Who’s half-inched my motor?

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

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

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…