I literally just returned from my two-week trip to Boston and Buffalo, and moments after sitting down at the computer… another earthquake! The epicenter was in the same prefecture, Iwate, as the previous big one about a month ago. Poor Iwate.
This one was a little scary because this time, Stephanie wasn’t here in Akita. She and our friend Andy took a road trip to Aomori, and were located much closer to the epicenter than Noshiro. (They are in the armpit of the large axe-shaped peninsula at the top of the island.) Not to worry though; Steph called and assured me everything is all right.
I should also mention that there was a big one in the same region, but a ways off shore, just last week! That makes three in just over a month, all about the same 7-ish magnitude. Definitely some major correction going on in the earth’s crust around eastern Tohoku.
I have a fascination this one question, and lately I’ve been asking everyone within earshot: What was your first job? Sometimes this leads to cryptic two-word answers for which you must invent your own back-story (take for example “cookie factory”). Other times you get more information than you were bargaining for (”I mowed lawns so I could buy my first set of bagpipes”).
With my eikaiwa class, this simple question yielded a two hour discussion that shed light not only on the lives of my more <*ahem*> mature students, but also on the economic landscape of country life in Japan.
Their answers included:
Counting cars. The employee sat by the side of the road with a manual counter in each hand, as part of a feasibility study for building a new street.
Cold-calling people to ask for their support of a particular political candidate.
But my personal favorite was assistant driver. Why? Because apparently this job required no actual driving. Nor did it require navigation or keeping the driver alert. After some prodding, we finally got the whole story. Akita, a region famous for rice, produces a lot of rice chaff. In order to make use of this byproduct, the chaff was driven up to Aomori (a region famous for apples), where my student unloaded bags of the stuff. Fruit was then packed in this chaff, and shipped back to Akita, thus creating a perfectly balanced cycle of commerce.
I’m not sure what they did with the apple cores. But my first guess?
A few months ago, Chris and I were contacted out of the blue by an editor at CityWeekend, an expat newspaper in China. He found our photos on flickr, and asked if either of us would be interested in doing some travel writing. As improbable as this solicitation sounded, the inquiry was legit, and I now have a published article to show for it. It’s so beautiful how Flickr brings people together. You can read the article on cherry blossoms in Japan here:
Also, the next podcast with PodAsia is up. This episode is about sacred Mount Koya in Wakayama prefecture. The podcast includes an interview with a monk as well as Buddhist chanting and shamisen music. Check it out, episode 93:
I thought that I would, as an exercise in introspection, take note of all the times I bow when interacting with others in the course of a normal day. Here’s today’s tally:
In the car: 6
These involve a quick bob of the head for safety driving
(1) passing old lady shoveling snow on my way to work
(1) acknowledging hard work and gratitude for flag man guiding me through hazardous construction zone
(1) acknowledging tireless efforts of staff member directing traffic at mouth of school parking lot
(3) passing through the construction zone once again on the way home, this time a quick bow for each worker passed.
At school: 18
(7) subtle we’re-passing-each-other-in-the-hallway nod of camaraderie to fellow teachers
(1) Daily bow of respect toward principal to kick off the morning meeting
(1) Slightly deeper heartfelt apologetic bow to fellow English teacher for a late notice request for a change in schedule.
(5) Nod of appreciation to lunch ladies going to and fro about their business
(1) Slightly deeper bow for stranger in hallway (hey, he could have been important)
(3) Goodbye nod to students on the way out the door
Evening out: 4
All in appreciation for good food cooked and delivered, as well as a bow of thanks for a reservation at a favorite restaurant for Valentine’s Day.
I’ve been working with the PodAsia travel podcast for a few months now, and my first show of the year is up! Check out Episode #85 on summertravels in Hokkaido in NorthernJapan. PodAsia downloads are available for free through itunes or directly from the site at podasia.net.
We’re told over and over as foreigners living in Japan that this is a high-context culture. On an abstract level, this means that many things are left unsaid, and it is the listener’s job to tease meaning out of innuendo and implication. Practically speaking, this may manifest itself as imperatives in the form of polite suggestion, or outright refusal disguised as the slightest hesitation.
This quality of Japanese communication can be described by a delicious little phrase: 空気を読む(Kuuki o yomu). The literal translation is “read the air”, and it describes how you have to feel out not just what’s being said, but also what’s left unsaid. Just like “reading between the lines”, 空気を読む describes in a nutshell the necessity of ascertaining intent from the barest framework of spoken words.
I thought this was a clever and elegant expression, until it came up at work, when one of my Japanese co-workers decided to explain some slang to me. If someone can’t grasp the nuance of what you’re saying, if your friend just isn’t getting it, you say “Kuuki o yomanai”, or “You’re not reading the air”. This has been abbreviated, perhaps unfortunately, to K.Y. To illustrate his point, my fellow teacher pointed to a student across the room, and in a loud enthusiastic voice, declared “He is K.Y.! He is K.Y.!”.
Needless to say, this proclamation brought up other, somewhat distracting connotations. When asked about the funny look I had on my face, all I could do was explain was that KY was a certain… um, medicine?… in America. I really didn’t need to go into details with my male co-worker. Let’s hope he can read the air, notice my amused expression and the uncomfortable silence, and limit his use of this particular phrase to Japan.
At first, I thought it was my imagination. I was on my way to teach my first class of the week, which, as usual, means climbing flights of stairs to the top floor of the high school to teach the first years. My mind was on the lesson at hand, how to begin class, when… wait… is that… could it be… are those HANDS on my BUTT?
I’ve heard several reports of, um, curious and free-spirited students of various ages enthusiastically coping a feel when within arm’s reach of their foreign-born teachers. So far in my year and change here in Japan, I’ve been lucky, and physical invasiveness has been limited to a harmless boob grab at one of my elementary schools.
This particular morning at the high school, I have to say I was equally lucky. I wasn’t being groped, or more grotesquely prodded, as many ALTs are in the line of duty. I turned around to find one of my students, a 15 year old Japanese girl grinning at me, unabashed. Perhaps she thought I needed a little pick me up to start off the week. Perhaps it was her idea of international exchange. Fair’s fair, I thought, and I thoughtfully allowed her to ascend in front me the rest of the way while I returned the favor in kind.
I would perhaps get fired for such behavior at home. Here in Japan, it’s all part of the job.
There’s something really satisfying about celebrating your own holiday in a foreign country. Maybe not the ones where you usually spend time with your family, but the other ones where there’s lots of silly customs and games, those are fun. Take this Halloween, for example. Because I don’t live in the states, I am not subject to the grotesque advertising free-for-all that comes with any major holiday. I have the luxury of ignoring the commercial aspects, and celebrating if and when I want. Cut to this week’s eikaiwa class.
When I told everyone two weeks ago to come to class in costume (class was ON All Hallow’s Eve, after all), I totally thought everyone was going to blow me off. But my class of adults totally rallied, and arrived chalk full of Halloween spirit, complete with hokey rubber masks, treats, and pumpkin paraphernalia. Not being a big costumer myself, I took the easy way out and donned a sketchy santa outfit that was left in my house by some previous ALT. I got to class early, set up my freshly carved Jack O’ Lanterns, turned off the lights, and waited. One by one, my students trickled in… first they cautiously opened the door to find a dark classroom. Then they were bombarded with spooky noises from other students in the dark (egged on, of course, by me). We did the whole flashlight in the face bit. One by one, students joined the ranks and hid, waiting to surprise the next unsuspecting arrival. I was kind of shocked to discover how uniform the costumes were… every woman in my eikaiwa came dressed as a witch, with one creative exception. And the men? They uniformly dressed as…. nothing. Maybe they were charming gentleman callers. Whatever. They were equally game when the women cannibalized their costumes in order to include them in the fun. The first half hour of class was spent dispensing food and generally making a fuss… taking pictures, trading wigs, sitting on laps. You can see why we all love English so very very much.
Last Monday I arrived at my high school to discover with dismay that I was at the wrong school. It’s not so surprising actually. With 15 schools to visit, it’s a wonder I don’t make this mistake all the time. With one hour to regroup, I went home and began my planning for elementary school lessons. Raw ingredients for the day’s lessons included:
my smallest school, with only 10 kids in the entire student body
my voice, hoarse and almost inaudible, from a long and insistent cold
I racked my brain: with an hour’s notice, how could I finagle a day of successful lessons? And then it hit me: Of course! I would bring the pumpkins.
Living in Japan, it defies all expectation to have a hallway full of large orange gourds. As I learned last Halloween, pumpkins are remarkably scarce in Japan, at least the kind I grew up with in America. Last year, faced only with green, thin-skinned squash to carve, my English club instead opted to make Halloween origami. Creative, but slightly sacrilegious.
A month or two later, as the winter weather advanced and snow began to fall, I was not a little surprised to find an unusual care-package in my mailbox: pumpkin seeds from my father. Asking no questions about how these horticultural gems passed through customs, and knowing I would kill every last plant with my black thumb, I ferried these seeds off for a better life with a friend in the next town over. The seeds were then passed on again to some bemused and trusting farmers who promised to look after the little guys. And 5 months later, here we are, with pumpkins in my hallway, hiding from the rainy season, waiting for their moment to shine.
Enter stage left: Hikage Elementary. Pumpkins were the perfect answer for my little school: small classes would ensure that everyone could get their hands dirty, and a carving lesson would be gentle on my already failing voice. With this plan firmly in place, I arrived at Hikage (on time, thank you very much) to find a Song and Dance routine waiting for me:
After 45 minutes of entertaining the first graders (no knife oriented activities for you, kiddos!), we began pumpkin carving in earnest.
All my kids thought that fresh pumpkin was just about the nastiest thing they’d ever smelled. Some of my kids looked like they were going to pass out from the fumes. One of the joys of this lesson was watching the kids decide whose drawing to use for the jack o’ lantern face. Check out the whiteboard below:
Here we’ve got 3 different pumpkin drawings by the 5th and 6th graders. Instead of choosing their favorite drawing, they decided to make their final face by combining elements of everyone’s drawings: the unibrow from the drawing on the left, the eyes from the one in the middle, and the mouth from the one on the right. The end result is circled in red. A brilliant demonstration of group dynamics in Japan. And it made for not a bad Jack o’ lantern either.
The day went really smoothly and we all had a great time. Sadly, I discovered that this particular school is closing in March due to low student attendance. Sad, because Hikage Elementary (which poetically translates to, as far as I can tell, “school of the sun’s shade”) is a forgotten and overlooked gem on the very outskirts of Noshiro.
Take for example the principal, who makes drawings every month, incredibly detailed drawings which illustrate everything that happened at school in those 30 days. The drawings include the staff and children, and the faces are left blank, so that everyone can draw-in their own expression. Scenes vary from harvesting sweet potatoes to the school festival to field trips to see robots. At the end of the year, these pictures are bound into a book and given to the graduating students. This intimacy and level of personal attention will certainly be lacking wherever they end up next year. I’m sure my students will quickly adjust to their new, larger schools this spring. Schools where class sizes of 30 or 40 students make it impossible to do hands-on lessons like pumpkin carving. I’m glad I got this one last opportunity to hang out with these kids as a group, and and take advantage of the school’s small size to do something special for our last lesson, before the students are scattered to the winds. Carving pumpkins together was the perfect way to achieve closure. Best of luck next year, everyone!
You know the vice-principal, the guy at my school full of propriety and decorum who keeps everything running smoothly? He thought it would be funny to tell me all the bad words he knows in English today, so he put on his sailor’s cap, and started pointing at things around the office, spewing “Bitches!” and “Fuck You!”. I was a bit taken aback, but that’s okay… little does he know I taught my English club girls how to say turd yesterday. Whaat? Don’t look at me like that. I needed rhymes for bird, and “rd” is a legitimately difficult sound for my Japanese students to make. They should get something titillating every once in awhile for their efforts. Besides, it’s legitimate cultural exchange. Months ago one of my students taught me an equivalentwordinJapanese, unko,whichisusedwithabandon. A word that happens to sound just like anko, the heavy pasty brown bean paste inside of Japanese pastries. Make sure you don’t get those two confused. It could be messy.
*Thanks to the Flickr community for helping to photographically illustrate a point
