IN A NUTSHELL: Square Dancing With Ninth Graders
And Eikaiwa Returns It seemed every time I walked into the Culture Center, Arikawa-san was asking about whether I would do an eikaiwa. I said 'sure, I can do it if people are interested.' I've said this several times, so I don't know why he keeps asking. I don't mind doing it, but I don't want to put a lot of effort into organizing it for only a handful of people, especially since my two regulars, Maruyama-san and Odagawa-san, are doing another eikaiwa in Miyoshi with Kate. ANYWAY, someone finally took the initiative. Arikawa-san came to the Jr. High today and handed me my new eikaiwa schedule starting September. I'll be paid in money this time, not vacation, not that it matters to me as long as I don't have to do it for free (that would not be fair to my successor.) I wonder who will show up?
Putting Tents Up Most of the teachers and students spent the afternoon outside, preparing for Sports Day on Sunday. I helped put up one of the white gazebo tent things. I should be better at putting up things, having been an architecture major for two years. But I'm not, really. One 9th grader had to tell the rest of us (students AND teachers) which poles went where and how to hoist it up. It was actually a very clever design.
The "American Promenade" Misawa-sensei asked me to come outside for a bit and I soon realized why. There are so many boys in the 9th grade class that they were girl-deficient for the dance they planned to do at the end of sports day. I joined in. It was not too hard to get the hang of even though I had never done either of the dances before (maybe because I'm American? I picked it up infinitely faster than the Bon dance at the elementary school sports day.) The first felt more ballroomish, but the second felt square-dancish. We went in a big circle and the boys moved forward after each repetition so I ended up dancing with almost all my 9th graders. It was fun, but a little weird.
I've Never Seen That at My YMCA I was walking back from the exercise room at the culture center when I saw a group of ladies in a Japanese-style tatami room, sitting on their knees in the formal "seiza" position. I assumed it was perhaps tea ceremony, given the traditional music in the background. Then I saw the batons. Batons with fluffy neon pink and green poms at the end were being twirled by the (not particularly young) ladies. I was frozen on the stairs for several minutes just watching. This is one Japanese traditional art I've certainly never heard of.
IN A NUTSHELL: Conference in Kobe for Re-Contracting JETs - Day 1
Getting to Kobe Carina and I caught a shinkansen to Kobe, a little worried we were running late until we saw other JETs on the same train. At Kobe Station, we eventually found JETs en masse waiting for the bus to the hotel. They had to charter an extra one because there were so many of us. The bus crossed a bridge and we were on the man-made island in the sea. At the lavish hotel, we were guided toward the basement reception by tons of uniformed, polite staff, far more than were needed. Smartly, they had two key-cards per room so roommates did not have to depend on the random person they shared the room with to get in. This is good since I never even saw my roommate until the next morning. I would have preferred a single room, though; I am an adult.
Hey, This is a Pretty Good Conference I was pretty impressed by the opening panel discussion. It looks like this conference will be better than I gave it credit for. They opened the floor up for questions and most of the JETs who walked up to the microphones at the front of either aisle of the auditorium had very pertinent questions except for two weird people, one who went on a seemingly irrelevant tangent about racism and the other who admitted that he criticized and corrected the teacher in front of the class then wondered why she starting sitting in the back, not participating. Duh. How many times did they tell us to have a little diplomacy and not force the teacher to lose face in front of her students? The panel handled the question so well, they got a round of applause.
The AJET Secretariat I went to the mezzanine and asked a couple questions to the AJET rep on duty. The first was, "What the heck is a secretariat?" and then I asked if I could go through with my crazy idea of writing an AJET book on passing the driver's test. (This, even though I haven't passed it myself yet.) Everyone was very receptive and excited. Woo hoo!
Turtle Vending Machine? After the opening workshop (I went to "Drama in the Classroom" which was only so-so) was over, people were hanging out in the lobby. Luckily, I got invited to go to dinner with the Hawaiians. Hawaiians are the most fun! Anyway, after dinner in a strange Chinese restaurant, we got some Haagen Dazs and wandered downtown Kobe. It was bright and fun. We skirted Random Vomiting Man and did some puri-kura (took a picture in a photo booth) then we passed the strangest thing I have ever seen. On prominent display in front of an arcade was a game where you move a claw around and try to pick up a prize. Except in this case, the prizes were LIVE TURTLES! They looked to be baking under the bright light of the machine and there were a few dead turtles floating in the shallow water. We stared at it, not quite believing something so strange and cruel actually existed among the much tamer surrounding machines.
To Starbucks or Not To Starbucks We wanted coffee and a place to hang out after 10pm. We found ourselves on a street corner. If we crossed one street, we would be at Starbucks. If we crossed the other, we would be at Excelsior (A prominent Starbucks copycat in Japan.) We went to Excelsior. Just 'cause.
IN A NUTSHELL: Conference in Kobe for Re-Contracting JETs - Day 2
Workshops My favorite workshop today was on the theory of Multiple Intelligences. I got ideas just from the way she did the presentation. People found their groups by making the animal sound of the animal written on one's sheet (no talking allowed). When she chose someone at random, she asked things like "Who's wearing blue?" "Who is an only child?" "Who has a birthday on the 16th?" "Who has climbed Mt. Fuji?" then picked someone from the few who raised their hand. The actual presentation was phenomenal as well, and the quiz (to find our own "Intelligence") was fun. I think I will start to put this theory into practice at my schools with all the good ideas she included in the handout. The workshop on Music in the Classroom was pretty good. I was amazed when she suddenly taught all of us the Macarena. I kind of stole the microphone and added the bit about teaching the kids the names of the months while doing the 12 steps of the Macarena. A couple people had heard about it already, but most liked the idea. We then did "Music Poetry" where we changed a verse of "Imagine" by John Lennon then read our new versions aloud individually. I was vastly confused, however. Am I the only one who thinks the lyrics are happy? I mean, it's about living in peace, right? Here are the lyrics (we only used the first four lines of the second verse, changing the key words to make a new and often amusing poem.):
"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."
So I guess it's the first line that throws everyone off. It's not often that someone talks about heaven in a negative way. In this case, heaven is an indefinable 'higher purpose' people strive for when they should be living for their life today. I think. I am notoriously unskilled at interpreting lyrics, but it seems pretty obvious here. [Editor's note from 5 years later: I apparently missed entirely at the time that this song is pretty much describing Communism...] Yet, the presenter said, "I'm sorry these are such sad lyrics" and most of the audience did not seem to get it, even in their poems. People kept putting good things in place in heaven so their poems did not make that much sense. You're supposed to put something bad, right? Am I wrong that "Imagine" is a happy song? One girl put centipedes! She understood! It was one of the best poems, except that most of the audience did not understand when she used the Japanese word for centipede: "mukade" They have probably never had to deal with them, lucky bastards. After lunch, which was efficient and yummy, we had more workshops. I went to "TEFL/TESOL Theory" which had a very clever presenter who kept practicing bad teaching techniques then would stop and asked us what he just did wrong. One time, I was suddenly lost at what I was supposed to do - I even stressed a bit - and then realized he had confused all of us on purpose. That stuck in my head; it was very impressive. I almost went to the "Trading Places (Maori)" where we would listen to a class in a different language (Maori) to understand what our students feel like. Instead, I opted to go to "Elementary School Visits." It had the best, most extensive handout ever, but the actual presentation was a bit disturbing. She kept talking about how we're supposed to get the homeroom teachers involved and motivate them to teach English in our absence. Huh? I should have went to the Maori one.
The Search For Kobe Beef No one except for me was willing to search out and pay for the notoriously expensive Kobe Beef with Yong, so the two of us went on our own. On the way, we stopped in Kobe's Chinatown, saw the fanciest public bathroom ever, then we went to the Earthquake memorial. At the memorial, which was a bit spooky, we asked this classic old Japanese couple where we could find some Kobe Beef. They discussed it for a bit, then gave us excellent directions... to a place that did not have Kobe Beef. We were quite embarrassed to walk out of the yakiniku joint after just sitting down. Nearby, we found a restaurant that had a big advertisement for Kobe Beef (with Beef in katakana, even.) But it was just closing as we walked in. And it was only 8:30! Sheesh! We were starving and thinking about giving up as we walked back to the station. Then suddenly, we found some. It was very non-touristy, but it did say "Kobe Beef" in Japanese and had a small platter for $50 so we figured it had to be it. We went up to the tiny restaurant, confirmed it was the real deal, then ordered. Conclusion: Pretty yummy! My only complaint was that it was a bit fatty and fat is hard to chew compared to the very tender meat. It was also a bit over spiced. Other than that, however, it was a very satisfying meal.
Scaring the Locals On the way back to the hotel on the train, we somehow got into a conversation about Japanese commericals. Then we started saying/singing the jingles. So anyone listening in would hear us babbling in English punctuated with Japanese jingles from advertisements. The five of us and one Japanese had the back of the train. The Japanese guy got off the stop after our conversation had hit full swing as we were singing "Hajimete mo Acomu" and so on. Very amusing. I did not realize how many commericals had stuck in my head.
IN A NUTSHELL: Conference in Kobe for Re-Contracting JETs - Day 3
A Morning of Zen In the morning, we could choose two presentations to go to, then we were free! I went to a really cool presentation on Zen in modern Japan. Totally worth it. Before the speaker arrived, there was a funny message on a white board saying, "All American JETs must pay $50 to Vivian Topolski" (or some name) followed by some official-looking names of the organizers. I was like, "Huh?" but assumed it was legit. I sat down in the second row and found myself next to Vivian Topolski herself. At first I thought she was just someone with a similar name who was trying to collect for the real person, then I realized she was the prankster. She was sitting with Kate from Nagasaki, one of the first people I met at the Tokyo Orientation (not to be mixed up with the other six Kates I've met here.) Someone official came in and eyed the message suspiciously. Shortly after, Vivian ran up and erased it. She got a round of applause. The presentation started shortly after and was really good. He was western, yet so Zen. He told us simple tricks like pushing your energy downward when nervous. His examples of how Zen has affected modern Japanese life were really insightful, as was his comment that if "Zen" had not been romanized with the magical "Z" (that so few proper names, Zorro for example, start with) would we find it as mystical as we do?
* * STUPID THING OF THE DAY * * After grabbing some lunch and one last Haagen Dazs, I went to the station. It took me a long time, a really long time, a super really long time, to realize that this was not the station I wanted. I came by a hotel shuttle, remember? D'oh. Worse, I could not find a single train going where I wanted. Where was the shinkansen station, dammit?! I refused to take a taxi, but luckily, I ran into the other Melissa and Glynis at the station and they explained that I needed to take the subway. I would never have guessed that. I didn't even know Kobe had subways.
Himeji Castle I made sure to take a slower shinkansen so that it would stop at Himeji. I figured I should do some touring since I had a whole afternoon free and Himeji is reputed to have the Coolest Castle in the Country. It was a bit hot out for walking, but at least it did not rain. I walked the mile from the station to the castle complex and agreed that the castle and surrounding grounds were pretty darn cool (except for one lady giving me a mean look because I stepped up onto the inner ledge with shoes on. I knew I was supposed to take them off, but the slippers were not in reachable distance. I guess I was supposed to walk from the ledge to the slipper box in my socks. That seemed lame.) The complex was big and the wooden stairs were nice and steep (though not as steep as Hikone. Hikone Castle still has the steepest stairs I've ever been on.) The view from the top was nice as well.
My First Japanese Drive-Thru For the first time, I went through a Japanese Drive-Thru (It was 9pm and I was starving). It was also my first time at the Miyoshi McDonalds. The drive-thru was very similar to its American counterpart except that she asked me some strange question, like if I wanted my drink out. Also, she was extremely chipper. I didn't think McDonalds workers could be that chipper, especially at 9 at night, 15 minutes before closing.
IN A NUTSHELL: Clean Like Hell
One Day! My parents come in two days and tomorrow is filled from morning to night with sports day and a party afterward. That means, today I must CLEAN. Wow, I never realized how dirty my stove was. I'm just glad its not full summer. No mold to deal with yet.
IN A NUTSHELL: Jr. High Sports Day
Sports in the Rain Jr. High Sports Day was a lot like Elementary Sports Day including that the teams were split up into a red team and a white team, that both teams had a giant flag, that they sung the school song and the anthem, and that everyone did The Warm-up Exercise that all of Japan seems to know. It still feels silly to do, but I have to admit, I do feel nicely warmed up after it. They had the relay races and the "Nice Catch" game where parents are involved. The weather drizzled and threatened rain all day but we did not cancel. I got kind of involved, doing the ping-pong ball race (balancing a ball on a paddle while running to the end and back) and the string and ball race (where me and someone else had to pull along a ball using only a string) then finally the "American Promenade" dance at the end. Somehow, I got shifted to the men's side during the dance as more people joined in and I actually found it a lot more fun to do the dance with women. Maybe because their hands were cleaner or just that it was less awkward. The Yosokoi Souran dance was the big hit. I found out that they do this dance instead of the pyramid formations that a lot of other schools do. Ah. Ironically, I enjoyed the Souran dance more when I was watching them practice from afar through the window from my desk.
Kimita Forest Onsen After the Sports Day was over (some people actually WORKED for the couple hours between the sports day and the party. Dude, it's Sunday!) we all went to the hot springs up in Kimita. Kimita is just a couple towns up from Sakugi and I'd always been curious about the famous onsen there. Well, it turns out that it is a pretty nice onsen. The outside part has a waterfall-type thing that you can get under and massage your back. It was fun, but I always get the impression in onsens that everyone is staring at me. I guess that's natural when you're both foreign and naked. I think I saw a little boy in there, which is kind of weird. I guess parents have to be with their children, but is there an age at which they're not allowed to do that anymore with opposite-gender kids? Hmm. After the onsen, we found the principal lying asleep under the air conditioner, still in his suit, in the room reserved for us. He was a little embarrassed, but luckily, most of the people had not arrived yet. Dinner was so-so, as I always think it is, but I'm sure it is a treat for everyone else. The waiters were nice, though. I once again got seated next to Tomomi by total chance.