My first Japanese movie in a Japanese movie theater!

As you can tell by the title, I saw my first Japanese movie in a Japanese movie theater.

I saw Detroit Metal City, a really good comedy about this country boy who pretends to be into metal because of the pressure of his fans and boss. He has to pretend because he's the crazy/awesome lead singer of a metal band. I don't want to get too in-depth (in case I know you and force you to watch it). It was very good! :)

http://www.go-to-dmc.jp/index.html

The site and the whole movie is in Japanese though. No subtitles for the movie, but I'm proud to say that I didn't even really need them! XD

The main character is played by Matsuyama Kenichi, he played L in all the Death Note movies. He also has some J-dramas before this latest movie, and he seems to be endorse Docomo ( a cell phone company in Japan).


It was strange because before I came here, I had already seen Death Note. I was wondering exactly why he was so popular because I've only seen him there. I went to a bookstore and saw his picture on magazine covers and everything so I was confused, since they weren't really talking about Death Note. That's when one of the other customers talks to me and lets me know about Detroit Metal City, that he was in it and that's why he was on so many magazine covers.

The movie theater etiquette though, is completely different here. I never realized how different until a couple of days ago.

When you first pay for your ticket at the counter, you pick which area you would like in the theatre, and you're given a seat. Once you sit down, everyone is very, very quiet during the whole movie. Even during funny parts, not many people laugh. If they do laugh however, it's usually a quiet chuckle and it abruptly stops. I couldn't help but laugh at some parts because they were funny, but most of the time I didn't say anything. Even during the previews, complete silence.


After the movie, it's just as strange. Usually, right when the credits roll, most people tend to get up and walk out right away unless we know that there will be something going on at the end of the movie. In Japan, whether or not there's something at the end, everyone sits and waits patiently until the credits are finished. After the credits finish, there's complete silence while everyone gets up and walks out. I'm thinking no one enjoyed the movie but me because of the silence, until after they leave the theatre. They start talking after that. Quite interesting indeed. I’ve wanted to go to japan for a very long time and to finally be here is awesome. It was also quite the experience to go a Japanese movie theater and I’ll never forget my first movie in Japan... with Matsuyama Kenichi in it! サツガイ！

Students in the Classroom and other Misc.

I'm at an agricultural school in southern Kyushu. There are plenty of different kinds of Japanese schools. There's academic, which means that these kids are hard workers and going to go to college, so learning English is important for them because of standardized tests. There's agricultural which means the complete opposite. A very good majority of the students are not going to go to college and upon graduation from high school, they're eventually going to be taking over their parents' farms and other agricultural stuff. So with that logic, that means that some of them don't want to learn English, they don't feel as though they need to because they know that they're never going to leave Japan. However, compared to the students at the academic schools, they're a lot more..er...energetic, but I like that because it means that even if they get the question wrong, it's clear that they're listening to what I'm saying and I'm not getting frustrating blank stares. At the same time, there are plenty of good students at the agricultural high school that I'm sure are going to go to college and although they're a little shy, I still get responses from them.

At the sports festival, we had some visitors. First off, seeing as how I'm supposed to be fast, they had me run in the festival against the students. It was quite awkward at first, but I guess now in retrospect, I'm kind of glad I did it. Doing random things go a really long way here.
About those visitors though, they were agricultural school dropouts...think about that for a second. Drop outs of a school that for only a small percentage lead to college. They decided to come back during the festival and show off how "cool" they are. With their George Michael single hanging earring, to their freakin bright orange hair held back by a sparkly tiara headband. Not to mention sparkly hair clips and Hello Kitty paraphernalia (headbands, earrings, hair clips, etc). Yes they are male and no I am not making that up. They're making quite a uh...bold statement... but it's mainly because they're trying to stick it to the Japanese man by looking like the exact opposite of what's expected, in terms of hair color, having their eyebrows shaved off, manicures etc. But since they already dropped out, by that time it doesn't even matter anymore, does it?

First Impressions in the Classroom

I'm doing my first round as an ALT. Basically, I create lessons that are used for two weeks, and after the two weeks are up, I create a new lesson for the next two week cycle. So since Monday, I've been just doing the same self-introduction with slight changes to the lesson. After the introduction, I go up to each student individually and ask them their names and shake their hands. Before that, they're usually nervous and shy, but afterwards they seem to be more comfortable around me. In one class that I went to on Monday, I have all boys, and they're VERY...er.. energetic. It's quite strange to be receiving so many loud and awkward love confessions, or having random guys yell out "Bob Marley!" everytime they do something and I'm in the area. It's also quite strange when they see me, they automatically try to speak English, even if it makes no sense. It's quite easy to tell if they don't know what they're saying because the intonation is a little off. For example, if I were to walk by the classes with all boys, I tend to get greetings like, "Oh Yes! Oh Yes!" However, it's nice because some of the students who I thought weren't going to do any work, were interested in learning some English words. I also tend to get a bunch of girls telling me that I'm "kawaii" and how I should "keep smiling." It's really cute!

I think that most of the students would prefer someone that they can relate to, and when I talk to them about popular Japanese people and songs, they feel a connection and they'll be more likely to pay attention the class. So far, I have really good relationships with all the people in the office and with most of the students, the others, I haven't met yet.