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Hey guys! Yeah, Wednesday didn't happen, one of my coworkers took me out for Yakuniku that evening. Yakuniku is absolutely my new favorite food. I now know a good place, if anyone ever comes to Shibukawa. So for future reference, blogging the experiences I've had comes second to actually having new experiences. I hope you don't mind. Hopefully it will be easier to blog once I get internet at my place.

So, to continue with my previous thread. Question number 3: what are the people like around where you are? In a word, polite. In three words, polite, helpful, standoffish. In general, the Japanese people are really cool and patient with me IF I am the one who approaches them. However, because of the language barrier, most people don't really go out of their way to engage in conversation with me - I generally don't end up understanding anyway. The people who aren't comfortable with their English really don't even try. But there are exceptions to this rule, and some of the teachers I work with are really cool and friendly, even if we can't understand each other very well. There are always communication aids - there is a program that Yahoo! has called Honyaku that I use all the time - it's basically a free, real-time automatic translator from English to Japanese and vice-versa. Exceptionally useful, but you have to be at a computer and both of you have to have the time and patience to type out a dialog. Eh, better than nothing. So the average Joe on the street will generally avoid eye contact, but will say hello if I do. The teachers I work with are really cool, but hard to talk to - there are office politics at my schools, just like any other office around the world, but it's incomprehensible to me because it's all in Japanese. Since I have to make the effort of conversation, this is another polarizing factor - when you are an ALT, introversion is an extremely slippery slope. But it's easy to talk to people, because when I do, they're all smiles, even if they're not feeling at their best. That's another thing about Japan, at least so far that I've seen - it's very important to appear cheerful and energetic (genki) even if your world is crashing down around you. It makes things more pleasant for everyone. What I like about that is that it's kind of self-perpetuating. If you run into people all day who are friendly and cheerful, it increases your morale, and it's easier to be friendly and cheerful to other people, increasing their morale... Cool strategy.

That's really all I have time for this evening - more posting next week. This is a 3-day weekend for me, so I'm taking the opportunity to go to a beer festival in Osaka with some other ALT's. We're taking the Shinkansen out of this town at 6:00 tomorrow evening, so no time to blog beforehand. We'll do some sightseeing in Kyoto, too. I'll let you know how it was when I get some time next week. More photos, too, I promise. Maybe I'll even be IN these.
v (^_^) v Ja, ato de.