coming off the train and had a close encounter with an elderly Japanese businessman. We took the metro from Tokyo Station to Shibuya, where some of the city’s best you-can-buy-it-all-here-and-more department stores are.
I had heard a lot about the outrageous dressing of the Tokyo youngsters (says he at all of 24), but I thought it was probably just a few alternatively-dressed kids and the whole thing had been hyped up. Not so, they are all over the place. If you can imagine Camden on a Saturday afternoon cranked up a little bit, but more cutesy and less Goth / rock, you're almost there. The guys have big coiffured hair soaked in so much hairspray that you fear walking too close to them as they might spontaneously combust, while the ladies are so scantily clad it would make you mother blush. It is definitely the place to be seen.
Our first port of call was Tokyu Hands, three sprawling multi-story towers of all sorts of Japanese randomness. Christmas isn’t a very important religious holiday in Japan, but they have embraced the spirit of Christmas – the commercial spirit that is.
Having looked through what Tokyu had to offer, we toddled along to Loft – more of the same basically, but more trendy. Back out on the streets we took in the atmosphere – a cup of coffee while standing by one of the busy crossings made you wonder where all of these people could possibly be going (I think I have been out in the sticks for too long).
Next stop was Asakusa, formerly Tokyo’s principal entertainment districts way back when. The main attraction for us was Nakamise-dori (top picture), a long shopping precinct that leads up to Senso-ji Temple. You can buy all manner of bits and bobs here and it’s a fascinating area to simply wander around. At night the street is wonderfully lit, which makes it very atmospheric. Senso-ji is not one of the most attractive temples I’ve seen since I’ve been in Japan, but to it’s left is a stunning five storey Pagoda. It too was rather atmospheric, all lit up and that…
Back on the tube and we scooted off to the Ginza district. Ginza is the posh shopping area in Tokyo; huge buildings pulsate with neon and the main aim seems to be to remove as much yen from your wallet as you can as quickly as possible. The most impressive building for me was by Dior (I don’t know if he designed it, but it had his name on it). It looked as though it was covered in diamonds.
In search of some non-Japanesey food – not something we have the luxury of in Joestu too often – ideally we would have stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant as soon as we exited the station, but it wasn’t to be. Instead we settled for a wee Irish pub down a side street. I didn’t catch the name, but O’Flannigan’s probably isn’t far off. A Guinness and a Shepherds Pie later and I was a happy bunny.
A hop, skip and a jump back to Tokyo Station and we were soon Shinking our way back Nagano.
Did I ever tell you how cool the Shinkansen is? Well, firstly…and sleep.

Why put off today what you can put off tomorrow?

2005-11-23T18:57:00.000+09:00

Well I make that a solid month and a half since I wrote anything on this blog. Yes, like a small child, I picked up the concept of “the blog,” played with it for a wee while and then threw it away and moved onto something else. While that is part of what happened, another reason for my infrequent updates is that life in Japan started, and a little matter of learning how to teach English (and speak Japanese) came into focus.

Even as much as two months into being here the holiday atmosphere was still in full swing. The days were warm, the nights long, and everything was new and exciting. All the newbies here in Joetsu were frantically rushing here, there and everywhere to see all the different and unusual things that our new home had to offer. Needless to say, such a pace was not going to be kept up indefinitely. In my first nine or so weeks in Japan, only one weekend did not involve jumping in a car and heading out of town on some sort of adventure.

I must admit being rather impressed by what lies on our doorstep. Being in the central belt of the main island of Honshu, there are a lot of places within easy striking distance. Niigata itself comes into it’s own when the snow arrives (which, I have been promised, is imminent). The novel Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari, which won the 1968 Nobel Prize for literature, was set in Niigata (but I don’t need to tell you that). The prefecture is famous for excellent rice, sake and skiing, and I’m happy with that.

I’m yet to explore the coastline, but I have been told that a few good beaches exist. South along the coast from Joetsu is the town of Kanazawa. Due to its lack of military targets it was spared the kind of destruction that many of the other major cities received in WWII (Kyoto also escaped in tact). Consequently, many of the cultural and historical sights still exist, including former samurai and geisha districts.

In the next door prefecture of Nagano are some of the most breathtaking mountains that the country has to offer; it is often referred to as “the roof of Japan.” It is also home to apples the size of grapefruits, which are a meal in their own right (Dave will attest to this). The prefecture’s main city, also called Nagano – really, what are the chances? – is only a short drive along the expressway from Joetsu. It’s a very modern and trendy city and got quite a boost thanks to it’s Winter Olympics in 1998.

One of it’s main attractions, piping Starbucks by a whisker, is Zenkoji Buddhist temple. Inside, next to the main alter, is a staircase that descends into a pitch-black tunnel that you can walk through – this symbolises death and re-birth, clever, eh? Within the dark, twisting tunnel you can find the key to eternal salvation. FYI – it’s about two-thirds of the way along on your right.
That’ll do as a wee chunk for now. I’ll update this as best I can, but I can’t guarantee there will be any coherence to things until we are up to speed. Things will just come to me over the coming days and weeks and I’ll be inspired to type in a few lines, so bear with me.

Fuji

2005-09-30T19:33:00.000+09:00

Definitely one of the highlights of my first couple of weeks in Japan was my trip to Mount Fuji, or Fuji-san as the Japanese call it. At 3,776m it’s the tallest mountain in Japan by quite some way. However, as it’s the most sacred mountain in Japan, it’s also one of the most frequently climbed. So, if you head to Fuji during a holiday weekend in the height of the climbing season, don’t expect to have the place to yourself…
A group of the Joetsu ALTs set off in convoy early on Saturday morning in high spirits. The sun was shining and it was nice to leave our little town behind for a day or two. Three carloads set off from Sanko (the accommodation for one group of ALTs) at around 10am. However, the group soon split up/got lost. Japanese road maps in English aren’t easy to come by and they aren’t especially detailed either. Therefore, most of the journey involved confused mobile phone conversations trying to determine exactly where x and y have taken a wrong turning and why they’ve run out of expressway!
For my group everything was going fine until we stopped in a small town near the base of Fuji for some dinner. Having fuelled up on whatever stodge we could get our paws on, we then set off (in the dark) to drive up to the 5th station on Fuji. In the daytime, trying to find this road would be very straightforward – there’s the volcano, the roads probably between here and there somewhere. However, at night, the task is a little trickier. Two failed attempts and numerous u-turns later, we were crawling our way up Fuji to an altitude of 2,300m.
It is possible to climb Fuji from sea level, but it’s also possible to swim the Channel – but I choose not to. At 2,300m you are already much higher than the highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis at 1,344m, and you still have that height to climb again to get to the top of Fuji. I for one make a point of aiming for the line of least resistance.
At the 5th station we prepped ourselves for the ascent. Our aim was to climb at night and in order to see the sun rise (in the Land of the Rising Sun, clever, eh?). Due to the temperature difference between a clear night at altitude and the baking morning heat, we were all kitted-out like Arctic explorers setting off on a three-month reconnaissance of the East Siberian Sea quickly followed by a fortnight in Magaluf.
Rarely are the words “souvenir” and “practical” used in the same sentence, but the Fuji-san Walking Stick™ was just that. Providing a third foot on tricky inclines and offering some support to weary feet on the way down, most climbers opted for the walking stick. Tie a Japanese flag to the top and even the most tight-fisted of tourist couldn’t resist. As an added bonus, you can get various stamps burnt into your stick at the various stations you pass on the way up to the top. Needless to say these were all in kanji and I couldn’t read them, but I like to think that they are all very poetic, meaningful and full of Eastern wisdom. So, having picked up a few last minute monkeys and parrots, we set off at about 9.30pm, everyone suitably full of beans.
A few early jokes along the lines of “oh, this is a bit tough, ha ha!” soon turned into somewhat more serious concerns about exactly what had been taken on. As we were already at quite an altitude, some of the guys were puffing and panting quite early on, so the pace slowed to make sure that everyone stayed together – it was pitch black after all! The general terrain was coarse, volcanic gravel, which was quite frustrating to walk on – two steps forward, one step back… Some light relief was given through sections of vertical, rocky climbs using handily attached chains.
Along the way we came across various official stations and pseudo-stations. They all provided a place for a short rest, a shop to buy some basic food and drink, and an old weather-beaten man to burn the must-have stamp for that station onto your walking stick (for 200 yen of course).
As the night wore on we began to realize that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park that we had hoped for and that we would actually be climbing through the night. At about 2pm tiredness was starting to take hold. Up until then the blood pumping through my body had done a great job of keeping me awake irrespective of the time. However, the stations were no longer for catching your breath, but for catching 40 precious winks. It’s very surreal to fall asleep, even for a moment, and awaken halfway up a volcano in Japan in the middle of the night…
At the 10th station I decided to make use of the “facilities.” I’m not a fan of the Asian loo; I’ve never claimed to be. Crouched in position with your trousers around your ankles, if you’re not crapping into back pocket, you’re peeing into your front pocket. The loos on Fuji were pretty primitive and generally just a hole in the floor of a wooden hut. Plenty of “misfires” ensured that the wooden floor around the hole was well soiled, and a pile of poo sat at the bottom like some kind of decaying pyramid. At almost 10,000 feet it’s pretty hard to hold your breath for very long. You enter the hut bravely, breath held, and desperately try and do what you have to do without inhaling. Inevitably you give up, start gasping and are left squatting there puffing in the most rancid of smells.
The penultimate station was reached at around 3am, and from there on it was a straightforward slog for the top. The last station had a tatami room where you could, for a fee, have a proper kip before the final assault on Fuji-san. As a result, when we passed that station we joined a queue of people pouring out onto the climbing path, all hoping to reach the top in time for sun rise. It became very slow going from this point on. What should have taken an hour to climb took a good two and half hours.
We were now in Indian file and had to stop for five to ten seconds every couple of steps. This is where standing still in the dark whilst incredibly tired started to play funny tricks on my mind. While standing waiting for the queue to inch forward I would doze off sleep apnea style – not the best thing to be doing when you could fall and roll all the way down the volcano you’ve been climbing for the last eight hours. During these little naps I would have sworn that I saw a little old Japanese lady dressed in white run though the queue selling bowls of steaming hot ramen. I have been assured that this was not the case…
It was now past 5am and there was a strong orange glow on the horizon. For a short moment you could see the stars in the night’s sky, the orange pre-sunrise glow on the horizon and the lights in the village below. Luckily we seemed to time our walk to perfection. We reached the summit (no sign of the old lady, hm…) just in time to get a good position for some photos before the sun burst out from behind the horizon. It was spectacular. There were gasps and shouts of “sugoi!!” (cool) and “o-hayo gozaimaaaaasu!!” (good morning). Naturally, all the tiredness was replaced with a combination of awe and a sense of achievement. As we were officially climbing out of season, we were very lucky to get the view that we did – it could very easily have been thick cloud, especially at 3,776m.
One final stamp and a peek into the crater and then we set off back down the mountain. There are two (and only two) good things about climbing Fuji at night. Firstly, you are entirely unaware that you are climbing what is in fact a very ugly mountain, close-up at least. Secondly, you can’t see how far you have to climb, beyond a faint line of head-torch lamps that zigzag above you. On the way down, however, you get to see the red, volcanic dust all around you and you can see precisely how far you have to go before you can take your boots off and have a beer. The early-morning sun turned into full-blown midday sun and jackets and fleeces were swapped for water bottles and sunscreen. At 11am we arrived back at the 5th station and treated ourselves to a well-earned burger and an ice cream. The best thing to do after such exertion is to relax in an onsen and we found a suitably relaxing onsen nearby. We slowly soaked our aching muscles before passing out on the communal tatami floor.

The opening gambit....

2005-09-22T19:57:00.000+09:00

Well, I’m here…

I’ve been here about a month and I’ve decided to get the blog up and running. It’s gone by really quickly, but quite slowly at the same time. Lots done and my head has almost stopped spinning. I’ll try and bring you up to speed as quickly as possible…

Arrived in Tokyo in the 17th of August. Got off the plane and hit a wall of heat. Summer was in full swing and the humidity was intense. Luckily most of my time in Tokyo was spent in an air-conditioned hotel. We had a two-day orientation, which basically reviewed a lot of info that was already in our handbook, just to make sure everyone was “on the same page.” It was nice to meet some other new JETs and see how their last month had been. I had about four weeks notice to sort myself out, but some people only had two weeks! I can’t imagine how stressful that would have been.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices, opposite the hotel

We had the chance to go out and explore in the evenings. The streets were hot and humid – about 27C even at 10pm. I’ve never seen anything like Tokyo at night. It was like walking through a theme park, all flashing lights and strange writing. The streets were immaculately clean and not a spot of graffiti anywhere. I had to remind myself that I was actually there and that it wasn’t a dream. The whole experience just seemed very odd.

A tourist friendly menu outside a restaurant

We ended up in a little noodle shop on the first night, but on the second night we splashed out and went for drinks on the top floor of the Hyatt hotel (where Bill Murray did his drinking in Lost in Translation – a bit cheesy I know, but the views were incredible, the lights just went on and on). On the way back we popped into a pachinko parlour (basically a vertical pinball game). It’s hugely popular in Japan. Apparently the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) launder a lot of money through them – good to know.

If you like noise and flashing lights, Pachinko could be the thing for you

Headed off the next morning (Friday). A lady from the “Niigata Internationalisation Team” came to pick me up from the hotel. The Shinkansen (or bullet train) pulled into Tokyo Station and a squad of cleaners were waiting for it. They all bowed as the train went past. Once the passengers had gotten off the train they ran onto the train in a cleaning frenzy. To my delight, it was not just a bullet train, but a double-decker bullet train at that! I was mightily impressed; I didn’t even know they existed. The ride was very smooth and slept like a baby all the way to Nagaoka where I got off to meet the Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) for my school. He and his colleague were holding a sign saying “Welcome to Joetsu, Colin,” a lovely touch.

It was about another 40 minute drive to Joetsu City, where I met up with my supervisor and some of the other ALTs for the region, about 16 or so. They were all expecting me and I got a big round of applause when I arrived, which was a bit overwhelming. They are all really nice – a good mix of Brits and Americans (Brits have the edge in terms of numbers). We went out for dinner that evening and then I unpacked some of my things.

On Saturday morning we took the three-hour ferry out to Sadogashima. It wasn’t like the Stornoway ferry, there were no seats inside, just carpet (no shoes remember!). It was perfect for sleeping on and the three hours flew by! The kids on the ferry had a great time running around.

Not sure what this was about, but it was worth a snap

The reason for going out to the island was the Sado Island Earth Celebration festival. It’s a three-day music, dance and art festival. The Kodo drummers are the big draw. These guys tour the world eight months of the year, but they live in a compound just north of the port of Ogi on Sado. They have to adhere to a strict physical, mental and spiritual training regime. These guys are insanely fit. Try http://www.kodo.or.jp/ for more details.

From Ogi we got a bus out to a beach, the name of which escapes me, and we set up camp on the sand. Some volleyball and a swim was followed by a few beers and sake around a campfire. One of the Japanese blokes we had played volleyball with came over later in the evening and said, “fire, now” and walked off. We figured that he wanted us to join his campfire, so we followed him with a few beers to be polite. Oh how wrong we were! What he meant was that a couple of the fire dancers who would be performing at the festival on the Sunday night wanted to give us a show. It was truly awesome. There were about 15 of us watching it, so it was quite intimate. It worked so well with the pitch-black background of nighttime, the flames illuminating whatever they passed – a head, a leg, the sand. Some mad heat lightening over the sea topped off quite an interesting first full day in Niigata.

Awesome, in the old-fashoned sense of the word

The heat of the early morning sun woke me up at 6am. Myself and a few of the other guys went for a swim before we packed up our things and headed back into town. I then had my first onsen experience… It’s basically a mineral hot-spring spa and they seem to be just about everywhere in Japan. Get stripped off, have a good old wash and then slip into a big pool with lots of naked men you’ve never met before. Oh, and I’ve discovered that if you’re a little sunburnt then the water will feel hot enough to peel the skin off a rhino. Onsen veterans had their own “modesty towel,” but newbies such as myself have to settle for the old birthday suit. This onsen was really nice – perched on top of a hill overlooking a bay. It had several pools and a couple outside (suitably private of course). To top the whole thing off, a couple of eagles cruised past us only about 30m away. Had a rinse down and a shave before passing out in the communal tatami (tight woven matting) room for about two hours.

Back in town we bought our tickets for the Sunday night show. A Spanish chap called Carlos Nunez was on the bill – believe it or not, but he played Celtic music and it was the most amazing bagpipe playing that I’ve ever heard in my life! If Jimi Hendrix had played the bagpipes it would have been like that. The main event, however, was Kodo. The speed, timing and power of the drumming has to be seen to be believed. The drums are huge and they use drumsticks the size of rolling pins. A couple of guys had baseball-bat-sized drumsticks. Their part culminated with the big man being wheeled out to do his 20-minute solo on a massive drum. He was an absolute beast of a man. Even when he finished his solo, he just jumped down from his drum and got stuck in with 30 minutes more drumming with 5 other guys – and they don’t mess about!

The big-yin

Camped again that night and then got the 6.30am ferry back to Joetsu in time for our day of seminars with the Joetsu-shi elementary school teachers. The aim was to tell them how to use an us, the native English speakers, effectively. I got to meet my elementary school teachers – I’ll be teaching at Hari ES, Kakasaki ES, Miyajima ES, but will be based at Itakura JHS.

On Tuesday I finally went to my Junior High School – all of 100 yards from my house! I can here the band practising when I’m eating my breakfast. I met all the teachers. I had to give a brief introducion of myself, which was translated by the JTE. All of the teachers are very friendly and welcoming. Only my the principal and my JTE speak decent English, so trying to communicate with the other teachers is great fun – try doing a 9 – 5 though the medium of charades!! It’ll help my Japanese, but my eloquence in English might ware-off!

Itakura is the village I live and it’s tiny. The population is around 2,000 but that's spread over quite a large area. Stacia, an American ALT who lives in my building, went to the post office to collect a package that was delivered while she was out – all the staff excitedly ran out to greet her. They then lined up and introduced themselves to her. It is proper countryside here – just rice fields and mountains. There is a great panorama from the 3rd grade classroom. There’s also a 2500m mountain nearby called Myoko, which is a great backdrop. I’m about a 15 minute drive to the nearest big town, Joetsu-shi.

This is apparently one of the best areas in Japan to ski. I’m about 50km from Nagano where the Winter Olympics were held in 1998. There are other slopes about 20 minutes drive from my house. Snowboarding will be the way to go – apparently it’s pretty much the only thing to do in the winter… well, it could be worse. The weather just now is about 30C+ most days, but come November it will get much colder – they had 2m of snow at one point a few winters ago.

The food has been ok. Much less fat in the cuisine here, but I’ve realised that even the most inconspicuous bits of food can have fish in them. A couple of the veggie ALTs are having difficulties. Food shopping is a real treat here, especially if you can’t read kanji (characters taken from Chinese). My thinking is that if in doubt, it probably has fish in it. It’s is basically a bit of a lucky dip at the moment – although I have developed a bit of a penchant for their sticky rice, which you can buy in huge cement-sized-bags for £15. Interestingly, you can buy three squid for a quid (and I mean an entire squid, eyes and all); it’s probably three quid per squid in the UK…

My Japanese just now involves a few phrases that are needed to be polite, some very random vocab (acquired as necessary) and some basic phrase structures – do you have, I would like, what is this, etc.

Well, that's a summary of my first few days in Japan. I'll try and fill you in on the rest of the month when I get a chance.