This week, or whatever this post turns out to be about

Hey again all, greetings from the land of the rising sun. And thankfully, it's starting to rise a little earlier - we're through the worst of winter over here, and moving into the days where it doesn't hurt to get up in the morning. Everyone's saying it's surprisingly warm this year, I guess we're having weird weather just like the rest of the world, but it's plenty cold for me, thank you.

This has been an eventful couple of weeks. Sorry about last week, the cold is getting better, but still hanging around. Basically, the only thing it really affected was my ability to talk and shout and be as enthusiastic as I want/need to be at elementary school. That's too bad, too, because this week I had my last meeting with one of the classes at elementary school, and I was hoping to be really up. Even though I will be in Shibukawa until next August, Toyoaki does not use an ALT for the first of the three school terms (the school year starts in April here), so I won't teach any of those kids again! *sob* It's tough for me. They're all so cool and full of energy. Some of them were really my buds. Here's some photos.

This is a game I played with the 5th and 6th graders to practice spelling. The target point of the lesson today was the th, ch, sh, and ph sounds. It's kind of an anagram game, it's a race to see who can spell the flash card word fastest. The answer is "SANDWICH" by the way, I know it's tough for you guys out there.

This weirdo here is Zenyouji-sensei, kind of my coordinator at Toyoaki elementary. He's a really cool guy, and his English is very passable - sometimes you need to spell a phrase out on paper, but not usually. I like giving him advice on how to impress his wife, since he's a little bit of a traditional Japanese guy in that he doesn't have much time to spend with her. It's funny, he goes all red, and laughs really hard, and says those are excellent ideas, but he'd be embarrassed.

Class 5-2 (Fifth grade, classroom number 2)

Class 4-3 (It was my last class with them this Wednesday! It's so sad!)

Just some other random stuff - here is a picture of an onsen hot spring in Shibukawa that I really like going to, called Sky Therme - the actual baths are on the fifth floor, and if you use the outside bath, there's a fantastic view of the town and the surrounding mountains. It's really cool, and really relaxing.

From the outside, it appears that an alien spacecraft crashed on top of a building, but inside it's very nice and spacious and hospitable, with a complete lack of probes.

One of the eventful things that happened this week was a trip to Takasaki to hang out at a bar I really like there called "Odessa." That's where a lot of the ALT's in Takasaki hang out, and the bartender is American and his wife is Japanese, and they're both really cool and speak perfect English, and there's generally live music and fun people there. Fun times. However, every time I go there are difficulties, in what will happen at the end of the night. See, the trains stop running pretty early - the last train to Shibukawa leaves at about 11PM, and taxi service all the way home would be outrageously expensive. You could elect to stay out all night and catch the first train, but that generally means arriving home at about 7:30, which pretty much wrecks the rest of the weekend for me. The last couple of times I was there, I just shelled out about 5500 yen (~45 bucks) for a hotel room, which I shouldn't have to do! Ah, well. You'd think a country that has REALLY strict drunk driving laws would have either a train service that runs really late, or affordable taxi service or something, but that's not the case. I guess they just don't want people to have a good time. It's annoying.

Wow, a lot of separate topics this week. And now, for something completely different.

So the teaser photo last week was of my trip to Tokyo with Brigg over the winter holiday - this was a couple of months ago, but it was an excellent time and worth mentioning, so I'm going to catch up on it. Here are a lot of photos.

The first thing we did on the first day there was hit the Tsukiji fish market, which is worth seeing for the hustle and bustle. Nearly all the fish consumed in Tokyo (which is a fair quantity) is circulated through this one facility, about the size of a city block. There is a real danger of being run over by a motorized cart or fifty, but it's worth the risk of life and limb to check out the atmosphere. Plus, there are sushi restraunts where you can get a sushi breakfast that is not to be outdone.

Second thing we did is check out the Meiji Jingu, the famous imperial Shinto shrine. Every new year, about a million people come to this shrine to pray - we hit it on about the 6th, so the crowds had died down a bit. This is the big famous Tori gate at the entrance to the shrine walkway.

Me and Brigg. It was pretty cold and rainy, but hey, we're in Tokyo, how bad can it be.

There was another big Torii gate at the entrance to the shrine proper.

Well, it's starting to get late, and I have plans today. I'll continue the trip photos later in the week. Take care!

Excuses

Hey all. I'm not feeling very good today, and I'm pretty tired and have been busy all day. Whine and gripe. Therefore, I'm gonna crash and play video games instead of blogging. Look for a new post later in the week, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime, here's a teaser for what's next:

It's my Californian buddy Brigg examining frozen fish carcasses! Woo!

A touch of the flu has been circulating around school, I really, REALLY hope I don't have that. Send some good feelings my way! Even though it's been shown in double-blind testing that good wishes to get well soon don't really help! Whatever, I'm desperate!

The Holiday that Nobody Knows About

Hey again everyone! Yeah, last week didn't really happen, but this weekend I have a three-day weekend, so I'm gonna get some quality blog time in. The past couple of weeks have been kinda boring, but one thing happened last weekend that was interesting - Setsubun!

I will now attempt to wipe away some of the blank looks.

To start with, here's the wiki on Setsubun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setsubun

It's one of the more minor holidays in the Japanese calendar, but some people celebrate it. Basically, it's a celebration of the start of Spring in the lunar calendar. Because it's a new season, and really a new life cycle for the year, people want to start it off by getting all the evil spirits out of themselves and their houses, kind of a spiritual spring cleaning. Now, the popular way to accomplish this is by hurling dried soybeans, which apparently demons (oni) are afraid of. I don't quite understand why, but the wiki says that some Buddhist monk excorsised demons by throwing soybeans at them. Whatever. These days, kids sometimes wear little paper demon masks while other kids throw beans at them. Also, many people visit Shinto shrines to pray and to throw beans at shrines, statues, trees, large rocks, small inoffensive rocks, birds, fish, people they don't like, people they DO like, and random clumps of air, just in case there's demons there. To me, it just seemed like a national excuse to throw stuff at stuff. Slightly eccentric, but I can get right behind throwing stuff at stuff, it's fun.

I celebrated Setsubun by going to the Mizusawa-dera temple in Ikaho, which is the major temple in the area. I heard there was a biggish to-do going on there, maybe a celebrity or two, so I figured I would check it out. Many people were there, and it was a pretty cool time. Here are some pics.

This is the line that I waited in for about 40 minutes without knowing what it was for. When I came to this shrine at O-shogatsu (New Years) with my friends, there was a similar, even longer line that we did not wait in. That line was for the main temple, to pray there, which is a big deal at New Years. This time, there was a similar line, but it was a bit shorter, and I figured, what the hey, I got nothing else going on, I'll wait to pray with everyone else. However, the line was not for the temple as I had imagined, but rather for a lucky draw game. Apparently, in the local papers for a few days before the event, the temple had a flyer advertising the event, and on the flyer was a ticket for the lucky draw game for nifty prizes, the top prize of which was a television. However, I did not know this, and did not have any tickets for the draw, and for twenty minutes or so I was unaware that I was standing in line for a game I couldn't play. Fortuitously, I met an old couple standing in line that asked me how many tickets I had, and I said, um, what are those, zero I guess. So they took pity on me and gave me three tickets of the dozen or so that they had. From those two tickets, I won one packet of beans (lowest prize) and two medium-sized wooden bobble-head boar statues. This is the year of the boar, see. I was extremely fortunate, most people got nothing but beans. So I really lucked out there, apparently fortune doesn't ALWAYS favor the prepared. However, the couple I was with walked away with a massaging footbath, so I didn't feel guilty about taking their tickets. We were all celebrating together, it was fun.

A photo of one of the aforementioned lucky piggies. Upon closer examination, it's made of heavy papier-mache, not wood, but still cool. I gave the other one to the principal at Kanashima, he put it on a counter near the front of the school, with a little sign saying that it was from me. Slightly embarrassing.

These guys dressed up as demons did a little dance while some others played flutes and drums. This kind of dance is very traditional, and it's the first time I'd seen it. Now, it's noteworthy that these guys were the only things that looked anything like demons that I saw all day, and they were also about the only things that DIDN'T get beans thrown at them. Go figure.

I chatted with the head demon for a little while, he seemed pretty cool. You know, for a demon and all.

People praying at the main temple. There was no line to actually pray.

A pavilion off to one side of the main temple complex, which included a central stand mounted on the ground that was open on six sides, had three different statues of the Buddha on each side, and, get this, spun slowly when pushed. A Buddhist merry-go-round of holiness. If there's symbolism, it's lost on me. Maybe the reincarnation cycle or something. Whatever. It got so many beans thrown at it that I'm surprised they didn't jam it.

This was the main event of the day - local dignitaries, temple officials and even a celebrity or two tossed beans and other stuff (tissues, pairs of work gloves, snack food, even some fruit) into the crowd. People had brought shopping bags to catch the stuff. The wiki says that this kind of event turns "wild," but I think that's an overstatement of the mood here. However, people were kind of scrambling, and it was out of proportion of what was actually being thrown. I was near the back of the crowd, so I didn't get much, and what did make it out my way was thrown pretty hard. However, I like any holiday where there is the possibility of being beaned (heh) by a ballistic tangerine. Keeps you on your toes. If anyone can spot the celebrity, please let me know, I don't watch much Japanese TV.

Well, that was about it for Setsubun. Interesting times. This past Friday, there was an event in Isesaki for the local ALT's called a "red light, green light" party for valentine's day. Basically, if you were single, you wore green, involved you wore red, and keeping your options open was yellow. It was pretty cool, but it was basically another gaijin party. There were some Japanese people in the club, but mostly they were Parapara dancing, and that's very difficult to do. That night was the first time I'd seen it done in a club, it was kind of trippy. For those who don't know what parapara dancing is, here's the wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapara

I wish they had a photo or video or something, it's interesting to watch. That's it on this end. See you next week, maybe!

Lots of photos, continued

Yo. Continued from last time.

This is the little store front of the soba noodle place. The big brown ball by the door is made of pine needles - the ball is originally made of fresh pine needles, and apparently when they turn brown, the sake of that year is good to drink. The name of the place is Sobazen, which is on the big wooden sign above the door: So-ba-ze-n.

This is the house next door, which is pretty nice, but I don't know if anyone lives there. I never see a car in the driveway, and I went up a few times to introduce myself, but no one's ever there. It's a cool house - it even has a little bamboo grove on premesis. How many people in America can say they have one of those? Swimming pools are okay, but can you film your own ninja-style fight scene in it? I didn't think so.

A little side-of-the-road Shinto shrine, which you see interspersed in the city. Pretty cool.

Inside the aforementioned shrine. The box is for donations, and there's a little bridge leading up to it, over a little moat.

Plaques by the shrine. I used to think they were prayers or something, but under closer examination, they are just to indicate who donated a lot of money to the shrine.

Shibukawa has a fair quantity of stray cats. They don't seem to be in very bad shape, so they're kind of cute.

Clothes dryers are not common in Japan at all - people dry their laundry where they can.

Poster for a Kabuki show

This is a 2-story building that I was unable to determine the purpose of - it's not really important anyway, what I found noteworthy was the slide. The only thing I can think is it's a fire escape route, as in: "OH MY GOD, THE BUILDING'S ON FIRE WE HAVE TO GET OUT EVERYBODY COME ON OR WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE wheeeeeeeeeee SOMEBODY CALL 119 GET EVERYBODY OUT" etc.

This is a nice single-family house in Shibukawa - there are a fair amount of these. Each property is surrounded by a stone wall with a gate. Some properties have been in the same family for over 200 years.

This photo illustrates two points: one, that major street signs are bilingual, which is a lifesaver, and also that there are so many soaring views of the mountains around Shibukawa that you just stop noticing after a while. I've never lived around mountains before, it's really nice.

Some of the vending machines that are really, REALLY common in Japan. Like, three on every corner common. I really don't know how they can all pull a profit - I certainly don't buy forty dollars' worth of soda, coffee, beer, and cigarettes from 15 different vending machines over the course of a month, and that's about what would be necessary for profitablilty. It's a mystery.

I thought this was cool - people shape the trees in front of their houses over time to look more picturesque. They do it with bamboo poles. In a decade or so, this tree will be handsome and stately, with a topiary look typical of pine trees in Japan.

Some examples of finished product. Apparently, they use some of the same techniques in Bonsai.

Well, that's about all I have. See you next week!

Lots of photos

Hey guys. I'm feeling lazy today, and don't really feel like typing a chronicle of my experiences, so I'm just going to shoot a large quantity of photos your way and call it a post. I took a walk around Shibukawa yesterday because it was nice weather, and took some photos of things I found noteworthy in Uber-typical Shibukawa for your viewing pleasure.

This is the road that runs by my apartment, typical of anywhere except for the cars are on the wrong side.

This is a pretty typical street, except it has a nice view facing West. That's mount Akagi.

There are a few Christian churches scattered around town, but they are in the minority. See that big mirror on the orange post? That's to let you kind of see what is around blind corners, which are everywhere in Shibukawa. It's not as effective as it looks.

For some reason, construction equipment has some crazy color schemes of purple, green, yellow, etc. around here. The other day, I saw a crane that was painted entirely iridescent purple with sparkles embedded in the paint. I don't think that paint job should belong even in "Pimp my Ride," let alone the construction industry.

Some people have their own little private shrines to Inari, the Shinto Fox God, outside their house.

Just to illustrate how prevalent stonework is around here, this is a little graveyard that's just behind my apartment complex.

This is a little soba noodle place near my house. This is to illustrate that the little banners that Samurai used to wear on their backs in ancient times are used to advertise Everything around here.

Blogger's being obstinate and not letting me post any more photos in this entry, so I'll post more entries. Nyeh.

Kanashima Sports Festival

Hello again, gang! Time once again for the (pseudo-)weekly update on whatever's on my mind. To continue from last time, here is a photo of some of the teaching staff at Kanashima JHS.


Actually, it's a photo of a photo, but whatever. Try to guess which one is me! You'll never guess. Whenever I look at this, the old Sesame Street song pops into my head: "One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn't belong..." To tell the truth, most of these people (the ones that aren't labeled) are just members of the PTA or the local board of education. This photo was taken for the 60th year anniversary of Kanashima, which was a big deal. I don't really know why they invited me to be in the picture, I think I kind of spoil it, but the secretary just kind of dragged me in. I like that pretty orange tree in the background, though - it's called a momiji, it's kind of a Japanese maple, and it changes color very dramatically - during the fall, when this picture was taken, people sometimes wander around the countryside viewing and photographing momiji. I think that's kind of cool. The location of this photo is at the front gate of the school, and the photographer chose it specifically because of the momiji. It's a nice touch.

I've started a new policy at Kanashima Junior High School - in order to motivate the students to talk to me and improve their English communication skills (also just to motivate them to start a conversation with me, instead of vice-versa - the kids want to talk to me, but they're really shy, and I guess afraid of what their classmates will think if they talk to the big weird foreigner. This extra motivation kind of gives them the excuse they need), I've implemented something called "holler dollars." You give me a holler, I give you a holler dollar. Basically, if they come and talk to me outside of class, and use a sentence from their grade level, I'll give them a little sheet of paper. Each one has a number. At the end of every month, I will give away four CD's for holler dollars: one for the person who has the most in each grade level, and one lucky draw. So far it's been pretty successful - I've given away over 100 in a week and a half. Surprising, I would call that. It makes the students eager to see me coming down the hallway, which just brightens my day considerably, which gives me more energy, which makes classes more fun - it's creating an upward spiral. Woo!

A couple of notes on activities at the Junior High School - as I said, there is pretty much something going on every week. One of the biggest, though, was the tai-dai-kai (?), the sports festival. It's held in summer every year, and it's something that all the students kind of get into. It's a full day of athletic events, and the classes compete against each other for the title of champion class that year. The students are divided up into classes, and each class stays in the same room for every class - the teachers come to the classrooms, instead of the students going to the teachers' rooms. The students spend a good deal of time with the people in their class, so each class tends to develop strong bonds and kind of a group identity. It kind of reinforces the group mentality that I see so often in Japan. So at the tai-dai-kai, the individual students competed in events, but at the end, points were tallied, and the CLASS that had the most points took home the cup. I found that somewhat interesting - group accomplishment was rewarded more than individual accomplishment. It was a heck of a lot of fun. As I said, it was held in summer, so these photos are slightly out of date, but here are some of the highlights:

The ceremony at the start of the games. Very, um... ceremonious.

One of the more active events was the bo-hiki, or "pole pull". Basically, two teams are lined up about 50 yards apart, and a line of poles is put down the middle. At the sound of the starters pistol, both teams rush to get as many poles back to their side of the field as they can in one minute. The last few poles is always a struggle, with about 10 students from each team dragging on them. Hilarity often ensues. ^_^


The high jump was a big event this year - the last two students were jumping outrageously high, and it was a real nail-biter. All other events stopped so that everyone could watch. This guy eventually won, with a cleared height of 155 cm, or about 5 feet 1. Not olympic quality, but I sure as heck couldn't do that.


The audience for the high-jump.

After most of the events were complete, there was a big, school-wide dance, that was more like a promenade, I guess. The girls would hold hands with the guys, and they would walk around in a circle for about 30 feet, do a little foot step combo, bow/curtsy, and move on to the next partner. All done to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw," I kid you not. Personally, I thought it was corny in the extreme, but apparently it's popular among the students. I guess in middle school everyone's a little shy, and that is magnified in Japan. A little school-sponsored flirtation might be just what the doctor ordered. Kinda like the excuse to break the ice with the holler dollars.

This is how they kept score - tallying with boards on the third floor of the building. The colors around each class correspond to the headbands they are wearing. The Japanese word for headband is 'hachimaki,' and they are a big deal. All the kids were really competetive once they got their headbands on - a couple of the classes even had little group pump-up ceremonies where they all donned their hachimaki at once. Headband = fighting spirit. That's pretty cool - I may have to start doing that, and see if it works.

Well, that's all for now, I'll tell you about the culture day or something next time, along with some of my personal activities. I did Tokyo with a friend of mine over the break and got some good photos there, and also I've seen some Kabuki, performed by a bunch of elementary schoolers! It was great!! It's getting late, though, so that'll have to wait until next time. Take care, everyone! Miss you all!

Car Photo, Kanashima JHS

Continuation of the post from a little while ago - check below for new segment before reading this. Or whatever, read this first if you don't mind a spoiler, see if I care.

Here's my little car! Woo! It don't look like much, but it gets about 500 miles to the gallon. Which is a good thing, because a gallon of gas costs about 500 dollars. It's gonna need snow tires soon, and I've already got an Ice scraper. Now, I don't have much experience in this area, and my company as usual doesn't have much in the way of helpful advice, so if anyone can think of any problems with cold-weather operation of a car that won't be solved by running it for five minutes before driving out, please, PLEASE let me know.

So, since I've been teasing you all about this for heaven knows how long, and I don't have much going on tonight, I will finally let you in on what my schools are like, and my experiences teaching English in Japan. Don't get too excited.

For the past 4 and a half months, I've been teaching at a junior high school and an elementary school in Shibukawa. Both are within biking distance of my house, but it takes a while, so having a car is definitely a plus. I spend every Wednesday at the elementary school, and the other four days at the junior high school. At both levels, the kids are great!

The junior high school is known as Kanashima junior high school, as it's in a little town in the greater Shibukawa area called Kanashima. Kanashima means "money island," I guess because the river forms an island in that area or something. Maybe they struck gold there. Anyway. Here's the website for Kanashima Junior High School, it's not much, but it's what they've got:

http://www.kanashima-j.ed.jp/

If you click on some of the links on that page, you might run across some photos of the sports teams in action, or see the lyrics to the school song - in Japanese, of course. ^_^

Kanashima is just about your typical small-town junior high school. It has about 220 students, divided into two classes of 30-40 students in each of 3 grade levels. That's few enough students to remember most faces, but far too many to remember most names. Especially since they're all Japanese names, which to me are just a collection of sounds. I've been trying my best, but it's really hard. The teaching itself is okay - I generally teach three or four classes a day on a normal week, but it seems like every week there's some special activity or something to alter the schedule (seriously, these kids have a LOT of activities, more on that later), so I end up teaching about 12 classes a week in the four days I'm at Kanashima. Pretty light schedule. Ideally, I see each class twice a week, plus the special education (ajisai) class twice a week, too. An uninterrupted week doesn't often happen, though. For the regular classes, the twice a week lessons consist of one regular class and one "main team teaching class." In the main team teaching classes, the Japanese English teacher tries to have me do activities and teach more than in the regular classes. I consider myself lucky in this, because it means I get to plan the occasional activity, where some assistant language teachers are essentially human tape recorders, just reading out what's in the text, so the students can hear a native say it. I think I've worked out a fairly good arrangement with the Japanese teacher I work with. In both classes, the class starts with a criss-cross game, which is basically a review of a concept that was done earlier in the term - I run that, and decide what material will be reviewed. It usually runs about ten minutes. Then, the teacher goes over the point of the day, with any handouts, and sometimes (usually on main team teaching days) I'll run a reinforcement activity. On main team teaching days, the students use name cards, on which I give participation stamps - I try to run activities so that roughly ten or fifteen students get stamps, sometimes based on participation, sometimes they have to be the best in the class. This arrangement works pretty well all in all, but it does mean that I have to be pretty creative a good deal of the time. Have you ever tried keeping the attention of 35 thirteen year olds at the same time, and keeping them focused and learning? It's not easy. And this is Japan, where the kids are disciplined and eager to learn. I can't imagine what it's like in America, or some of the less well-off nations out there. Teachers work HARD. I have a new respect for them.

The teachers in Japan work extremely hard - I swear, some of them live at school. There are about 20 teachers at this school all told, most of them in their thirties and forties. They're all fairly friendly if I go up and talk to them, but it's very few of them who'll come and talk to me. That's pretty much the situation with the students, too, and essentially the entire nation of Japan. Friendly if you make the first effort.

School lunch is awesome.

It's kind of getting late, so I'll call it a night. I'll include more, with some pictures if you're lucky, and some details about the teachers and students and some stuff about the elementary school next time, and I promise it won't be three weeks. See, this is why I was hesitant to blog - the backlog of stuff that's been happening is tremendous, and I still have only scratched the surface of school life. It's a daunting task. Oh, well - ganbarimasu! (I'll do my best!)