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...

Miyajima Island

Itsukushima Island (a.k.a, Miyajima Island) is a 12 square mile island located just a short ferry’s ride off the coast of Hiroshima. In the Shinto religion, the entire island is viewed as a shrine, which means that neither birth nor death may occur on the island, in order to protect its holiness. However, in addition to being home to several Shinto shrines, the most famous of which is Itsukushimajinja and its torii (gate), a few Buddhist temples also are present on the island.

Itsukushimajinja, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is dedicated to the daughters of the Shinto god of oceans and storms. Here, the torii is seen from the back of the jinja (shrine).

As quoted from Wikipedia: “A torii is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the profane to the sacred.” This is a different style of torii found at the back of the jinja.

The world’s largest rice paddle

Until next time…

Hiroshima

After the earthquake, my kouchou-sensei (principal) allowed me to have three days oyasumi (absence), as I had no work for the remaining six now-half days of the school year. At first, the days at home seemed to be a good idea. However, the aftershocks were still quite strong and frequent; and I discovered that staying home alone was far less preferable to sitting at school with nothing to do. So when my friends, R.D. and A.D., invited me to stay with them in Yokohama over the holiday weekend as well as go with them to Hiroshima for a couple of days, I jumped at the chance to use my last two days of nenkyuu (vacation) to get out of town. And, thankfully, my kyoutou-sensei (vice-principal) was more than willing to let me go. While I didn’t get as much rest as I would have liked, I was able to relax and enjoy myself.

My time in Yokohama was so nice and, now that I think about it, centered almost entirely on food, as there is an abundance of American-style and American chain restaurants scattered throughout Yokohama. But I was so stuffed from my four days of American food gluttony (I forgot the lesson that I learned on Guam about American portion sizes.) that I’m now inspired to eat only when hungry and to eat like Okinawans, who eat until they’re 80% full and then stop.

It was also great to discover that my friends and I travel well together. In traveling to/from and around Hiroshima, we moved at the same pace. (It helped that, at 5’9”, I’m the shortest of the three of us. However, it didn’t help in avoiding stares.) We were interested in seeing the same things. We got hungry at the same time. ☺ And we weren’t distraught when we ran out of time to see the Peace Memorial Museum before having to catch our Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Yokohama. So A.D and I are talking about when we might be able to travel back to see the museum. Here are some pictures from the Peace Memorial Park, with captions synthesized and quoted from the literature provided throughout the park:

A-bomb Dome: On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., an American B29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb approximately ¼ mile above and 1½ football stadiums away from the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. The building was almost completely destroyed by the resulting fire, causing everyone in the building to perish immediately. As time passed, the former promotion hall became a hazardous, derelict, and painful reminder of what happened during the war. So many wanted the ruins to be razed. But as the city was rebuilt and other buildings that had been destroyed by the bomb were cleared away, others began to advocate the preservation of the promotion hall. The first such project occurred in 1967, funded by Japanese and foreign donations, with several additional projects following in later years to guarantee that the promotion hall, renamed the A-bomb Dome, would forever look as it did following the bombing. In 1996, the A-bomb Dome was registered with the World Heritage List “as a universal peace monument appealing for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of lasting world peace.”

Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students: Over three million students over the age of 12 were mobilized to work throughout Japan during WWII. More than 10,000 of these students were killed, including 6,000 by the A-bomb.

"This tower was erected by concerned families and friends to console the souls of these victims who sacrificed themselves for their homeland, and who would have had a promising future had there been no war."

For those who died and those who cried: Japanese legend holds that if a person folds one thousand origami cranes, his or her wish will be granted by a crane, a traditionally holy creature. These cranes are hanging at the memorial tower.

Children’s Peace Monument: “This monument stands in memory of all children who died as a result of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima…. Built with contributions from more than 3,200 schools in Japan and donors in nine countries, the Children’s Peace Monument was unveiled on May 5, 1958.

“At the top of the nine-meter (27-feet) monument, a bronze statue of a young girl lifts a golden crane entrusted with dreams for a peaceful future. Figures of a boy and a girl are located on the sides of the monument. 

“The inscription on the stone block under the monument reads: ‘This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in this world.’…”

A one thousand crane origami mural at the peace monument whose kanji read “Peace”.

While in Hiroshima, we also visited Miyajima Island which lies off the coast. I'll include pictures from that portion of the trip in another post.

Until next time…

Why I'm staying in Japan

As I was wrestling with God last summer about leaving Japan, I was working through a Bible study on the lives of the women of Genesis. (Coincidentally, or perhaps providentially, I had worked through another study in the series when God re-called me to move to Japan last November.) Lot’s wife taught me that looking backward when I should be looking forward might prevent me from reaching a physical and/or spiritual safe haven that the Lord has prepared for me. And Sarah’s life showed me how taking matters into my own hands in order to hasten the delivery of a promise may result in greater distress. These stories of Abraham’s family greatly influenced my decision to stay in Japan.

While I would never presume to consider myself worthy of being included in the Hall of Faith with Abraham, in many ways I felt and continue to feel somewhat like him – God called both of us to leave our countries, our people, and our families in order to go to a different land. Here, though, the similarities in our situations end, and not just because he went with his wife, nephew, and entire household of servants and possessions whereas I went alone with two suitcases and a backpack. Although Abraham had no idea of where he was headed when he left his homeland, he knew what he would receive in that land because of the promise the Lord had given to him before he left. I, on the other hand, knew to what land I was going, although I had and continue to have no idea of what I might receive here because the Lord made me no promises other than those which are common to all believers, e.g., He will never leave nor forsake me. So to stay in Japan would require me to truly walk by faith.

When I considered that the Israelites wandered through the wilderness for 40 years because of their lack of faith and that some looked back toward the certainty of slavery rather than looked forward toward the uncertainty of the Promised Land, I wondered what unknown promise or gift I might deny myself if I were to leave Japan. So I decided to stay to see what the Lord had planned for me here in Japan when He first called me all those years ago. Yet knowing and believing all this didn’t stop the fear from setting in during the days following the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear plant problems. So once again I found myself wanting to leave Japan despite knowing that the Lord hadn’t conditioned my stay with an early-departure clause for natural disaster. Once again I found myself praying for another clear indication that God wanted me to stay in Japan such as I’d prayed for when He re-called me to Japan almost 16 months ago. And once again the Lord proved faithful in graciously overlooking my fear in order to answer the prayer of my heart.

The aftershocks continue to come each day. I now must pore over produce and dairy labels at the grocery store. And I feel lost over here in so many ways. But my kouchou-sensei (principal) asked me to stay next year instead of telling me to return to America, which was my post-earthquake fleece for distinguishing the Lord’s will. So I have to remind myself everyday that this is where I’m supposed to be this day. I don’t know if Japan is my literal or figurative Promised Land or just a rest stop on the road there. But I do know that I want my faith to be more than a t. So I will stay in Japan for a second year. Pray that I will seek the Lord’s guidance in November when making the decision about a third year.

Until next time…

George Michael's "Faith" certainly didn't look like this.

We had another fairly strong earthquake today. I have no idea what's considered an aftershock from Friday's quake, what's considered a new quake, and if any of the quakes/aftershocks that we've received are fulfilling the predicted 60%-70% chance of a similarly-sized follow-up. But I've been getting new earthquake notifications on my phone for the past couple of days, with some of the quakes being strong and some being comparatively minuscule. Granted, I got no earthquake notification for the world's fifth largest earthquake. So who knows how much credence I should give them. But I did sleep fairly wonderfully when back in my own bed last night, despite the ongoing tremors throughout the night.

That said, the first of the teachers in my group, a couple, understandably headed toward Narita as soon as this afternoon's earthquake hit. We are all on edge. And with no idea of when these quakes and nuclear uncertainties will subside, several of my coworkers have bags packed so that, if necessary, they can head out the door at a moment's notice. With no obligation to go school until Friday and with today's large tremor, I've decided that I will join the ready-to-leave-at-a-moment's-notice group. If I do leave, I'll certainly be leaving behind some of the clothing that I brought with me. And I may not be able to bring home all of the precious notes and other gifts given to me by students and parents. So I'm doing the difficult sorting today to pare down to one checked bag and one carry-on.

Yet if it comes down to making the decision to leave, it's not going to be an easy one. I've long felt God's calling for me to be in Japan. Though I appreciate the refinement I've received since coming here, it's been an extremely painful process and doesn't fit with the awesome-yet-nebulous gifts that I thought I would receive by following His calling. I've felt like an outsider at school the entire time I've been here. I've been sick more than I've been healthy since arriving. And I've not taught EBC at church since October, when all three of my students stopped coming. So though I decided to stay for a second year, that decision was reached only after wrestling with the Lord for several months. Ultimately, my decision to stay was based on my desire to be obedient to His will and to not miss out on whatever He wants to do in me and through me by being here. If I decide to leave as a result of these quakes, tsunami, and potential nuclear danger, I feel like though leaving is wise in man's eyes, it's disobedience in God's eyes. Please pray for me that I'll make a Spirit-led decision.

Until next time...

Nibankari (Aftermath)

**If you're looking for my Jishin! (Earthquake!) post, please scroll down. 

The aftermath of the earthquake has been quite stressful. However, my friends and I have all been looking out for each other. So it has made this ordeal much less intimidating.

Not knowing for how long we'd be without utilities, C.G. and I decided that we would weather the earthquake aftermath together. The first decision of weathering an unknown number of days without water, which affects toilet usage, was to assign one apartment the small potty toilet and the other apartment the big potty toilet. Lucky for me she designated me the keeper of the small potty toilet!

The second decision of not knowing when we would get running water again involved us going in search for water. Japan is a nation that has vending machines on almost every corner. Near my apartment are seven within a two-minute walk. But with no electricity, they were inoperable. (Apparently in times of crisis, one vending machine company allows for its machines' contents to be accessed when there is no power. But we didn't know this at the time.) And the kombini were closed. So we decided to walk to the city's education research office, which is located near my apartment, to check in. On the way there, we stumbled across a warehouse that was selling cases of drinks for ¥1100. (A drink from a vending machine can cost ¥150.) Amazingly, the warehouse wasn't taking advantage of people's desperation for water by charging ridiculously high prices. Unfortunately, they also weren't rationing. So C.G. and I, though we stood in line, were unable to buy any drinks. We met one of the Japanese families from church in the line. We all hugged each others' necks and made sure that everyone was okay before C.G. and I headed off to the education research office with two of their onigiri (rice balls) and some cans of coffee that they refused to let us turn down. (Literally, one of the daughters shoved four cans of coffee into my coat pockets. And though C.G. had already accepted two cans of coffee, the mother tossed another one into her purse as we were walking away.) Upon arriving at the education research office to let the staff know that we were okay, we were able to use a working toilet, wash our hands, and get 10 liters of water.

As the day went on, we noticed people standing in really long lines at kombini, at a grocery store, at a gas station, and at a home center. We were struck by how polite and patient everyone was being in spite of the horrible situation they now found themselves in. C.G. had told me the story from her walk home on Friday of seeing people standing in line at a kombini whose clerks were selling goods through a broken window in order to manage the crowd. Nobody stormed the locked doors to force them open. Instead, they waited patiently for their turn to make a purchase. Through all of this, we've witnessed only one occasion when someone tried to line jump for gasoline. No one has been yelling, pushing, or rioting in their panic. And the third decision we arrived at is if anyone ever has to weather a natural disaster, Japan is the place in which to do it.

Fourth, C.G. and I decided to combine our food resources. While we've not eaten luxuriously or even gotten full at each meal as a result of sharing our food, we have been good at helping each other ration what we do have in order to make it stretch as far as possible. This includes what we already had in our apartments as well as what we found at a fresh produce market that was set up near church on Sunday. We've shared with each other and with K.M. and A.H., two people who opened their apartments to us on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights while we waited for our utilities to come back on. And at church on Sunday, other friends shared their food with us and invited us back to their apartment for a meal, since their utilities already had been turned back on.

Due to our extreme fatigue (ten hours of sleep in a four-day period), we've found great hilarity in some of the things we've said. But we've also tried to find the humor in the situation in order to keep ourselves from dwelling on the magnitude of what is happening all around us. At A.H.'s apartment, her refrigerator had purged itself of its contents during the earthquake before closing its door, which made me think of the armoire in Beauty and the Beast which defends itself against invaders by vomiting its owner's clothing onto the attackers. And as A.H.'s freezer didn't feel as threatened (or perhaps because it opens with a drawer rather than a door), its contents were spared. So once we'd washed the dishes, we decided that the freezer was the safest, albeit coldest, place to protect them in case of an aftershock sending things toppling again, which had happened to our friend N.P.

The utilities at my apartment came back on Monday, where I am now happy to spend my time since my school has told me to stay home until Friday's graduation, as there is no work for me to do there. While I plan to stay on top of what the latest news is saying about the nuclear reactors, in order to minimize my stress, I plan to treat the next two days as a staycation, watching movies, catching up on American TV shows, and doing anything that might temporarily free my mind from worry about what is happening and what decision I should make next.

Until next time...