ひなまつり (Hinamatsuri)

Hinamatsuri (Girls' Festival, also known as Dolls' Festival) and formally called Momonosekku (Peach Festival) occurs on March 3rd and is an occasion to pray for young girls' health and growth, good marriages, and happiness. Homes with girls as well as schools display dolls for the festival and dedicate to them peach blossoms, rice cake cubes, hishimochi (special colored diamond-shaped rice cakes), shirozake (sweet white sake), and other items. Leaving the hina display out too long is said to delay marriage. So it is customary to put them away soon after March 3rd.

The origin of the hinamatsuri is an ancient Chinese practice in which the sins of the body and misfortune are transferred to a doll and washed away by setting the doll in a river to drift away. When this practice spread to Japan, it was linked to girls playing with dolls and in the Edo Period (1603-1867) was developed into the hinamatsuri. Originally, the dolls were made of paper. Today, the dolls and the displays are quite intricate and can cost upward of 330,000 JPY (over 4,000 USD using today's exchange rate) for a seven-tiered display, such as shown in the top picture, which contains (from top platform to bottom platform) the emperor and empress, three court ladies, five musicians with different instruments, two guardians with hishimochi, three fellows, the bride's dowry, and transportation and obento boxes. The emperor and the empress alone can cost 85,000 JPY (over 1,000 USD).

To learn about this traditional aspect of Japanese culture, two friends and I attended an international communication society event. There we made our own origami hina dolls and ate hinamatsuri cuisine. I think I did a pretty good job making my lady, if I do say so myself. As a gift for all 30 of us in attendance, our origami sensei made each of us a lord for our lady.

The hinamatsuri feast was quite good -- an informal style of sushi whose name I can't remember along with specially-prepared cucumbers, strawberries, and amazake (a sweet, non-alcoholic drink made from rice). But my favorite part of the feast was the sakura mochi dessert -- pink-tinged mochi (sticky rice cake) with anko (red bean paste) wrapped in a preserved sakura (cherry) leaf. Many foreigners, as previously mentioned, don't like anko. And the flavor of the sakura leaf is quite sharp. But I love it!

To learn more about the hinamatsuri, I strongly recommend reading about it on Wikipedia.

'Til next time...

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

There is an aspect of American culture that I know only through TV and movies -- the practice of bringing a plate of cookies or some other such gift (such as the beer one of my former coworkers gave to her new college-aged neighbors) to welcome a new neighbor into the neighborhood. In my (shhh!) years of living in the U.S., I don't remember experiencing this practice myself. However, I don't have the best memory in the world. So if you're someone who brought something to my home(s), please forgive me for my forgetfulness. And if you're one of the many people to whom I never gave a welcome gift, please forgive me for my rudeness.

Today I've just experienced something that I'd known only through my language textbook. In Japan, the new neighbor doesn't receive gifts but gives omiyage (gifts) to all his/her new neighbors to introduce him/herself and to lay the groundwork for any future interactions they might have. The omiyage doesn't have to be large in terms of size or expense and is usually practical (e.g., hand towel) or delicious (e.g., sweets). I don't know if neighbors in five-story apartment complexes like the one I lived in last year buy omiyage for everyone in the building or just those who live on their floor. And in a neighborhood of houses, I don't know how far the neighbor-radius extends from one's house. But as my new apartment building is only for four tenants, thankfully my new neighbor didn't have to spend a lot of money to give us her omiyage.

As I already have plenty of hand towels, I was happy that my neighbor opted for delicious omiyage (cakes, cookies, and a surprise)!

'Til next time...

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...

It's more than a t.

Being a Protestant Christian, I never realized how much the Sign of the Cross has shaped some foreign non-Christians' understanding of Christianity. Granted, Protestant Christians don't have as distinctive a worship gesture as do Catholic Christians. And my lack of realization probably says more about me than I intend it to, since it may signify that I rarely attempt to look at the world through another person's eyes. But I find it very interesting that every time I mention to my Japanese teachers something that I did at or with my kyoukai (church), they cross themselves. So that presents the question, What do I presume to understand about other people's religions based on something as simple and as non-revealing as a gesture?

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.

So this is Christmas.

I've always struggled with the saying "Jesus is the reason for the season." Many years ago I heard that the early church appropriated a winter pagan holiday and renamed it Christmas so that Christians wouldn't feel badly about celebrating alongside their neighbors or so that those neighbors might become Christians. I've heard sermons preached that explained how Jesus had to have been born on December 25 as well as how He couldn't have been born on December 25, let alone in winter. And I don't think it's unfair to say that the commercialization of the holiday has distorted the remembrance of Jesus' birth in the collective American Christmas experience, even that of Christians. So since I've never found a Scripture that mandates an annual birthday party for Jesus and I remember His birth (and, more importantly, His life, death, and resurrection) on a more-than-once-a-year basis, I've always viewed Christmas as a holiday to be spent enjoying time with my family. Thus, when it became apparent back in November that I was going to be in Japan for Christmas, I didn't have much optimism for how my first Christmas away from family would be... especially once I learned more about the Japanese celebration of Christmas.

One of the things I am most passionate about is learning about other people's languages, cultures, and histories. So my ethnocentrism level is typically very low. As two very minor yet related examples, when I learned that some German families hang a pickle ornament on their Christmas trees, I found this to be intriguing rather than weird. And I really want to know what Christmas is like in the Land Down Under, since Aussies celebrate Christmas in a season when there's not even the slightest chance for snow. (Does Santa wear a tank top, Bermuda shorts, and flip flops?) But when I heard about Christmas in Japan I became saddened, for Christmas here, though it has an appearance that is familiar to me, is substantially different. (Yes, I know why that is. No, knowing why didn't help me think more charitably toward Christmas in Japan.) Christmas lights decorated the station road. A few of my students had Christmas trees in their homes. And Christmas music played rabidly in the stores. But Japanese Christmas is a kind of Sadie Hawkins' Dance/MORP holiday in which women ask men out on dates before they head to KFC (no lie) for dinner. So can you see how I was having difficulty getting into my kind of Christmas spirit, even though I knew I wouldn't be spending it alone? (For an even more detailed posting about Christmas in Japan, see Kelly Osato's Christmas 2008 blog post.)

Thankfully, my actual Christmas celebration turned out to be far better than my imaginings had led me to fear it might be. I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with eight other Japanese and North Americans at the missionaries' house. On Christmas Eve, we enjoyed each others' company over yummy snacks while talking about anything and everything and watching White Christmas, although I can honestly say I have never seen that movie since I fell asleep as it was starting. On Christmas Day we ate a German-style breakfast, opened stockings, exchanged gifts, played all kinds of games, listened to Christmas music, shared in cleaning responsibilities (even the guys!), had an amazing Christmas dinner, and ran out of hot water, which reminded me of so many family holidays when something would go wrong with the house. So while I was sad to be away from my family during the Christmas holidays, I am so happy that I had an amazing Christmas with great friends here in Japan. If this next school year is my last year to be in Japan, I most likely won't go home for Christmas 2011 since I'll be returning to the States just three months later. But I won't dread that since I know now that I can have a wonderful Christmas here in Japan.

Until next time...

Being a Christian in Japan

At the spring retreat for the foreigner population at my church, our minister shared with us that Japan is a nation of approximately 127 million people. Of that 127 million people, only one million people are considered to be Christian, with Catholicism and Protestantism evenly represented at around 500,000 followers each. Doing the math, you can see that fewer than 1% of the country's population is Christian. And of that one million person Christian population, only 1,000 or so are on the same branch of the church tree as I. And those 1,000 people are distributed over approximately 60 churches served by 30 to 40 ministers. So when I had the opportunity to go last week with some members of my church to a small church about 90 minutes away from where I live, I was eager to go, as I wanted to see what it is like for these Christians to worship together on Sundays.

During the drive to this small church, I learned that it has three members - a husband and wife and another man. During the drive back from the church, I asked the minister and missionary how these three people receive teaching on Sunday mornings. Do they take turns sharing something they've learned from Scripture? I was told that different churches from our prefecture will take turns visiting this church once a month to encourage them. However, often it is only the minister from these other churches who visits. During the other Sundays of the month, the members will gather to sing together, take communion together, and listen to sermons on tape. It was fear of this very thing that caused me to not come to Japan all those years ago. I was afraid I would find myself living in a town with either no church or such a small church and that my faith would be negatively effected. And so I was struck by how blessed I am now to be in the city where I live, for I worship at the second largest church of my denomination in Japan.

To be a Japanese Christian is not an easy path to follow. Often a Japanese Christian is the only member of his or her family who is Christian. So sometimes family members are hostile toward him or her because of his or her faith that isn't keeping in line with the family values. And Japanese Christians may get blamed for any calamity that befalls the family, whether a logical connection can be made or not. So many Japanese Christians are secret Christians,  from their friends and neighbors and sometimes even their own family members.

I was amazed that the three Japanese members of this church have been able to remain faithful in a country where so many people have no faith or have lost faith. While I don't know how large their church was at its peak, as recently as last year it had five members. So their church is dying, which also is the norm in Japan. It astonishes me that the married couple goes to a church building on Sundays when they could just as easily worship together at home. I can only imagine that the Japanese collectivist tendency (focus on the group rather than on the individual) and/or compassion for the one man are what prompt them to leave their home each Sunday. And I imagine that for the one man, the time he spends with this couple each week is crucial to helping him maintain his faith, for if he has a family, it doesn't appear that they are believers.

I've tried to end this post a few different ways; but I'm having difficulty writing exactly what I want to say. So I'll just say this. Whether you are a Christian in a small or large church, please give thanks to God for the physical and spiritual blessings present in your church, lean on Him to help you strengthen your faith, and pursue meaningful relationships with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Until next time...

Are you sure this is Africa?

Did you know that when you step foot in an embassy technically you're stepping foot on the soil of that country? Well, when one of my AET friends, A.T., who is Ethiopian-American, invited me a few weeks ago to attend a Japanese-Ethiopian culture night celebration with him and his wife at the Ethiopian embassy, I was more than ready to go. I wouldn't get a stamp in my passport for walking through the doors. And the scenery would look a whole lot more like Tokyo than Addis Ababa. But I'd be attending a state party in Ethiopia!

When yesterday arrived for our 12-member party to travel for the event, we had to make the decision of whether or not to go due to an incoming typhoon. Many of us would have preferred to stay home. But A.T. was so excited to share his country's food, music, and dancing with us that none of us could tell him no. So we piled into two vehicles and took off for Tokyo at 1pm Africa time, which means that while we were supposed to leave at 1pm, we actually left at 2pm. Unfortunately, that late departure was an unknown-at-the-time foreshadowing of how our travel to the party would go, for when we finally arrived at a metered parking lot that was as close as we could get to the embassy, A.T. told us that the party wasn't at the embassy at all but at another location instead. After another hour of cell-phone-GPS consulting, hailing a cab whose driver couldn't find the building, and pulling one of two Ethiopian guys who were walking on the street into said cab to lead us to our destination, we arrived completely frustrated. But thankfully the event was very enjoyable and most of us were able to forget about the stress of our travel during the course of the evening.

The event was attended mainly by Japanese people, naturally. However, there were several Ethiopian expatriates at the party. And A.T. introduced our group to the ambassador from Ethiopia. Unfortunately, I only got to see him rather than meet him.

The Ethiopian food that we ate was good but very spicy. Having become accustomed to much milder food this past six months, I don't know if I would have found the food to be so spicy if my U.S. palate were still intact. But my mouth was on fire with just a few bites and I was unable to finish my meal.

The Japanese dancers doing both traditional Japanese as well as traditional Ethiopian dances were quite good. But the best part of the evening was when the people attending the party were invited to join in with the dancing.

H.V. and N.N. dancing on the sidelines, although H.V. earlier in the evening had been one of the people to get up and perform with the dancers.

Ethiopian dancing heavily involves moving the shoulders, which the two Ethiopians in this picture were able to do quite well. J.M. couldn't quite manage the shoulders, although he would have been more than happy to show us the hips-driven Latin dances that he learned while growing up in Honduras.

I never made it to Africa last night. So I guess I'll just have to go at some point in the future. But at one of the traffic lights on the way home, I saw what is surely the world's smallest liquor store (and its bored-looking employee). If I'd wanted to lie down on the floor to measure the store's width, I would have touched the exterior wall with my head and the interior wall with my feet. (Please don't fail to notice the store's name.) When you live and work in a city as crowded as Tokyo, you make the most of every square inch.

Until next time...

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...

Really, Pam? Really?

Pam Jones, Bridget's mother in the movie Bridget Jones's Diary, when talking about Mark Darcy's Japanese ex-wife, calls her a member of a "cruel race". While this likely is done for plot and/or comedic purpose, it may also be a commentary by the screenwriters about Japan's aggression in China and the Pacific before and during World War II. While some nations feel that the government of Japan still owes amends for its war crimes (a topic that is not the focus of this post or this blog), in my trips to Japan, I've found the people of Japan to be anything but cruel.

As mentioned in a previous post, on the first day that I went to my one-day-a-week kindergarten, I was unaware that I needed to pack a lunch since I eat kyuushoku (school lunch) with the students at my main school. Upon learning that I had no lunch, the jimuin (teacher's room manager) left school in cats-and-dogs rain to buy me something to eat and then wouldn't allow me to repay her. 

During my first month or two of being here, I needed to see a bank teller to handle a transaction since my bank card had not yet arrived. So T.-sensei, my jimuin, took me to the bank one day after lunch. As we were walking into the bank, I smelled the most heavenly scent coming from the bakery just across the street. And as we were walking out of the bank, I told T.-sensei that I would like to go into the bakery to see what smelled so wonderful. While I was looking at the cases trying to decide if I wanted anything, T.-sensei was making a purchase of six madeleines, yummy French pastries, that she then proceeded to give to me, for they had been the source of the wonderful smell.

In working to transfer N.P.'s scooter into my name, I asked several other AETs for assistance. Some of the AETs were kind enough to help me directly. But others said, "Talk to...." And when I would talk to..., he or she would say, "Talk to..." and before I knew it I was circled back around to the first person with whom I'd spoken. It was frustrating since I had no idea what I needed to do and felt that the scooter experts in the group were passing the buck. But when I told K.-sensei, my school nurse, about one of the questions for which I needed help, she and N.-sensei, the jimuho (handyman / groundskeeper), spent an hour online searching for the scooter's model number so that I could fill out the change of ownership paperwork.

My nephew's seventh birthday is this weekend. And I searched many stores here and in Tokyo over the course of several weeks in order to find just the right gift. The special education teacher called a couple different stores to ask if they had the items for which I was searching so that I wouldn't have to traipse all over the city once again. And when the one item that would complete the gift remained elusive, K.-sensei said that she would keep her eyes open for it. I told her to not worry about it, since I knew that it meant she would make a special trip to find that item. As anticipated, when I arrived at work the next day, not only had she found that elusive item but she'd also found several extra-special bonus items and wouldn't accept money for any of it.

I find the Japanese people to be more Christ-like in their actions than many Christians I've met, including myself. And it's not just the people at school who know me who've been so kind. They think of others before they think of themselves. They apologize for things that they personally did not do (e.g., attack at Pearl Harbor). And they go out of their way to help a person in need. In my experience, Pam Jones doesn't know what she's talking about.

Lessons learned on Guam

I spent most of the first week of August on Guam with three other English teachers for our use-them-or-lose-them five days of tokkyu (summer vacation). We flew out of Japan on Sunday's red-eye and flew into Japan on Friday's first flight out and packed all of our waking hours in between with sight-seeing, shopping, and stuffing our faces with American food. Although the trip wasn't a cheap one, I am proud to say that I was able to eat for four days at just around $100, thanks to splitting every meal but breakfast with my friend, H.V. (I highly recommend the California Club pizza at California Pizza Kitchen. But I strongly advise you to stay away from the CPK Cobb Salad. It's way too rich.)

Guam is an American territory that sits closer to Japan (three-hour flight) than it does to the United States (eight-hour flight to Hawaii). As a result, 75% of its tourism is comprised of East Asians (historically Japanese but increasingly South Koreans and Chinese); and the Japanese written language can be seen alongside its English equivalent on restaurant menus and mall directories and the spoken language heard just as frequently if not more predominately than English. Its interesting history has resulted in a blend of Chamorro (native), Spanish, Asian, and American family and location names. But rather than write a post that is a history lesson, I'll let you read more about that here and here. Guam has beautiful scenery; and I took too many pictures to post on this blog. So please click here if you'd like to see some of the views I saw while there. Instead, I'll use this post to enumerate lessons I learned/opinions I developed while on Guam:

1. Diet Coke really doesn't taste good and should never become an acquired taste.
2. The world's largest Kmart, while very nice, can't be all that boastful if it carries only two George Clooney movies (one of which is Return of the Killer Tomatoes!) and no York Peppermint Patties.
3. Stomachs shrink after living in Japan; and American restaurant portion sizes are sickeningly huge.
4. Omiyage, the Japanese art of gift giving to honor relationships, is a racket designed by Japanese companies to keep themselves in business.
5. Liev Schreiber almost wins the award for the perfect villain's voice. Sadly for him but happily for us, he's beaten out by Alan Rickman.
6. Touring World War II battle and memorial sites with Japanese people is somewhat awkward, even though the war is most probably the fault of neither of us.
7. Americans are very loud and need to be more discreet about or, even better, not discuss at all their spouse's reproductive problems and their "bastard child(ren) in the Philippines" over Chili's chips and salsa.

Until next time...

Training can be fun!

Although summer vacation began for students last week, as mentioned in my last post, teachers don't get off for the summer break and are required to be at school, to attend seminars, and (for some) to assist with AET training (unless they are taking a one-day vacation, that is) during the six-week break. That is where I have been this past week -- in AET training. Having arrived in Japan just three and a half months ago and having sat through rookie training during that first week we were here, I didn't know what to expect with this summer's team training. I was afraid it was going to be a rehash of what we'd gone through in April, and while I was so jet-lagged that I don't remember the vast majority of what was shared with us during that first week, I wasn't looking forward to hearing it all again. But as I found out this week, when done right, training can actually be fun! Rather than bore you with all the details of what we did this week, I'll just share the highlights.

Every morning began with a game led by our self-monikered Wolf Pack (activities) leaders, B.W. and D.L. On Monday we played the game Take a Hike. In this game one person stands in the middle of a circle of people sitting in chairs; and there are enough chairs for everyone in the game minus one so that there is always a person left to stand in the middle. The person in the middle then says "Take a hike if..." and then all the people who can agree with that statement must get up and move chairs. Some of the best comments that caused people to change chairs included, "Take a hike if your home room teacher has ever fallen asleep in class." and "Take a hike if you've ever kanchoed a student."

Thursday had each of us writing a question on a slip of paper and then putting that paper into a hat. We each drew another question from the hat and answered it on a different piece of paper before putting the paper with the answer back into the hat. Then we drew an answer from the hat and matched it with the question we had held onto. The most hilarious question/answer was read by H.W., a female AET. "What would you do if women were the dominant sex?" "I'd cry and take off my shirt." Who knows what question that answer was really responding to!

In Friday's game, we each got a half piece of paper on which we were to write a statement. We passed the paper to another person who then drew a picture to match that statement. Before the person passed the paper to a third person, he/she folded the paper so that the original statement couldn't be seen; and the third person had to write a statement based on the picture. Then the fourth person, who couldn't see either the original statement or picture, had to draw a picture based on the most recent statement. I think we got about five or six people deep in our sentence-picture-sentence game before we were told to stop. By far the funniest sentence progression was, "I like babies with chubby cheeks." "I love barbecues!"

As part of our training discussions, we watched a couple episodes of the late-70s British TV show, "Mind Your Language," which is a series about a man who teaches English as a second language to adult students who've immigrated to the U.K. It's quite politically incorrect for the 21st Century. However, the attitudes, words, and actions of the characters in the show still can be found in the world today; so the clips were relevant for us to watch. We compared and contrasted the teacher's classroom behaviors and school relationships with those of our own. A clip of the show is provided below. Would you want these people to be your teacher and administrator?

After four days of job training, we ended on Friday with a fun Japanese cultural day and learned how to make California sushi rolls and fold origami at the International Center. Given that professional sushi chefs receive training for 10 years and still don't consider themselves to be masters, making sushi wasn't as daunting as I thought it would be. And it was quite fun! I don't know how frequently I'll make it on my own; but I'm glad to know how.

I'd spent a lot of time telling the others how to roll and cut their sushi, as I had been directly behind the instructor while she demonstrated how to assemble the ingredients of nori (seaweed), rice, avocado, imitation crab, and cucumber and they hadn't been able to see her actions from where they were standing. When it came my turn to make a California roll, I was afraid that I would prove myself to be all talk and no action. But my roll came together quite well, I'm proud to say.

The meal was served family style; and 24 of us AETs prepared sushi. So there's no telling if I ever got to try the roll that I made.

The shrimp, fish, egg, and tuna salad was do-it-yourself sushi that could be wrapped in lettuce leaves, nori, or the dark green leaves that are native to Thailand.

The instructors made the orange gelatin for us. They juiced the oranges and used powdered seaweed as the gelatin and then allowed them to set in the halved orange rinds before cutting each half into thirds before serving. They were quite good and didn't have a seaweed taste to them at all.

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.

Being Sick in Japan

I've been sick for the past couple weeks. What was originally a cold has become what feels like a sinus infection. But because I didn't have my insurance card until late last night, I'd been unable to go to the doctor. This morning I made several phone calls trying to find someone to take me to the doctor. The guy who is the AETs' liaison with the city was "very busy" and his assistant doesn't have the proper authority (whatever that means) to take me. So he told me to ask my vice principal or head English teacher to take me. But neither of them speaks English. (Yes, my head English teacher doesn't speak English.) So I called the minister and the missionaries at the church to see if one of them could take me. And M.T., the woman I met all those years ago when I came to Japan for Let's Start Talking, was very kind to do so. But it's hard being dependent on others for their transportation, language skills, etc., especially when we've been told not to impose on church members for our needs. So even though M.T. had told me to call her if I needed anything and was very happy to be able to help me, I still felt like I was imposing.

The doctor I saw had spent two or three years in the U.S. back in the '80s and spoke English with me. However, he wouldn't look at me when he talked to me. And his nurse physically moved my body in the way that she wanted it to go rather than asking M.T. to translate any directions she might have for me. (I felt like the Japanese kindergarten students I teach whose sensei physically push/pull them around the room to where they want them to move.) But M.T. thinks that maybe he was nervous with her presence in the room, since when she tried to clarify something he'd said in English by asking the same thing in Japanese, he said, in English, "That's what I told her." (Perhaps this was a "face" issue for him, to be in the presence of another Japanese person who speaks English very well when he was self-conscious of his own abilities.) Whether his bedside manner is always so abrupt or not, I don't care. My visit to the doctor and the medicine he gave me (for which I didn't have to go to a pharmacy to pick up) cost me less than $15. Say what you want about socialized medicine. But it worked for me today!