Working Hard

One day last week, I walked home in the company of some of my 3-nen-sei. They were on their way to juku—commonly called ‘cram school’ in English. We talked about their schedules for the day and their usual schedule. One girl goes to juku every day (including weekends) from 5 pm till 9 pm. The other only goes six days per week but is there 5 pm-11pm. This is above and beyond the homework that their teachers at school assign.

They asked me about what I do after school. Not wanting to appear horribly lazy, I impressed upon them the exciting tasks of adult life—grocery shopping, cooking dinner, doing laundry… They said it sounded like I was very busy….if only they knew….

I think those kids spend more time on their studies at 15 years old than I did when I was in college. I’m glad I’m not a Japanese junior high schooler. And it doesn't get any easier when they get older.

Gesture Confusion

Since my Japanese is appallingly bad and most people around me hardly manage a few sentences of English, I end up communicating through gestures quite a bit. Even when people are able to communicate in the same language, the nonverbal aspect is a very important part. However, just as people in different parts of the world speak different languages, so they also use different gestures—sometimes with much room for misinterpretation. This is the case even for similar cultures (flash the ‘peace sign’ to some Brits or Aussies and see if they get angry).

I’ve started adopting some of the Japanese gestures, although at first they really threw me off. In the West we typically point to our chests when referring to ourselves. In Asia however, the common method is to point to one’s nose. This seemed really odd at first, but appears that I’ve adopted it quite freely now. (I was happy to find that I was gesturing correctly when I visited Malaysia).

If you find yourself in Japan and want to signal to someone to come toward you, hold your hand out, palm-down, and wave your fingers back and forth. To an American, this will look like you’re shooing them away. Unfortunately, before I figured this out, some of my students who were trying to get me to come over and help them were quite rudely snubbed. Oops.

Just yesterday I had an interesting conversation with one of the English teachers I work with regarding various mental and psychological disorders and learning disabilities. I said the word “mental”, which she repeated and put her hand on her chest. I looked at her, confused, and repeated the word, pointing at my head. Because clearly mental problems are those in the brain, which is in your head. But the Japanese like to think of their heart as the seat of mental reasoning….perhaps. I’m not sure why they do that, but it made me doubt even more that the terms my coworker and I were discussing were the same in both of our heads (or hearts?).

Farewell Notes

Don't worry, I'm not leaving yet. However, my 3-nen-sei are graduating in March. The 3-nen English teacher came to me today with a stack of farewell notes they wrote as an English assignment. They had little messages of thanks, of what they plan to do in the future, or of hopes to meet up again. Here are a few of my favorites (spelling errors and all):

"I hope our memory does not delete."

"I'm pleasure to meet again."

"We will run after dream's forevr."

"Let's meet schoolmate re-union. Please invite me to your wedding. Love 3-1"

"Let's meet aging some day."

"I hope we meet when we are twenty years old. Let's drink sake!" (Cultural note--the legal drinking age in Japan is twenty).

"This class was not so bad. I enjoy enough."

"I am not sorrow. I want smiling your face. The endless"

If you want funny quotes (and you are a facebook user) check out Subarashii quotes from JET teachers' pupils.

Student-Teacher Interactions

One thing that continues to interest me is the way in which students and teachers in Japan interact. If they were in the US, their behaviors would probably result in the students getting detention and the teachers being sued. At the very least. Meanwhile...in Japan its just hilarious.

One day last week I ate lunch in one of the 3-nen-sei (9th grade) classrooms. After he finished eating, the home-room teacher, a somewhat pudgy middle-aged man, came up to the lunch group I was sitting with and stood behind one of the boys.

The homeroom teacher points to his victim and say, in broken English, "He is good boy. He has best smile of all students."

In the fashion typical of my students, the boy looks at me and emphatically says, "No no no!"

This does not deter the homeroom teacher. He continues, "He has best smile...He has...many lovers." And he points around the classroom.

The student decides to return the favor and tell me about the teacher. "He is very big boy. He is biggest boy." The teacher agrees to this assessment and continues to try to talk about the student. Since the verbal responses didn't work to get the teacher to stop talking, the student gets out of his chair and pushes the teacher against the wall to try to get him to stop. The teacher wrestles in response and goes on to tell me random amusing nonsense about the rest of the lunch group.

At least the homeroom teacher practiced his English...

The World's Economies

I live in the boonies. For most of my life, I've taken for granted living 10 miles from a major hub of international air transportation (O'Hare). In order to get to Narita Airport (near Tokyo) I took a taxi to the Sendai Subway, the subway to the main train station, a shinkansen to Tokyo, and the Narita Express train to the airport (4 hours of travel). To get back home again after my vacation I took the Narita Express, Shinkansen, and a bus.

Traveling from my house to the airport and back again cost me 30800 yen which currently converts to US$271.27.*

In 11 days in Malaysia I spent 600 Malaysian Ringgits which translates to US$179.13.*

I want to make some sort of insightful comment here....but I don't really have any. I'm pretty amazed at the figures though.

*I used the currency converter application on iGoogle.

A Malaysian Misadventure

I mentioned in my previous post that my trip to Malaysia was a positive experience except for a couple of instances. This was one of them. As you read, keep score.

I was wandering around the Malaysian city of Ipoh when I began to feel somewhat hot and tired. Luckily for me, I encountered a grassy area near the river which had many park benches. I decided to stop and relax.

Suddenly, my repose was interrupted by someone snatching my bag! Before I knew what had happened, I was up and running after the thief. Some primitive part of my brain took over and demanded that I claim my territory and fight for it. As I ran, I also shouted. The bag-snatcher ran down a steep embankment toward the river and fell. I thought that would be my chance to catch him—but alas, I fell in the same spot. To get away from me, he decided to jump into the river and cross to the other bank. Although I did not pursue him into the river (that would have been stupid—none of my valuables were in the bag and the river was nasty) I kept shouting. On the other side, several men who heard my yells took up my cause and soon the cowardly thief abandoned my bag and slipped underneath a chain-link fence.

I stopped yelling and turned to find that I had drawn a crowd of 10-20 onlookers. Some of them accompanied me to the bridge where I received my now-soaking and muddy bag from the men who recovered it. Although some people in the crowd suggested I ought to file a police report, I decided that would be a pointless endeavor. Instead, I set off across the street to find a place to clean off my bag. I was pointed toward an Indian restaurant.

The Indian restaurant had no sink in their restroom, but when I explained what I wanted they let me into their kitchen to use the sink. I discovered my phone was in the bag, which upset me (however, since then it dried out). But the part that upset me the most was that my journal was in the bag. Although it has dried out, and I’m using it again, some of the ink ran and is no longer legible.

The people at the restaurant were extremely kind. After I finished attempting to clean my bag, they offered me a drink. I explained what had happened again, and one of the patrons took a great interest. He asked if I needed medical attention and bought me another tea. I ended up sitting at the restaurant for quite a while to calm my nerves. In that time, the owner gave me lunch and refused to accept my money.

One person ruined my belief of the general goodness of humanity, and seemingly everyone else in Ipoh did something toward restoring it.

For those keeping score at home, tell me who came out ahead, me or the thief?

Malaysia and Singapore: A Pictoral Summary

I'm back from my Malaysian/Singaporean adventure and that means it's time to blog about it. In short, aside from a couple misadventures (one of which will get its own post) it was a nice, relaxing trip. The weather was hot but not unbearably so, the people were generally friendly, the food was cheap, diverse, delicious, and plentiful, and the sights pretty. Since a picture is worth 1000 words, here are some:

Christmas Day was a day of religion; I visited a mosque, a Hindu temple, and a Buddhist temple. The population of Malaysia consists mainly of three ethnic groups: Malays, who are mostly Muslim and speak Malay, Indians, who are mostly Hindu and Tamil-speaking, and Chinese, who tend to be Buddhist.

Chicagoans may remember a lot of fuss about 10 years ago when new buildings were going to take the Sear's Tower's title of Tallest Building in the World. Here they are, Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers. Not that it matters anymore, because there is a building even taller in Taipei now.

Outside of KL, Batu Caves is the sight of a Hindu temple reached by 272 steps--my work-out for the day.

Some couples carry their baby in a yellow cloth suspended from a sugar cane to thank the goddess for the birth and to bless the baby.

Other people carry refreshments to be sold at high (for Malaysia) prices at the top.

All around the caves were cheeky monkeys. The first monkey was a pleasant surprise. The second was cute as well. Then I realized there were troops and troops of monkeys and they were somewhat scary.

I saw many more houses of worship around the country, with interesting architecture and artwork. The entire county seems to smell of incense from the offerings at the Buddhist and Hindu temples. Here are some massive incense in front of a Buddhist temple.

I went to an island called Penang. I met up with a couple friends from Japan and we went to the beach.

We rode on a tri-rickshaw even though only 2 adults fit in one.

Lunch served on a banana leaf is delicious.



I took a little side trip to the Netherlands. Actually, I went to Malacca (also spelled Melaka) which was conquered by just about everyone over the centuries.
I made friends with some travelers, and we found the mouth of the river, where it feeds into the Straits of Melaka. One of my new friends and I then put our feet in the water even though it was fairly murky.

I rounded off the two weeks with about 1.5 days in Singapore. This dude arrived in Singapore and had about half the city named after him. I'm not that cool. I just showed up, had a nice night on the town, and spent the next day at a museum.