Funerals

Weddings and funerals are a big deal in Japan. If a coworker or a coworker's family member gets married, while you may not get an invitation to the ceremony and/or celebration, more than mere congratulations is expected. And if a coworker or a coworker's family member dies, words of consolation aren't enough. Attendance at the funeral is highly encouraged if not expected. So when I arrived at school today to learn that the father of the 3-3 (3rd grade/3rd class) teacher suddenly passed away last Thursday night/Friday morning, I wondered what was expected of me, considering that I'm a foreigner and don't know all the formalities of paying my respects.

If the funeral had been held during the weekend, all the staff of my school would have been expected to attend. However, because the "prayer" funeral was today and the "real" funeral is tomorrow (if I correctly understood the distinctions as explained by the teacher who sits next to me), not all teachers are expected to attend due to work conflicts. So one teacher from each grade went as a grade representative to today's prayer funeral, taking with them the offerings of ¥3,000 (about $40) from each teacher who is unable to attend either funeral. (I believe the money is used to offset part of the cost of the funeral. And the same practice occurs for weddings, only the amount each person gives is significantly higher.) And another small group of teachers will attend the second funeral service that occurs tomorrow.

I asked the teacher who informed me about the death and explained to me the funereal customs if I should go to the funeral. Since I am a Christian, she said, and the funeral will be a Buddhist ceremony, she told me that I didn't have to go. However, as I wanted to offer my sympathy to my coworker and her family as well as witness a Buddhist-style funeral, I told here that while I wouldn't participate in the actual ceremony I would still like to go. Unfortunately, she didn't respond to my comment, which, having lived here for almost a year and a half, I understood to be a polite way of declining my suggestion. So all I could do was offer my ¥3,000, which just doesn't seem to be enough.

Until next time...

**UPDATE (10/6/11): Waiting at my desk for me when I arrived at school on Tuesday was a recognition gift from the 3-3 teacher's family for my ¥3,000 condolences -- ocha (green tea), nori (baked seaweed sheets), and saké (rice wine). So I asked my next-desk teacher who had told me about our coworker's father's death how to say my sympathies in Japanese for when the teacher would return to school next week. Unfortunately, she told me it would be too difficult to do politely. (I'm not sure if she meant that it would be too difficult for her to teach or for me to learn/say.) Needless to say, I was a little frustrated by this response; so I planned to ask one of the teachers at my Japanese class that night how to express my condolences. But I forgot. So I was surprised and felt unprepared when I saw the 3-3 teacher at school today. Since I could say nothing in Japanese, I told her, in English, how sorry I was and asked if she and her family needed any help. When she looked at me quizzically, I explained the U.S. custom of bringing food to the home of the bereaved and told her that if she needed help, I would like to make some food for her family on the condition that they were okay with American food, to which she laughed. It certainly wasn't the concerted Japanese-style interaction I'd been hoping to have. But when communicating inter-culturally, I've learned to take whatever successes come, regardless of their profundity.

Say what?!

Japanese people are very private. Despite working together for years, many coworkers never learn much about each others' personal lives. As a private person myself, I appreciate that the teachers at my school tend not to ask many invasive questions, for more than once I've been asked by American coworkers both here in Japan and in the U.S. some very nosy questions. (Funnily, though, when it comes to being sick, Japanese people are not shy about sharing exacting details of their sickness.) So, needless to say, this tendency toward extreme privacy has led to some surprising discoveries on my part.

At the April 2010 welcome enkai for all new teachers, one of my coworkers complimented me that I use ohashi better than his wife. (A grossly overstated kindness on my ability to eat with chopsticks, I know.) However, it wasn't until December 2010 when another teacher and I were riding in his car to the end-of-second-term enkai that I learned he has a baby, which the car seat sitting conspicuously in the back seat couldn't hide. But it was only last week at the undoukai (sports festival) enkai that he shared that this "baby" is three years old. Maybe next year he'll tell me if his kid is a boy or a girl!

One Friday this summer, the teacher who sits next to me, who also happens to be the teacher with whom I talk the most since she speaks great English, told me that she was leaving school early and that she wouldn't be back until midweek the following week. That evening, when I went to visit an AET friend who'd been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, who should I run into at the hospital but that same teacher whose husband had had surgery that afternoon.

Then today, I received my third and most surprising bit of information about one of my coworkers. When I was talking with the jimuin (teachers' room manager) about what was happening with the youchiensei (kindergarteners) on the playground this morning (as I was supposed to teach them English and hadn't been informed of the change in schedule), she told me that they were learning how to run properly from a famous Japanese sprinter. When I asked if he was an Olympian, she told me that, while he isn't/wasn't an Olympic-level runner, apparently he's not too far from being/having been at the top of his sport. Then, quite out of the blue, she told me that the school nurse's husband was an Olympian and that he'd won a bronze medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. I was floored! Last year when the school nurse's desk was next to mine, I'd told her that I wanted to visit Nagano before I left Japan. And she showed me the hockey puck that she'd bought in Nagano when she visited there in 1998 and now uses as a paperweight. Not once did she say that she bought it when she went to watch her husband compete!

I wonder what other interesting biographical bits of information my teachers are hiding.

Until next time...

Kukkiman (Gingerbread Man)

When people ask me about my hobby, I'm always hesitant to answer because it's not exciting, unique, or accomplished. In fact, I'm especially embarrassed by my hobby here, as it seems like every Japanese person is able to do at least one thing extraordinarily well. So I share with you, somewhat sheepishly, that my hobby is reading. But my hobby is particularly useful in my classes.

Since the books that I read are large and colorfully illustrated and they don't understand much of the English, many students pay more attention to the pictures than the story. While I'm not an actor by any means, my love of books makes me want to get animated when reading to kids because my sudden maniacal laughter or jump into the air catches them off-guard, makes them laugh, and perhaps helps them start listening for words they know rather than just hearing my words as noise.

This month with sannensei (third graders), we've been studying the verb can. So last week I read The Gingerbread Man to them. The Gingerbread Man escapes from the woman's oven and runs through a field past a farmer and through the woods past a dog before finding its journey toward freedom impeded by a river. (Perhaps there are variations on the story because the version that I read to my students last week didn't draw forth any hazy recollections from my long-term memory.) Anyway... the Gingerbread Man spies a crocodile in the river and asks it for help in fording the river. When I got to the part where the crocodile stops in the middle of the river [SPOILER ALERT], I opened my mouth wide, snapped my jaws shut, and swallowed audibly before reading, "SNAP! GULP!" The kids were stunned into silence before one boy shouted out, "Kawaisou! (Pathetic!)" and everyone started laughing. Apparently, Japanese fairy tales aren't quite so sinister.

Until next time...

Backhanded compliment or just backhanded?

One day last year when I was sick for the seemingly gazillionth time and decided that perhaps wearing a mask was the appropriate thing to do, I decided to go au naturel in the makeup department, since everything but my forehead, eyes, and sides of my face would be covered by the mask. Unfortunately, I forgot that I would need to remove the mask in order to eat lunch. So when I took off my mask, the teacher of the class with whom I was eating kyuushoku (school lunch) told me how horrible I looked. Since eyes are supposedly the window to the soul, I decided to be charitable and think that she noticed the beating my soul was taking from all the new Japanese germs. However, I also avowed I'd never go without makeup again.

This summer, while not as hot as last summer, has been a scorcher nonetheless. So I decided to break my vow and have been wearing makeup off and on during these days when I don't have to teach. So imagine how taken aback I was today when this same teacher said loudly in the shokuinshitsu (teachers' room), "Rebecca, hisashiburi makeup!" (literally, "Rebecca, it's been a long time since makeup!"). I laughed along with a couple other teachers and replied to her, "You or me?" However, I was mortified. Is my "before and after" as horrible as that of the news anchors from Batman (1989) who look downright hideous in their makeup-free broadcast thanks to The Joker's scare-inducing cosmetics tampering?

The juxtaposition of today's comment following Wednesday's blog post referencing Japanese politeness is not lost on me.

Until next time...

Future Petroleum Engineer?

For the past month, my sixth graders and I have been studying foreign countries' flags and their English names. The first lessons involved them asking and answering the questions, "What country do you like?" and "Where do you want to go?" in interview games with their classmates. In order to practice the names of all 28 countries that they've been learning, the students would have to change flag cards with their partners at the end of each interview. But last week and this week, the students were able to choose three countries that they personally want to visit in order to continue the sentence, "I want to go to OO because I like OO." Although it might seem difficult, the students have been studying "I like OO." sentences since first grade. So unless there was something that they didn't know how to say/write in English (e.g., Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa, Sagrada Família, etc.), apart from needing some time to write the English words, mostly all were able to do the assignment quite well.

I expected that there would be answers such as, "I want to go to Australia because I like koalas and kangaroos." Or, "I want to go to Italy because I like pizza." Or, "I want to go to Brazil/Argentina/Spain because I like soccer." However, there was a surprisingly large number of students who want to go to France because they like bread. (And can you blame them?) One confused kid wants to visit the United States because he likes soccer. (He really doesn't understand where soccer rates among Americans, does he?!) Another boy wants to visit the United States because he likes fast food. (What a sad, unintentional commentary on the U.S.) But my favorite answer for today's English exercise came courtesy of the boy who said, and I truly quote, "I want to go to Saudi Arabia because I like oil money.

Until next time...

Kyuushoku (School Lunch)

While I've appreciated the return to normalcy my life has gained these last two months after experiencing the earthquake of March 11, I've felt that nothing I could write about here would be worth writing or reading in comparison. But I realized this week that I've not written much about Japanese school life on this blog. So I'll start with my favorite topic, according to the count of my blog labels -- food, specifically school lunch.
 

Kyuushoku in a Japanese shougakkou (elementary school) looks nothing like school lunch in an American elementary school. Here in Japan, kyuushoku is prepared at the school itself. There is no central kitchen where a single dietician works to plan the menu for the entire district, oversee the large team of cooks who prepares the food, and disperse it to the individual schools in the district where it is reheated before it is served. Each shougakkou has its own kitchen; and one dietician manages the school lunch program for a small group of schools. So each district's shougakkou no kyuushoku could be different on any given day. And a shougakusei (elementary school student) will never bring a lunchbox to school... well, that is unless his family demands that he be allowed to bring his own obentou (packed lunch) after a nuclear reactor disaster causes a radiation-in-the-food scare. (Kindergartners don't attend elementary school in Japan. They attend a youchien and have to bring an obentou to school. And junior high and high schools have different lunch programs as well.) 

Additionally, there is no cafeteria in which all the students eat. The cooks portion out the food for each class into large containers and send it to the classrooms, where the students eat at their desks that they have moved together into small groups. At the beginning of the lunch period, the students put on white smocks, white hats, and masks to cover their noses and mouths. They cover their desktops with their placemats. They wipe off the serving table. And they assist the teacher with distributing the food to everyone in the classroom. In the younger grades, perhaps the students just distribute the rice, bread, or noodles; milk; and straws. But in the older grades, they also dish the food into the bowls and plates. Each class manages the actual food dispersal differently -- some teachers choose to have all the students form a line while others choose to have only the group leaders queue up. But no one serves oneself, instead placing trays on other students' desks. And no one can eat before everyone has been served and the "Itadakimasu!" (literally, "receive gratefully") has been said, which means that food is sometimes taken from bowls or plates that have already been placed in front of other people. (Remember, they're all wearing hats, masks, and smocks. So no one is breathing on or touching food until after the "Let's eat!" signal.)

Through no fault of the school district cooks, I remember a lot of fried foods, hamburgers, canned fruits and vegetables, instant potatoes, and rolls from my elementary school lunch days. Even though I may not have taken my lunch to school very frequently (I honestly can't remember what I usually did.), I remember not really liking the hot meal options that I could get at school. And I can't say that I like every kyuushoku meal that I eat here each day, especially on the days when traditional Japanese food is served -- like stuff with lots of seaweed, whole dried baby fish, or fish paste products, to name but a few. But I do like knowing that the ingredients in my kyuushoku are fresh, for I can see the unevenness to the carrot slices rather than cubic perfection. And on the rare days when we are treated to fruit, I know that my two cherries, 1/6 grapefruit, or 1/2 kiwi are not sweetened with added sugars.

Kyuushoku isn't perfect. I think there's entirely too much emphasis placed on carbohydrates in the Japanese diet. (Potatoes and bread or potatoes and rice in the same meal is not very nutritious.) Non-soup vegetables are generally no more than 1/4 to 1/2 cup per serving. And fruit is served only a couple times per month. But the thing I most like about kyuushoku is the thing that originally most bothered me, which I hinted about earlier. When I first saw food being scooped out of the dishes that were sitting in front of students, I was upset, for I felt that the portion sizes of the non-rice foods allotted by the dietician were far too small. And my opinion became further solidified when my start-of-class question, "How are you?" was answered with, "I"m hungry!" in the two class periods following lunch. (American portion sizes are ridiculously huge, as I've already mentioned, so I'm not advocating American-styled or -sized lunches, either.) But the more I've experienced lunch in the Japanese classroom and have compared it with the Wednesday night dinner experiences I've had with the foreigners at church, the more I've grown to see its merits rather than its demerits.

In comparing and contrasting this kyuushoku time with our church potluck time, the more taken aback I am by we foreign Christians' actions. We serve ourselves during Wednesday evening meals at church, when shouldn't we serve each other? (If Hard Rock Café can get it right, should we be able to?) Some of us in the group gluttonously mound food onto our plates and then don't wait to make sure that everyone has gotten a meal before we start digging in, when sometimes the group responsible for the meal hasn't made enough food. And sometimes we fail to show altogether, which means that the meal-prep crew has spent too much money on too much food for too few people and the clean-up crew is reduced to one person.

Last August I wrote a post about how I felt that many of the Japanese people I've met often act quite Christ-like, despite their quickness to say that "Japanese people" are not Christian. (I enclose Japanese people in quotes because to be Japanese means that one is culturally Buddhist, whether or not one is religiously Buddhist.) I know this is because of the collectivist nature of their culture. And I know that good things can and do come out of an individualist culture like that of the U.S. But I wish that when surrounded by an others-first culture for more hours of the week than our own me-first culture on Wednesday nights, we Christian English teachers might learn by cultural osmosis if not actual study the truth behind the apostle Paul's instruction for how to behave when sharing a fellowship meal (a.k.a. love feast). In addition to the U.S. school lunch program needing a kyuushoku-esque Food Revolution á la Jamie Oliver, perhaps the foreigner population at church needs Paul to give us a Love Feast Revolution.

Until next time...

Jishin! (Earthquake!)

I am so thankful to have been physically uninjured and minimally disturbed by last Friday's major earthquake. And I am keenly aware that millions of people just north of me are unable to say the same thing. Thus, I am conflicted to share the struggles I've encountered as a result of the earthquake's much more minimal effects in my city. They seem so small in comparison. However, they are the struggles I experienced.

Last week there were several small earthquakes that occurred before Friday's quake. A couple woke me in the middle of the night. And some occurred mid-day. But the biggest one occurred just before lunchtime on Wednesday while I was at my one-day-a-week kindergarten, lasting approximately one minute and feeling much more real than any of the other joltings I'd experienced in the 10 previous months. In fact, on Thursday when I went to my main school, I mentioned to my school nurse and my jimuin (teachers' room manager) that I'd had enough earthquakes for the week. And after Friday's quake occurred, I remembered having thought that the week's mini-quakes seemed like precursors to something big yet to come.

I'd finished cleaning up my classroom after having taught my last English class of the day and was walking through the hallways when the quake hit. As I was walking, I didn't initially notice that the vertigo I was experiencing was due to the quake. But the quake quickly became stronger and the school's emergency notification system set in, with the automated warning message sounding and the fire doors closing. Thank goodness that the fire doors have smaller doors built into them, as by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs where I could exit the building, the fire doors had all completely closed.

I looked at one of the other staff members of my school to find out what I should do/where I should go because I'd missed the earthquake drill earlier in the year. He was not helpful in letting me know what I should do. (In his defense, his English is limited.) So when another shock occurred, I went outside where the first and second graders had gathered to leave school at their regularly-scheduled time. I could feel and see the ground rolling like ocean waves and then circling like water going down a drain. And the sixth graders who were setting up the hall for a teacher-appreciation party that was to occur in 15 minutes, came running outside to join us in the courtyard. The rolling and circling of the quake lasted anywhere from three to five minutes; and when the initial quake had stopped, attendance was taken before the students and teachers all went out to the playground, which is a big open dirt field so that we could be away from any debris that might fall. After the rest of the school joined us outside (the other grades endured the quake under the safety of their desks, I assume), we waited for perhaps an hour or 90 minutes for aftershocks to die down before walking the students to their homes, some with their parents who'd come for them, some without.

Skip forward a couple of hours... Around 6pm, the principals dismissed us to go home if we wanted. Upon hearing that there were no traffic signals and that it could take two to three hours to make the trip home by car, I'd hoped that the teachers would want to stay at the school for the evening. (Most schools are designated safety evacuation areas.) But most wanted to go home. So I followed a teacher who lives near me to make the long journey home. It did, indeed, take almost two hours to make the usual 25-minute drive. Traffic was snarled; cement walls around homes had toppled into the streets; roads and bridges had buckled; pedestrians jaywalked to stand in lines at kombini (convenience stores) lit up by car headlights. Upon arriving home, I found some of my neighbors preparing to spend the night in their cars. After climbing the stairs to my fourth floor apartment, I opened my door to find my apartment in shambles. Almost everything in the front half of my apartment had been jostled off the shelves. I had to climb over my shoes, microwave, rice cooker, dish drainer, cooking supplies... to get to the back of my apartment, which I found had fared much better. My furniture had moved six to eight inches away from their original positions; and some things were on the floor. But my TV, computer, and photos survived unscathed. And I had no utilities. I cleaned up some of the broken glass, cleared a couple pathways, and got in bed at 8:30pm.

At 11:30pm, one of my neighbors, C.G., knocked on my door. She'd just accompanied one of her teachers on a six-mile hike home, as the teacher had insisted on going home but was too afraid to drive her car. After finding her apartment in worse shape than mine, she came down to spend the night with me. We both spent the night terrified by the hundred or so aftershocks that continued throughout the night. Every time a strong shock came, we bolted upright, prepared to run out of the apartment. We got absolutely no sleep; and in the morning we felt like we'd been in a war zone due to the rumbling aftershocks that sounded like mortar explosions, emergency sirens that blared all night long, and helicopters droning overhead to survey the damage.

To spare you an even longer post that is already long, I'll share the post-quake stories in a later blog(s).

Until next time...

Pardon me, miss. I didn't notice you're a dude.

I've been holding off on writing this post for several months because I didn't want it, if written, to be misconstrued. So let me be upfront and say that what I've written is not intended to be judgmental in any way. Rather, it's an observation about Japanese culture and people who are my age and younger and is a sharing of me putting my foot in my mouth as a result of the ambiguity that is prevalent around me.

A person's sex is biologically determined. Unless a mutation occurs in a person's sex chromosomes during gestation (which results in an intersex individual [formerly known as hermaphrodite]), a person is going to be born either XX (female) or XY (male). However, a person's gender is sociologically determined. Familial norms, cultural influences, and other factors determine the degree to which a female is feminine or a male is masculine. So what is considered normal or desirable by one culture for its women or men may not be normal or desirable by another culture.

Having been raised in the Midwestern/Southern U.S. culture where gender, historically, has been quite narrowly defined, I've come to view masculinity through a particular lens:  Masculine men don't like pastels. They don't have long hair. They don't carry purses. They don't wear pointy-toed shoes. They don't wax their eyebrows. And they don't want to be skinny. Yet gender ambivalence is greatly prevalent here among younger males. So imagine how challenged my ideas of what's acceptable became when in my first weeks here I saw men who were completely opposite of what I'd been socialized to believe they should be. The aforementioned things apply to many younger Japanese men I've seen. And as parents generally impose their tastes on their children, it has been very difficult for me to know if some of the children whom I teach are boys or girls.

At my two youchien (kindergartens), the different classes are distinguished during recess time by different hat colors. At the smaller school there are only two hat colors -- pink and yellow -- while at the larger school there are four hat colors -- red, blue, pink, and yellow. It is so difficult for me to determine a male child's sex when he is wearing a pink hat and his little face is surrounded by long hair. It is also difficult for me to determine a female child's sex when she is wearing a yellow hat and her little face has no hair surrounding it because it's cropped short. The same is true with my shougakusei (elementary school students). Unless they are wearing skirts, there are some students whom I don't know to be female because their faces are androgynous and their hair is super short. Equally frustrating is the tendency for the youchien no sensei (kindergarten teachers) to call some boys by the diminutive -chan, which means girl, rather than with the diminutive -kun, which means boy. Thankfully, I've never called a boy a girl or vice versa at my youchien, for time has proven a boy to be a girl and a girl to be a boy.

I don't know why I feel the need to know the sexes of my students, since knowing them doesn't change who they are. But the discomfort I feel from not knowing if the child with the pageboy haircut and the rainbow sweater is a girl or a boy is quite unsettling. Today a ninensei (second grade) boy got his feelings hurt when his classmates laughed (at him or me, I don't know which) because I, still unable to distinguish his sex after nine months of teaching him and not being wise enough to touch a super-feminine girl on the head when trying to teach the difference between he and she, called him a girl. His oniisan (older brother) and buddy both have short haircuts. So I wonder if he'll show up at school tomorrow or Monday with a new hairstyle. I hope he doesn't. If he likes his hair as it is, I hope he keeps it that way and doesn't let my ignorance influence his self-expression.

Until next time...

UPDATE (02/04/11): Sure enough, the kid got a haircut last night, well, more like a trim. It's still longish. And he's still got bangs. But the ends don't curl under like they did yesterday. However, after today's lunch clean up, I saw that his place mat which protects his desk is pink. If I hadn't stuck my foot in my mouth yesterday, I would have gone away from today's lunch time still thinking that he's a girl.

Park Week

You know how the Discovery Channel hosts "Shark Week" every year in July or August? Well, Japan must host "Park Week" every year in October, for I've been to three different parks with three different groups on three different occasions this past week. And outside of going to the park where my brother played his baseball games every summer when we were growing up, I can't remember ever going to a park three times in one year, let alone in one week.

For those of you familiar with Let's Start Talking (LST), my church here in Japan has begun this year's English Bible Class (EBC), which is similar to LST. For those of you unfamiliar with LST, it's an organization that equips Christians to go into non-English speaking parts of the world to teach English by using the Bible. EBC has met twice thus far, and will continue to meet twice a month through March. I'm so excited to be able to do the EBC program, since I had such great experiences with my readers when I did LST in Japan during that summer after college graduation. But EBC experiences are for a different post. So let's get back to "Park Week".

On Saturday, approximately 40 people went to the seaside park that I wrote about being unable to visit back in May. The group was a mixture of EBC teachers (who are many, but not all, of us AETs), EBC readers, church members, and friends from our schools. The park is beautiful; and we spent four hours there, roaming around to look at the autumn foliage, having obento (the Japanese version of a brown bag lunch), and enjoying each other's company.

I tried my first chestnut at this park. The first bite was unremarkable. The second and third bites tasted like roast beef. And the rest of it was once again unremarkable. I assumed that a chestnut was something like an acorn, since you roast them over an open fire at Christmas and the drawings that I've seen of them since arriving here make them look like that. But did you know that a chestnut's exterior looks like a super spiky, bright green kiwi? And why in the world would it taste like roast beef? (Now I could really go for some Cracker Barrel.)

**On Tuesday, I joined my third graders for a trip to Kasama, the (un-)official (?) ceramics capital of Japan. (Not all AETs are allowed to go on field trips with their students, so shhh!) There we had the opportunity to make a cup or a plate, visit a ceramics museum, eat obento in a park that had cooler artwork than the museum, and play on the most amazing playground I've ever seen. But the word "playground" doesn't do it justice. The slides are amazingly huge - think a couple stories tall and a hundred or more feet long - and are connected to a decking system with numerous play stations shooting off from it that most definitely required an engineering degree to design. (My seven-year-old nephew would love this park!) Unfortunately, I was too busy having fun sliding to take pictures from my ride on it.

**At the bottom of the second slide, shortly before I took this photo, I was caught in a pile up with a bunch of students and teachers from my school as well as from other schools. After trudging up the huge hill two times, my first time to slide to slide became my last time to slide.

**This air dome is WAY more fun than a trampoline, although one of the many rules for using it is don't jump on it. (What else is it meant to be used for? And what kid can resist jumping on an air mountain?) I was asked by one of the students to play on the dome with her. But I thought I was too big or old, take your pick, and was noncommittal. Later, when I saw how much fun they were having, I decided that I could be a big kid at heart and play on it with them. I'm so glad I did, since they told their teacher that I'm so fun!

**This zip line looked like it was a blast for the kids to ride. So after watching them on it for several minutes, I decided to give it a try. Only, it wasn't as fun for me as the slide or the air dome since my legs are so long that they dragged along the ground and slowed me down.

On Wednesday, I arrived at my one-day-a-week kindergarten and was surprised once again with that day's plans - no English classes and a trip to a park. I'd been told we'd walk to the park because it was close. But once we arrived at the park, I can't believe we dared to undertake the mile- or two-mile-long trek with close to 100 four- and five-year olds, even with ten moms to help with the outing. (There's no way that would be allowed in an American school.) But the amazing thing was that not one of the kids complained or got hurt on the way there or back. Once at the park, we spent the next two or three hours sliding down the hill on cardboard boxes. (So fun!) Since I'd expected to teach English that day, I didn't have my camera with me as I'd had at the other two parks. But suffice it to say that from the top of the hill, where I spent much of my time as a pusher, it looked like I was bowling with kindergartners!

Japan is a beautiful country; and now that the life-sapping heat and humidity of summer are gone, I hope to be able to enjoy more of it's scenery.

Until next time...

**UPDATE (11/22/10): Photographs containing school children have been removed per the instruction of the teachers' consultant.

Almost Famous?

Today I went to McDonald's for breakfast before school. As the cashier was placing my iced coffee on my tray, she said, "Rebecca?" I've never met this person in my life; so I was a little taken aback that she somehow knew my name. (This is a cash society. There's no such thing as a debit card. So she didn't get my name off of anything that I gave her.) When I confirmed that, indeed, I am Rebecca, she told me that she is the mother of one of the elementary school students whom I teach. After having another one of my students tell me that his mother delivered a package from my mother to my school several months ago and then they discussed it over the dinner table, I guess I should have remembered that being a gaijin (foreigner) in a small town in a homogeneous country like Japan doesn't allow for anonymity. Maybe the next time I venture out I should take a tip from Ke$ha.


Until next time...

Even the kids get their own festivals in Japan.

In a country where the average teacher is expected to work six (or seven) days at 60+ hours each week and is rarely allowed to take consecutive days of nenkyuu (vacation) during the six-week break between the summer and fall terms, it's understandable that the teachers from my school weren't all that excited about assisting the PTA with the end-of-term festival that was held this past weekend. However, they recognize that the students have a lot of fun. And as Japanese teachers tend to be very committed to their students (Why else would a Japanese person want to become a teacher with those kinds of time expectations?), after having put in their 60+ hours during the previous week they worked an additional four to 16+ hours to help prepare for and host Sunday's festival. As for me, I miss my students and wanted the comp time so that I can have one work day this summer to take my driving test without having to use any of my nenkyuu days. So I worked the festival as well.

**The area festival was open not only to the kids (and their families) who attend the school but also to the surrounding neighborhood. In many ways, it was like a New York City street festival that one might see in the movies (You've Got Mail anyone?), albeit on the dirt field/playground behind the school building. There were ring toss games, cheap toys for purchase, food stands, a performance stage, etc. But then there were other things that I was somewhat surprised to see at a school event -- beer flowing freely, old women performing Hawaiian and Hokkaido dances, fireworks progressing from tamer Roman Candles to rapid-fire shells that arced across the sky. But one of the coolest things to see were so many of my female students wearing yukata, or summer-weight kimono. A traditional female yukata, as my teachers told me, would have had flowers or fish printed on it and been blue. A traditional male yukata would have contained geometric patterns such as stripes or squares and been blue, black, or white. Modern-day women's yukata come in many colors and patterns, including the ubiquitous Hello Kitty. The students above wore contemporary shoes with their yukata; but a few came in traditional geta. (See this article for more information about the geta.) Very few of my male students wore yukata, which wasn't surprising.

**A couple different variations of snow cones were sold. (They weren't on cones but rather were in cups or bowls.) And popcorn (my booth), pizza, hashed browns, cotton candy, and grilled marshmallows rounded out the more American-like food options, although the pizza had corn as a topping and the grilled marshmallows were allowed only to get sticky rather than brown. But traditional fare like okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes), yakisoba (fried noodles prepared with vegetables and often meat), and Gohei-mochi was also available. I didn't try the Japanese pancakes, as there's a really good okonomiyaki restaurant near my apartment that I want to try first. And I've eaten yakisoba many times before. But having never heard of let alone eaten Gohei-mochi, I decided to try it. 

According to Japanese tradition (and Wikipedia), mochi is made by rabbits who live on the moon. To make mochi, Japanese rice is pounded into a paste and then is formed into whatever shape is desired. It's usually fairly tasteless (by Western standards) and is so sticky that many non-Japanese people have to learn to like it or never learn to like it because it's so difficult to swallow. I don't know if Gohei-mochi is made by lunar bunnies as well, but it looks and tastes different. Hot rice is rolled into a ball in the palm of the preparer's hand and is then wrapped and pressed around two joined chopsticks, sort of like a popsicle. The rice popsicle is chilled and then dipped into a sauce containing soy sauce, sesame oil, sake, walnut paste, and another ingredient that escapes me before being grilled to be served. It was quite yummy; and I ended up eating two.

I can't remember having any events like this when I was in elementary school, other than field day. So while the teacher who took me home at the end of the day thought that it was a lot of work (which for the Japanese teachers it was more work than for me), I found the festival to be really enjoyable. I liked working alongside the teachers in a non-classroom setting. Seeing the students and their reactions when they didn't expect to see me at their festival was quite fun. Watching them show off their extracurricular skills in band, taiko (traditional Japanese drumming), and drill team allowed me to see a side of them that I don't get to see when they're in English class or get to ask about during lunch since I don't speak Japanese. And making the connections between siblings that I hadn't yet made was great as well.

Until next time...

**UPDATE (11/22/10): Photographs depicting school children and faculty/staff have been removed per the instruction of the teachers' consultant.

One down, two to go

Today was the end of the first trimester of the 2010-11 school year. I had been looking forward to this day since mid-May, not because I don't enjoy teaching my students but because my schedule is such that I am exhausted all the time and had been anticipating the much-needed break. However, the realization came to me last week that not only does the summer break mean that I won't be teaching, although I still will have to go to school, but also that I won't see my students. (Some of you more experienced teachers out there may say that's a good thing. But if you'll just hear me out, you'll understand why it was so difficult to say goodbye.)

Last week as I was saying goodbye at the end of each English class, although I knew that we would all see each other today, it very much felt like a farewell since I knew that we all wouldn't be able to interact today. So when it came time for the students to line up at 11:30am today to head home for lunch after the closing ceremony and home room activities ended, I started to cry. At the time, I thought it was because there were some students whom I most likely would never see again - i.e., the two sets of Japanese-American siblings who'd been at school this summer while visiting their grandparents and the unrelated boy and girl who are moving to different cities. So I prayed God's protection on all of them this summer, whatever they may do or wherever they may go, as I was standing there waiting for them to leave and waving at them as they were waving at me. But later this afternoon, I realized that there was more to my sadness than just missing their cute faces over the next six weeks.

My adjustment to life in Japan hasn't been easy. I've been without car/scooter/bike for three months and have been dependent on public transportation and/or other people to get me around town, both of which have proved to not always be reliable. As such, it's been extremely difficult for me to connect physically with the other teachers in my group, since I've sometimes had to miss church or have not been invited to various activities due to my lack of wheels (or so I tell myself). As a result, I've consoled myself in the fact that while socially my life may be lacking here in Japan, vocationally I've been quite fulfilled, so much so that I've started to contemplate a career change for when I return to the U.S. So to not have that joy for the next six weeks left me feeling bereft.

The other experienced teachers tell me that students will be at school everyday this summer. Some of them, e.g., the prefecture's (nation's?) entire fourth grade population, will be doing summer school for math whereas others will just come to school to play with their friends. (Before moving here, I couldn't understand why kids would want to come to school during the summer. But now that I realize that many of them live in apartment buildings and that there isn't enough space for them to play, it makes sense.) And today I was informed about a neighborhood fair for my school's students that will occur this Sunday afternoon and evening at the school for which teachers are encouraged to work. So while I will not get into the habit that many Japanese teachers have of working seven days a week, I think I will work during half or all of the festival so that I can spend some more time with the kids.

Until next time...

すいょぅび (Suiyōbi - Wednesdays)

Wednesdays are my most dreaded day of the week, for they are the day I go to my one-day-a-week kindergarten. The kids and teachers generally are not the reason why I dread going to this school. However, they have been known to contribute to my dread, since these are the same kids who love to touch me in inappropriate places and the same teachers who forget to tell me about important activities like field trips. But the two reasons I don't like going to my Wednesday kindergarten are because it rains every single day I go there (Literally, there has not been one day when I've gone to that school when it's not rained during my commute. I've yet to arrive without being soaking wet.) and because something discouraging and unrelated to the rain always occurs.

I know that right now I'm somewhere in the midst of the "Everything is horrible" part of the culture stress adjustment curve and that one day I will progress to the "Everything is okay" part of the curve. But when every Wednesday brings something unexpected, it's difficult to believe the things-will-improve mantra that I tell myself. (No matter what I learned through my intercultural communication graduate study, knowledge and experience are two vastly different teachers. And while I wish that the former were a better teacher for me than the latter, that's not the case.) So in addition to soaking wet shoes and feeling violated every Wednesday, I encounter surprise field trips, didn't-you-know-that-today-is-teach-the-parents day, the obento (boxed lunch) for which I wasn't included...; and this past Wednesday was no different. Unfortunately, what came this past Wednesday on the way to school followed on the heels of two days of high-stress events. And I had my first "I hate Japan!" week since arriving. But then a few girls at school were super sweet, immediately giving me hugs as soon as they saw me. So Wednesday progressed somewhat better than it started, though Thursday was rough as I battled a headache all day and fell asleep at school, despite my every effort to stay awake. (This heat and humidity zaps all my energy before I even arrive at school.) The workweek ended with a drive to the outskirts of Tokyo last night for a birthday celebration with seven other English teachers at The Hard Rock Cafe. (Yes, we were on the road longer than we were in the restaurant.) And Saturday, although it started much too early, has begun with the delivery of a non-hobbit-sized refrigerator and a leisurely brunch at an amazing pastry shop within walking distance of my apartment and should end with good fellowship with one of the missionaries at the church.

While my posts haven't reflected anything good I've experienced since arriving in Japan, and I have experienced a few, things truly aren't as bad as they could be or perhaps as they seem. But blogging about my experiences helps me to cope with what happens. So when exciting or fun things start happening, I will be sure to share them as well.

Until next time...

UPDATE (7/1/10): I learned today that the kanji (Japanese character) for Wednesday means "water." How fitting, then, that it rains every Wednesday, including this past one. What else can the day's weather do but live up to the Japanese forefathers' expectations for it?

Work Week Three

Work week three has come and gone and with it my memories of anything good that happened. Last week was rough. On Tuesday while I was eating lunch with one of the sixth grade classes, I was asking the students the questions that they've learned in their years of English study. How old are you? When's your birthday? What color do you like? etc. Apparently one of the girls had had enough of my questions because after a while she got up from her desk (There is no cafeteria in most Japanese schools. Students eat in their classrooms.) and said something to the teacher's assistant. He then said to me something along the lines of there not being enough time. So I told him that I'd eat fast. And I stopped talking. But later as I thought back on the lunch period that day, when she got up to ask him to tell me to stop talking, there were at least 25 minutes left of the lunch period. I guess she wanted to save her English for when it was required, which was to come during the next period.

On Wednesday, I went to my one-day-a-week kindergarten to teach. Since it was raining, I nixed the biking out of deference to the rain and bike's victory over me during my commute two weeks prior. While walking in front of the kindergarten, I noticed the playground had been turned into a parking lot; and when I tried to enter the front gate to the school grounds, I found it locked. Several buses were parked beside the kindergarten. But they appeared to be on the elementary school grounds, which is located next door. So I walked past them and through another closed but unlocked gate to the front door only to find a bicycle blocking the entrance. A teacher I didn't recognize got off the bus and started talking to me in Japanese. Following behind her were a teacher I did recognize and the principal. The principal told me that the school was headed to a nearby aquarium for a field trip. I told the principal that I would go back home; but she told me to get on the bus. So I loaded onto the bus and before I could even take off my jacket, we took off. I literally arrived to school moments before the buses departed. And upon getting off the bus at the aquarium, the other teachers were surprised to see me. Clearly they all forgot that it was my day to teach at their school. And I can't really blame them since I'd taught only once before at their school due to the Golden Week holiday. But apparently this happens with great regularity - schedule changes that aren't passed along to the AETs. And I so didn't enjoy myself at the aquarium, since I have a hard time seeing animals in captivity. Tomorrow I head back to the school. So let's hope that the third time is the charm for having a good experience there.

On Friday one of the fifth graders I was eating with told me that my hair looked like Michael Jackson's. (I think there was a curly lock that had fallen in front of my eyes.) When I asked her if she liked Michael Jackson, she hesitated and drew in breath through her teeth, which means no. So I'm not sure if she was telling me that she doesn't like me or just my hair. Then later that night while eating ramen with S.K., one of the AETs' contacts at the board of education office, I ate a piece of meat that I had thought was beef but quickly came to realize had to have been something else when it tasted the way a grossly unclean public bathroom smells. (That was my first and last time to eat liver.)

Thankfully the weekend ended up redeeming the work week, as I had a lot of fun at scooter safety school, shopping for furniture for my apartment, and spending time with other AETs.

Until next time...

Work Week Two

Monday was my first day to "teach," as indicated in my previous post. But Tuesday was my first day to actually teach a lesson. For some reason, the first graders were combined into one class that day. So my first class had 90+ students! The lesson didn't go according to plan. But thankfully six-year-old kids don't really notice when something isn't quite up to par. And they appeared to have enjoyed their first lesson with me. So while I'll consider it to have been a success, I'm happy that my classes won't usually have that many students in them at one time.

Wednesday, on the other hand, was a complete fiasco. I biked to school; and having not been on a bike in seven years, I felt like I looked like an intoxicated person as I tried to stay upright. But added to the ignominy of long-forgotten-bike-riding skills was riding in cats-and-dogs rain so that when I arrived at school after my 15-20 minutes commute, I was thoroughly soaked. But, as I'm finding to be the rule when talking about Japanese people, the teachers at the kindergarten were incredibly nice and gave me a towel to dry off and some hot tea to warm up before they introduced me to the kids.

I'd been forewarned about the behavior of kindergartners, and their tendency to kancho others. But foreknowledge and actual experience are two different things, for the word kancho means enema. The kids will clasp their hands together with their index fingers forming a gun and jab people in the rear or crotch while yelling kancho. Thankfully, when the teacher heard me saying "No!" to the offending kids she told them to stop and had them apologize. So I was never kanchoed again. But later during snack time other kids grabbed my chest. They'd also grabbed my sides, as if they were tickling me. So I'm not going to make anything of the kanchoing or grabbing, since they were done by innocent kids. But, it is rather disconcerting to be grabbed at and poked in one's private places, regardless. Added to the drenching commute and the kanchoing was the fact that I didn't know I needed to bring my lunch with me. (I eat the school lunch at my other school.) So when it came time for the kids to eat their obentos (boxed lunches), I planned to eat a candy bar I'd had in my purse for a week. But the principal (I assume) had the teachers' room manager go out in the pouring-down rain to get me lunch. No sooner had I finished eating a portion of someone's miso soup, tomatoes, and cheese than the manager walked in with a large selection of sandwiches, sausage rolls, and other items for me. To cap off the day, I had coffee and snacks at a table by myself, like I was at the kids' table, rather than at the empty desk in the teachers' desks bullpen before having to ride back home in the rain. My first experience at this school was unfortunate in many ways. But the teachers are extremely nice. The kids really are adorable. And I know it wasn't indicative of all the Wednesdays to come.

Thursday was the holiday known as Showa's Day. Showa (I believe this is more of a title than a name.) was the emperor of Japan prior to the current emperor. And April 29th, his birthday, is a national holiday. So what did some Americans do to celebrate the former Japanese emperor's birthday? We ate Mexican food in Tsukuba (affectionately known as Scuba) about an hour away. It was by no means like the Mexican food I've grown accustomed to eating. (Do Tex-Mex restaurants in the States serve a poached egg on arroz con pollo?) But it was great to eat chips and salsa nonetheless.

Friday was back to work; and I taught three classes of third graders and one class of fourth graders. My third grade lesson was delivered differently each time. And the students still need time to adjust to my teaching style. But I felt that the lesson went more along the lines of how I'd planned it to go than did the first grade's lesson.

Friday night began the Golden Week holiday. Golden Week 2010 is three one-day holidays (Constitution Day, Greenery Day, and Children's Day) that occur on May 3rd, 4th, and 5th. So it's a time for the entire country to be on holiday. I've enjoyed Golden Week so far, as I've spent time with old and new friends on Friday and visited Yokohama and Kamakura on Saturday and Sunday. But I'll save those stories and photos for another post.

Until next time...

*squeal*

Oh. My. Goodness. Today was my first day to teach. And I got to play with the kindergartners! I should have worn different clothing while I was playing with them, as I fell on my rear in the dirt, got muddy water splashed all over my pantleg, and had little snotty hands touching me. And I'm sure I looked a sight as I climbed on the playground equipment and ordered dirt-food takeout in my suit. But there is no way on earth I could have denied a little kid who was begging sensei to play. From the moment I stepped foot on the playground all these pink-hatted and yellow-hatted kids came running up to me. Some were shy and had to be coaxed to talk while others eagerly said hello. But almost all grabbed my hand and tugged me in the direction where they wanted me to play -- on the jungle gym, in the dirt, near the chickens, on the slide....

My favorite memory of the day is when they pulled me toward a concrete tunnel. I had to squat down to fit into it and then waddle my way through to come out the other side. When I was not more than three feet into the tunnel (It was probably 10-15 feet long.), a girl on a tricycle came barreling through from the other side. But when I turned around to try to go back out the way I'd come in, there were at least 10 kids crammed into the tunnel behind me. And then more came in from the exit! I felt like the old woman who lived in the shoe. And I loved every moment of it! Only next time I play with the kindergartners, I'll wear appropriate clothing.

Until next time...

Work Week One

On my 20-minute walk in the rain on the way to the bus terminal this morning, I noticed two things: First, inside an office, the employees were doing their morning exercise routine. I don't know if what they were doing was actually tai chi, but I wondered if I'll be doing morning exercises at my schools. I kind of hope I will be. And second, who knew manhole covers could be pretty? Whoever had the idea of putting a design of sakurabana (cherry blossom) on the covers received an appreciative fan today, as they gave me something nice to look at while my head was down against the blowing cold rain.

Day four on the new job finally felt like a workday, despite the fact that I've been wearing a suit all week. Monday was spent at City Hall all day, applying for gaijin (foreigner) identification cards and a bank account. It literally was a lot of sitting around and waiting interrupted by a walk across the parking lot for Indian food. Tuesday was spent in training with the AET sempai (senior teachers); and Wednesday was more of the same. But today we put what we learned during yesterday's training to good use, as we went back to City Hall to meet several of the employees of the Board of Education and visited our main schools for the first time.

We were formally presented to the Superintendent of the Board of Education this morning and received our certificates to teach English before being formally presented to the kyoto-sensei (vice-principals) of our schools this afternoon. At both ceremonies, there was a lot of bowing on everyone's part, a lot of hospitality extended on their part, and a lot of mangled Japanese on my part. Five times today I had to say "Watashi wa (my name) desu. Watashi no shogakko wa (school name) shogakko desu. Yoroshiku oneigaishimasu." And I said it differently each time. But I appreciate their graciousness in accepting my bumbled attempts to speak Japanese.

My elementary school is newly renovated and very nice. The teachers and administrators seemed extremely nice; and as an added blessing, there are a few English-speaking teachers in my school. Tomorrow is a half day for students/full day for teachers. On Monday I'll be at the kindergarten connected to my elementary school. Tuesday is a half day for students, as all the teachers in the city are conducting afternoon visits to their students' homes this week. On Wednesday I'll be at my third school, another kindergarten. Thursday is a national holiday. And Friday is another half day for students before heading into a five-day weekend for Golden Week (a week in which two national holidays fall). So my first full day to teach English at the elementary school will be two weeks from today. What a way to ease into a new job!

Tomorrow night is my welcome enkai, literally translated as drinking party. I'm looking forward to getting to know my coworkers outside the school, since Japanese people's at-work personae are different from their away-from-work personae. But I'm not looking forward to being around a lot of drunk people. Enkai are extremely important in Japanese society; and it's encouraged that we attend as many as possible so that we can create deeper relationships with the other teachers and staff. However, more than one enkai occurs in an evening. And several (expensive) enkai occur in a school year. So depending on how tomorrow night goes, the next enkai I write about may be the closing enkai of the year.

Until next time...