Back to school...

School is back in session and I've now spent two full days at school although I haven't taught any classes yet. But never fear--tomorrow I'm teaching 5.

Monday was the first day of the semester and therefore we had an opening ceremony. It was in the gym and very hot and at the end, one of the kids fainted because of the heat (remind anyone of anything?). Anyway, the kids were all wearing their formal uniforms. Usually they wear uniforms that look like warm-ups you would wear if you were on some sports team. (In fact most of them changed after the ceremony, as did the teachers. But nobody told me and I was stucksweating in my fancy clothes all day.) I noticed that the kids shoes are color coded by their grade. The 7th graders have white shoes with red markings, the 8th graders white shoes with blue markings, and the 9th graders' shoes have green markings. At the ceremony, I had to give a short speech in transliterated Japanese. I think I managed to get most of it out without garbling it too much.

Every day, at the end of classes, the kids clean the school. During this time on Monday I walked around and introduced myself to some of the kids. Some were very shy and tried to avoid talking to me. Others were very enthusiastic, but still turned to their friends for help. When I try talking to the kids, I tend to hear a lot of "YES!" no matter what I say. Which incidently is also what I do when people speak Japanese to me.

Monday was only a half day for the students, so many left at lunchtime. However, after lunch most came back for their various club activities. I worked with the speech contest participants for a while. Afterwards I prepared my self-introduction lessons until it was time for me to go home.

Later, I was walking down the street when I heard shouts of "Rita-sensei! Rita-sensei!" I ran into a group of 3 girls that I had introduced myself to earlier. I stood and talked to them for quite a while. They all needed to consult on everything they or I said.

One of the teachers gave me a bunch of veggies from her grandparents' garden. I got baby eggplant, some sort of little green peppers, cherry tomatoes, and 3 stalks of the biggest, fattest asparagus I have ever seen!

Today the students had testing most of the day. I didn't have too much to do. I spent about half the morning helping one woman who works at the school make these little balls filled with seed. It was a lot of fun. We took breaks to juggle and to play a makeshift basket toss. Later I tried to laminate some pictures and they got stuck in the laminator. Since I messed up a laminator, I officially feel like a teacher. In the afternoon I graded the 9th graders' English tests, which was terrible work.

Tomorrow I actually start teaching. Wish me luck!

Gasolina

The US, Spain, Morocco, Israel, and now Japan--places where I've danced to Gasolina. That song really needs to go away.

Comparing Sizes

I did a bit of research about the populations and land areas of the US and of Japan to tell my students about the US. Thought it was interesting enough to share here. The US has a bit more than twice the number of people than Japan (~300 million vs. ~127 million). But the US is nearly 1000 times the size of Japan in land area! No wonder everything is so big and spread out in the US.

Changing Jobs

After my previous job working in rehab where the kids cussed me out on a fairly regular basis, the level of respect I get from the students here is unbelievable. I'm sure there will be some troublemakers in my classes because we shouldn't overgeneralize. This morning as I was coming to school the baseball team was outside. One of the kids passed me and as he said good morning he not only bowed but also tipped his hat to me. So I went from kids cussing me out to kids tipping their hats to me. I think I like this job change.

Shindig and first day at school

Last night was the official welcome party for me and Nathan. After work, people from the Board of Education, the principals, vice-principals, and some teachers from all the schools, and some other official-types including the mayor came to a local place. There was a nice spread with various little things to eat. We all stood as Nathan and I were introduced and then several speaches were given. And then I had to say something! After the speaches and the "Kompai" we all ate and mingled. I have been asked about my hobbies so often lately. At one point, I was talking to all the English teachers from Taiwa JHS and I tried an onigiri (rice-ball thing) and described it as "oishi" (delicious--one of the few important Japanese words I know) and they all thought it was fantastic, laughing and smiling. I'm not sure if they were impressed that I liked it or that I busted out a Japanese word. Of course there were the mandatory questions as to whether I could use chopsticks, and everyone was impressed that I could. I mingled with everyone at the party. The English teachers helped translate for me. And at some point, after meeting a bunch of officials, the English teacher who was with me said that now as a Japanese custom, I should pour more drinks into their cups. I guess now that I did that, we're officially friends or something. Anyway, all in all it was a pretty fun shindig. And the food was delicious.

Today was my first day going to school instead of the Board of Education. It is still summer vacation, but the teachers are working (albeit shorter hours and more relaxed atmosphere) and the students are there practicing with their various clubs. I came in around 10 am, walked around the school with one of the English Teachers, had some coffee, and then spent some time helping out 2 students who are participating in the upcoming English speech contest.

I worked with them on their pronunciation and inflection (or intonation, not really sure what its called). English is a very up-and-down in pitch language, whereas Japanese is much more flat and even, so it is very difficult for Japanese speakers to sound natural. Of course, the problem with that comes from being able to stress different words in a sentance for different nuances of meaning. It's a bit wierd that I have become the authority on how words are pronounced. I keep thinking that the pronunciations I'm giving are specific to my accent and there may be other correct (and possibly easier) ways to pronounce certain words.

But anway...the students were so eager to please. And they respond to praise so well. When I said that something was correct, or especially when I called something perfect, their faces would simply light up.

Before I knew it, it was lunchtime. A bunch of the teachers sat together at a table in the teachers' room and we all had lunch together. I told them all about famous things in Chicago. They were shocked to find out that ketchup does not go on Chicago-style hotdogs. After lunch, I sat at my desk brainstorming my self-introduction lesson for a bit. However, before long, a couple teachers came in with ice cream for everyone. So we all went back to the table and sat around eating ice cream together. When we were done with our ice cream, I went back to my desk and within 20 minutes or so, one of the English teachers came to me and said that I had been working very hard, must be tired, and to go home.

I get told that I must be tired a lot here. It's a bad translation of some Japanese phrase that is basically thanking a person for their hard work. It means something along the lines of 'you have been working so hard so you must be tired.' It is a very polite thing to say, but it comes off oddly if you're unaware of the intent.

So my first day, I worked 4 hours, an hour of which was lunch, and another 20 minutes or so was spent eating ice cream. Yes, I was very tired. I look forward to doing it again tomorrow.

My Address

I finally understand my address to be able to give it out. I have no qualms about posting it all over the internet because it means nothing to me and I doubt anyone would actually be able to find my house by this info. I'm not exactly sure of the order that the info is supposed to be written, but the folks at the post office in Japan are clever, so hopefully they'll figure it out and I'll be able to get mail.

Yamin Margarita
Miyagi-ken Taiwa-cho Yoshioka
Tennouji-aza 138
981-2621
Japan

Who wants to be postcard buddies? Sending me mail will officially make you the Coolest Person EVER!

Outside of Miyagi

On Saturday, the Taiwa clan and a new Sendai ALT named Huong took a road trip to a beach party in Fukushima, the prefecture south of Miyagi. We were unsure about making the trip because the weather in Miyagi on Saturday morning was gray and rainy and altogether not nice beach weather. However, we decided to risk it and we drove south for several hours to get to this beach.

It was fairly cloudy and the weather finally cooled down to the point where it was comfortable to be outside. At the beach there were tents with beer and food, people playing volleyball, cooking out, and swimming. We hung out with some folks we knew and met some foreigners (mostly JETs) from other prefectures. It was a good, practical lesson in Japanese geography because I met people from Fukishima, from Ibaraki, which is directly south of Fukishima, and from Yamagata, which is west of Miyagi. I did not know any of these place names before yesterday. Spent part of the afternoon playing volleyball with random people swapping in and out on both sides.

We took a walk past all the tents selling booze and food. At one were scantily-clad girls selling Smirnoff Ice along with a drunk guy who may or may not have been working. Jenny decided she really wanted the little prize that they were giving away if you buy a drink, but told the guy that she wasn't drinking. We wandered away from that tent and a minute later I was standing with the 2 guys I had come with when the drunk guy comes up to me and says that 'we need to corroborate' and that he'll get fired if I don't buy a drink. So he pulls out his wallet and hands me 1000 yen (approximately $10) to buy drinks. We all went back to the tent, I bought 2 drinks and we went on our way. Jenny got her toy and I got one too (it was a little flashlight thing). Random, but if somebody wants to give me money to buy myself a drink I guess I'll take it.

When it got dark, a crowd gathered in front of a tent with a stage and a DJ spinning. Turned into a very fun dance party. People got up on stage, dancing and jumping up and down. At some point, tons of the foreigners got up on the stage. Unfortunately, they cut the music insanely early (10 pm!). So then we had to chill out the rest of the night.

A couple hours later, I took a nap on the beach, but all my body heat was being conducted into the sand and after an hour of being really cold I gave up and got up. Ran into Nathan and Huong who started asking me where Jenny was. Apparently they hadn't noticed that I announced an hour beforehand that I was going to sleep. After we found Jenny sleeping in her car, I settled on a park bench to take another nap. It was much warmer than the sand.

Around 3 am I woke up with a second wind and started wandering the beach again. I hung out with some kiwis and Japanese who were sort of dancing to crappy music from a CD player. After hanging out with them a while, I decided to make friends with a group who had a fire going. So I stood in front of the fire and warmed up, wandered the beach again, and then the Taiwa clan was ready to leave.

All in all, a good time was had by all. Nothing was spoiled by rain. The only disappointing part was that we left about 30 minutes before the sunrise and I wanted to stay and watch it, but c'est la vie. Sometime after I get my own car, I'll drive to the beach to watch the sunrise.

Illiteracy and its Challenges

Every day I realize the difficulties of living in a country where I don't know the language. I have a pocket dictionary, which helps me a little. However, even with that, I find little things like grocery shopping to be very challenging.

Our first day in Taiwa (2 weeks ago now, crazy!), Nathan and I went grocery shopping. In that excursion, I wandered around the store looking for things I might want to buy. Many items were completely novel and intimidating. However, I managed to find some of the basics: a bag of rice, eggs, etc. I bought some veggies that looked like they could be related to lettuce or spinach. And I bought some random cooking oil. I wandered the store trying to find something resembling oil. Finally, I found a bottle, but I had to ask Nathan to make sure.

Since I couldn't find the spices in the store on that first excursion, my cooking was too bland to even bother eating. (It didn't help that I couldn't read the buttons on my rice-cooker and it took me multiple attempts to make a decent pot of rice.) So a few days later, I went to another grocery store on a quest for spices. Salt and pepper would have been a good place to start, along with curry powder. After wandering up and down the store, I managed to find the spices. I foudn curry powder first. In fact I found several different containers of curry powder. One of them was labelled "Indian Curry Powder" and to emphasize how Indian it was, it had a picture of....and American Indian with a headdress. I settled on some curry powder without the ridiculously incorrect logo. I found the pepper pretty easily as well, although I had to guess that it was pepper. However, I could not find any salt.

On my third attempt at grocery shopping I finally found some containers of white powder that could be salt. Since I couldn't read them, I guessed which one to buy. Of course, this guessing made me unsure about what I had bought, so when I came home, I decided to taste in order to make sure the spice I bought was in fact salt. However, when I put a little bit on my tongue, I dicovered that I had accidentally bought MSG!

It was not until my fourth excursion to the grocery store that I FINALLY found salt...labeled in English, no less.

Grocery shopping is becoming somewhat easier. The milk has pictures of cows on it. I bought some meat the other day, guessing to make sure it was chicken. But this has been just one example of what I am sure will be the many challenges that Japan will bring.

Home Sweet Japanese-Style House

Japanese internet has wrecked havoc with my ability to click the right links on websites. All the links are now simply questionmarks because they changed to Japanese and my computer does not support Japanese font (not that I would be able to read it if it weren't questionmarks). Nevertheless, I'm attempting to post pictures of my new domicile.

I have a sweet set-up here in Taiwa-cho. The board of education put me up in a Japanese-style house. And it's positively huge by Japanese standards. Which means that when we decide to have gatherings with other JETs from the surrounding inaka, we can party at my house and everyone can crash here (like we did this past weekend).

Traditional style rooms are floored with tatami mats. Room sizes are measured in the number of tatami that can lay in the room. Typical sizes are 6-tatami or 8-tatami. I have both a 6 tatami and an 8 tatami room. I also have another room that's my bedroom and what is possibly the largest kitchen in all of Japan.



A view of my house from the street.


















The front door. Welcome.




In Japanese homes, we take off our shoes.















My six tatami room. Notice the sliding doors with the paper screens.














The largest kitchen in all of Japan. However, it has less counter space than the tiny kitchen in my apartment in Bloomington. The fridge isn't even as high as my shoulder. But I have an oven, which is not common in Japan. Also, the kitchen table has a gas line running to it and a burner in the middle so I can make yakitori at the table.









My 8 tatami room. Notice my housplant, courtesy of the cell phone company, is still alive. All my windows are actually sliding doors.











Here's my bedroom. I have a Western mattress, but it's hard as a rock. I have a bunch of spare futons and I'm considering sleeping on one of them instead. I have tons of storage space in the bedroom and it's the only room in the house with an airconditioning unit.











I suppose this would be the bathroom. Here is a sink and a washing machine.





Off this room is the actual shower/bath room. It has a deep tub and a showerhead. Its very spacious for taking showers. I still haven't taken a bath, but I found some bathsalt, labeled "it's nice."




















Finally, down the hall and around a corner from the bathroom is the toilet. Notice there is a small faucet above the tank. When you flush the toilet, water pours from the faucet and you can wash your hands. I keep a bar of soap on the windowsill. It's kind of awkard to lean over the toilet to wash my hands, but it works.




Since my house is huge, I have plenty of room for anyone wanting to visit. I even have spare futons. So anyone reading this is invited. Also, the big house means I'm going to freeze to death in the winter, but with temps in the 90s right now, that's not a big concern.

Perils of Foreign Beauracracies

I've been in Taiwa-cho a full week now. And I haven't updated the blog although I have had lots that I want to tell because I've been completely cut off. I actually got on the computer once at the Board of Education and wrote an entire entry, but couldn't post it because the page was blocked by the same thing that wouldn't let me get on to gmail (but facebook worked for some reason).

Trying to get internet and a mobile phone have been (and continue to be) huge ordeals. First Nathan (my counterpart in Taiwa) and I were told by our supervisors that we would not be able to get internet or phones until we get our Alien Registration Cards, which won't come until the week after next. But other JETs have everything set up already and were exchanging numbers when we got together in Sendai on Sunday.

It turns out that we can get by with certificates that we got when we filled out the paperwork for the Alien cards. Our supervisor took those certificates at the time. Nathan found them in a random stack of papers at the Board of Education.

So yesterday, armed with my bilingual dictionary, Nathan's moderate Japanese ability, and all the documents we need, the two of us walk to the cell phone store. Luckily the rain abated during this time and the store was not far from my house. Then we hit a wall. No meaninful communication occurred with the sales-lady. No matter how many times Nathan asked her to speak slower, she continued her rapid-fire Japanes...to me. We gave up and left. We called Jenny, a third year ALT in town who's been super-awesome as our senoir, and whose Japanese is up to snuff to handle these kinds of situations. So Jenny meets us back at the cell phone store and discusses the deals and plans and all that kind of stuff with the sales woman. Everything seems to be looking up...until it turns out that the store has no phones in stock!

This afternoon we get one of our supervisors, Nakajima-sensei, to take us to the electronics store that is too far to walk in order to get some internet and phones. Internet is the greater priority, but we start with phones. After three hours and lots of confusion and frustration, we finally have phones. With our phones came complimentary plastic fans (that every company gives out as advertisements), quite a few travel packs of tissues, a roll of toilet paper, and a diseased-looking houseplant.

With the phones finally worked out, we went to another part of the store to see about some internet. We were not too optimistic at this point. Especially because Nakajima-sensei said that he had to be back to the office after half an hour. After spending some time talking to those guys, it turns out that we need to have permission from whoever originally set up our land-lines in order to get internet installed. So that won't happen for a few days.

This evening I managed to hitchhike on someone's wireless and I called Nathan on our new phones to share my good fortune. When I get some internet of my own, I'll share all about my huge house and my problems with illiteracy as well as crazy karaoke nights.