Wandering in Miyazaki

Thanks for the Memories

2010-07-23T06:38:00.008+09:00

It’s so hard to believe that in a few short days, I’ll be heading back to America. I have gotten so unbelievably busy, to the point in which I didn’t even know if I would be able to write one last before I left, but I’m going to set aside the 30 things that aren’t completed and write one more post to mark the end my first real International Journey.

People always look at me strangely when I tell them that I didn’t or won’t visit any other Asian countries, even though it’s “like 45 minutes away!” I mean, like I have told other people before; Japan is my main focus of study. If I wanted to go to Korea, I will make the proper arrangements and get myself to Korea for a week or two and see how I like it. I just might.

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks packing, preparing to say goodbye and getting gifts ready for the people who deserve them.
This past week, I’ve started giving the gifts out to the specific people that have contributed to the good times that Japan has given me. Not the assholes that just see me as someone who they can take their frustrations out on because they’re bitter about their lives. But people who decided to look past the foreign face and actually get to know who my boyfriend and I are. For that, we will forever be grateful. I am truly humbled by their selflessness.

I won’t give their names, pictures and the information of how they helped me, although there are some already on the blog. What they've done for me will forever stay imprinted in my heart and if I hear someone talking bad about Japan, I’ll….probably agree. Lol No, I’m totally kidding. But it depends on what they are complaining about. I can’t disagree and argue with someone’s EXPERIENCE because that’s what they know and it would be arrogant, myopic and ignorant of me to discount their experiences because I need Japan to stay a certain way for my benefit. Luckily I’m not like that, although I have had a couple of run-ins with people like that (Haters Abound, anyone? Haha!). However, mindless, stereotypical ranting will be stopped because all I have to do is remember the people that were kind to ME and I will politely share my own experiences.

Tomorrow I have to make my goodbye speech to the school that I have been at for two years. It’s been a mixture of good times and bad times, with the good times mainly coming from students and I’m going to be so happy to tell them that in my fairly positive speech. I say some honest things, and whether or not it does anything, I’ll feel better when I say them. I don’t point out specific teachers for the positives or negatives, since that isn’t appropriate. However, I will say what I need to say.
I know my students are going to make me cry -.-. I just know it. I have been able to hold it in during recent happenings of running into people and realizing that I really won’t be seeing them anymore. But I always leave them on a happy note. I don’t know if I can do that with the students because I really will miss them and their crazy antics.

-Time passes-

I did my speech and some of the students came up to me crying and it’s like how am I supposed to not cry? -.- I have so many good memories with them and I’m happy that I got to know them. I’m forever grateful the program that brought me here to meet these students and the people around me. I can barely put it into words!

Later that night I had my going away dinner with teachers whom I wanted to come. It was so nice! I got a “Banzai!” rally cry thing lol. I never thought I would get one but I got one! What happens is everyone raises their arms and yells, “Banzai!” and the person that it’s for has to bow when everyone else raises their arms. You’re supposed to do three at a time so I had to bow three times in a row. I’m glad that I was able to speak with these teachers one by one and reminisce about the fun times that I had with them.

Now I have to do loads of preparation; I’m pretty much finished with packing because I know that if I don’t do it early then I’ll forget something, and you don’t want to forget anything before an international flight -.-. Everyone back home is waiting to see me and I can’t wait to see them. The speech and the dinner was a great ending to crazy rollercoaster ride of my adventures in Japan. I only have two days left during this post, so I’m going to do some last minute things for the person who comes after me. I’ll try to make her landing as smooth as I can.

I mean, what can I say about an experience that changed me a bit? I can safely say that because of the students and the GOOD people that I met, I had a very fulfilling experience that some people might not be as fortunate to have due to unforeseen circumstances. I can safely say that my boyfriend being here helped A WHOLE LOT lol. I had a close ear that can understand what I say because he’s experiencing it too.

Now that I am ending my blog, it’s time for me to go on to my next adventure, which is going back home and re-assimilating back into American culture and way of life. I’m just as excited to start that, as I was to come to Japan!

Soo….what’s next? “Roaming in Barcelona?” “Sleepless in London?” lol

Only time will tell! Thank you for reading! =)

Miyazaki Maritime!

2010-05-22T09:27:00.007+09:00

So this past Sunday I went to have fun with the PTA and some teachers. We went on a ship owned by the Miyazaki Marine School. I did fishing (caught like 7 little ones) for the first time, had lunch, then did some water recreational activities. The PTA, despite being very intimidating because they essentially control Japanese schools, were made up of nice people who were genuinely interested in me and where I come from. Some of them even taught me some more Miyazaki dialect and I think when I leave, I’m going to stick with it. Before I came here, I thought that would have been soooo cool if I could learn a Japanese dialect and use it to speak to people not from my area in Japan. Awesomeness! XD

So….I went on a banana boat. I really, really didn’t want to because I couldn’t swim. But, I was essentially forced to go on because of the pressure from 15 people pushing me towards the edge of the ship -.-. Like, wow….woopie….I’m being forced to go on a banana boat…how fun. Lol

Luckily since it was me, a German study abroad student and my supervisor on the banana boat, along with 3 men, they didn’t try to make us fall over. I only mention that since that was their main goal for all groups that go on it. I was on the hover…mini-boat…thingy that was dragging the banana boat along and I heard the two guys who took turns driving the thing trying to figure out the best way to make the banana boat tip over. I mean, if I could swim then I wouldn’t care, but I don’t know how, and I’ll definitely learn when I get back to the States since I’d like to be able to swim.

They only had a banana boat and a guy who goes around on a jet ski. The jet ski guy can only take one person per session so I had to wait a bit. Honestly, once I finished the banana boat I knew I was never going to go on it again, despite everyone trying to force me to do it. One even went so far as to say “….wow..even though you made all that effort to come Japan….” like trying to make me feel guilty lol. It didn’t affect me because I told him that banana boats and jet skis have NOTHING to do with Japan because I can do these things in any other country. I only did the banana boat because the study abroad student wanted me to so I was like “sssiighh…..fine.”

I just didn’t want to fall into the water because I can’t swim. I saw how fun the jet ski was so I decided I’d like to try it….I fell -.-. All I saw was the water coming at a rapid pace and I was in the water. It wasn’t that bad, but I was still freaking out lol. I just remembered what they told me to do and tilt myself backwards according to the life jacket I had on, and I was floating with no trouble. I was still freaking out though lol. I was more upset about how I couldn’t swim and if I could then I wouldn't have freaked out so hard. So, I get back on the ship, soaking wet and a little bummed out by the whole thing, when I get 15 people trying to force me to do the banana boat thing again. No.

In retrospect, I’m glad I did it for the study abroad student and even though I did have fun, I’m sure I could have had more if everyone wasn’t trying to force me to have fun.

After that, we’re all back in the lunchroom and that’s when I really get to know the PTA. I enjoyed answering all their questions because the questions consisted of things that I never heard anyone ask me before. One Japanese woman, who was born in Brazil and moved to Japan later, was talking all sorts of stuff about Japanese drinking culture to this older Japanese man. She said that unlike Japan, Americans don't drink to drunk everyday. I didn't want to start bashing Japan with a Japanese lady, in front of a Japanese man who, like most people, aren't ready to hear criticisms.

I just spoke about it from the American side and said that if someone does drink to get drunk everyday, then in our culture, that person has a problem and needs to get help. The guy, respectfully nods, actually thinks seriously and goes, "Wow....I drink everyday too..." I mean I didn't tell him that to make him change his behavior since it doesn't affect me, but I think the Japanese lady was kinda going overboard (har har - pun intended) with bashing Japan. Unlike Japanese teachers, he didn't even flip out and get all nationalistic. He just accepted it as a difference in culture. Despite his open-mindedness, he's just a parent of one of my students. The teachers here can learn a thing or two. Hopefully, before I go back, I can hang out with them again.

It's Teacher Switching Time....again!

2010-04-07T20:02:00.006+09:00

Last week was teacher switch day! The crazy time where all the teachers meet in the main office and Vice Principal receives a call from the Principal and the teacher that gets called is definitely getting switched. It feels different from last year. I feel more “in the know” so to speak as opposed to last year when everything was new. So, instead of being confused and wondering why all the teachers came to my office, I went to the library to chat with a few of the female teachers then we all walked together to my former office. I certainly don’t miss the room lol. I knew all the teachers that got called down. I was talking with one of the science teachers and he was explaining that most of the time, one or two teachers from every subject gets switched so one of my JTEs will definitely be transferred.

It wasn’t my supervisor who was switched; it was the other female JTE. Damnit. I was hoping it’d be the older male teacher but he knows he won’t be at risk for transfer for a while. Everyone wants to stay here because it’s close to the city so it’s one of the best places to be. Well, I mean, I’m leaving anyway but I’m glad that the next ALT will get my supervisor. She’s a bit flaky and wishy-washy, but she’s better than most. I wasn’t too upset about the 9 teachers being transferred because I barely spoke to them, but I certainly was shocked about the JTE. I wasn’t upset though because I KNOW she wants to leave because of the academic school JTE who is a bastard to her. She thinks that he has it out for her, but unfortunately I don’t think he cares about her enough to even THINK that much about it. They did have a couple of awkward moments where he yelled at her in the middle of the hallway during cleaning time so teachers and students were milling about. He got angry at her because she didn’t “properly thank him” for a favor she asked of him. I have to be honest: he MIGHT have a small point, but the guy is a bit of a prick lol. He’s asked me and other teachers for favors but he never thanked us, so he’s a hypocrite. That’s not all he is though.

What happened was her son suddenly got ill so she had to take a paid holiday on one Friday afternoon. She usually writes up weekend homework for the students and hands it out but this time she had to leave early because of her son. While they teach different students, all of their students are in the same class, just separate whenever the teachers have them, so she asked if he would be kind enough to print out the homework he has for his students and give them to her students as well. He said fine and he did it. On the following Monday, she was back in school and she was so busy because she had a full day of classes. Nevertheless, she hadn’t seen him for the whole day until he went to her during cleaning time and yelled at her. Wow. After that day she would avoid him whenever possible and tell me how much she hates him lol. My supervisor would act all high and mighty about it and how she thinks she’s being a petulant child and complaining about nothing….until they had their own argument. Her tune changed real quick lol.

In any case, after I found out she got switched I went to her room to chat with her. I asked her where she’s going and all that. She told me that she’s going to the commercial high school. I asked her if that’s good and she said it is because it’s still in Miyazaki City. Another thing she said was, “I CAN say goodbye to him.” Well, when thinking about it like that, it’s a great thing lol.

...One's Own Drum

2010-03-08T21:06:00.004+09:00

The other teachers were trying to figure out a movie to show the students because the semester is winding down. Last year they showed "You've Got Mail" -.-. Ugh. No. It isn't even socially or culturally relevant anymore lol. Not to mention they were knocked out in the first half hour. Awkward. They also suggested showing "Ice Age" or "Shrek." That would be fine, if this were middle school. So...I suggested "Drumline" lol. It's better than their ideas, damnit! It's a part of my culture and I think they would appreciate the "One band, one sound" ideology within the movie. So, I bought it at a giant book/game/DVD/music store here to make sure it has Japanese subtitles and gave it to my supervisor to watch over the weekend. If she likes it, she can vouch for it to other teachers and they'll be passive-aggressively convinced to show it in their classes too. I'm not sure if I'm expecting her to like it, but I can definitely say that I won't be surprised if she wouldn't want to show it. I know it's just "Drumline" and it's not even all that spectacular in the States, but it's a completely different culture, people and beliefs. Perhaps watching this might help destroy some stereotypes, but like I said, I won't be surprised if she wouldn't want the students challenging the same ideas that they were taught in high school about "foreign countries." So...standby and I'll tell you how it goes.

My Seniors Are Gone!

2010-03-06T19:39:00.005+09:00

Yes, March 1st is the national graduation day for high schools in Japan. It was strange. It felt different from last year’s graduation. Not better, not worse, just different. I’m not even sure why. It could be because I’ve changed since the last one; I feel as if I’ve grown, learned and understood more compared to how I was around this time last year. So, I’m able to view everything with different eyes. Of course, it was the same as last year; they walk in with music played by the band, class by class, then they sit down. There are a couple of long-winded speeches by people no one knows. Then the Principal calls out everyone’s name one by one. Once they’re called, “they say “Hai!” and stand up. Once everyone is called they bow together then sit back down. After the speeches are finished, a representative of the graduating class goes up on and stage and reads a letter from them to the Principal. The representative this year was one of the girls from the Speech contest! The one who did the environmental speech. Then they all bow together. After the proceedings the graduates march back out to music while everyone applauds.

It was so sad. These were the only guys that have been with me from when I first got here two years ago. They were a part of the 2E class last year. I felt like I was definitely able to get to know them well enough to believe that I think they’ll be alright! Of course they don’t actually have any interest in English but at the same time, this wasn’t the day for English. I wanted everyone to know exactly what I said, as I say it lol.

After the graduation, the students return to their classrooms and are given certificates and say a couple of words. I went to each and every one of their rooms, said a couple of silly words to cheer everyone up and took some pictures. My rockstar cicada kid wasn’t very spirited. The day before, he went to his father’s funeral. I didn’t find out until yesterday. It was by a car accident. How can anyone make him feel happy about his graduation? This is his only high school graduation and to have something so tragic happen at a normally happy occasion is so sad. There’s no Japanese equivalent for “My condolences” or “My thoughts and prayers are with your family” without translating it literally, but that will come off awkward. So, in this country, it’s best to just say nothing.

Alright, I admit it. I cried a little -.-. It’s so hard not to. I’m leaving in July so it’s safe to say that I’ll never see these kids again. These kids that made my time here so worthwhile. Especially the all girl class. About 15 of them, including the teacher were crying before I even went in the room. Then it hits me that I’ll never see these young women again and I couldn’t hold back my emotions. It’s embarrassing! -.- I was able to cheer them up with some jokes but there was always that lingering feeling that this really IS goodbye. I really do hate crying in front of people -.-.
Unlike last year, the students didn’t adjourn to the biggest classroom and eat lunch; most of them had already gone home. The last time spent in their classrooms was longer than last year, so I guess there’s no time. I was a little disappointed about that but there’s nothing I could do. I certainly feel just as tired last year as I do now; it takes a lot out of you. I saw the new students a couple of weeks ago and I’m a bit sad that I won’t get to know them like I do my current students, but I guess I’ll leave that up to the next ALT. Thinking back on my last graduation post when I said that I think it’ll be a good year, it definitely was a good year, after all.

The day after (today), my rockstar cicada came to see me. Surprisingly, he asked for the video of his speech contest. I was so surprised because he never wanted to see it lol, until now I guess. Of course I had it so I put it on a DVD for him and told him to pick it up at the school. My supervisor wanted to see it and I realized that the quality is not that great on it, so when he got here I asked him if he had a flash drive. He owns one but he didn't bring it, so I told him to come again with the flash drive and in the meantime he can watch the DVD. Even now he actually didn’t want to watch it lol. Weird. I mean, there are some aspects of Japanese culture that are based on appearances and despite his own personal tragedy, I felt a genuine happiness from him. I think he’ll be alright.

The Turning Point

2010-01-27T22:21:00.006+09:00

So…I decided that I’m going back home in July. My original plan was to spend two years here then go back to do graduate school and start my career. So far, it seems to be going alright lol. But…how am I supposed to tell my students? I, in a cowardly fashion, decided to wait until they very last minute to say anything to the students, simply because I didn’t know how to say it. After January, seniors don’t come back because they have to do preparation and such before coming back March 1st for graduation. March 1st is the date of high school graduation in Japan. So I had two weeks left with my seniors, so I decided that I’ll tell them the last week of January. I would wait until the last Wednesday of January since that day is my weekly English teachers’ meeting. Not to mention the deadline for the decision of whether or not I re-contract is due February 5th, so it fit in well right?

Well, this past Tuesday I took a look at the monthly schedule and I saw my seniors have graduation exams in last week of January! Damnit, so I had to hurry and tell my students this week. Then I find out for that final exam for seniors I had to make another Listening and Interview test. So, not only do I have to tell them that I’m leaving, but now I have to springs tests on them too -.-. it’s find of a hassle but, I didn’t have any choice.

When I told the seniors who are already graduating, they were unbelievably shocked and some were upset. No, no, no…don’t act like this! I reminded them that they’re leaving too and I told them that it was fun teaching them, which it really was. When they concentrate, they can be one of the best classes of the week. So, after I told them and they were still staring at me with wide eyes, it got eerily silent. I didn’t have anything left to say either and I was a bit embarrassed and they said that was “cute” because I never acted so awkward around them before. So, to break the all of a sudden strange atmosphere, I go,”Heh heh…well….this is awkward,” but then I remember that they don’t know that much English so my attempt to break whatever mood I caused had failed lol.

So, after I kinda just stood there... I had to make them write down questions and answers for the Interview Test. Class must go on. At the end of it, a couple of students walked up to me, bowed and thanked me for teaching them. That was very sweet of them. Even my Rockstar Cicada Kenta-kun is graduating and I’m quite sad about that, but then again, I’m so happy that he was able to get into a good college. I hope he uses that college time to travel; it’ll serve him well.

I told the English teachers and the wonderful office ladies and surprisingly I got the question of whether Japan or America is better. Err…..lol…what a….”difficult” question….lol. I told her honestly since she asked honestly, judging by her face after I told her what I thought, I think she expected me to say Japan lol. Eeeerr...I mean my family and friends are waiting for me back in New York. No country can compete with that.
Overall, the seniors took it well and I’ll see them again March 1st when they graduate… but how the hell am I going to tell the 1st and 2nd year students? :-/

Haters Abound

2009-12-27T18:05:00.004+09:00

One of my cute students got in trouble a couple of weeks ago. She was sent in to my office since I’m in the guidance counselor office, I see and hear a lot of things. Other teachers don't know because they aren’t in the office, so that automatically means that it’s none of their business. Yeah, I don’t know either. So, the first grader (freshman) sits down at the table with her head down. I’m not really sure what’s going on yet so I just go about my business as usual. She’s kept there all day, having meetings with different teachers and having all of those teachers scold her, sometimes yell. So, I’m like “Oh no, she did something terrible. I hope she wasn't caught hanging around with older guys or caught smoking or something,” but I still didn’t know what happened.
I catch a telephone conversation about a boy freshman from our school who was called to a different office and scolded there. So a little bit is made clear, she was caught doing something with a boy. Oh no. I still don’t have the full picture though, but despite that, after a bunch of hours of that, her mother gets called in and now the same teachers have to speak with her mother and scold the kid again. By this time, she’s crying, I mean she’s a 14 year-old girl; it must be embarrassing to have your mother come in when you’ve been bad.

By this time I’m still not sure what happened but someone finally tells me the whole story. She was caught…hugging a boy, at 11pm, on a bridge that leads to the city. The 50 year-old head of the Agricultural department was out jogging, and he said that he saw them hugging. So……the next day he snitches on the kids. Like, really? So, I say that’s ridiculous. Yes, they should be at home at the time of night but they weren’t even focusing on the fact that it was late! The person who was talking to me told me, “That kind of behavior is inappropriate in Japan.” ……hugging people is inappropriate? Then he goes, “Well, if it was during the day time it wouldn’t be a big deal, but to be seen at night, with your school uniform on is very embarrassing for the school.” Not to mention, it wasn’t even a real hug! They were standing shoulder to shoulder, slightly turned into one another, holding forearms. So…she’s getting all this flack….for that?

But I mean, which is it? Is it the hugging or the fact that it was late? I can understand the time problem, but his main argument of why it was wrong was because of the hug. Whatever. Great job making her resent you guys. I think the main thing is that it’s not even about the students; it’s about how bad the school would look to other people outside. I mean, if it’s at 11pm, I really don’t think people care, not to mention, it’s quite dark out here at night so it would be kind of hard to guess where the student comes from based on the uniform. So this old dude sees them and snitches. Like…does he feel better about himself? Well I mean I shouldn’t even get on him because if it was anybody else, they would do the exact same thing and snitch. It’s a Japanese culture thing. I'll get back to you on how to say "Snitches get stitches" in Japanese lol.

After the parents came in, the teachers that were scolding her seemed even more agitated. Why, you ask? Well, the damn parents KNEW that the kids were out at night! They were well aware of that fact and gave them permission to go out and see each other! So…what the hell is the problem? That should be proof that it totally isn’t about these kids, but about how the school looks from the outside. The teachers even said, “The fact that the parents knew that the kids were out makes this even more problematic….” Why? I don’t know. It’s unjustifiable because of how it was carried out. So, that girl was brought here twice, both days she had long meetings, had her mom come in and started sobbing. I only saw the boy getting scolded ONCE, for 10 minutes, WITHOUT a parent. I brought that up to the same teacher who told me what happened, and he claimed that the boy is in a different room and he’s getting scolded there so they are both receiving the same treatment. Yeah, okay. Either way, they’re both just going to learn how to not get caught. All in all, it was a stupid situation and it seemed like they just created more problems with how they went about “teaching the kids a lesson.” Whatever.

Status Update

2009-12-03T20:43:00.004+09:00

So….I got sick. I got sick in the first week of November, then two weeks went by before I got the flu. I’ve never gotten sick back to back before so it was a bit of a hassle when it happened not to mention I had Interview Tests to do for my kids so I needed to be there for preparation and the actual interview day. I had a Mid Year Seminar with the company that I got my job from and since this is my second year, I had to do a presentation. I didn’t really want to go, but it’s not optional -.-. So, I worked with a fellow ALT and put together a presentation for the new people here. I hope they learned something, but at the same time I’m not really sure what they needed. I made sure that they asked me questions, simply because after that day I won’t really see them so if I can give them any kind of information then I’ll try my best. I think it went alright…other than the fact that I got the flu from SOMEONE there -.-. I’m alright now though, so don’t worry XD.

Last week Monday was a “Labor Thanksgiving Day,” whatever that means since no one celebrates Thanksgiving, so I had a day off. Tuesday was a substitute holiday for my base school because of the Cultural Festival on Saturday, which I didn’t go to because I got sick. Sigh. I ended up taking one paid leave day on Wednesday because I still wasn’t feeling well enough to stand up for a total of 2 hours and talk without having a coughing fit. That night I got a phone call from the Vice Principal, which is a little weird….to be honest. Since he’s the one in charge of everyone’s paid vacation and such, it felt like I was in trouble or something lol. I mean I don't think the VP makes it a habit of calling teachers, but I guess I was a “special case.” He asked me how I was feeling, and then he just came out and said that I should take two more days off. In Japan if you have the flu, they believe that it takes 7 days for you to feel better and for you to no longer be contagious. It’s a little ridiculous since they count it right down to the first day that I started feeling symptoms, which was Friday night. However, I wasn’t going to argue with the VP, but I told him that I was feeling better and that I should be able to come in to work tomorrow. It was mainly because I didn’t want to have to take my paid vacation days because they think that I should stay home, but I really did think that I’d be alright!

I felt a little groggier than I thought I would, but I still felt well enough to go. So I go into work on Thursday with a mask on (-.-) because the VP told me to wear one. My supervisor comes in, sees me with a mask on, then freaks out lol. I told her that I was alright and not to worry because I told the VP that I was fine. It was like she didn’t even hear me because she told me that she was going to ask the VP if I can get sick leave for the rest of the week….really? Okay! You can ask him lol. Note that I didn’t ask her to go to the VP and request I take sick leave, it was her feeling quite paranoid about my flu because she sits right next to me. She comes back 5 minutes later, says that she got the “O.K.” from the VP and told me to go home. Well…..the last thing I would do is disagree with the VP and my supervisor………see ya! It was great! I still had a slight cough but everything else was fine, so it was a nice surprise even though I came in expecting to work. So I had two free days off because my supervisor didn’t want to get sick. Fine by me!

When I went back into work on Tuesday (remember I have a different school on Monday), I got a lot of the “Are you okay?” questions because I guess it got around that I got the flu. Thanks for asking and caring guys, but I feel fine. I had to meet with the VP and he told me that I have to write down that I took sick leave, everyone has to keep track of their own sick leave and paid leave. Sick leave is quite rare, but I managed to get it without asking for it. So the VP tells me to put me down on sick leave from the 21st to the 27th. I remembered that I took paid leave on the Wednesday of that week, but I guess it didn’t count. Great! It pays off to be a good ALT and rarely miss a day of work because everyone freaks out when something goes wrong. So, I had to play catch up, write two listening tests in one day, then plan for the remaining interview tests, while doing the recording for both listening tests. After the ALT seminar almost two weeks ago, and getting sick last week, it feels like I haven’t seen these people in a while. Ya know….it feels nice to be back.

Sports Festival Time!

2009-10-16T23:00:00.008+09:00

The official Sports Festival was a couple of days ago. It was quite nice! The students put their hearts into it and it went great. Even the speeches in the beginning weren’t so bad. The groups were set up by their classroom and color. The sports consisted of running, crossing the bridge, some kind of rope grab, climbing monkey, giant group jump rope, and performances.

The running is just the simple, class vs. class showdown. All of the races were interesting though. I was surprised at some fast ones. The rope grab was just a giant group of them making a huge circle around broken pieces rope and everyone had to dash and grab as many as possible. There were some mini-tug of war games within that game, but that’s to be expected.

The climbing monkey one was interesting. A giant group of the students all tightly grab a wooden pole, two of them are kneeling, with their backs facing the runners, while the remaining 6 runners wait for the signal. All of those 6 have to dash to the pole, use one or two students’ backs to jump on and get a good grip on the pole. Then they have to climb up and stick a little flag at the top, slide down then hit the hand of the next person like a mini relay race. It’s a bit dangerous because they fall sometimes but they all seemed to have fun.

Crossing the bridge is a fun looking, but another potentially dangerous game. One person, while getting their hand held, stands up on a students’ back, and walks down a line of back of students. There are only about 6 or 7 students so they have to continually run in place. Some of them fell, but they were okay.

The giant group jump rope is exactly how it sounds. Here are some pictures for it.
The performances were great. Most of them really had it on point, while others even though they were a little sloppy were great. Two groups did a small number to Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller.’ They weren’t bad lol. I was more impressed than anything because they actually tried to do the movements. Some of them half-assed it but I think that just came from having no confidence.

In the end, the all girl’s class one, the yellow team. Of course they were crying, that’s to be expected in these things. I….participated in a race. It was alright; I mean you can’t put a math and social studies teacher in a race and expect them to win, lol. But it’s okay. It was funny that even though all classes cheered for their own color, they all cheered together when I passed by. They’re cute lol. In any case, it was a good day, despite my going to work on a Saturday….at least I get Monday off.

Sports Festivals and Responsibilities

2009-10-12T01:08:00.007+09:00

Today, I was able to go to work with a regular t-shirt and sweatpants because of the Sports Festival preparation. This is my second Sports Festival but for some reason, this one seems more exciting. It could be because around this time I had just arrived so I wasn’t used to anybody yet. Even so, it’s like a holiday without being at home because I’m able to lounge around in comfortable clothes or just stand around and chat and watch the students do a practice run of the festival. It’s one of the most relaxing days at Japanese high schools and the students get to relax and spend time with each other outside of the classroom. I’ll get to the actual Festival another day, but something ridiculous happened.

So, after the morning schedule of practice, I decided to go to Hotto Motto and come back. I come back, sit down with my drink, prepared to eat it when the boss (who was currently not in our office) told all of the Guidance Counselor teachers to come meet him in a certain office. I’m in the Guidance Counselor’s office, but I’m assuming that I don’t have to go so I just tell them to tell me whatever happens. They leave to see what’s going on. I’m half-way into my lunch when one of the teachers comes back and tells me that two students were caught smoking, while a third, an accomplice was seen trying to alert them to a teacher coming so they can escape. Yes, it’s as serious as it sounds, unfortunately.

So, at first I was told that three students were caught smoking and two of them were caught while the other one escaped. Then I find out that they were all spotted, tried to run, but were caught by the Guidance Counselor Boss. They brought in the accomplice and demanded answers. He sat right in front of the fridge, while the G.C. Boss was directly in front. On the desk was his written statement. He was accused of being the lookout and telling them to escape when they saw the boss coming. He completely denied it and said that even if he made the hand waving motion to tell them to get away, then he did it unconsciously. See…that would make sense if the G.C.Boss who found those three didn’t see him do it. Therein lies the problem, doesn’t it? In any case, he got yelled at for a while, was told to write down his story on paper and get out. He was only a small fry…an appetizer, if you will.

The next kid that comes in, he’s the third grader (senior) who is graduating this school year. He’s not a bad kid at all, a little headstrong, I guess. Not really judgmental, more like, you have only like two chances to prove to him that you’re cool, otherwise he won’t give you the time of day, kind of guy lol. He’s into baseball as well and is the star pitcher because he’s very good. He was one of the kids caught smoking, but I’m guessing they didn’t interrogate him in this room, so I didn’t see that.

The second kid caught smoking comes in looking simply bewildered and/or blindsided. It was as if he was confused about what was going on. I’m assuming it’s a bit worrisome if you get caught smoking and you have to have your parents come and take you home. That’s what happens to all of the kids, when something this serious happens. He didn’t stay long in here, but his school bag was packed to the brim with all of his books but his school slippers stayed here. I’m not sure what was going on with him, but he’s a second grader, so he has the chance to make stupid mistakes, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen since he’s the main cause of this, or is he?

The mother of the last student came in. She and her son sat next to each other, the side closest directly in front of the wall, while the Boss and a different teacher sat across from them. Her son was of course, one of the kids who were caught smoking so he’s in trouble as well. He and his mother had to sit there while the G.C. Boss yelled at the student for being stupid. He asked him if this is the kind of behavior a senior should have and why did he come to this school since it seems it certainly wasn’t to graduate because he’s being an idiot and all that. I think the saddest sight wasn’t that this “manly” student was near tears, but how his mom was trying hard not to break down and sob. Like, she was crying, but it wasn't sobbing. I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m wondering; why the hell is the mother crying? Well, this is what happens when you decide to have teachers act like a surrogate parent. The teacher/parent can yell at student, thereby the parent indirectly. The parent should take more responsibility but she knows she’s at fault because at the end she thanked the teachers. It’s a painful embarrassment for the biological mother.

I’m sure that’s not the only reason why when the G.C. Boss was done yelling at them, they were both crying though…but this is the third time this student got his mother called in to the school because of bad behavior. According to the school rules, that’s grounds for immediate expulsion. I’m sure they were well aware of that too. Another sad thing about this is that he’s a senior and since he wasn’t a bad student, he already had a job lined up after graduation, but he got the job through the school, so does that mean he no longer has a job ready for him? I don’t know. So, at the end of the day four students’ lives were interrupted because the G.C. Boss (who is a smoker) would never mistake a cigarette scent.

This is the full story. The 2nd grader was the one who bought the cigarettes. He bought them that morning at the damn convenient store. Why the hell are they selling cigarettes to high school kids?! The mandatory H.S. uniform is essentially an I.D. card in and of itself, is it not? Not to mention, yes there are cigarette vending machines everywhere, however, you have to scan your ID card in the machine before you can buy them. Despite that, the idiots working at a convenient store will gladly sell them to high school kids? Whatever. So, he manages to get the cigarettes from there in that morning. Shows them off to the older kids and of course he would. That dynamic of wanting to seem cooler to slightly older people doesn’t change. If only it was something more positive because the next thing they know, they’re busted and a kid might get expelled. Who is at fault anyway?

Honestly, I can’t blame the kids. These nicotine-addicted teachers smoke all the time on school grounds! Whenever the teachers have no classes or if it’s during lunchtime or something, you can always see them hanging out together and smoking. Not to mention, Japan still has that belief that you look cool when you smoke. I’m pretty sure the States discarded that notion by the mid-late 90s. Even so, one stupid mistake by a convenience store clerk potentially resulted in a student being kicked out school, thus losing his job offer. Who is responsible for this? Could it be the kid for purchasing them in the first place? Could it be the idiot who sold them? Could it be a social problem? So many people need nicotine that almost everywhere we go has some kind of smoke room, or if there isn’t one, you can smoke where you sit. Could the youth who are clearly influenced by all of these factors be responsible for his response to his own culture? I don’t know.

Typhoons and Attitudes

2009-10-10T16:26:00.005+09:00

So, there was a typhoon yesterday. Nothing much happened other than everyone continuing work as usual. That’s all well and good if you have a car, but they had students come in too. Now, I’m not going to get into the cultural significance of teachers coming into work and kids being forced to bike to during a typhoon, only to be sent home an hour later and be expected to bike home with the typhoon worsening, but it’s something ridiculous.

The vice principal was supposed to decide if teachers would be able to go home without having to take nenkyuu, but they weren’t fooled. He used the Japanese equivalent of, “….I’ll think about it.” Yeah…those teachers weren’t going home without taking a vacation day. A lot of teachers did take paid holiday, but I don’t think that should have been necessary. However, there were enough teachers who, believe it or not, didn’t want to go home, but I don’t think they were part of the reason why the vice principal made teachers take paid holiday just to go home during a typhoon.

One of those people is one of the English teachers, the most progressive one. She told me and everyone else in the office that even if she had the opportunity to go home early, she isn’t going to go. She would never go home early. Why, you ask? According to her, her kids are too difficult to deal with and she could never do things that she wants to do…..whaaat!? So, she doesn’t want to go home because then she’d have to take care of her own kids…..and what’s wrong with that? It was the same thing with the kids; some of them didn’t want to go home and would rather hang out with their friends at school. Based on one of the previous posts, I inadvertently ended up finding out why young kids don’t like going home because it’s either too awkward or, like I heard from one of my English contest students, “There’s nothing to do.” I don’t think I’ll ever understand that.

I suppose I can kind of understand where the teacher is coming from, about her raising her kids is difficult so she wouldn’t want to go home early. I just can’t understand how she can say that so casually to the other males in the office without thinking twice about it. The men laughed about it, but little do they know that their wives are feeling the exact same way lol.

Then she’s going to turn around and complain to me that she has too much work. She was always slightly frustrated at the fact that other English teachers are able to go home at 5 sharp, and why she never seems to be able to. She said that because she’s been in our office the longest that she has the most information, so everyone asks her questions. She finds herself helping everyone else with everything during the day, while she’s staying until 7, 8 o’clock finishing her own work. Once again I get the true feelings of another Japanese person just because I’m not Japanese. Since I’ve been given that privilege again, I take the opportunity and tell her honestly that she’s stretching herself too far for people that just want you to do their work for them. She’s like most women in whom they’ll do anything and everything for people, sometimes without even asking, just so people will talk positively about them. After all, rude chicks don’t get husbands ;-).

While she’s already married with children, it seems as though she can’t shake that off and she finds herself doing everyone else favors. I told her that she start saying no and not think twice about it. Now, I shouldn’t have to tell a 33 year old mother of three about these things but it seems as though she’s never been told things like that. Well…I’ll be more than happy to let her know. ^_^

The Rock Star Cicada's Victory

2009-10-04T14:32:00.004+09:00

I’ve said this before but; I’m at an agricultural school. Not many of my students are going to college. From the start, my students are meant to believe that they won’t achieve anything but being a farmer, a gas station attendant, a convenience store worker or making ramen for some stranger (meaning a ramen restaurant not in the family). They aren’t told explicitly; it’s the simple fact that they’re in a school called an Agricultural school, as opposed to a commercial, academic or marine school. The contest was the whole Miyazaki prefecture, so students in which their academic schools have a 95% college attendance rate also attended. Bi-racial students also attended. So my Rock Star Cicada already had about 2 major strikes against him. Despite all that, he came in 5th. I am so proud of him.

I’m heavily biased but I think he should have placed a number or two higher lol. Okay, that’s all I’m going to say about that. I told him about bi-racial kids and that because of how they’re raised they might or might not have excellent, natural sounding English. I told him not to worry about it though, and that all he had to do was focus on his speech. In our case though, the biracial kids didn’t compete in our recitation, rather they were doing the long 5 minute speeches.

Despite his nervousness, the fact that he put all of his trust in me made me even more determined to push him. All of his practicing and hard work paid off. He was up against 35 other students and completely destroyed 30 of them. The ones he didn’t beat had luck on their side -.-. I had to say that I’ve never been so nervous/agitated/anxious for someone not in my family before until that day. They weren’t necessarily bad emotions but they were strong. His voice was a little low because he was a tad too far from the mic but he did very well. We had a couple of hours to wait until the results were finalized though.

I saw Chisaka-san’s speech because we were all in the same room and she did well, she said she did better than she thought she would. She wasn’t able to place though, but I’m just glad that she didn’t freak out and forget her speech or something lol.
So everyone was sitting there, waiting for the results to be called. The second name to be called was my Rock Star Cicada. I couldn’t stop the smile. He did it. He went up to receive his victory certificate then he comes back, smiles shyly and goes, “….I got it.” I taught him natural English of course, so he can use “I get it” and “I got it” in the proper situations. He’s such a good listener!

The contest was on a Friday so I didn’t get all the “Thank you’s” n stuff until Tuesday. One of the teachers said that our school never got into the top 6 until Friday. I’m having a hard time believing that, but I can’t necessarily check it. Regardless, let’s just let the Rock Star Cicada have his day. He’s graduating next March. He is part of the small percentage of students who will head off to college, to the international school at that…..yeeeessss! When I see him in class, he doesn’t slack off on the proper pronunciation of English words even though teachers won’t correct him because they speak the same Katakana English. I think the best thing about him is that if you saw him, you would think he was just like every other normal Japanese high school boy. Little does anyone know, he can act, he has progressive thoughts about visiting other countries, he refuses to use the term “half” for biracial people and can pronounce the hell out of v’s, l’s, r’s and th’s. By the time you realize his hidden talents, you’re already charmed.

Idle Engagements

2009-09-11T21:05:00.010+09:00

Okay, so… I never needed a bike in New York. Cars, trains, buses, taxis, and walking have worked perfectly fine for me. Once I arrived in Japan, however, the “useless one” convinced me that I need a bike for school transportation. Surprisingly, she was right about something and I’ve been using it for school ever since. The bike has been in fairly good shape, the occasional tire that needs more air, whatever, no problem. It’s been in good shape up until three weeks ago when I got a puncture in my tire. Before the puncture, I was slowly able to tell when my bike needed more air when it was harder to peddle and it felt like I was biking over rocks lol.

So! I was heading back towards my school after I bought some water at the convenience store, when all of sudden it became UNBELIEVABLY difficult to peddle and it felt like I was biking over giant rocks that were all conveniently put in my way. I go back to the school and I realized, damnit! I got a flat tire! Luckily for me, there’s a bike shop right across the street from the convenience store so I walk the bike there. He tells me that, yep….there’s definitely a puncture (-.-), and that it’ll take an hour for him to fix it. I’m like great! After I drop the bike off I wait for right before lunchtime to get it. I get it back and it felt great! Like I was biking on water! XD There’d be no way that my bike would ever have any problems again!

…..Last week I was biking, and it went right back to that feeling of biking on rocks! I’m like, wtf! I thought these bike shops had people that can FIX BIKES, not just take the rock out then go half-assed on everything else. I’ve also grown to quickly hate that sensation. So I get a little irritated, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I thought that it was just another instance of the tire losing air, and I had to just get the bike pump that’s in the school. So! I ask an office lady about the bike pump, she asks why, then I explain, that there’s no air in my tire. One office lady gets up and walks with me to ask where the bike pump is, and we ended up finding out that the bike pump is in my office somewhere lol. I was like, “Oh.” So we get the bike pump and walk back to my bike. Before that however, I tell her to feel the tire and confirm if it needs air. She feels it and goes, “Arara!” lol, so yeah…I need air.

She goes inside to get her shoes and the office ladies ask what’s wrong. She tells them, “Tatum-sensei has a flat tire!” and two more office ladies jump up to see my bike lol. What the hell are they doing? So with three office ladies outside at my bike, they all feel the tire and murmur and agree that yes, it is flat lol. Another office lady, after feeling my tire went, “Arara!” lol They ask me if it’s a puncture and I said that I don’t think so and how two weeks ago I went to the bike shop because I had a puncture and it was fixed, but now it’s messed up again so I don’t think he did a good job. They start murmuring again after that and agree that yes, he didn’t do a good job lol. So while one stood and watched, two office ladies helped pump air in my tire. This isn’t uncommon. If I ask for help, the office ladies stop whatever they’re doing and take care of what I need. I honestly think that most offices and businesses in Japan would collapse if there weren’t office ladies. SOMEONE has to have information, right? Lol

So, after they pump the back tire, they look at the front tire, go “why the hell not,” then pump that one lol. After this happens, we’re standing around, talking about my bike, when the new vice principal sees what’s going on and walks towards us. Now, I don’t think I told you anything about the new vice principal, just know that he’s a hell of a lot better than the last one and knows English. He may be Europhile, but he’s a nice guy. So, he proves that by walking to us and asking what’s wrong. He feels the back tire and he goes, “Hm…this needs more air.” The office ladies are like, “Noooo vice principal-sensei! We think there’s enough air in there!” He ignores them and tends to the back tire. Then after squeezing the tire, he takes off some metal thing, which takes all of the air out the tire, wasting the efforts of the first two office ladies. Then, resolute, he freakin’ flips my bike upside down and starts manhandling it. I’m like, “????” and the office ladies are like, “!!!!!” Despite all that, he starts asking for tools, while he tries to pull the rubber part of the wheel off. So, if you’re keeping score, there are 4 Japanese people around my bike.
He struggles with it for a while, trying to pull the wheel thing off, while directing the office ladies to do stuff. While he’s doing that, a Japanese language teacher comes up and just stares in amazement of what’s going on. I don’t know why she decided to stop and stare either. Then she walks away and goes to do whatever she initially planned to do.

So, the vice principal is still trying to get the tire off when the Biology teacher walks up. He’s all like, “So….what’cha guys doing?” Then one of the office ladies tells him that Tatum-sensei has a flat tire and even though she went to the bike shop two weeks ago, she’s seemingly having more trouble. He goes, “Heeeeeeh.” Now, this sound means a lot of things, just like “arara” and “uuwa.” “Heeeeeh” means shock or surprise. The weird thing about that sound is that they wrap their lips around as if they’re saying “oo” but they make the “heh” sound. Try it! They do this a lot when they’re told new information or something interesting and “arara” is more similar to “Oh No!” and I’ll describe some more whenever they come up.

Come to find out from the vice principal, the rubber thing for the air was twisted and that’s why I wasn’t getting air in my tires properly. Then he asked who did such a terrible job with my bike and I tell him the bike shop next to the convenience store. “Simply terrible…” he says. So, while he was trying to put the tire back onto the bike, the Biology teacher actually needed the vice principal to look over and approve a form or something, and that was why he was hanging around. So, the vice principal gets up, takes the form, and the Biology teacher automatically takes his place in putting the tire back on. A couple of minutes later the vice principal comes back down and helps the Biology teacher finish the job. So yes, there are 5 Japanese people hanging around my bike because of a flat tire lol. Yeah..ALL of them obviously had nothing to do and decided to pay extra, special attention to my bike lol.

After they get the tire on, the Biology teacher leaves, one of the office ladies go, “Oh! There’s no one in the office!” and one of the office ladies goes back in to man the office lol, and the vice principal starts bragging to the office ladies how he’s a regular bike fixer, while the other office ladies are like, “Whooa..Vice principal-sensei can do ANYTHING!”-.- Don’t feed the ego, ladies! In any case, after the wheel is back to normal, he properly pumps air in the tire, and he says that it’s good as new. I’m a bit skeptical, despite all that lol, but he told me to give it a test run. It feels great! It’s like biking on air! So, afterwards he pretends to charge me 10 dollars but then points out since I’m helping “his” kids for the English speech contest (the rock star cicada, and Chisaka-san), that he’ll help me out with this….they’re MY kids, you butthead -.-. In any case, I’m very grateful for his and the office ladies’ help and I thank them, while they go back to doing nothing… Why do I have the feeling that I helped them more than they helped me? lol

My Boyfriend is a Model!

2009-08-25T16:55:00.002+09:00

Lol Well okay…I’m exaggerating a bit. He was selected to be a model by his teacher. If you met Keith, you’d know that he doesn’t really like being the center of attention. Most of these people here have never seen a cute black guy from New York so he gets an outrageous amount of attention and people coming up to him daily asking for pictures and wanting to talk to him or kids emulating him. Not only does he deal with that on a daily basis while heading towards the studio, but all of this month, he has to sit for two hours and get stared at and drawn by everyone in the studio lol. However, it’d make a good addition to his resume, yes?

He was telling me about it and it’s pretty much how most of those art modeling sessions go: he walks in, sit and hold still for 25 minutes, take a break for 15 minutes, and continue on until the 2 hours are up. Yes… he keeps his clothes on -.-. I haven’t been there to see it in action, but he has told me quite a bit about it.

Most of the people that attend are the regulars at the studio, but we’ve never met them because they come on different days. Also, they are Japanese people who have traveled! So, that means he’s been meeting a completely different type of Japanese person. There was this guy with purple hair and he asked Keith in good English how old does he look. Keith said 40, but he actually turned out to be 70. Like, what the hell? Lol I have a feeling he asks people that all the time so he can surprise them with the answer.
There’s another lady who loves Keith’s hair and would ask him a ton of questions on how he got his hair to “do that.” Lol Eerr…nature and genetics?

He, of course, gets a lot of compliments, ranging from “beautiful boy (!!) to handsome face...err…not the ones I was expecting, but they embarrass Keith all the same lol. They also told him that they wish they could meet more black people like him in Japan. They also told him that they want him to bring me one of those days and gave us some candy out of kindness. Wow. I was ALWAYS under the impression that you cannot change the minds of Japanese people. Simply on the principle of how you’re not the first foreigner they have seen, so most Japanese people have already decided what they’ll think and feel about you before they have even met you. Terrible? Yes, however unavoidable.

Also, based on some ignorant people that I’ve met, who will continue to say negative things about non-Japanese people despite one in their face; that’s what I thought. Especially after this warm treatment, Keith could go outside and some other Japanese old lady would be scared of him because he has a foreign face. For the people willing to see the good in foreign folks (also known as, the non-ignorant, well adjusted Japanese person), it will all depend on whom they meet because these particular ladies have never met any black people before Keith. From now on, however, they’re going to be kind and sweet to the next black people they see. Trailblazing FTW!. lol

This is mainly a pictures post, so please look at the pictures!

A(n) English Math Teacher’s Plight

2009-08-13T17:32:00.007+09:00

I’m helping out another one of my students for the same competition. This one, however, she’s practicing for a different category. I’m not too sure if her category includes awards, though. She was selected by the teachers because she’s so good at English, but she secretly told me that she didn’t want to do the speech she has. I was shocked because…ya know… it’s her speech, so how could she possibly not want to do the one she picked? Oh..right…she didn’t pick it; one of the teachers gave it to her. Sigh. This is exactly why I try and make the students pick their own speeches because I mean based on her attitude, it’s clear that she would rather do a different one. Sigh.

So, it kind of showed when I would give her the same pointers as Kenta-kun (The Rockstar Cicada) and while he absorbed it, internalized it, and show me that he’s listening by using my corrections, Chisaka-san would make the same mistakes over and over again, at the same parts of her speech. Er….okay, but I’m just going to make the same corrections, while just explaining them in different ways. When teachers talk about whether or not a student is good English that usually just means that they do their English homework very well in comparison to other students. You would have never known if you heard her complain about how difficult the speech is, even though Kenta-kun has a much harder one, in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary level. At the same time, I can understand why she is not as excited about it, simply because the speech wasn’t her choice.

She would constantly ask me how Kenta-kun is progressing and would ask how often he comes and practices she immediately gets all competitive and always goes, “Okay! I’ll do my best!” and work that much harder. I just don’t know why she doesn’t do the speech just for her own benefit lol..but I’m not going to knock her motivation. I can safely say that she’s doing a lot better than when we first started and she’s trying to break out of the “katakana” way of speaking English. Katakana English is just Japanesing English. It essentially used to make English words easier to pronounce for Japanese people, but I mean, they should pronounce it in the way it’s supposed to be pronounced. Every other language requires that you try to sound as natural as possible, not settling for pseudo-English. For example, “I love the view from here,” in Katakana English is, “Ah-ee rabu za byuu furamu hee-ya.” That’s not English!!!

........ I think I’m going to do a class on proper consonant and vowel pronunciation. Yeah, I’ll do that when school starts again. Now, I’m well aware that there are plenty of different ways to speak English, simply because there are so many different languages in the world. HOWEVER, most of those other countries more than likely insist on sounding as natural as possible. I know that most students write words out in katakana so it’d be easier for them to pronounce, but that isn’t how it should be. Why? Well, the Japanese language doesn’t distinguish l’s from r’s and b’s from v’s. Even their way of making the v sound is “bui.” What’s that!!! You know….I’m gonna stop here since this isn’t the main focus of this entry lol.

In any case! After she got tired from using so much English, we usually end up chatting. She’s quite bright and simply adorable (like most students at MY school ☺)! I asked her about her other schoolwork and how she has been doing. She’s always complaining about things being “too difficult” or “troublesome” but she has no choice but to do it. The students here have a lot of homework to do during the break…which would make sense if they didn’t have to come to school during summertime! She and the other students have an outrageous amount of school homework. She has to do about 10 pages of Japanese, 20 pages of English, 10 pages of Biology, and about 15 pages of math problems.…kinda makes your high school summer reading list seem like fun, doesn’t it? lol

I look at all the work she has to do and she tells me, quite honestly, that she hasn’t finished it, nor does she want to….like most high school kids. I sympathized with her, but she’s well aware of the fact that she will be tested on all of those subjects in the first week when she gets back, so she NEEDS to finish that work. Then she says, “Hey sensei! Since we’re speaking Japanese and you know so much kanji (-.-), me and everyone else thought that you must be some sort of a genius. You can LITERALLY do anything right?” I immediately get suspicious, but then I realize that she ACTUALLY thinks that because then she whips out her math homework and asks me to help her!
Wait, wait, wait. My being here is SO completely unrelated to your math homework lol. Not to mention, foreigners speaking Japanese DEFINITELY doesn’t make that foreigner a genius. Also, what does my speaking Japanese have to do with any mathematical knowledge?

So, after laughing, I explain that it’s likely that I have no idea how to do her difficult math proble--- wait! I looked at the problems and realized that, after drudging up what I can remember from high school, I can actually help her! It was only multiplying binomials, quadratic equations, linear equations and multiplying fractions. Phew! I was expecting some outrageous SAT like math, but it wasn’t bad.

Unfortunately, I don’t know much math related Japanese so I had to ask her some questions before I can actually help her. Her main issue though was that she makes little mistakes so while her work is correct, the final answer would be off. Also, she didn’t really seem to understand the fundamentals of multiplication and division. As in, she would know HOW to get to an answer, but couldn’t explain it to me. Like no, 25 over 25 is NOT zero and no you can’t divide anything by zero, a negative minus a negative is still negative, and the best way to do most of those problems is to remember that you’re searching to isolate the x. I also taught her FOIL for the binomials since they don’t use that method here. Why don’t they use that! After I helped her out with math, she tried to push Biology on me and I chuckled before pointing to the door, telling her to leave because it’s 1pm during the summer and she’s at school with her uniform on!!

I tried to break things down easily for her because she refuses to see her math teacher about it. I completely understand lol. He’s a jerk. I told her that she should get a group of her friends together and do math and science in a group. It’s the easiest way to properly do your work if one of your friends knows how to do it, right? She says that she’ll try and get them together, but she doesn’t know if they’d want to meet up just to study. Okay…lol.

I remind her that it’s summer and how she’s still in her uniform, so she needs to go home, change, and go have fun somewhere. She agreed but she didn’t have any idea of where to go. I mention the giant amusement and games place that Keith and I always go to. It’s 10 minutes by bike from our school. It’s an awesome place to play the newest arcade games or do coin pusher, crane games and pachinko. One floor is completely dedicated to bowling, since apparently it’s gotten quite popular here. It also has a pay section in which you pay 10 dollars for 3 hours of arcade games and sports like rollerblading, golf, badminton, pool, basketball, darts, fishing (!), soccer, tennis, archery and they even have a batting cage with pitching practice at the top floor. They also have a relaxation and spa section where you can change into some slippers and sit down in an expensive massage chair with the other people in that room and just watch tv. There’s also a giant kids section where there are more of those awesome massage chairs for the parents. However… her eyes widen and she quickly shakes her head and freaks out, telling me, “No! No! No! That place is way too dangerous and scary! Tatum-sensei, do you really go there?! Aren’t you bothered by the people there and do scary people come up to you?” You know?.…I’m going to just leave that alone lol.

My Student is a Competitive Cicada!

2009-08-08T00:24:00.009+09:00

Well…of course not in a literal sense, but I’m preparing him for a speech contest in September. There are different sections of the speech contest, his is just a recitation, but he still competes with other students in his category. When he first came to me, though, it was quite awkward. Another teacher and I decided his speech. I mean at first the silly teacher was trying to force him to pick something from “An Inconvenient Truth,” and I frowned at her so hard! -.- Like what are you doing? That’s obviously her interest; forcing him to talk fiction about the environment won’t go over well with anybody, especially the JET judges. I tried to explain that his book is only meant to scare people like her by using sensational imagery, but then she misinterprets what I was trying to get at and said, “Yeah! It’s very sensational right? I mean he was able to gather so much information!” ….sigh. Anyway…no. No, I will not let you use one of our students to spread sensational environmental fiction. Just… no.

So then whenever I asked him what he wants to speak about, he’d just cock his head to the side with his head down so I won’t be able to see his face…..okay. Wtf do you want to speak about? lol It was so frustrating for me because HE’S the one that's going to be standing there in front of all those people when that day comes, so I don’t want to force a speech on him if he doesn’t want to do it. I’m not okay with picking something that I would think he likes. I want to know what he likes. He mentions Harry Potter and how he has most of those books in English so I said great! Then I tell him to pick his favorite section of any book, take a 3 minute passage from it then bring it in. Seems easy enough right?

Next day, he comes in with a sad face and lets me know that he couldn’t find something because he gets tired when he has to read all that English. lol…what? Well I can understand what he means because I get tired of reading Japanese newspapers. So he indirectly left it up to me and the other teacher. It just felt inherently wrong that another teacher and myself made this kind of decision for him, but he didn’t say anything! Sigh. It was clear that we had no choice in the matter, so we looked for something for him to do.

Some English books here have little passages in which you’re supposed to guess what or who the speaker is based on the speech. As I was flipping through the books, I found a story of cicada that’s a flirtatious rock star. It’s simply one of the cutest things I have ever read. It’s done so perfectly well! The cicada rock star brags about how he did the underground scene for a bunch of years, how he is in an intense competition with the other chump cicadas because they have the nerve to think they are rock stars, how he’s hot and that no one sings like he can. Of course you’ve noticed this by now, my student is nothing like that rock star cicada, but that’s what is so funny about it!

He said it was too difficult, but then I pointed out that since he’s smart, there’ll be no trouble and that I’ll help him. When he first read it out loud to me, I realized that I had to turn him into a rock star cicada for a month and a half. I didn’t know if he even wanted to go that far, but then he told me that he really wants to win. So, I taught him “rock star” hand gestures and natural movements that coincide with his speech because I warned him that just standing there and reciting what he practiced isn’t going to win the judges over. I also helped him with his confidence and helping him give off the idea that he’s the best cicada on the planet. I explained that this rock star cicada is arrogant as hell, like most human ones, and he’d need to aggressively get that point across when the day comes.

Somehow we got into a conversation about music, then I started talking about Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy and how he has the typical attitude of an arrogant rock star (without having any real talent), while the ACTUAL lead singer, Patrick Stumph, doesn’t embody a rock star at all. I mentioned it in passing, but then the next day he tells me that he really likes Fall Out Boy (!!) and he would like to hear more bands of the same genre that they are in. What the hell lol. Okay! Sweet! I think stuff like this is necessary though, to help him get into the mindset of a rock star cicada since the whole passage is written the first person view so clearly the speaker is the cicada.

Then he asked me about accents and how singers with accents sound. I had him listen to The Klaxons and some of Corrine Bailey Rae because of how you can hear their accents when they sing. He wasn't able to pick up on it so I helped him out by pronouncing the differences in some of the words. He caught on quickly after that!
So, before I realized it, my cute student walked off with burned albums of Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco and My Chemical Romance while I’m sitting there wondering if I came on a bit too strong with the whole music thing. lol But it’s okay! He told me that it’s his favorite genre of music and it’d be “amazing” to hear it in English and it’d be good English practice for him. Oh…okay then. lol

He’s been progressing so well! It’s so obvious that he really enjoys what we’re doing and likes pretending to be a rock star cicada because he reads his lines with such confident arrogance! Lol I told him as long as he keeps his new found arrogance for the cicada, then he’ll be fine. The main problem that I’ve been helping him with is how to put emotion in his words since English isn’t spoken in a monotone, especially with a rock star cicada as well as how to pronounce certain words. I’m so glad that he’s taking this seriously; well then again of course he is because he signed up for it.

It just makes me nervous because I know he really wants to win but we are an agricultural high school. There are a lot of academic high schools in where English is treated as serious business because most of the students in those schools are heading for college, and English knowledge is necessary for college entrance exams. So, there are students who already sound like native speakers and will have no trouble with consonants and vowels, but we can’t be pessimistic.

If he wins in his category, he gets to be in the news and that is the main reason for his hard work… just to be recognized. Well then damnit, if that’s what you want, I’ll try and make you as natural as I can! Stick with me kid, and I’ll make you into the most arrogant cicada rock star that the contest has ever seen! lol

Foreign Relations

2009-08-01T12:04:00.007+09:00

I was lazy one Sunday and decided to wait until the afternoon to get lunch…like at around 3pm or so because I was playing some games. I usually get something small for lunch on the weekends though. I was holding it off since I should have went for lunch earlier, but whatever. As I’m walking out of my apartment, I come face to face with this random girl that I never saw before who was about to knock on my door. So I jump, startled but quickly gain my bearings and ask who she is. She told me that her name is Tomoko, she’s the daughter of my downstairs neighbor and that she was told to come upstairs by her parents because they told her that we are “ nice foreigners.” Lol Thanks, I guess.

After that however, we ended up talking for a long time in English. She started off by asking what we do in our apartments because when she was at this apartment a couple of years ago, they lived under an American guy and across from a British guy. They hated them because they were so loud and obnoxious and threw parties a lot. Ugh. She went on to say that everyone is aware that we are here, but we are so quiet. To me, it sounded like they liked the fact that they were able to hear foreigners making noise, but at the same time appreciate that we’re quiet, but can’t help but be ultra curious. I personally thought that we made too much noise because Keith and I blast our music, but I guess the paper walls seem to hold sound in alright lol. It could also be because she lives below and one door to the left so they don't hear noise. The family below us moved because the father was transferred to a different school, so we can literally be as loud as we like and no one would be able to hear. Sweet!

We ended up sitting outside near her door and talked about a lot of things, one thing in particular about how she would really, really like to swim (?) and if there are any public pools here. Um…what? I couldn’t help but chuckle and wonder why she’s in desperate need of a pool but I don’t think I would be able to help her. So I mentioned that there are some surfers that live next to her and that if she asks them then I’m sure they would know. Like… why the hell wouldn’t they know, right? So I told her to ring the bell and she was like,”No, no, no! I can’t just go up and ring some random guy’s doorbell!” I pointed out that she did that to me no more than half an hour ago and she commented that because he’s Japanese, she would not do that. So I’m like whatever, let’s just wait and see if he’s in there, but apparently he wasn’t in because his car wasn’t there.

We continue talking for a while then his car pulls up! I tell her there he is, so….she can ask him then. She still wasn’t going to make the first move so I ask him about a pool first, THEN she decides to take it away. -.- Well, that’s how it works here I guess. He tells her that there weren’t any public pools here but just in case, he will ask someone and if we’d be kind enough to wait, he’ll go in his apartment, put down all of his stuff and come back out. So after he came back out, we all talked about pools and how there aren’t any, when another neighbor comes! I told Tomoko about her before we spoke about the pool and how she is a very wonderful woman and her daughter, Natsuho is adorable. Yuko was the first Japanese person to actually not care that we were foreign and welcomed us with open arms. She’s also been quite busy so I haven’t seen her in a while, so I’m glad I was actually able to see her. So after she had the answer of where there was an actual public pool in Miyazaki (!), it was like an impromptu neighbor “party” because there is 4 out of 6 of us in the apartment, so a decently sized group of us were chatting outside. It was nice! So, afterwards, when they had to go inside and make dinner and whatnot, Tomoko and I make plans to have lunch or just hang out in my apartment since she lives downstairs.

When we can finally get a day to hang out, we usually just chat about random things. She was telling me that her culture puts way too much pressure on her and she hates it; she’d rather leave Japan and deal with another country. Imagine my surprise when a girl who was born in Miyazaki, lived in Osaka for a while, comes back, then tells ME that Japanese people from Miyazaki are rude! If you know enough Japanese people, you realize that they are quite proud of Japan, some of them, to the point of ridiculing other cultures. So, meeting a Japanese person who would rather bash their own culture than praise it is probably something that most foreign people won’t get to experience. However, she has pretty good English because she went to college in Australia, so I don’t really have to speak Japanese, but even she gets tired of trying to figure out what she wants to say in English and she’ll switch to Japanese.

She told me that when she got back to Miyazaki, most people stare at her and are rude to her because they can tell that she’s not from here… but I’m like…you’re Japanese. It doesn’t seem to matter though. She told me about when she first arrived in Osaka, she was wandering around lost, and this Japanese girl walked up to her and asked her if she was alright. She explained that she was lost and the girl that spoke went up to her told her where to go, and gave her the number to her cell phone and told her if she needed more to call. Unbelievable! You would never know that because the people here say so much bad things about other places IN Japan. They always say to stay away from the city because there are too many people and so, way too many bike gangs and yakuza. I always sigh every time I hear that and it’s clearly a country bumpkin type thing, but I still can’t help but roll my eyes. If they say such things about other Japanese people, I can only imagine what they think about foreigners.
She also told me that her boss has a kid but he’s always inviting her to drink like three times a week. That’s unfortunately, quite common. I know so many of these teachers drink every night. I asked one of the English teachers (the one that doesn’t like to team teach with my lesson plans) what does he like to drink, and his response was, “…night time or day time?” What!? Wow.

A different English teacher told me that he drinks every night to “train” himself and build up a tolerance to alcohol. Right. A couple of other Japanese people told me that they drink and smoke because they are very stressed and it’s the only way to calm them down. I can understand that, but you guys….ya know…have children to take care of. When I say that they drink, I mean that they go out with coworkers to drink after spending WAY too much time at work. It’s kind of like… go home guys! Not to mention: they drink and smoke NEAR their children (way too common here), and one jerk even had the nerve to bring her newborn baby to a smoke room! –holds back expletive-

In any case, hearing this Japanese girl talk negatively about her culture isn’t new. In the span of about 8 days, Keith and I have met random ladies who bash their own culture. This one lady, in broken English, said, “My foreign friends and foreign people…open. Japanese people…closed.” I didn’t even ask her what she thought about Japanese culture, but foreign-friendly Japanese people seem as if they can’t wait to complain about the culture that they are living in. I’ll get into more reasons that I was told in a different post, but from a foreigner’s angle, all one might see is the surface pride of their culture. Knowing enough Japanese people however, you’re bound to hear complaints…even without knowing a lick of Japanese.

Before I Wandered Miyazaki

2009-07-23T22:31:00.008+09:00

I have a nice month and a half vacation, not that I’ll be spending it at home where I can do more with my time, but I’ll be at the office. Now, there are plenty of perks of being here in a wonderfully air-conditioned room with (luckily) pretty cool people. What’s good about the school’s teachers in general is that they’re expecting me to study Japanese when I’m not doing any work. I know of some places where they get angry if you do anything except something relating to team teaching, those unlucky folks would just have to pretend for hours everyday. That sucks.

The good thing for me is that simply because they’re expecting me to study Japanese, I have about 20 Japanese language experts at my disposal…for free! I most definitely take advantage of this because some people don’t have that kind of opportunity, ya know?

I’m studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, level 2. If I buckle down and study as if I’ll never get the opportunity to study Japanese again, I can skip 2 and possibly clear level 1. It’s quite a reach (I get lazy every now and again)… but I think it’d be best if I did as much Japanese studying as possible while in Japan before I go home.

If you are trying to learn Japanese I can tell you what I’ve done and you can see if it might help you. However we all learn differently, so what I say might not even work for you, and I think if you already have a method of studying Japanese then don’t follow mine because finding something that works for you is the best way to go about it. I will make a separate post for it.

I focused on Japanese language study simply because it’s my interest. It took my first two years of college and a lot of frustration to realize that my major in Japanese was inevitable. I tried the sciences for two years because I remember asking myself what could I possibly do with a Japanese major when I was in my senior year of high school. I had an interest in science so I figured that I would try that route. Even going so far as to researching Med schools in my freshman year of college lol. Yes, I know….I was quite green.

As I took both science and Japanese courses…I stubbornly refused to admit, but was being forced to notice that I was getting very high grades in Japanese, and so-so grades in science, and I’m a firm believer in making a career out of doing something you like. It was hard for me to see that when I had pressure from my father in how I had to “ make as much money as possible” as well as family on my father’s side going “you can be the first doctor in the family!” but I’m sure that’s common.

So, halfway in my four-year college stay, I was tired of this terrible feeling of being a failure, feeling like no matter how hard I studied, I can’t do as well. I also feared the risk of messing up my GPA because my pride, and pressure from my family, but I stubbornly didn't want to give up something that CLEARLY wasn’t working... however, it had to be done. I threw away the whole science thing, focused my attention on an Asian Studies major with a Japanese specialization, completed an Africana Studies minor and never looked back... well maybe a couple of glances lol.

After I dropped my science class, I couldn’t help but notice the weight that was lifted off of my shoulders. I remember the exact point where I was sitting in my Chemistry lab and I had this sudden feeling of “Wow…..I don’t want to be here anymore,” and once I got back to my dorm, I dropped the class and took up a Japanese history class that just happened to be at the same time and days of the week as my Chemistry lecture. I would never forget the horrible feeling of dread and fatigue (all those weekends at the library wasted!) when it came to Chemistry at Binghamton and the sheer excitement and enthusiasm when it came to Japanese. I finally had that feeling I had in high school of excelling at things that I love, and doing science for two years really set the point home that it would be impossible for me to have a career in something that I don’t like.

It took me a day or so to call home and let them know that I changed my plans. It felt as though everyone was counting on me to succeed at something I told everyone so much about. So I waited not because I thought they would be angry with me…but because I felt like I let everyone down. My mother, siblings, father, everybody. However, everyone had to know. I told my mother first but I thought she would be disappointed…but the crazy amount of encouragement and understanding about such a sensitive subject got me so emotional. We’re a very tight knit family so it was great to feel that bond for something like this. I realized that it didn’t matter what I did; Japanese, science, whatever, they would always support me. That’s a good feeling. I told my father and he declared that I “make up my mind.” Whatever. I know where he’s coming from since he, my mother and grandmother brought us to America from Jamaica for a better life so I know he means well in how he just wants me to be successful before it’s too late, but I was 19 when I made that decision so I think I have plenty of time left lol.

So, I filled out some forms, met with some people and officially changed my major. About a week later, I went to the Career Development Center on campus because I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do next. I mean most science majors have a good idea of where they are going to go after they graduate because science seems more tangible so it wouldn’t have been hard to figure out a game plan. However, like I asked myself before, what the hell could I do with a Japanese major?!

In rare instances, I’m not too proud to ask for help. So I scheduled a meeting and awkwardly enough, the “career advisor” was just as stumped as I was about what to do with a Japanese major. -.-…like, seriously? He suggested I become a teacher and I’m like..yeah but that doesn’t really solve my current problem now, does it? Then he suggested the United Nations and then we look up information together about the United Nations and he’s like, “well….they don’t seem to have anything for Japanese speakers…” Wow. Thanks for nothing! It’s like…why the hell did I sign up to talk to you? So, I leave even more confused than when I started, so a few days later I go to one of the awesome Japanese teachers and I’m like, “Hey I changed my major..but I don’t know what the hell to do with it!” So, she suggests Translation/Interpretation, but then I scoffed because I didn’t think I can do that, I mean sure it sounds fun, but I have Chem Lab, some Chemistry work with a serious deadline coming up soon and --- wait wait wait! I’m no longer a science major! I have time to do things I like! Wow…so after that hit me, I decide to look into it. I do tons and tons research on it, and I find out that I think I would love to be a Translator/Interpreter for Japanese/English. Sweet.

So, here I am, after all of that and after being a year in Japan, I am still just as excited then as I am now to know as much as I possibly can about the language. I might not be able to become the first doctor of the family, but I’m headed towards the first Japanese/English translator of the family and I think that’s just as spectacular damnit! lol

Work Ethics

2009-07-13T17:31:00.005+09:00

Nothing too crazy has been going on recently. Pretty much everyone is waiting for summer vacation. Our summer break is this coming Friday, so my lesson plan has been a game and the winners get candy. They don’t really have to learn something with EVERY lesson plan I think. In any case, the teacher and I can relax in class while making it fun for students. Everyone wins.

I’m pretty excited for summer vacation. That means that I get to….go to work everyday and not have to do anything. “What the hell kind of summer vacation is that?” you ask? It’s a Japanese summer vacation! Even though there won’t be any classes, seeing as how it’s summer vacation, I still have to go into work. I, as well as every other teacher still have to go. You wouldn’t believe all the complaints I’ve heard from other teachers about that, and how it’s unfair and such. The idiot English teacher (the one that spoke about Korea’s snow) told me, “Well..we used to be able to go home when the students left, but now…the economy is getting worse…so now we’re forced to go into work.” What? That’s such stupid “logic.” Most people would say that going into work would be WORSE for the economy because working includes wasting more paper, ink, electricity, water, etc. Whoever “they” are, government or whatever, it’s clear that they’re making people go into work during summer vacation, simply because no one is going to riot, or cause trouble; they’re going to complain to other people in the same boat, while not really doing anything.

While it should be obvious that we have the those weeks off, however, it would be no different from any other day in which people run around, look busy and give everyone else the illusion of doing work. I see it everyday; I’ve seen it since last October. Yes, even during normal days, most teachers aren’t doing work, but they’ll pretend for the sake of surface compliments.

How did I find that out, you ask? Well, about 5 different teachers have told me in the past 7 months. It would come unexpectedly simply because when I first got here, everyone seemed busy. Then I asked my former supervisor what’s he doing, then I got a, “Walking around and pretending to be busy.” What? Was he joking? Well….he doesn’t really have the best sense of humor so it’s a definite no. At first I thought, well, he’s only one person, it’s not like everyone else does no work. However, I noticed that if someone runs past me, after I wave and greet them; they would stop, and chat me up for like an hour! After a while, I’m like wait…wait…wait….if they’re so busy, how they can just stop whatever they're doing and talk me to for a full on hour about nothing? That’s odd. Doing that after a couple more times, and living here for more than 6 months, you quickly begin to realize that most people do that. Of course there are people who really do work and are tired after work and all, but the majority don’t feel actual exhaustion due to work.

You have to wonder: why is everyone pretending when everyone else MUST know that nobody is doing work? Clearly this happens all of the time, so there has to be a point where nobody is fooled by anyone’s antics. You would never hear it out loud though, mainly because no one wants to be the person who blows that whistle, out of fear of being ostracized. I won’t get into that; just know that it’s a big deal.

They could just take a lot of vacation days during the summer vacation, right? No. Japanese teachers (I’m not sure about other professions) get 40 days of paid holiday and are supposed to use at least 20 days or lose them. Year after year, according to Japanese teachers here, most Japanese teachers don’t take more than like 8 days a year. So, they continue to let all of those vacation days go to waste. Why, you ask? Well, if they take too much vacation time, the other teachers will jealously gossip about that person and call them lazy and whatnot. That’s also the point of omiyage; the practice of giving a gift to the people that you left high and dry when you were on a business trip (hanging out) in Okinawa/Tokyo/Osaka, so you have to give a gift that apologizes to everyone else who had to take up the (non-existent) slack that you so heartlessly left to everyone else in your absence. It’s kind of like an apology and to let people know that you were thinking about them. Even that though, it’s a cultural norm and if you don’t give something, then you’re a despicable Japanese person. However, everyone else must already know that you HAVE to give a gift, even if you hate everyone in your office. So, where’s the genuine apology in that? I don’t know.

That teacher who takes all of that paid vacation will eventually be confronted by one of the teachers who “heard from other teachers” that he/she is taking too much vacation time.” It’s a bit ridiculous because it isn’t as though the people that are still at the school are even doing any work. Even going on actual Vice Principal sanctioned business trips still require you to give gifts, even though it probably wasn’t your choice to go where you went.

So it’s everyone being forced to go to work for some reason, not really doing work, but pretending very well and being envious of people who decide to use their vacation days so they can do something better with their time. Yeah…I don’t know either.

Cultural Insensitivity

2009-06-29T22:32:00.010+09:00

“Michael Jackson…he’s the guy that changed his face, right?” That’s what I was greeted to when students wanted to confirm his death with me. Even as I’m typing, I can’t believe it. It took me a couple of days to actually write because of the sheer shock I experienced. Seeing red background with bold white letters telling me that OUR Michael is gone after I check my mail wasn’t really my favorite way of being told. I go into the office that morning, upset but trying to hiding it because I didn’t want to make a scene. While still in shock, I sit down and just wait until I have class. Then one of the teachers decide to bring it up, albeit sensitively, which I appreciate. However, I found out 20 minutes before I went to work; I simply wasn’t prepared to talk about something so monumental; something even I didn’t fully understand, in Japanese. I didn’t mean to lash out but I said as politely as I could remember at the moment that I simply didn’t want to talk about it.

Afterwards, the female English teacher next to me, “Oh my gosh how terrible!” at my response of not wanting to talk about it. I talk about everything else with them, so clearly there’s something wrong if I don’t want to talk about something, and yet I still had to explain. It got to the point in where I could only say about two words and I would quickly stop because I knew if I opened my mouth and spoke anymore that I would start to cry. So after two words to make them understand, they left me alone, which I appreciated. However, I couldn’t act like this all day because I have to be bubbly and cheery for my students, like how my personality dictates. So, I go to my class, trying to forget about the news. I thought I was able to forget about it until unfortunately one of my students decide to bring it up and of course I don’t want to talk about it, but I have to for the students. I won’t be able to do him justice with my mind scrambled with confusion and sadness so I look towards the Japanese teacher I’m working with. She says that she knows him so I ask her to explain a little bit about him. As she’s relaying information while I stand there…something doesn’t sound quite right with her explanation. She lets me know during class when she confirms something, ”Michael Jackson…he’s the guy that changed his face, right?” Yes, this cultural insensitivity mess doesn't happen only from the foreigners' side onto Japanese people; it most certainly goes both ways.

……I try to hold in my fury and frustration with such tragic news in my mind while trying to explain to a noticeably apathetic group of Japanese kids, whose only concern was that they knew that he had a pretty sister and asked me to remind them of her name and after the face changing question that I’m SUPPOSED to confirm is true, the only thing I can get out is, “That doesn’t matter! What matters is his music and contributions to the music that ALL OF YOU are listening to!” I’ve never done that before so they know that it’s a big deal, but I didn’t want to get into it anymore, and started the class. I felt so tired after that, understanding that I’m being forced to once again talk about something that even I can’t fully wrap my mind around. Then the teacher says, ”Oh..well…our generation knows Michael Jackson…but I don’t think the generations after us do.” False, false and false. Just…no. I didn’t want to tell her that she’s absolutely wrong and it’s only people living in a country who decide to cut themselves off from the rest of the world around them are the ones who don’t know who the hell Michael Jackson is, but I wasn’t going to get into that in class at my emotional state at that time.

Most frustratingly don’t know about him, but I won’t make it my job to tell them anything and me and Keith were invited to a private art exhibition so I took off from work after my interview test with the students and after deciding that I should apologize for my outburst in my office, I was able to go back home before once again dealing with people who can’t comprehend the gravity of this situation. Damnit. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. In any case, from the students’ apathy, to the teachers not understanding why I was upset, to today when this stupid moron decides to “be funny” and tries to terribly and offensively do “The Moonwalk,” ask me if I know what it is and how to do it, and after shutting him down HARD, I’ve decided to say, “You know what, Japan? Nevermind about it.”

A Slippery Slope

2009-06-22T22:05:00.004+09:00

Our apartment has another JET from the states here. He moved from his previous apartment 50 minutes away to come here. RIGHT next to my apartment -.-. Damnit. I don’t hang out with him, I do not want to associate myself with him, but the simple fact that I’m a foreigner here means that anything he does (or doesn’t do) will be reflected upon me. There has been no trouble with the other people of the apartment, all of them say hello and wave or something, and some of our neighbors have invited us over to eat lunch every now and again. I don’t want that to be jeopardized because some guy wants to bring his drama to our apartment. He left because he had problems with other foreigners here, got in an argument and ran away from those people there. However, those catty people, knowing that he’s here now, would come and visit one of the other JETs in the complex. Little does she know that her so called friends are just using her because after a while it gets boring hanging out with the same JETs weekend after weekend.

What annoys me about all of them is that all this crap that they go on and on about; it’s all drama among other foreigners. It’s drama among people who they have seen and hung out with for the past 20 or so years. My thing is, why aren’t they arguing and fighting with Japanese people? Why aren’t they trying to reach out to the Japanese people in the apartment complex? Even “the help” and her tag along, even though they’ve been here for three years, I haven’t seen ONE Japanese person around them that wasn’t a teacher and they had work to do. They stress hanging out with foreigners to the point of neglecting the people of the country, despite LIVING IN THE COUNTRY.

I think a lot of that stems from being so caught up in the foreign bubble that once you get in, it’s impossible to leave. I mean, why would anyone want to deal with speaking with Japanese people, have eventual cultural clashes, deal with the language barrier but eventually trying to come to agreements and make friends, right? It’s a lot easier to ignore them, hang out with people that speak your native tongue and only reluctantly deal with Japanese people when you have to, right?

I think all foreigners come here with the idea of wanting to make a lot of Japanese friends, wanting to feel accepted and so forth. However, when you first get here, you realize that it’s a lot harder than you thought, and their reactions to you aren’t really what you expect. If you are able to understand that what this person does doesn’t apply to all Japanese people, and while annoyed, you can begin to work through it, then you’ll be okay. I think that if you complain to other foreigners, who ONLY hang out with other foreigners (even those in charge), they will tell you that it’s your fault that this is happening to you, and the way to deal with it is to understand what you’re doing wrong to make them behave like this to you. That’s a big part of the textbook method of dealing with culture shock. I don’t agree at all. That was repeatedly fed to me by people who haven’t been through their own period of self-searching and awareness because they’ve been around foreigners for 3 years. The term culture shock is also thrown around too often as well. If I don’t like something about a culture, I’m not culture shocked. I’m critically thinking. How come I can’t dislike a part of the culture I’m living in? What’s crazy about it is that those who are giving other people “advice” are just as blind to problems, so it becomes the “blind leading the blind.”

I still stand by my opinion that most of the people I have met here, know just as little as those who just came here because they blind themselves to truth of a lot of things. After a while it’s just a passing of the veil, or rose colored glasses, or whatever way people like describing “hiding the truth.” The thing is, it seems like a lot of people have this strange notion that if you dislike ONE thing about Japan, then you dislike EVERYTHING about Japan and you’re culture shocked and need to read a book. It’s something that everyone living here will be forced to come to terms with. Whether you want to deal with it when you first arrive, or 3 years later when you realize that you’ve been living in a foreign bubble and haven’t really been IN Japan, but just looking from the outside through your bubble. Blinding yourself to the truth of things is just as bad as hating all things Japan. Being aware of things you dislike, while finding things you can appreciate is the way to go. You can never reach that point if you hang out at foreign bars and ignore Japanese people on a daily basis. Keith likened it to the Matrix; you’re either plugged into it or not.

I was given some interesting advice by a Japanese woman. I’m learning piano (still quite terrible, but I can do scales…) and the woman teaching me is one of the kindest and sweetest Japanese ladies I’ve ever met. Her daughter is also adorable too. Her mother is also great and always makes lunch for me and Keith. Out of the blue, when the lesson was over and I was getting ready to leave, the piano teacher’s mother asked me, “So, Tatum…do you hang out with many foreigners?” Excluding Keith and the awesomely awesome Rachelle, not really, and I told her that. Do you know what she said? She said, “Well….this is just my opinion (!) but I don’t think that you should be hanging out with a lot of foreigners. Ever.” Well…..shit. I’m not really sure where it came from but then she went on with, “Well, this is also just my opinion (!) but when I see a big group of foreigners around, I ask myself and others, ‘what is their purpose of being here?’ So, I don’t want you to be associated with those kinds of people, are we clear?” Whoa. First off, she said “this is just my opinion” which is outrageous since most Japanese people, in order to keep the peace, don’t really say what’s actually on their minds.

When you’re a foreigner who speaks Japanese, you get told all kinds of things that they cannot say to Japanese people. I’ve also been told by her that if one Japanese person believes something, then almost all of them believe the exact same thing. Now, I’m not sure how correct that even is, but it’s clear that a lot of Japanese people don’t like big groups of foreigners. Even for me too, if I see a big group (I’m talking 6, 7 and up) of any type of people in the states then I’m going to wonder what they’re doing and why they’re together in such a big group because of the group mentality in how everyone shares the same brain. She clearly told me to make sure that I’m not involved in that. I completely agree. Not to mention, I can’t become fluent if I’m speaking English 24/7.

I’m not saying all foreigners should be avoided; I’m saying the ones that you don’t like, and the ones that you would never hang out with in your home country are the ones that you should be avoiding. Whether or not they are able to see things that others notice, hanging out with someone just because they’re in the same company as you is counter-productive. You don’t want to be with the group that’s too busy ignoring Japanese people and acting stupidly in public. Whether or not you take part in their stupid activities, just being around them makes you guilty by association. If they want to give up and blindly hate Japanese people or blindly love Japanese people then they shouldn’t be any of your concern. I, for one, want no part of it.

The Students of 1L

2009-06-15T19:21:00.004+09:00

Today was quite alright. The final exam is coming in a couple of weeks and it’s my job to do the listening section of the exam. Not a problem. I only had one team teaching class today, but if I have only one class that means that I’m sitting around for the rest of the day. I wouldn’t mind doing that, if I didn’t feel so guilty -.-. Some people like getting paid to do nothing, but it makes me feel like a fraud, not to mention I really don’t mind going to a class and being an assistant for 50 minutes. All I have to do is stand there and look foreign while helping out with pronunciation and telling them small differences about Japan and America.

A strange class that I have this year is the 1L class. The L classes are all girls. 1L, 2L and 3L are all girls because L stands for our equivalent of home and careers. I think the L stands for life…probably. So yeah, normally the L classes have the smartest and most energetic students in the school. However, this class is a little bit different. They’re just as smart as they’re expected to be, but…..they’re so….quiet. Now if you’ve been at a Japanese school, you’ll realize that Japanese girls are just like any other kind of girl; loud and borderline out of control when it comes to their noise making. I always look forward to L classes simply because I know it’s going to be a fun and engaging class where translation from the teacher is rarely even necessary because some students can translate for everyone else. This year’s 1L class clearly understand everything I’m saying, but….they’re unbelievably hesitant to say anything. Huh. Why the hell….

I think I figured it out though, seeing as how they’re just as…quiet…with every other teacher. The female JTE told me that she thinks that they’re all under a lot of pressure and they think that they have to be serious with every class, including English. That’s…actually quite great that they’re taking it seriously. However, they’re taking it to the point in where they don’t really practice speaking English because they’re afraid of making a mistake. Okay…that’s not too great but I see where they’re coming from. They still need to speak English…for ya know…. communication. So, we have to do something to get them just as energetic as any other class. That’s usually why if I don’t have any team teaching classes, I’ll go to the 1L class and assist in hope that they’ll be more inclined to use English if they see me at times where I don’t have to be there. So far it seems to be working and it’s gotten to the point where they’ll actually yell my name out and tell everyone that I’m coming, or I’ll get “Oooooooo….” If they see me walk in lol. Ah….it’s an adventure everyday.

Interviews and Understandings

2009-06-13T18:33:00.004+09:00

Today starts my students’ Interview Test preparation. I’m completely in charge of it in how I make the questions, I create the grading system, I hold the interview test, then I grade the worksheets I make for them. It’s a nice little break from thinking of something to do for team teaching. Even after that, there’s another break since this test is followed by the final exam, so summer break is coming up. Well, next month anyway, but I see school in terms of two weeks so summer break is right around the corner. Why two weeks you ask? Well, since I have so many classes, I do one lesson plan for two weeks. So, I do a class once every two weeks in a rotation. Any given week, I’ll visit about 11 classes, so I’d have about 22 classes every two weeks. It’s quite the good set up.

Working with the teachers for the Interview Test tends to be a smooth venture. They know that they have to do a lot of explanation in Japanese alongside my English, so it’s almost always an easy class. The new guy, however, decides that he doesn’t want to do the Interview Test the same way I’ve been doing it since last year, with other teachers. Well, I mean, even in general, the guy doesn’t do anything; he just walks to the back, sits down (or lays back), and barely even gives Japanese translation. When he first got here, he said “In the class, I’m going to be student, too.” No. I’m sure some people are used to that, but it was a completely new experience to me. A teacher who doesn’t know what team teaching is about? Clearly he knows about it and has does it before because he’s an English teacher in Japan. I’ve been told from other teachers that it’s quite common for Academic School teachers to be lazy and not want to do much work and when they’re transferred to a new school where they HAVE to do work (mine, for instance). They don’t really like it and would rather sit in the back until class is over. Okay.

That’s quite stupid. You would think those that come from an academic school would be one of the best teachers, but if the kids are smart, you don’t have to do much work to begin with. In any case, I got that kind of guy this year. He did only a little bit of translation for the class… I hope he used enough for the kids because if they don’t do well, it’s his fault. The Interview Test works great with EVERY OTHER TEACHER because they understand the kids and how they need Japanese, unlike his other school, I’m sure. It’s just mind-boggling how he doesn't want to do work…which honestly for the classes, it is only translation because I’m the teacher and the teachers become the assistants. At first I didn't like that, but I know that the other teachers have my back so if it’s hard to explain something, they can take care of it, and I’m comfortable enough with the kids to do most of the talking, since most of it is about western culture anyway.

So, it all came to a head yesterday where he didn't do translation again, so I was like screw it, I taught in all Japanese. I know it’s a cop out, but if the kids don’t know what I’m saying, despite trying to explain in a bunch of different ways, and the degree-carrying JTE doesn’t want to do his job, I have to do his job for him. It worked out alright; I would honestly just rather use English, since that’s what I’m getting paid for.

Later in the day, he wanted to talk to me about the lesson. He said that he wants me to just go right into doing the activity and not explain anything because he will explain in Japanese. That’s great…that’ll make my life easier… why the hell didn’t he do that when I asked him before? Then I explain that I would like less of just “me” time and more “us” time. I meant I want him to stop going to the back of the classroom and just watching the class like some spectator. He’s a teacher. I explained that students could tell if the JTE and ALT are meshing well together. If they see that they are, I think they’ll be more inclined to listen, ESPECIALLY when the JTE can get off his ass and be kind enough to repeatedly ask questions to constantly check for understanding. It keeps them on their toes. If they get bombarded with English and no breaks in between, they’ll give up because there’s no way they can understand.

In any case, he also explains that he doesn't want to team teach; he wants me to just follow along with his plans when we go into the classroom. Fine by me. It takes a bit of load off of my shoulders that way, but it’s clear that was what he wanted from the beginning and he was being a jerk by passive aggressively sitting in the back and not giving translation. Then he had the nerve to apologize for not being able to do much (?) in the class. Um….how can you apologize to me for how you sat down and did nothing? Why didn’t you do anything? Well, whatever, it’s not a big deal anymore. At least he decided to finally be an adult about it so could we were able to clear some things up.

So we came to a pacifying agreement; he’ll teach and I’ll be the assistant. Hey! That doesn't sound too bad….lol

Hip-Hop Club Time!

2009-06-10T21:06:00.004+09:00

So, I went to another hip hop club this past Saturday. It’s actually a very good experience and you can see that hip-hop is a legitimate subculture in Japan. Keith and I once again received invitations to the club from our DJ friend (who is going to be performing), and we went with one of our Japanese friends who work at a hip hop store. It’s quite exclusive; no more than like 60 people were there, even at the height of the evening. You have to be with Japanese people to feel like you fit in. Not only so it’s not awkward when it’s just your foreign ass walking into an all-Japanese party; also because you’re going to want someone to talk to and to introduce you to other Japanese people and buy you drinks!

The club scene is quite interesting. It's not similar to the states at all; it's more like a concert for DJs to show their skills and for people to dance individually while listening closely to the DJ. The party itself starts at like 10pm, but it’s not really jumping until around midnight. So we learned our lesson from the last one, and meet up with our friend in the city near McDonalds at around midnight, then we head towards the club. It was at a different place from the last one, it’s closer to the main part of the city. So we walk in, and it’s already packed. To the left is the bar and stools and to the right, it splits. To the right is a comfortable looking, decently sized lounge area where you can sit and drink before you dance. The other side is the actual dance floor. So we get some drinks and go to the lounge area. My friend Rie (pink earrings) brought one of her friends, Shouko and I wanted to get to know her better so we chat for a bit. She met Rie because they lived in the same area.

I knew there was going to be trouble when Rie told us that she thought the guy sitting next to her was hot. All of a sudden, me and Shouko share an evil look and at the moment, Japan and New York didn’t even matter; it became two girls that only wanted to see their friend get a boyfriend! So we start talking about different ways to get him to look over here, or even to get him to talk to us. So our idea was for me to ask the guy if he can take a picture of all four of us and chat him up afterwards lol. Keith was like “Haha…no. That doesn’t work with guys,” but what does he know? -.- It was all just harmless fun even though Rie’s friend REALLY did get up and was about to talk to him lol, I was like “naaahh...let’s give Rie a break lol….for now!”

After a couple more minutes of chatting, we decide to go dance. So I have to tell you; dancing hip-hop in Japan is not hip-hop dancing in the states…they all tend to line up at certain spots in the little dance room and sway to the beat. We’ve done this before so it wasn’t that ridiculous looking lol. So Keith and I get dragged to the front of the line-dance thing, and that wouldn’t be a big deal if Keith wasn’t half a foot taller than almost everyone else in there -.-…so clearly we’re sticking out more than we usually do. But even that wore off and once the party really got underway, it didn’t matter where anyone was. Our friend did his DJ thing, he's always quite good! He tends to do old school, early 90s hip-hop and rap. We figure that the music he DJs is the music that made him first get into hip-hop. After him, the guest DJ, DJ Soulja (lol), took it away at like 1am. I was pleasantly surprised! Most of his DJ-ing was old school reggae! It was nice to have my culture represented well, and not just for some fashion crap. It was great!

Unfortunately, the room was getting quite hot because it was a lot smaller than the other one. Also, after repeatedly getting surprised at how much good music our DJ friend knows, then getting even more surprised from the guest DJ’s music selection, some of the dancing from the guys ended up dying down because after a while he only played “girl music,” according to Keith. Then, we got quite tired. Not to mention after about like 2am, it wasn’t really music as much as it was just a lot of bass because we were so close to the speakers lol. So we left like 3 hours later, exhausted, thirsty, slightly deaf but happy. We had to walk home from the club since we don’t want to waste 20 bucks on a cab that we know can take a fast, cheaper way but WILL take the longest way, while pretending to not know where the teacher’s housing is. Whatever. It was about a 45 minute walk back, but it was alright since we had each other to talk to and we’ve done it plenty of times before. I was more concerned with the next one... :)

The Infection is Spreading Faster Than Anyone Could Have Anticipated! It's a Biohazard!

2009-05-30T00:21:00.011+09:00

Normally I wouldn’t do such a small post, but I saw something amazing. Luckily Keith had his camera because I didn't have mine. After work I went to go meet him near the studio and we usually walk to the major city (it’s like 10 minutes on foot from the studio) to eat dinner there and play some arcade games. Normally this is never a big deal but today, wow……

We saw the Raccoon City Police Department S.T.A.R.S Truck!! Now for those of you who don’t know, it’s from a game called Resident Evil. Like an actual real live truck that’s literally straight out of a video game…I COULD NOT believe my eyes! When I first saw it, I was like “Heheh….that van kinda has the same name of the police department of a fictional place in America from the Resident Evil video game series…wouldn’t it be funny if that actually was it? Silly Ameri---WAIT! I’m in Japan! That’s real!” Now, usually I would act the same way everyone else does in public and hold myself in a calm and reserved manner, but when I saw that van, I just lost it! I was staring and pointing at the van and started blabbering in a mix of English and Japanese lol. Other Japanese people probably thought that I was looking at them, but I was looking right through them lol. A lot of them turned to see what I was looking at but they couldn’t find anything spectacular, again this all goes back to their not knowing common things about other subcultures.

I met Keith in the middle of a street and it was like nothing mattered for a couple seconds except for our shared amazement at this van! ….Just know that it’s a big deal lol.

I mean I know that Japan is scared of swine flu and all...but I don't know if it was a good idea to call on the S.T.A.R.S. team.
... Let's just hope they don't call on any pharmaceutical companies that like to mask their genetic engineering and biological weaponry with a cool logo and cosmetic products...

More of My Students

2009-05-27T21:56:00.006+09:00

I love my students. Everyone sees them as terrible 15-18 year old monsters with no respect for adults and parents alike. I don’t see that. I see cute little faces that smile wide and run to me whenever they see me. Most of these kids are good kids, some of them are just misguided simply because some of these teachers don't know how to teach. That’s not alright. If I can’t be there for them in terms of education, I can be there for them in terms of chatting to them about video games (like FFVII, Tekken, Lost Odyssey and etc), or about arcade games that they should play but never have because of no time or club activity, or even something like what I’m going to order from McDonalds. The worst class in terms of behavior, had an interview test (that I always make) and when it was just me in the classroom by myself (!)…they were the cutest little angels. Even the worst of the bad kids! I mention how they’re so quiet as I’m standing there, and I get cute, awkward smiles and nods. Okay…lol
But then, when the Japanese teacher walks in, all of a sudden everyone starts acting foolish again. What the hell? I narrow my eyes and tell the teacher to leave again since they were being so good when she wasn’t there. She laughs but is clearly grateful because they treat her the worst, and didn’t need to be told twice. Clearly it’s some kind of psychological reaction to seeing a Japanese teacher; that their mouths just start running. When it’s just me however, that mechanism turns off and they become attentive, curious students. They always ask about my tongue ring and always want to see it. I show them with a serious disclaimer of “YOU CANNOT DO THIS, NOR DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS…RIGHT?” I get the nervous nods and show them, then it’s awkward catcalls from guys, and “whoa! Amazing!!” from girls. I always explain which direction the long needle went and do a hand motion of the long needle going through my tongue and even these “tough” guys, the kids with the worst behavior at the school, they all cringe so hard and go, “Uwwaaaaaa!!! Iyyaaaa! Noooo” lol. Weaklings.

Just walking by a classroom has my students going crazy and they wave and I even manage to wake the sleeping ones up. I’m so glad that I got good students; even the bad ones are quite good when they’re not in the school. When I mean bad, I mean bad as in Japanese standard. Those kids are not bad at all lol, just extra yapping in class, but that gets Japanese teachers angry. Compared to the states though, even the bad kids would be the good ones. Japanese marine high schools though…no no no, they’re definitely on par with American students in terms of behavior lol.

In any case, it’s true that I don’t see what the Japanese teachers see and how those students are downright terrible and verbally abusive, especially to the female teachers. It’s because it’s never happened to me, and if one student tries to test the water and pick on me, even if he’s joking, all of his friends hit him or call him names; they put him in line. Not me.

In any case, I had classes today. I taught a group of 42 girls by myself. Sometimes I can’t believe that I did either, but I’ve taught by myself before. Now, normally you’re not supposed to, but I don’t mind because I like my kids. I’m able to teach by myself because of my knowledge of Japanese. If I didn’t know Japanese, then it would be impossible for me to communicate with them and help with translating the English, so the class would be a bit pointless. In any case, I went there, talked about the prom since it’s May, explained to them that a 16 year old girl and a 23 year old guy is illegal in New York (!) and made them sing that prom song by Hellogoodbye. I know what you’re focused on…it’s a big thing here. I’ll touch on that in another post.
I’ve heard plenty of stories of ALTs teaching classes by themselves and it ends up being a disaster. I was by myself and yet they weren’t rude, they were attentive and focused, something that I’m sure some of the other teachers don’t see. Of course there’s the extra chatty girl who will talk while I’m talking, and the only thing I have to do is just stop talking and look away. They get the picture quickly and tell the people talking “urusai,” which literally means annoying, but in this context they’re saying, “shut up,” so I don’t have to say it. Thanks guys!
When they see me on the street, they’re usually so excited to see me and I ask them how their day is going and what are they up to. They answer, get shocked when they see Keith, call him “hella cool” then walk (or run) away giggling. Then the next day at school, regardless of how tough they are, it’s always the same,”UUUWOO! Tatum! I saw you! You were..with boyfriend! Right? He’s cool!” I get that without fail lol. I’m happy that they feel so comfortable like that, but I don’t know how they are in other prefectures, but mine are great.

I'm doing a lesson plan on the prom for all of my students, so I showed everyone pictures of myself and Keith and my senior portrait (everyone freaked out, even teachers lol), and so I had my laptop open and a student gasps and points out my desktop background she yells out, "Final Fantasy!!!" lol I thought that was cute since most students don't know anything about video games...being into agriculture and all..so I understood. I was like "..clloooooooose...it's Kaim from Lost Odyssey..do you know Lost Odyssey?" It was close since the company that made Lost Odyssey, which is Mistwalker, has all the awesome folk from Squaresoft before the Enix merger and joined up with Microsoft to make that sick game. She shook her head, but even then I was pleasantly surprised that she knew about Final Fantasy. We start talking about Final Fantasy and she starts bragging about how she loves Kadaj from FFVII Advent Children lol. I'm impressed that she knows him. I, of course, call Kadaj a chump and declare that Sephiroth is way better. Then she scoffs at me and we get into a silly fangirl argument lol. She was like, "Eewww! Why Sephiroth?! He's creepy!" I feign irritation and tell her, "Whaaaaaaaat! Kadaj is lamer than lame! Sephiroth is way cooler and his hair is way nicer than all three of those wannabes!" Then we start giggling while everyone stares because they don't know what we're talking about. In Japan there's not much in terms of common knowledge things in terms of subcultures; if you don't follow it, then you don't know about it. She explains that she never saw FFVII Advent Children and I'm like "Whaaaat! You need to see that! Shall I make a DVD for you?" She starts jumping around like a normal fangirl, but then she starts bowing -.-, and I'm like "Alright, alright, settle down..." but I mean you get used to it lol. So I tell her to remember to get it from me on Tuesday.

So, I saw her on Tuesday and she came earlier than she was supposed to. I was pleasantly surprised but I had the movie for her. I explained to her about how to play it, and to just drag and drop since it's a data DVD. Then she asks me some more questions and I answer them, show her how to drag and drop again, since apparently she has a computer at home (which is rare in these parts....), so I told her there should be no problem with the movie. Then I told her that it's a bit illegal to be distributing the DVD (ya know..gotta set an example) and that she can take her time in watching it as many times as she likes, but she eventually has to return it. She bows a bunch of times, humbly accepts the DVD then like..hops out of the room or something. She seems happy lol.

For me it's just a regular day bonding with students, but the English teacher looks at me oddly and after asking about the illegal thing, pointed out how happy she is to see me talking to that girl. She explained that she's actually quite shy and never speaks without being spoken to and it's a very good thing that she so readily came up to me and had a nice chat with me. Well, that's cool. I didn't know that, but I mean, we had a common interest so I helped her out with something I knew about.

If I cannot stand the obnoxious teachers or get extremely homesick, all I have to do is just look into a classroom or look down a hallway to see the reason why I’m here in this school…and it makes me smile every time.

My First Japanese Hospital Visit

2009-05-26T22:09:00.005+09:00

I’ve heard quite a lot about the horrors of a Japanese hospital visit so I was a bit wary. I had to go there because of the mandatory check up that teachers have to do. Last month, I had to sign my name for a specific day since it’s one person per day. So fast-forward to last night when, in preparation for the hospital visit, I couldn’t eat anything after 9 pm. Not a problem. Next morning before I went, I couldn’t eat breakfast, smoke (not that I do anyway), drink tea (!), alcohol or milk. Not a problem. So I wake up a little earlier than normal since check-in is from 8am-9am, and head out to look for it. Let’s see if it’s easy to find since everyone told me it’s quite cut and dry so I should be able to find it….

No, it’s not. While I’m biking over there, I took a little turn because I saw people standing near their office, spraying the sidewalk and windows with some water. So I walk up to them and ask them where the hospital is. They point down the road they were facing and told me that’s the way to go. I thank them, find what I think is it then go in. They look at the paper I have and they let me know that this isn’t the place and since I got over here by taking a turn, I just need to go straight down that street without turning and I’ll find it. So I sigh, seeing as how I was led in the wrong direction, then I head off on the bike. I pass by the same guy that told me to go the way I came from and I told him that it was a no-go. He asks me what I was looking for and even though I already told him, I repeated that I’m looking for the hospital. He goes ”Oh you wanted the hospital! The hospital is down that way! You can’t miss it! The hospital!” -.- In any case, I don’t give him a hard time about seemingly not being able to read the paper that I showed him the first time then head there.

I biked for like 7 minutes or so…but… I’m not seeing the hospital that I’m looking for…I see a giant hospital now, but the kanji for the hospital I’m looking for is completely different, so the name is different. I go a little further and notice that the road splits so I’m like alright…it can’t be this far. So I turn back around and look at the giant hospital, I realize that I need more help. Luckily, a Japanese woman just happened to be walking by so I tell her what I’m looking for and she told me to park my bike because she’ll show me where to go. Yes! So I hurry back to her, (forget my bike key in the bike!!), since I don’t know if she has somewhere to go. In any case, she leads me to the big hospital that has a different name, but I don’t say anything since she’s Japanese and she lives here. She told me that she works at a different hospital nearby as a nurse. I ask her if it’s hard and she says it is. So it’s been like 30 minutes since I left the apartment and headed towards the hospital, she finally leads me inside….only for the receptionist to awkwardly say that this isn’t the hospital we’re looking for. Awkward. She was bragging and everything too lol, only for her to lead me to the wrong hospital. I figured it couldn’t have been the right one because it’s a different damn name.

So, afterwards I thank the other lady that helped me, then the receptionist from the hospital leads me to the back somewhere. I ask her if it’s just because the hospitals are connected she was like “it’s a completely different hospital.” Awkward. Then we go down a long flight of stairs, then to a long corridor that leads to the back of the hospital. We’re facing to hospital like places. She smiles and tells me that the building I want is on the left side, and I have to go to the second floor. What the hell, man. There is absolutely no way I could have known that the actual building I’m looking for is behind the biggest hospital ever -.-. Well in any case, I get in there to begin the hospital business.

Before I enter I have to take off my shoes and put slippers on. Not a problem. I walk up to the receptionist desk, they’re all shook because a foreigner just walked in and they don’t know if I know Japanese or not lol. You get used to that. So, I confirm that I’m in the right place, and she gives me a health questionnaire. It’s similar to the one you get when you’re about to give blood, seeing as how there were like 45 questions.

So after I answer those with some help, I hand in the paper, get a key and I was told to pick an outfit based on my height. I asked her what height do I look and she told me, so I got one and went in the changing room for women. Now, the outfits look like elaborate scrubs/pj’s for patients. No flimsy material with the ass out. None of that. An actual sleeved shirt that covers everything, and long pants. Not to mention I have slippers on so I feel quite comfortable. After I change I was immediately given a pee cup. Nothing different about that…except how they looked like regular cups that you’d drink water from lol, no top or anything, but it’s okay.

Afterwards I had a blood test….they didn’t use any gloves….I know what you’re thinking! “OMFG NO!” Right? Yeah…me too when I saw the lady just wash her hands thoroughly with soap, but not put on any gloves. They don’t use gloves for the dentist here either. Ewwwww lol. Yeah…I didn’t go to find that out; I was told that by someone who goes to the dentist here. Not my cup of tea. I take care of my teeth anyway so I’m making sure that I don’t have to go….it’s a hygiene thing, you know what I’m talking about?

After that it was pretty much just the standard business: height and weight check, eye sight, hearing, blood pressure, breast check (!), heart and that was about it. The strange thing about the eyesight test is that it’s not one with numbers and letters. It’s just the letter C in different directions. So you’d have an upside C, downside C, regular C and inverted C. I’m not sure if that’s a good indicator for eyesight, but they’re the professionals. Also with the hearing, there were only 4 beeps for you to hear; not the 7 or 8 or so in the states. I’m sure (hoping) they know what they’re doing. For the breast exam, I had to meet with this old man (!),get into a dark room, and hug this giant machine that was doing some check thing. I didn’t know that he wasn't in the room until he was talking to me from the PA system in a room next to the one I was in. I’m pretty sure they were using radiation to check them, but whatever…I’d rather Dr. Old Japanese Man not touch them anyway…real talk.

The order of the checks was kind of like those random games you play in school with stations. Everything was done in a different room, in a different part of the hospital. Like, I literally went around the floor in a circle once I completed everything. I started at the receptionist desk; I ended up adjacent to it when I was finished. It seemed like we were rounded up and called on like cattle. The waiting was about 5 or 6 minutes per “station,” and there were like 7 or so “stations.” It just seemed shorter to me because I would get nervous before each call lol, but I guess even that was all in my head since they were mainly women that knew what they were doing (yes!). Well in any case, that’s my experience; it’s quite different from what I’m used to, like can you imagine if they did it that way in the states? A doctor will go to see you, he’ll take your blood pressure, tell you to leave, and call on the next person and do that rotation until everyone is finished? No thanks.

Uselessness

2009-05-18T21:34:00.010+09:00

I don’t like some of the people in charge here. Some of these people know just as little as people who just came. I’m not taking about Japanese people; I’m talking about foreigners who have been living here for like 3 years on the JET Program and don’t know a damned thing. It’s so frustrating because they’ll spout some nonsense with such a sure tone that frustrates me to no end. They are exactly the same here as they are in the states, the only difference is a lot of them just happened to have positions of power and they abuse it to the fullest. I’ve been here for about 9 or so months, so most of these happened about 7 or 8 months ago.

When I first got here, I assumed that some people would have all of the information possible, or would at least be able to help me through culture shock. However, that wasn’t the case as I quickly found out. A lot of them put on a smile and tell you (and your parents if you happen to be talking to them on Skype) that they have “everything under control.” Right.

Keith wanted to get a cultural visa so he can stay with me. EVERYONE told us it was impossible. When I tell you EVERYONE I mean even the cute Japanese puppies and kittens would point and laugh. When I asked the person in charge, the so-called “help” said, “Well…most cultural visas tend to be for celebrities, since they would come here to do a particular skill and leave so it might be hard for you to get one.” Thank you, unhelpful moron. Even the statement didn’t make sense when I first heard it. Why the hell would a celebrity actually do any kind of work for something like that? Wouldn’t it be…I don’t know…their agents? But whatever, you were the person in charge so I’m going to nod, thank you for your advice, and just go along with what I have to do for getting my bf a cultural visa. Mind you, while this is going on, I would have random questions that someone who just got here would ask. Why the hell doesn’t the person in charge answer their phone? Especially when you were bragging about your lovely iphone … why can’t it receive calls? Could it be… despite the fact you live quite close to me, you’re purposefully ignoring the calls of the people that you’re in charge of? What if there is an emergency and you decide to not answer your phone? You can’t shirk your responsibilities and expect people to continually ask you questions. Soon they’re going to stop because they’re not expecting you to pick up, and you wouldn’t. It’d be hard to fathom my surprise when I call and you actually allow me to speak with you. Even funnier, when I call after not getting a phone call back, and actually (eventually, whether it’s the next day or 3 days from then) reach them I always get, “Sorry I missed your call.” Right.

In any case, it was a very busy 3 months, dealing with culture shock, running around Miyazaki for someone who would be willing to give my bf a cultural visa for calligraphy, while teaching English to students that I was slowly beginning to know, and deal with annoying office politics. I never had to deal with this before, so I would be…. a little forceful. Now, I don’t mean yell and scream, but I would tell people how I felt, before I realized that it was a pointless venture. I would tell the “help” about things that I thought I could tell “the help” in confidence and that “the help” would be sympathetic and give me some good points of wisdom, after living here for 3 years. I explain my problem, in how these teachers seem to hate teaching English because of how they act and don’t translate and help the poor kids out, and I was told by them to “be honest” with my feelings. So I told them about how ALTs freak the hell out when kids look at us with blank faces, especially the ALTs who don’t know Japanese, and especially a school in which their main focus is not really academics, sometimes speaking some Japanese helps everyone out. I told “the help” that I went on a “three minute spiel,” but I obviously didn’t really, I was exaggerating because I exaggerate. I spoke casually to “the help” simply because they are native speakers of English and should be able to spot hyperboles in speech. In return, I got, “I can’t believe you did that. You can’t go on three minute spiels. That’s not the way to go about it,” so I’m sitting there in shock as to how I got zero help from the person in charge, seeing as how I essentially just got there and I had my first run-in with Japanese passive aggression. Now the person in charge is going to be just as unhelpful? Okay…maybe “the help” was just having a bad day? In any case, the person in charge knows what they’re talking about, and it’s just me being wrong about it….right?

There are other people at fault. Another one can be described as know-it-all without knowing anything, unnecessarily confrontational, speaks his opinions like they are facts, the know-it-all is just as annoying and full of hot air. When I first got here, I explained that Keith wasn’t able to find U.S. games that can play on the XBOX 360. When I first got here, the “know it all” along with “the help” obnoxiously assume that I don’t know how to search for games on Amazon. Why the hell would I not know how to search? Granted it’s in Japanese, but they knew by then that I know Japanese and I should be able to navigate the damn Japanese Amazon. I told them that I couldn’t find any, the tag along challenges me for some stupid reason, I tell him to look it up, and lo and behold, they can’t find any games. That’s what I’ve been saying, pricks. However, the fault doesn’t rest with the know-it-all; it’s the website that’s messing up, isn’t it? Shut up. Once again, just as useless as I thought they were. I kept on trying though, because they HAVE to be knowledgeable about something, right???

So, I was still getting wrong information about the cultural visa from everybody, since no one knew anything, so Keith and I decided to just stop asking people, and just continue what we were doing from the start. I had to go their apartment to get something during all this. Then they decide to ask me how the cultural visa thing is going. I didn’t really have the patience to explain everything so I said some small things and touching upon how my supposed supervisor called the immigration place and they said that Keith can stay in the country while they’re figuring out his visa status. Now, Keith did all of the online research and did a lot of reading at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, and it said that he cannot do that because he is an American citizen and he’s going for a cultural visa, not a work visa. I don’t doubt that’s what the lady at immigration said because even those people don’t know anything about their own policies. It’s true. So I tell them this, and explain that we will not do that because of how strict Japanese immigration is, there have been articles and testimony of people overstaying one day with their visas and being thrown in jail. It’s happened; I’m not going to take my chances. Especially reading around, you find out quickly that Japanese immigration and customs is no joke and are notoriously racist. Keith might get a nice guy, he might not. Why take that chance because someone from the immigration office said it? They don’t know anything, like I said, and the simple fact that if he does listen, what if he overstays his visa but they say no? How will he explain to the racist immigration guy that he was told from a Japanese person at an immigration office about how he can overstay his visa because he was applying for a cultural one? The guy will laugh, throw him in jail, and I’ll never hear from him again. You would think that people living here would know that, or at least admit that they don’t know anything so they’re not at liberty to give any advice. But, from the know-it-all, who isn’t even in a position of power, thinks that since he dates the one in power that he can say what he wants, decides to drop some knowledge. He tells me, “I think that’s a rumor or myth or something. I don’t think that’s ever actually happened to anybody and whatever you read online was trying to scare you. I’m sure he can overstay his visa if the people at immigration said it.” These are from the same morons that said only celebrities can get cultural visas. Wow. Shut up. Why the hell would I take that chance? Let’s say I listen to them and tell Keith that he can overstay his visa. It’s been like two weeks past his visa, he was rejected so he has to go back. There’s a chance that like 36 hours later, I probably wouldn’t have gotten a call from him even though he was supposed to have reached New York. So, what would be the point of me, going to the know-it-all and cursing him the hell out? Either way, we were responsible for having the most information because it’s our responsibility, but if I listened to the idiots, Keith might have been screwed. Thanks for trying to get us in trouble with immigration, morons. Who am I going to believe? Hmm..on one side we have articles, news stories, the Japanese government site and etc. On the other side… we have…some know-it-all’s nonsense opinion that he and “the help” continue to see as fact. Whatever. Shut up. That was my fault for even answering their question in the first place. I wish I was done.

So then, we decide to drop the calligraphy thing since Keith didn’t really want to do it, so he tells me to see about watercolor or some kind of art since he’s been doing digital (vector) art for years, and has plenty of finished works to back it up. We strike gold. Sparing the details, and dealing with more incompetence from Japanese immigration, we find out that we have to go two hours away by train from here to hand in the papers at the immigration office in another prefecture. Well, that’s where we have to go. I didn’t want to tell “the help” and subsequently the know-it-all, but I’m bound by obligation to tell them where I am going because they’re in charge. So I call them, surprisingly they pick up. I explain that I’m going to Kagoshima to apply for the cultural visa. I had a giant portfolio of papers, Keith’s art to give them because we were not joking about it. It was like 100 dollars to go there, and two hours on a train seems a bit long. Not to mention, I wanted my boyfriend to stay with me, so I’m taking this seriously. So I decided to be vague and tell them I’m going to Kagoshima soon, took paid vacation so I’m heading over there now. They ask me if I have everything in order, and I’m like yeah, “I have some papers together so I’m ready to go,” if you heard my tone, it would be clear that I’m being modest and that there’s no point in giving a run down of all the papers I have together. As usual though, they didn’t seem to comprehend and decided to scold me with, “You can’t just have ‘papers together’ you have to make sure you have all of your materials because it’s important.” Are you stupid? Why the hell would we run all around Miyazaki, and the surrounding areas, only to go half-assed at the end? Not to mention you have been completely USELESS in this whole thing, you have the nerve to scold me about something Keith has been doing most of the research on? Shut up. Outside, however, I say, “Oh, of course I have all the papers together. I’m just in a rush because the bus is here, I have to go.” Which was true since you can’t use cell phones on the bus here. Then, continuing with the nerve, they say, ”Oh okay. Just remember to smile, be friendly. Use the most polite Japanese you possibly can because they’re the ones doing you a favor.” Once again, who the hell are you? You’ve known me for 2 months at this point. You know nothing and you continue to prove that the more I talk to you. Shut up. Outside though, I go, “Thanks! See you later!” There’s no point in getting annoyed with them since they think they’re doing such a BIG FAVOR for me. Wrong. If only I was finished.

Around these times, there were sparse workshops, and other things that JETs have to go to or participate in. Now, I can safely assume that if I’m getting ignored, and I live quite close, then JETs in farther places are getting even less help. It’s quite obvious; I just hope that people didn’t have emergencies. I ended up noticing it randomly. They had to do a powerpoint presentation and they asked all of the JETs to fill out a 2 page survey and give it to them. There are plenty of JETs here… a good amount. I did what pretty much everyone else did and that was read her e-mail, smile slightly at the cute 28-year-old’s words in the e-mail, then completely forget about it 3 minutes later. I know this because out of all of JETs here, like about 50 or something, she managed to get a whopping 10 surveys. Then after the deadline had passed, everyone got an e-mail of their writing sad things and trying to make people feel slightly guilty for it, but it’s not going to work if you haven’t been helping anyone out since October. During the powerpoint presentation, they made it a point to repeatedly point out that they only received 10 surveys…in pretty much every other slide. It’s not going to work. Oh well.

Another instance, long after I got the cultural visa and they were still ignoring everybody, they sent another e-mail to everyone asking for pictures of random things about Japan, for the new JETs that are coming. Imagine my surprise when a couple weeks later, they tell everyone in an e-mail that she only received three pictures. Well…the above applies. You can’t continue to ignore adults, and expect them to do favors for you just because you ask it in a cutesy, Japanesy way. It works with the Japanophiles of course, but not every other JET.

Continuing back to the main idea, by this point, he’s already gone back to America to wait for the visa status change. So, all we could have done was just wait. After passive aggressively asking immigration what’s taking them so long on a Wednesday, the Saturday of that week, I receive the forms that accepted Keith to get a cultural visa for watercolor painting. Yes!!!! So I’m really happy of course, and let him know. So all that’s left was for him to come back here and stick around until I leave. We managed to do the “impossible” and the amount of praise for it was mind-boggling. We knew that we were going to get it... because that’s what we were aiming for. Also, being from New York…it was cakewalk. If we left it in anyone else’s hands, he would have been back in the states by now. The strange comments that we received once people found out about it made me realize that the resident big mouth that lives near me decided to tell everyone she knew (mainly foreigners of course), that Keith got a cultural visa. Keith was asked in passing by the resident big mouth, “Oh…that’s cool that you got a cultural visa! Did they think you were a celebrity or something?” I know we’re cool as hell to be mistaken for celebrities lol…but…that’s just absurd. Alright, normally that wouldn’t be a big problem. However, the resident big mouth knows NOTHING… absolutely NOTHING. The gossiper walks around as if she's not getting her hand held everywhere, tries too hard to helpful, despite her glaring uselessness, can’t even really go many places except coffee shops despite being here for 9 months and etc. So I KNOW that it’s not like she just happened to know that about cultural visas; obviously she told people who originally thought that and they decided to “educate” her on how we got a cultural visa. Wow. I’m not going to point the finger…but I think by now you know who said it. In any case, that’s what she said to him. Keith disagreed with her statement, called her a moron in his head and left her alone.

So by this point it’s been like a month or two since he received his cultural visa, and around this time there was optional individual meetings with “the help.” I chose to go, simply because I could get out of work for a day. I call them and set up a meeting. By this point I’m tired of them and how they act so I figured that I’d just treat them like I treat most people here: tell them only the good things that they want to hear. No honesty, just surface happiness. It goes a long way here. So I get there, and we start talking and I tell them that I began to love it here so I’m going to stay for another year. They smile and congratulate me (?) and tell me that most people have decided to stay another year. Great. Then suddenly our conversation completely changes. Do you know what they asked me? They goes, “I have a question to ask you. Congratulations on getting a cultural visa (I had to tell them since they’re in charge), I’m so happy for you and that you were able to get it. Well… I’m leaving the JET Program this year, but I want to stay in Japan with my boyfriend and do something in a different prefecture. So…I need you to tell me everything you did to get a cultural visa.” Oh ho ho! Come again? Pardon? Now when I have a cultural visa, and you’ve been completely useless, and how you’ve been spreading crap about how the cultural visa is only for celebrities, and clearly we got it because they thought Keith was a celebrity, not someone who wanted something and put work into it, and yet feeling as though you had incredible knowledge in your insipid, obvious advice….you want ME to help YOU? Funny. Sure, I’ll help you as much as you’ve helped me.

Just the sheer audacity. I could not believe it. Why the hell were you giving us “advice” if you didn’t know a damn thing to begin with? Why? You’ve been here for 3 years…why the hell didn’t you do this research earlier? Why are you and you the know-it-all so unhelpful, and yet talk so big? How was it that we were able to do research, run around Miyazaki to get all the papers together, deal with Japanese racism, deal with petty office politics, while being at work for eight hours, and only being here for 3 months (at the time), while you’ve BEEN HERE for 3 years and had no intelligent input? Damnit. And then all of a sudden, now that you see it can be done, YOU want one, and you need MY help. Wow.

Then they have the nerve to completely down play the amount of work that we had to do and all you can do is point out the fact that you have “a friend here…her boyfriend knows zero Japanese….so I think I have a shot,” even after living here for all this time you still think knowing Japanese matters? Not really. Keith doesn’t know much of it, but he has a story everyday about people coming up to him and asking questions about things that he can understand because he’s been here for 8 months, and he didn’t need to speak Japanese to do it. Now you want to go somewhere else and you think you can just do some sketches and they’ll accept you for a visa because you can turn on the cute, Japanese-American “charm?” You’re no different from literally every other foreigner who wants to live in Tokyo and do something “cultural.” News Flash: everyone and their families want to live in here and those people actually have skills to live and stay there. Some places (like Tokyo) are way more racist than Miyazaki, and they will tell you to your face that they’re not impressed with you and your foreign boyfriend, because every other girl, and anime otaku who want to do art in Tokyo, before you was in the same boat. It’s not unique.

On a different occasion, “the help” then decides to get on my case about how I shouldn’t disturb the peace, and tell people what I’m feeling (even though they asked about it), or not scold a kid because he has two of his fingers in a public chocolate fountain (I didn’t do it, but I tested to them to see what they’d say), but then she can choose to take a break from driving, wait for the bus, get upset that it hasn’t come because she’s been waiting for like 10-15 minutes, then angrily call up the bus station and rant to whomever picked up the phone that the bus hasn’t come and it made her late for work. Dabble in hypocrisy much? At least my complaint was given to people involved in the situation. I suppose I’m used to it by now though.

Also, you tell me that there are no Post Office ATMs in our area and I’d have to go to the city for them. How the hell was I able to find 3 in that same area that you claimed didn’t have them? Literally EVERYTHING you have said to me was wrong. Then I realized that a good amount of the people that have been here the longest, are the ones that seem to know less. Wow.

It’s okay to be useless. It’s okay to tell everyone else that you have no interest in doing your job. But, don't pretentiously pretend that you’ve been helping everyone out from day one and continue to use that stupid self-assured, arrogant tone while talking big, but giving people NO information. You’re entitled to your opinions, not your own facts. Stop it.

People have to understand that I don't like mincing words and I never realized how brutally honest we are until we left New York. I don't like surface smiles and emotions. The strange thing about this is that Japanese people here love us. I'm not sure if it's the same in other prefectures, but here, other foreigners would like to see me as a bad guy because I didn't come here to become Japanese or babysit adults. I came here to teach English, learn more Japanese and speak with Japanese people, while retaining my roots so people can meet someone different. It's as simple as that.

My Family in Japan!

2009-05-14T20:53:00.004+09:00

My mother and sister visited me in Miyazaki. It took a bit of getting used to for them simply because they’ve never been to Japan. One of the main things people do when they get here, or any other country for that matter, is to assume that you’ll have the same benefits and that life in a different country would be exactly the same as if you were home. So being forced to do small things, like slightly changing up the way you eat in public, expecting more than 2 napkins at McDonalds, being stared at while you eat, are some things that people have to get used to. Being here for 8 months only makes you realize small things, like when an old lady decides to stand 8 feet away from you until the bus comes, or when they’d cross the street when you’re coming. Once my family got here, I never realized how much I’ve actually become accustomed to Japanese culture and how unbelievably foreign my family was. Something like that is never really glaringly obvious until you’re told to ask someone who is selling plants to give a discount, or when you’re usually given one packet of McDonalds, to ask for 3, or to walk into a mom and pop shop and being told that your family found nothing to buy.

Even common rights and privileges like having someone to complain to when your freezer turns into a giant ice/snow cube, don’t necessarily come with the package of being in a foreign country. I think my mom and sister butted heads with the culture and didn’t really like what they saw. They liked plenty of other things here, but certain things they weren’t willing to bend to, and that’s okay! Even if they don’t like this foreign country, they can explore other foreign countries and see what they like. However, I think that’s one of the biggest problems with people going to foreign countries: leaving one’s home country and expecting everything to be the same. Once people get that out of their heads, living anywhere can be much easier.

Despite the slight cultural showdowns, I was so happy that I was able to see them, and completely distraught when they left. I think I was sadder then than when I actually first left for Japan when everyone in my immediate family came with me to the airport. It was good because their being here reminds who I’m doing this for; not just for me, but for my family as well. They left right when they were beginning to really like Japan, too… so….who’s up for round two?

An English Teacher's Frustration

2009-04-25T09:31:00.005+09:00

Most native speaking English teachers know that there is a serious problem with the way English is taught here. It doesn’t take that much time to realize it, especially when you’re in class and you say, “Hi guys!” to 2nd year high school students (that I have taught for a year by now) and they stare at you blankly to know that there is a problem. However, the problem isn’t with the students; it’s with the teachers. How are the some teachers, who don’t even seem to have interest in English themselves, are supposed to teach students a language that even they themselves don’t understand? I suppose it makes sense, since I hear all the time from my school’s Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs from now on) that either they “should have done something more interesting” or “yeah…it was either teaching English for a career or doing History as a career, haha!” and it’s this kind of attitude that doesn’t make it surprising that the kids are just as apathetic about as English as some teachers.

To them, unfortunately, English is just seen as another subject in school since English is mandatory in the country. So the people that are truly interested aren’t really allowed to shine amongst other students who don’t have an interest because for them (using something that most of us can relate to), it’d seem like the nerd who was a genius at Math and couldn’t wait to show off their skills. In Japan, that’s quite insulting and that person would be ostracized and mocked for seeming to do better than everyone else, so everyone kind of pretends to know less than they actually do, for fear of being isolated. This doesn’t really happen in my school though. Maybe for other subjects, but in English my students are always pleasantly surprised when one of their classmates can answer one of my questions and they always get some kind of praise or an applause.

Some other kids, however, simply do not have an interest in English and see no need for English because they will never leave Japan. Then there’s the other group that like English and the native speaker of English in the class, but don't understand 80% of what’s going on because of holes in their education. Those holes are glaringly apparent when they don’t know simple words that they should have learned in middle school. This is more my school.

Today for example, I played a game called Sentence Auction with a younger teacher. Sentence auction is when teams buy correct and incorrect sentences and of course go to the highest bidder if they believe the sentence to be true. Once the game got underway, they were quite bright and a lot of them were quite thrifty in dealing with their finances and most of them knew the correct sentences. Before that however, we had to do an explanation of course. The explanation took 20 minutes in a 50 minute class. The kids took about 5 minutes to break up into groups; so ONE part took 15 minutes. What part might that be you ask? It was the simple fact that NO STUDENT knew what the word “sentence” meant in Japanese. WHAT?! Second year students in high school who took 4 years of English before this, didn’t know what the word “sentence” meant? Coupled with this, the JTEs thought that using Japanese during our team teaching class was a waste and how the students won’t be able to listen to my English, so we should try and use ALL English in the class. That's a very noble, lofty, but ultimately naïve dream. However, reality dictates that my just speaking English to them won’t make something click in their brains, and all of a sudden they can absorb everything I’m saying. Proper PRIOR teaching is necessary for them to be able to grasp meanings.

Not to mention, I went to a JTE’s English class just to see how they teach… it’s ridiculous. She barely touched on grammar and during the class she would just say English words in a rapid pace while the students quickly repeated it. Then she had me just say the words fast and I felt like the biggest dunce ever, mainly because the kids just stopped repeating the words so it ended up me just saying random English words because it’s fun. This is the extent of the English “teaching” that goes on here? That wasn’t all. Afterwards, the Japanese teacher said a Japanese word and then I would say the English definition in a rapid pace again, then the students would repeat the English. That would have been alright…if there wasn’t 50 words including long phrases, like “the meeting begins at 10:35am,” or other words that are completely unrelated to each other. So then I stand there and I just think to myself that of course they’re not learning anything. Not to mention the whole lesson was taught in Japanese. That’s understandable, but then you can’t go around and do ALL English for a class that they’re constantly unprepared for. It just makes them dislike English, or slowly start to dislike English all the more.

I think the JTEs believe that I only want Japanese in the class so I can do less work, but they’re so stupid because they continue to forget that it’s NOT ABOUT ME. It’s about the students that look at me like little lost kittens and puppies whom so desperately need Japanese, while I’m left to stand there awkwardly because it is NOT my job to give Japanese translation and the JTE look at me and seem to like watching me sink because they don’t provide Japanese translation. So all of this crap gets put on the shoulders of the powerless foreigner regardless of whose fault it truly is. The problem is maybe the teachers think that the lesson went well if we use all English but they’re so frustratingly oblivious to students quickly losing interest without Japanese because they DON’T UNDERSTAND and just end up chatting to the people next to them or start doing something else. So I get pissed off for the students because of these stupid teachers who are so focused on which language is being spoken, that they completely forget the students and that the main focus should be whether or not the students know what’s going on. It’s naïve to think that students won’t need Japanese all the time, especially if agricultural schools are known for having low-level English. Why is it so hard for JTEs, who also went through the same classes to figure that out?

Eventually though, when my simple English doesn’t do the trick, the JTEs would “take the reigns” decide to repeat what I said in English, as if it’s going to suddenly click for them (I’ve been saying the same thing for 10 minutes, if they didn’t get it 5 minutes ago, maybe you should try a different method). Then, they get to go through the same slight frustration of having students not understand you in the slightest. They’re completely unwilling to speak Japanese in the class, but you don't need the foreigner to tell you that it’s necessary since that’s been the same way they’ve been learning English since they started. During the lesson he asked them over and over again, “What is sentence in Japanese? Sentence. Sentence. Sentence. Seeeenn-teeeence,” as he points to the 10 sentences on the worksheet he goes, “THESE are sentences. What are they? Sentence. Sentence,” while he’s repeating that, I feel a sense of retribution in that I hope he understands that bringing in the native speaker once a week won’t suddenly make the students geniuses at English and it’s best to just do what you have been doing, and what you will continue to do when we’re not team teaching, which is…USE JAPANESE.

After a while, I saw him breakdown and saw clear frustration on his face, then he decided, after 15 minutes of precious time, to write the meaning of the word “sentence” in kanji. I mean, even I’d say that kanji wasn’t necessary; he could have just said it, but I think he was that frustrated that he didn’t even want to say anything. Oh well. He should have said it 15 minutes ago so we could have just moved on with the lesson, but if he wanted to learn the hard way, I was more than happy with letting him experience that and realize how impossible using English cold turkey is. JTEs simply have the most important job when it comes to team teaching since they are supposed to be the bridge of understanding between students and the foreign teacher. If only more of them felt that responsibility and weight and didn’t use English as a means to escape a “greater evil.”

What’s even more frustrating about this is that he was the exact same guy who told me, ”Yeah...a lot of these kids are too stupid to realize simple things. A lot of them are slow. I have to speak slowly, even in Japanese, and sometimes even then they don't understand, haha! It’s sad,” despite this guy who said that he lived in the Washington D.C area for a year during study abroad, and yet still can’t understand simple English at regular speeds. Stfu. It’s a lot easier to blame the students and the foreign English teacher for your own pathetic shortcomings…maybe teaching the students the word “sentence” could be a nice start?

Our Japanese Museum Experience

2009-04-14T08:42:00.014+09:00

I've been to a few museums and always thought the same thing like most casual fans of museums, "Oh...that's a nice drawing!" or "Wooooow...that's a great drawing!" or "Omg, that's a FANTASTIC drawing!" or any deviation from those three feelings. Afterwards, I kind of just go along my way and not really think about it anymore. Here, however, Keith and I were actually invited to participate in an Art Exhibit at the art museum here. It was quite interesting, as were the people who were there, however, some people need more recognition than others.

The day before the actual event, most of the artists went to the spot to prepare the gallery and hang up all of the pictures. It was a bit awkward when we first got there...it usually is, but eventually we felt comfortable with being there since we helped set up the gallery. There were about 30 people there, some big number, so of course, after a while, 30 people aren't necessary to do the work...so some people were left to stand around. While we were standing around, I decided to talk to some of the people that weren't doing anything.

I walked up to this lady, who looked like she was being ignored by everyone at the museum. I felt bad for her because obviously no one wants to be ignored, especially with like 30 people still here. I wasn't sure how to start a conversation with her, but I overheard other people starting conversations by asking, "Dore?" so I just decided to copy that. Dore means "which," so in this art gallery context, that one word means, "Which ones are yours and let me see them." Honestly, all of that rolled into one because when I saw someone use that to open a conversation, the addressee would nod and quickly show them to their paintings. Going by that, I ask her, "dore?" and she smiles and leads me to her art. I talk to her in Japanese and she responds in English, which depending on who you are, you'd either be pissed off about it, happy, or neutral. At the moment I was pleasantly surprised that she knew English, since it's a bit rare. She explains that she's been painting for a while and she loves to paint. I talk with her a bit more and then she says, "I'm 32 years old but I look very young! I've backpacked all around Europe...I've been to so many places in Europe so if you have any questions about Europe, please ask me," on the inside I'm like, "???????" while on the outside I give her a pleasantly surprised look and go, "Oh really? Thanks!" I thought that was a bit strange, since I'm guessing she doesn't know that most people in America will have studied Europe and the countries therein for 10 years, but whatever! I didn't think anything of it then.

We're talking for a bit more, and I noticed that whenever I speak Japanese, she answers back in English. Huh. Why the hell is she doing that? Even then I didn't think too much about it. Until (yeah you knew it was coming), she tells me, "Oh! I have two friends in America, in New York City and they love it!" I smile, ready to do my usual plug for NYC, and tell her, "Yeah! NYC is a great place! You should visit!" Then she quickly shakes her head, and says, "No, no, no. America is WAY too dangerous. Everyone has guns. That's all I hear on the news, that's the only news I get!" aaaaaand there it is. Really lady? Then I calmly remind her that she has two friends in America that haven't been shot or probably even seen a gun. She agrees that's probably true, but still has her opinions about America. That's the shit that pisses me off; you're staring into the face of proof that not all Americans are dangerous and carry guns, and you have Japanese friends currently in America who love it, and yet you're gonna look me in the eye and tell me that America is dangerous because of Japanese "NEWS?" Whatever, moron. My friend kindly let me know that Switzerland has way more guns than America, but I didn't know that little factoid until after this. I can slightly understand it when Japanese people have rarely seen foreigners, they'd be more inclined to believe those things, but people that have LEFT Japan, or people that haven't left Japan, but have met plenty of foreigners, will still love to think the same stupid crap as if they've never met any, like that moron English teacher. What the hell is that? So, something clicks (Keith tells me), and it hits me! She's a Europhile (as well as an English leech)! She blindly and mindlessly loves and obsesses over anything related to Europe, and even seems to love Europe more than her own country, while at the same time, refusing to talk to non-Japanese people in Japanese and insists on using English. NOW I see why everyone ignores her.

After I smile politely and excuse myself from that moron and after lunchtime, we're back in the gallery again. We were still killing time since even a little before lunchtime, the guys who usually set up the galleries there were taking control of the set up, so even less people were needed. Keith knows pretty much all of these people here, because (of course) they go to the same studio he goes to. After about like an hour of doing absolutely nothing and noticing that a good amount of people left during lunch, Keith nudges me, points to a girl and tells me to go talk to her. Naturally, I'm a bit weary of talking to random ladies again, having been savagely ambushed by ignorance not two hours ago, but Keith tells me that she's actually quite nice and always makes it a point to say "konnichi wa," everytime she sees him. Not to mention, she's been ignored by everyone since morning, and the only person that she spoke to had already left, so she was just standing there looking bored and sleepy. I've heard/seen that crap before and I didn't know what to expect, but I decided I'd go for it.

So I walk up to her, and I ask the same thing as I did Ms. Ignorance, and the first thing that strikes me odd about her is that she cocked her head and went, "Huh?" So then I just motioned to the 60 something paintings in the gallery that we're standing in and was about to ask her again then she goes "Oh! Oh! Hai! Okay!" then shows me her paintings. Huh. Curious. I thought I did something wrong but apparently she just needed a second to think about what I needed lol. However, so far, so good, no ignorance so far. So then we just start talking about her art and how long she's been doing it. I realize that she's actually quite nice, knows 0 English and apologized to Keith for not knowing English. Well, that's sweet! There's no reason to apologize though, but I guess she felt guilty. So we start talking and I ask her what her interests are. Konomi smiles and proudly states, "Anime." I gasp and chuckle a bit, understanding the weight of her statement.

In Japan, you have to understand, being obsessed with anime isn't a good thing. Just like the hip-hop group, j-pop group, visual kei group, sports group, etc, everyone has their stereotypes and it's expected that once you find an interest you put ALL of your energy into it and completely engross yourself in that interest until you BECOME that interest. So, those who are into anime here, are immediately pigeonholed as being smelly, rude, creepy, socially awkward, pretty much all of the descriptions of American and other non-Japanese otaku, but multiplied times two because there are more anime-obsessed otaku in Japan than there are in America. It's hard to spot an anime-otaku on the street unless they cosplay, or wear kind of small item from an anime, but at the same time it's easy to spot one because they're always at anime shops. So, to see this cute, 24 year old girl proudly declare anime as her main interest shocked me. She even reminds me of an anime character, "Miss Osaka," from Azumanga Daioh because she's so cute and ditzy. Keith was telling me that a couple of weeks ago, everyone was painting quietly in the studio when they hear a loud crash. Everyone turns to see Konomi with a very embarrassed face standing over broken shards of giant shell that other people had to draw. It's kind of cute!

So, I ask her what her favorite anime is, and she tells me Naruto, Bleach and other Shounen Jump anime. I chuckle again, completely blown away about this because of how rare this is, and I tell her that I like anime too, as I show her my cute Uryuu keychain and Icha Icha Paradise and Itachi keychain. She laughs out loud and then we just start talking about random things, now that we know that we have common interests. By this time, however, it was time to go since the gallery had been properly set up and completed. As we were getting ready to leave, I lost sight of her but I figured I'd see her again anyway because of the studio. The next time I see her, I'll be ready to ask her more questions and find out more about her interests.

Interestingly enough, we run into her again while we cross the street and head towards the bus stop. While we decide to walk together she asks me about New York and tells me, rather oddly, that I walk very fast. I never really noticed until she pointed it out; it's just how most city people walk I think. Then I tell her that, then she tells me that she was born in Tokyo, lives in Miyazaki and prefers Miyazaki because of the slow way of life. I suggest Osaka, while I chuckle on the inside, then she says, "No...even they walk too fast.." I couldn't stop laughing about that, mainly because of her similarities with Miss Osaka, but we get over that. I explain to her the reason behind the fast walking; mainly because most people have places to be, with no time to get there. So then she tries to walk fast as well, but she starts waving her arms all crazily while she's walking and asks, "Hey! Do you guys swing your arms too??" I laugh about that but say, "nah....we don't really do that," then she stops with an "Oh, okay," but still tries to walk fast. She's so silly!

After our fast walking adventure, we make it to the bus stop and we realize that we're going in the same direction. So while we're waiting for the same bus, I ask her what kind of music she likes. She thinks for a second and goes, "Anime songs!" Once again I am taken aback because I like quite a bit of anime songs too, and she tells me that she can sing a lot of them. I tell her I know some anime songs and almost immediately she goes, "Great! So then we can go out to eat and do some karaoke!" ONCE AGAIN I'm taken back because Japanese people don't just automatically make the assumption that you're going to go eat and sing with them. In fact, they wouldn't really ask, but hope that you do. So to see her so unbelievably, but pleasantly forward with asking to do anything with two foreigners honestly made me happy. I genuinely smile and tell her of course and that we should make some plans as soon as possible.

The ironic thing about her is that she works at a convenience store. In Japan, working at a gas station or a convenience store is the same social equivalent to being a 28 year old cashier at McDonalds. It's not a good thing, and it shows that you didn't go to college, you wasted too much time there, or you had a good job but you lost it; pretty much, you threw away your opportunities. So seeing someone so progressive working at the convenience store is so sad. She has the rare ability to see foreigners as people and not barbaric animals or stupid children. It shows in how she doesn't simplify her Japanese, whether speaking or text message. It shows in how she doesn't try to incorporate random, stupid English in conversations because she remembered it from way back when and decided to use it and feel better about herself. She doesn't ask stupid questions like if Keith and I can eat Japanese food, or if we can use chopsticks, because let me tell you how that gets old FAST. She didn't metaphorically pat me on the head and go "Woooow! Your Japanese is soooo good!" She treats us like adults who understand, and that goes so much more deeper than our shared interest in anime and anime music. The amazing thing about Japan is that all of this started with a simple question of, "Which painting is yours, and can I see it?"

Random Things

2009-04-09T21:17:00.009+09:00

Once again time went fast in the office today. I have to tell you how great it is to wake up, get all irritated that I have to get ready to go to work, only to get here and get a warm greeting when I walk in. It's so much better than the lukewarm greeting in my former office. I also did some more cleaning and work unrelated to teaching English and it felt just as rewarding. It's a bit strange doing cleaning for an office that I only joined like last week, but already feeling like one of the group. I had to throw away most of the ALT crap that I know I, and any other ALT won't need. I threw away a basketful of crap, and I still have enough crap to fit and overstuff my cabinet.

I had this DELICIOUS Bento for lunch today. It's called Buta-Namban, and that's just pork with namban sauce, which is like a delicious, tangy tartar sauce. The best thing about it is that it's really crunchy because it's fried and even the tartar sauce doesn't make it TOO soggy when poured on it. The drink with it is a delicious white grape drink with soft white grapes in the drink itself so you're swallowing and chewing. It tastes like real grapes. Fantastic!

I ran into Iihoshi-sensei today (the guy who I used to sit next to), and as usual he manages to just say some stupid nonsense that only makes me even happier that I don't have to sit next to him. We were talking about lesson plans (which I normally avoid, but he brought it up) and he explained that since I was here for a year, maybe I should be the one to pick which days I do lessons with teachers. Then I look at him, think in my head, "Oh of course...he manages to prove AGAIN how little he knows," but out loud I go, "??? What do you mean?" Then he explains for the past month how I haven't picked the days and how one of the other teachers always does it for me. Then I calmly explain, and try and use the simplest English I can think of to tell him that yes...the lady did help me...for ONE MONTH. I can't be expected to know what classes they are and aren't having because I don't get a schedule. What usually happens is that I'll get a template and I pick which classes I want to do and when, she helped me out in the beginning before I got the hang of it. For some reason, however, when he hears the other teacher say that she'll pick the classes for me last month, that means that she's been doing them since last September............no. Then I tell him that he's wrong (again), and that I've been choosing which classes to go to SINCE OCTOBER and I needed her for this month because this is my first April in Japan so I DON'T KNOW HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO GO, like is it really that hard for him to slowly work that through in his mind without having to say dumb crap out loud? Then he looks at me all skeptically and goes, "....Hontou? (really?) Then I just sigh, call him a moron in my head, smile and go, ".....Yes. Why didn't you know that?" But then I quickly change the subject because it's time like this where I remember that I don't have to tell him anything because he has already made his mind up about foreigners and 100 Americans can walk up to him tomorrow, speaking perfect Japanese and he'll STILL think that Americans are small minded and feel as though they don't have to learn any other languages because English is a universal language....stfu. He's like a dark cloud of annoyance, irritation and ignorance, all rolled up into a little ball made specifically to annoy me, but whatever! Moving on.

Anyway, after he left, life got easier again and I just decided to walk around and talk to students. My students are quite interesting and always have something funny to say. Of course they're completely different people when we're doing classes, but a good amount of them are really good kids...even the "bad" ones. I'm looking forward to talking with them again and meeting the new students who are coming tomorrow.

I have normal black people hair. It's not a big deal, it's curly, cute and can do well in most weather patterns, it's NOT a perm. Most people in Japan assume that my hair is a perm but why? Clearly I have different hair than they do since I'm not Japanese, but in any case I always get the occasional group of girls and boys who just stare at it, ask the SAME QUESTIONS, sometimes in the same order and ask to touch it. In Japan, a perm for a Japanese person would be similar to my natural hair type. So it's a big deal to them when I explain that my hair is naturally that way. I don't mind when they touch my hair because it's the first time they have seen this type of hair, so it's a big deal for them. In any case, I go through the usual motions of yes, it's naturally curly, no it's not a perm, yes I put color in it, yes most of the time it's easy to manage...etc etc etc. I always explain that if I had a perm, then my hair would look like theirs. In any case, it's nice that they feel comfortable enough with me to ask random questions and to completely ignore any kind of personal space to get IN my face to see my hair up close because of their comfort. It still might take some getting used to though.

Also, IT'S ONLY BEEN THE SECOND DAY THAT IT'S BEEN CONSISTENTLY WARM...WHY DID I ALREADY SEE 4 SPIDERS IN ONE DAY? :(

My New Office

2009-04-03T08:59:00.004+09:00

Well...it's been a whole day since I've switched to this room and I must tell you... I LOVE IT! It's such a huge difference in comparison with the other room I was at for 8 months. Everyone is younger, so everyone isn't so high strung, and some of them know a tiny bit of English and always try and speak it, and when they don't understand what I'm saying they'll come out and say, "Uh..sorry..I don't understand...." and just the overall atmosphere is a complete 180 degrees. I had assumed that every office is like that because I never stayed at any other office, but now I see that it's so unbelievably different! Everytime other teachers come into the office, they always tell me that it's such an oppressive atmosphere and they don't like coming into the office unless they have to get their mail and talk to the vice principal about something. I was in that office, but at least I was an okay distance from the vice principal, the ALT before me was actually at the desk closest to the v.p. so I'm so sure that he hated that desk.

In a previous post when I was talking about atmospheres, I mentioned that it was a slow day so the time just crawls by. In this office, time passes by so quickly! It's because I can actually have light-hearted conversations and joke around without feeling intense pressure from the vice principal. Another younger teacher that was in the office with me, ended up being moved to the same office I was and even he commented that he likes this office so much better. Other people even noticed our change from our switch and commented that "we look happier," I was a bit embarrassed because I didn't know I was so transparent, but then again it was the female Japanese teacher of English and she knows more than other people because I tell her. I actually look forward to going to my desk now, it's so great.

Also, the teacher that I used to sit next to, I saw him when I came back from lunch with teachers from my new office and we spoke for a bit. I asked him if he ate already and where his office is. He said yes and that his office is right next to mine and I should come visit. I said okay, goodbye and WALKED AWAY. You have no idea how good that feels! To be sitting next to a person, who puts pressure on you because the vice principal is watching, and having to be forced to listen to his close-minded drivel, it was great to be able to walk away, return to my desk and not have to see him OR the vice principal. I can regulate how often I see him until classes start, and that's great. I mean, he's serious about teaching English and we work well together when we're in class, but there's just too much of an age and culture barrier that makes communication a bit difficult sometimes.

In any case, class doesn't start for another week, and I don't think I'm going to be team teaching until after that week, so I have plenty of time to prepare for lessons, and I'm going to look forward to thinking of new ideas for students because of the support I get from the office.

I feel such a giant weight lifted from my shoulders once I walk into the office in the morning, and I'm going to try and make damn sure that I don't mess up this almost perfect arrangement.

New Teachers, New Situations

2009-04-02T10:28:00.001+09:00

Well...April 1st. The big day of yearly change. The day before, I found out that the teacher that I've been sitting next to for a year is getting his desk changed, and he's going to be the new homeroom teacher of a class. I gave him a clap and congratulated him and he shook his head and was like,"No, no, no. That's a bad thing. It's too much work being a homeroom teacher," then I chuckle a bit and point out that at least he'll be out of the stifling vice principal's office. He agreed, but he said it wasn't worth having extra loads of work and responsibility. He's right though, being a homeroom teacher means that you've essentially become the parent of 40 students. They have to make sure that they're eating right, they're not getting in fights, they're studying, etc. If they do a bad job and the student does something bad, the first person they're going to blame is the homeroom teacher, NOT the parents. That's why teachers always have to find out bad things first before parents. The homeroom teacher's responsibility was a bit exaggerated, but has it down in a drama and anime called "Gokusen," you should watch it.

So, I won't be around that guy anymore, which I'm quite happy about and won't miss. I mean, he had a bit of interesting things to say, but the fact that he believes such dumb things about Americans (as if Americans are only one ethnicity) despite meeting a bunch, doesn't make me want to talk to him now that we don't have to sit next to each other anymore. That's all well and good to me, because even he would put pressure on me because I was in the vice principal's office, so I'd get double of that on any given day. That's not the way I want to spend my time here in Japan, so I'm unbelievably happy for that change. So, I'll stick with my original desk, and wait for a new guy to come, and hope that he and the vice principal are nice guys. Then he randomly says to me, "Oh by the way...you might be moved to a new office," like what? oh thanks for the tip...will I or won't I? He said that he didn't know, but whatever. I'll find out eventually, like most things.

The problem with that office is that it's filled with old men who are stuck in their ways and think everyone is below them, Japanese women and younger Japanese men included. However, my desk and the decently sized cabinet behind me is filled with years old ALT crap, that it'd just be too much of a hassle to move. In any case, I wait for lunch time, like I usually do on days that nothing is going on, and as I'm about to leave for lunch the guy next to me finally says, "Oh...yeah you're going to be moved to a new office where two other teachers of English are." So, I was a bit shocked, and a little annoyed, not because I didn't want to move, but because I'd have to move all that crap by myself by the end of the day. So, I smile, nod and say okay, then leave for lunch. I come back and just sit around for a bit. Then I decide to move all that crap. I started at like 2:30, and as 3:30 hits, I realize that I might not be able to move this all in time. It wouldn't have been too much of a hassle, but I wasn't feeling well at all, so I was getting more and more annoyed about more of the crap I uncovered that was left from past ALTs.

Even while I'm packing up and stuff, one of the guys that I knew from last year (old guy of course) was talking to me and was explaining that it was nothing personal....but once the guy next to me leaves, no one else will be able to speak English...so he thought this was best and how I should come visit every now and again. I mean, it was obvious that it was ultimately his say in my switch because he's the head of the office when the vice principal isn't there, so I'm guessing he was feeling guilty. I didn't give a damn. Also, like yeah...being interrogated and talked down upon is my definition of fun...stfu. I was just concerned about getting all this crap moved in before I give up because of how I was feeling.

So while I'm standing there, glaring at all this crap, one of the new teachers come to me and offers to help. The first time I didn't take it (since you're not supposed to at first), but then he insisted so I pretended to reluctantly give in; it's a strange dance of insisting and denial, then finally accepting the help I wanted from the start...that's just how things work here. So I finally get help, with my very small basket, a long thin basket, and 10+ years worth of ALT crap. So I pack everything in the baskets and give him the heaviest things of course, and pretend to be amazed about how strong he is. I mean I appreciated the help and I thought he was just being nice...until I find out that he was helping me along BECAUSE he's taking my seat, lol that prick...but whatever, I ended up finishing my move by 3:50 and had enough time to sit around before I was able to go home.

Before that however, when I was still getting a bit more stuff together, the guy that I no longer sit next to is still there chatting away with the other old men, then he puts out a giant collection of English games and books, and he happily points out that those belong to me because they're for the ESL club and how I need to get those out. I calmly state that I have no space in my cabinets for anything else so he needs to do something about them, then I leave it at that. Then like 10 minutes later when I came back to take the last remaining stuff, while making sure everything is cleared out, the guy who decided that I was moving and get his reason why, finds MORE ALT related crap in a big cabinet on the other side of the office. Then the guy that I no longer sit next to, looks me and goes "Oh look, there's more things for you here to take with you," by now I'm still feeling really bad from running back and forth everywhere, and how it seems like every movement makes me feel even more terrible until I stop, and even up to that point they still talk down to me and say things in ways that they I won't understand, I understand perfectly and curtly reply,"...Didn't know about it, didn't know it was even there, never used it, not my problem," it gets chuckles out of the younger teachers that were there talking to the vice principal because they thought I was joking, but just like that giant collection of games, I left that shit right where it sat. Well, I got my new desk, in my new office, let's see how things work out.

Farewell Ceremony for Teachers

2009-04-02T10:01:00.001+09:00

On the 31st, the teachers that were leaving had to meet in the vice principal's office (my office) and give small speeches to all the teachers. Even the vice principal was getting switched; vice principals only spend two years per school, so luckily I came in his second year. Thank God. However, it was here that I found out that two more people that were amazing to me were leaving. I had prepared a little gift and a note of thanks to the teacher who I knew was leaving, but out of two office ladies (whom are essentially the reason why Japanese schools don't collapse), one had a new assignment, while the other retired. I didn't find this out until I saw them lining up with the teacher that I was knew was getting transferred. I felt so sad, I didn't know and no one told me. One of the office ladies was the one that I saw my first Japanese movie in Japanese theater with, and the other helped me a lot when I first got here and was jet lagged and culture shocked to hell. Even the small things that they did meant so much because most people don't think too much about the foreigner. So, I'm feeling awful that I didn't know that they were getting switched, when the Farewell Ceremony started. It was similar to the one in the office, but these speeches were a bit longer, as expected. The lady who was retiring, while she was giving her speech she broke down and started crying while she was talking. Some of the other ladies that were being transferred also started crying. I'm feeling the effects of that, then this asshole teacher had the nerve to say, "Oh wow..their speeches are SO long...shorter is way better isn't it?" I understand where she's coming from, because she's so old, and she's been to these constantly, but it doesn't it make it any less important because she's not being the one transferred. I know who's speech I won't be paying attention to when her time comes.

After the speeches of all 19 teachers, students lined up in front of the teachers with flowers and handed them to the teachers at the same time while music from the band played. Then afterward, many students line up parallel by the exit, and make a little pathway for the leaving teachers. So teachers, with their flowers talk to some students, shake hands, it was kind of like a celebrity type thing. Most of the girl students were crying because they were going to miss their teachers. After all of that, and the teachers that are leaving stood around outside to talk to fellow teachers. I made sure that I was able to talk to the office ladies and apologize about how I didn't know, and if I knew then I would have gotten them something. The lady who was retiring and set literally everything up for me when I first got here, spoke about how I seem so different, and confident and how my Japanese has improved immensely and how she'll never forget me. Her talking about when I first got here, made me think about that time, and what she did for me. I hate crying in front of people -.-.

Once everyone said their goodbyes, life kind of just went on. When my favorite teacher was leaving, I was the only one who looked at him and said bye. Everyone else just gave a nod and small smile and just went about their business. That was a bit strange, but then I remember that this an every year occurrence for them and when they're time comes, people will do the exact same thing. When the vice principal left, despite our differences (his being a prick, and my being foreign), I was kind of going to miss the awkward, always sleeping vice principal.....for three seconds. Time moves on, new teachers come, new desk changes. Let's see how this will go.

It's Teacher Switching Time!

2009-04-02T09:09:00.002+09:00

Recently, a big event occurred in Japan. Around late March, early April, teachers will find out whether or not they will be switched to a new school. Usually, Japanese teachers are rotated to about 4 or 5 schools, and spend around 5 years at each, according to Japanese people. However, some people are exceptions and some can be at a school for only one year, or be like one of the teachers I work with, and be here for like nine years. In any case, it's a big deal. My school is close to the biggest city in Miyazaki so most teachers don't want to leave. So, it's around 1pm at my school where everyone finds out, but that's during lunchtime so I don't want to miss it. I quickly get my food and come back to my office, all of the teachers are there waiting. It was the most stifling that the room has ever been! The teachers were chatting, pretending to not be nervous but it was obvious in how everyone was cautiously looking around, or doing some nervous tic. So, I walk in and I (jokingly) point out the insanely nervous atmosphere; some laugh, others nod awkwardly. Meh, that's normal.

In Japan, their teacher transferring culture is interesting. First off, everyone awkwardly stands around, waiting for the vice principal. The vice principal sits at his desk, gets a phone call from the principal, who is downstairs. The principal says the name of the transferred teacher and tells the vice principal to tell that person to go downstairs and find out the assignment. So the vice principal hangs up, then calls the teacher's name. After one teacher is called, the ones that aren't called all simultaneously let out a sigh of relief. The teacher goes downstairs for about five minutes, finds out where he/she is going, comes back up and tells all of the other teachers of their next assignment. Some are happy, most....not so much, but most people hold in their feelings until they can talk privately with someone they know.

I missed most of it because I got my lunch and I was convinced to eat it before it got cold, but everyone finds out later of course. So, most of the teachers that weren't switched let out 19 sighs of relief, since 19 teachers were transferred. I was happy; my favorite teacher (who helped me out since I got here, even when some teachers were being assholes) wasn't switched so I smiled and said, "Luckily you didn't get switched right?" He shakes his head and tells me that he did get switched to a different school so he has to clean out his desk. I was in shock, I didn't see him get called because I was eating so I foolishly thought that he was gonna stay. I was so disappointed, but he didn't seem to sad about it; he only spent one year here.

So teachers found out their new schools on March 19th, and have to be out by March 30th, and the new teachers come April 1st. I was a bit disappointed about it, but nothing could be done.

Another teacher that I found out was getting switched was my supervisor, and I was there when his name was called. It was a bit shocking, but I wasn't really sad about it. I mean he wasn't the greatest supervisor; not listening to me, saying stupid crap, being a bit negligent when it came to team teaching classes, not doing his job when he's supposed to, but can't wait to do his job when it isn't necessary...some other things too. He was also the head of the English department, but was the worst out of everyone in it, he was only the head of the department because he's the oldest. He was also a bit of pushover in class, until about like..Febuary (mind there were little to no team teaching classes after Febuary). I found out he's going to an industrial school, and that sucks for him. Industrial schools are just for kids that are going straight to factory jobs right after graduation, so they're rude, violent, and actually on par with some American students when it comes to being disrespectful. My students, at their worse, just talk a lot and ignore the teacher, but all of the teachers act they're the worst students to around, and they always ask me if I knew students that were "as bad" as these students are....and I'd chuckle and just go, "Ah...I know a few." In any case, he's not that great with discipline and if he can't handle agricultural students, they're going to eat him alive. I just hope he doesn't end up quitting midway.

It was quite the strange day, there were no classes or anything, so people were just sitting around and talking with each other. The thing is, it's strange how it's guaranteed that every teacher will eventually be switched, makes it hard to form genuine friendships, doesn't it?

Atmospheres and VP's

2009-03-13T09:46:00.002+09:00

Slow day today. I have no classes today and the Vice Principal isn't here, yay! I mean it's not only fun and exciting for me though. When the VP is here, the atmosphere is always quite stifling so I'm always leaving the room and doing something, whether it'd be talking to students or just dropping in random classes. It helps me out because I get to talk to students and I'm not in the room, and it wakes the students up because they get all excited when they see me coming. I remember the first time that the VP wasn't in the office, it was like two months ago...

Whenever you walk in to a room, you have to greet. Whether it's morning, afternoon, whatever, it brings attention to yourself so everyone knows you're here. The person who enters the room is the one who must greet everyone first, then wait for a response back, since that person is the one who's intruding...well okay maybe not intruding, but some people make it feel that way. Some people, after giving a greeting, are ignored. It has nothing to do with that teacher as a person, just if people in the office are too busy, or aren't paying attention, the person entering won't receive a greeting back. I mean the culture insists that you must say some kind of greeting when you walk in, so it sucks to not get a response back, according to Japanese people. There are about 8 regular teachers that are in my office (including the VP), but only like 4 or 5 would be in the office at one time, because of classes and stuff. So when I walk in and greet, only like 2 or so would say anything, and that's okay! As long as one person greets back, then it's acknowledged. When the VP is in the office, that's the norm. Only rarely have I gotten no response, but it doesn't really "hurt" as much as Japanese people describe when it happens to them. Sometimes I would walk in, and the VP wouldn't be at his desk, but there would be books open on his desk that shows that he was there, so that just means he's not in the office and he'll be back soon. So, imagine MY surprise when I walk in, VP's not there, no books out showing that he's there, and when I say my greeting, I get 7 voices at different sound levels greeting me back. So I'm like, okay, what the hell is going on and what's this strange atmosphere of relaxation and amiability? Only to find out that yes, the VP was on a business trip and won't be here for the rest of the day (Wednesday). I'm like, "Oh....(YES!!)," and just the way the teachers were when the VP wasn't there shows that they too feel this weight lifted off of them for 9 hours. This happens two more times in a row and those three days were three of the most relaxing days I've had at the job. The VP is important because he takes care of vacation days, so all teachers have to go to him, ask if it's okay if they can take nenkyuu, then withstand his stupid and unnecessary questions. I mean, it's not only me that thinks that! The Japanese teachers of English and even other teachers tell me all that time, "...he asks questions that make no sense and expect me to answer them," or "he complained that my kanji is too big," and other stuff like that. I mean he did that to me once.

I was getting Golloyds set up (you can send money from your Japanese account, to your home country's account, good stuff), and I needed to photocopy my passport. Most foreigners in Japan know that you have to carry your passport with you at all times, in case you're harassed by a police officer. If you're caught without a passport, the officers will chuckle and put you in jail. After living here for more than a month, you need to get a foreigner ID card and after you get that, you don't have to take your passport with you everywhere, because(of course) you CANNOT lose your passport. So, I had no classes, and it was quite the relaxed day so I wanted to hurry and finish the application. Although I don't think I had to ask him, I was told that I should ask him if I can go back to my apartment and pick up my passport. I don't feel as though I had to, simply because I wanted to do it during lunch time and whatever I do during lunchtime is my business. But anyway, I was told that I should, and I did. I go, "Hi. (while showing him the forms that are in Japanese) I need to complete this form to send money home (which is mad obvious because it's in Japanese, but you have to be specific), and my passport is in my apartment so may I please go get it?" This moron, "Why?" I go, "????....to send money home to my family....here it is on the application that I'm filling out right now that says that I need a copy of my passport." This guy, "Yes, I see that...but why?" I'm like, "???????????" I don't know what the hell he's talking about, it's quite simple really. Then he talks to one of the JTE's in Japanese about me, and obviously I understand him, he indirectly asked me why is my passport in my apartment. I indirectly answered that I don't have to bring my passport everywhere after I get my foreign ID card, if I lose my passport then I can't leave. You would think though, that someone who has dealt with other ALT's and must have for years would f***ing know that. Whatever. I still think I didn't have to ask him.

He's the annoying father figure of EVERYONE, even people slightly older, or the same age as he. It's due to his position of course, but he watches over everyone and jumps on their case if it seems like they're not doing work. He's the one that scolds students AND teachers, so teachers feel an extreme amount of pressure to do well and not be scolded, so I can only imagine how the teachers that are in this room feel. It's quite the position of power, perhaps TOO MUCH power.

So most people at the office have long since mastered the ability of looking busy without actually being busy. It's quite the thick veil, I mean I'm always fooled until I ask one question, and I end up getting speeches and history lessons, all the while thinking, "Yes...this is your fault...you shouldn't have asked about tangerines and Korean snow...." and just patiently wait until it's over before I smile, give a slight "thank you" nod and go back to doing something else. So when the VP comes back, it's back to that stifling atmosphere.

Today though, it's quite relaxed...people are laughing lol...like so. I can't sit in the office all day, despite that, so I'm going to go the crazy kid class since they're going to watch a movie..."You've Got Mail," ugh...I know, but the lady JTE here LOVES Meg Ryan...for whatever reason.

Graduation in Japan

2009-03-06T09:57:00.001+09:00

I've been here for 8 months now...it really doesn't feel like it though. The ALT position arranges it so new ALTs end up coming in during the 2nd semester of Japanese high schools, which is a little silly, but I think that convinces me that JET prefers recent college graduates. I arrived here in late July, early August after graduating from college in May. The new school year in Japan starts in April, there are 3 semesters and seniors graduate in March. So I got here during the 2nd semester, during the month long summer break that the students had. I'm not sure if it's ACTUALLY a summer break because there were still plenty of students coming because of their club activities.

The graduation date for high schools, Japan-wide, is March 1st. I've only known the seniors for about 7 months, but I've gotten to know all of them because this is such a small school. Of course they had their annoying moments; the "cool" ones who decide English isn't worth knowing so just sit there or just talk to their friends. Strangely enough though, it seems like the ones who are "bad" kids tend to be the ones who know more about Jamaica and reggae than just Bob Marley :-\.....

There were the girls that didn't really give a damn and would fall asleep, despite sitting in the front row...yeah...that's MAD rude lol, but it's okay; a giant book accidentally falling near their ears tend to clear that up quite easily. Even those girls though, would be incredibly chatty outside of class, in Japanese of course. One time, I ran into them at the arcade and those girls were dressed in very....I guess you can say provocative clothes, tight short dress, tights and thigh high boots with more than enough make-up. I'd look at them and go "Aahh! Where are the rest of your clothes??" in Japanese, of course, and I'd get, "Haha, sensei is soooo cute! Picture! Picture!!!" (No that's not me, it's a friend).

However, there were some students that were genuinely interested in learning English and would try and use it outside of class. Those tended to be the ones that wouldn't need Japanese translation and would translate for everybody else in class. At times I would speak Japanese to them outside of class and I'd get the not-oft heard "ENGLISH PLEASE" demand. Then I'd have to go "Okay okay.....if you want!" There's this one girl who is literally one of the cutest girls ever. She is sooo shy! She's only like 5 years younger than me since she graduated, but still! She participated in an English debate contest, in which those results REALLY pissed me the hell off.

A little about the debate contest: For whatever reason, the judges seemed to give points to high energy, not the difficulty of the piece that students choose. They also decide to give EVERYBODY praise and not give any actual constructive criticism, so the students would be left to wonder they received comments like, "Good energry! Wonderful speech!"... only to be in last place. The judges were other ALTs from different parts of Miyazaki. Also, you'd have some cheery girl who memorized the easiest English fairy tale ever (which was actually a Japanese story just translated into English), against two of MY students who actually picked substantial material. My male student picked one of Obama's speeches, and the cute girl picked an excerpt from Charlie and Chocolate Factory. They both struggled with some pronounciation, which is natural since it's a little difficult to get the English intonation while trying to pronounce "religion." In any case, the pieces didn't seem to matter, so I was quite bitter. I was and so was another ALT from Miyakonojo. She had her best student (all of her students have a higher level of English than my students because of the type of high school she has) memorize and act out a college level piece, and she didn't even place either, but whatever! That's how the (faulty) grading system works.

Also, in Japan, if you have a Japanese parent and a non-Japanese parent, you're called a "half." Yes, that's quite offensive since of course it's not supposed to be honoring the pairing. There were some kids who competed that had a non-Japanese parent, but it's a toss up. Some parents decide to not teach their children the language of the non-Japanese parent, while some do. However, the ones who do teach their children the language of the non-Japanese parent, whether it be English or not (I will talk about non-Japanese, English speaking people because of the English debate contest), clearly have an advantage over the students who don't hear and speak English at home. At the same time, there are some children who know zero English and struggle with consonant and vowel pronounciation like any other Japanese child there. So, is it unfair that those children, who are taught English at home, are allowed to compete and are almost guaranteed to win? I don't know. It can be said though, because some Japanese people are completely intolerant of a bi-racial child (When I say that, I'm referring to one parent being Japanese), being fluent in another language and knowing about another culture might be the only advantages they have when living here (unless they become a famous entertainer, singing, dancing, dramas, whatever).

Getting back to the topic at hand:
There were ups and downs, once time was drawing closer and they had their post high school plans figured out (out of 168, most of them are going straight to work, about 17 of them are going to college), most of them had some serious senoritis. Even the good ones that understood most of my English would just kind of...hang around...stare blankly at everything. Most of the teachers were shocked and angry at how the students acted, so I had to explain that this is quite common... worldwide, I'm sure.

So, you know, if the good kids had senioritis, the bad kids DEFINITELY had it and made my life slightly more difficult for 50 minutes. It was all in good fun though, I would call on them for answers and chuckle about how they didn't know anything. Fun stuff...

So fastforward to March 1st, typical long, drawn out speeches from random people, which had like, half of the people in the audience (kids, parents and teachers) knocked. Everyone must know by now that long speeches put people to sleep, but everyone does it...without fail. Even though the graduation felt unbelievably long, it was actually only like 1 and a half, 2 hours. It started at 10am. That's not TOO bad, but that was only because there are technically two graduation days. It's March 1st, and the day before. However the official graduation day, where parents come and people dress up, is March 1st. I CANNOT imagine what would happen if graduation happened only one day. ;-\

Once everyone woke up to sing some songs (one of the Japanese graduation songs is actually that "Auld Lang Syne" song that everyone sings for New Year's..I don't know either), it was the students' turn. The way this graduation goes is, they call out one student at a time, the student says, "Hai!" and stands up. Then one representative from that class goes up on stage and formally accepts a graduation certificate for the whole class, then everyone bows together and sits down. After 4 of those, during the last one, there was one student who was chosen for the WHOLE graduation class to go up on stage make a speech to everyone. That someone...was my cute, serious student from the English debate and from class. She goes up there, and her voice is so shaky when she talks because she's so nervous. It was a very nice speech about the good memories that she had being here...then as she was thanking parents and teachers and saying goodbye to her high school friends, her voice broke and she started crying as she was talking. I could not tell you, how that made me feel. Everyone in the room felt the emotion and sadness as she was talking, and some students were crying because she started as well. Once she returned back to her seat, the formal exit of the students started. While the students leave by class letter, you have to clap for about 10 minutes until it's over. I had to be one of the strong ones for students, but then I saw so many students and teachers, especially my best students crying and even some of the male teachers and students crying (one of them was my Obama speech guy), there was nothing I could do. Quite a few tears escaped, even though I didn't want them to. After that emotional scene, me and plenty of the other students were on the verge of tears for the whole day. Afterwards though, it was just joking around in a relaxed setting until the eventual parting.

After the graduation, you would think that they would leave since they've graduated right? Nope. The students had to return to class with parents and all the students were given individual official certificates of graduation and had to say a few words. Homeroom teachers are with the students for the whole year and they are regarded almost as parents to the students because the students are in school for so long. So it was understandable that the teachers getting extra emotional were the homeroom teachers. I went into all of the classes and took pictures, I didn't want to say anything because I was still near tears by then, so I just cracked some jokes during picture taking and went along to the next class.

I told the students who were in the English club (the 5 who were quite helpful during class and knew more English than most students) to find me so I can take pictures, and they pointed out that they wanted me to sign their yearbook. I didn't mind. The rest of the day though...was quite hectic. My camera died during picture taking so I had to bike back to my apartment during lunch time to get my charger, order some food along the way, and make sure to get back before they leave. They were going to leave at like 130, and lunch time started at like 12, so I didn't have that much time left. It was quite an exhausting day, to make the rest of it short though: I picked up the wrong USB charger, so I had to run all over the school to find the teacher who was in charge of the school digi camera. The "bad" kids kept on following me around because their "bad friends" wanted to meet me since they told them that I'm Jamaican. They followed me around just so they can say "BOB MARLEY!" but whatever. I got the food but I wasn't able to eat it for another 2 hours since I had to take all those pictures of the students and chat with their parents who were very adamant about meeting me and touching my hair. I already had food, but one of the parents "honorably offered" that I take her giant bento box. Some of you don't think that's a bad thing, BUT those of you that are here realize that it's a just another freakin' thing that I'm gonna have to properly recycle.

It was all worth it however, as I was walking down a hallway after I returned the camera, I ran into the girl from before who I told to find me. She was like "Hey! There you are! We're all waiting for you in your office!" I was like "Ooh crap", so then I had to run back to find that damn teacher again to get back the digi cam then run up to my office. There were a lot of students there, more than those that were in English Club of course because they all wanted me to sign my their books in English, I didn't mind. After I translated it for them, the ones from the English Club gave me hugs and wished me luck in the future. One of the last girls, her voice broke as she was saying goodbye to me and I was like "No, no no! Don't cry! If you cry, I'll cry! Don't do it!" as my voice was getting all shaky. Yeah, we both failed that... but overall, all of them, including the "bad" kids, were good kids and I hope they do well in the future.

All that happened before 2pm, so after the students finally went home, I found some of the other students, 2nd graders and 1st graders still hanging around for club activities. There's this 2nd grader duo, one plays the guitar and sings back up while the other sings. They performed for the cultural festival and decided to do an impromptu concert for the chicks. They attracted a giant group of adults and students. They're quite good! One girl started crying while they were singing..... yeah, I dunno either...I mean it's not like she won't see them like...tomorrow lol. Most of the 3rd graders who were still there stuck around just for the impromptu concert and everyone sat around until the singer was like "Alright....I'm done singing..." I left school normal time, around 4:15. The graduation was on Saturday and Sunday, I had a day off on Friday and had another one on Monday. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I saw my futon....sweet, sweet futon. :-)

It's interesting seeing the new students, and getting the "Omg it's a black girl!!!" stare, but I'll just do what I did when I first got here. That was a sad day, but then life moved on and in come the new wave of students. I have a feeling though, that this is going to be a good year.

My Pictures of Japan

2009-02-01T23:43:00.001+09:00

They said what?

2009-01-26T10:06:00.003+09:00

Japan can be strange country and sometimes Japanese people say strange things. It's interesting how everyone thinks that Americans are arrogant and overtly patriotic, but judging by the things I hear here, it's clear that some people haven't spoken to enough Japanese people.

The guy that says "do you understand?" all the time, he's kind of stopped with it, but I still give him a look when he does it, has said plenty of things that make me go "what?!" or "why the hell is that important?" and it's always something that honors Japan in some way. I can't tell you why they say things, or why they believe ridiculous things but some Japanese people do. For example, I told him that I want to go to Hokkaido for the snow festival because I love snow and despite how cold it gets in Miyazaki, it's never cold enough to snow and that's sad. He tells me that I should go to Korea and see the snow there because it's cheaper than going to Hokkaido. Then he says," But...the quality of Korea's snow is a lot less than Japan's snow so you should still try and go to Hokkaido." It's okay, I'll give you a minute to let that digest................

(Pictured: Korea's inferior snow.)

OK?
Japan's snow quality?! Despite the snow coming from the same goddamned sky? I suppose Japan's rain is more awesome than Korea's rain too. The crazy thing about it is that he's not pulling my leg; he truly believes what he's saying....mind boggling.

If you've been in a Japanese office, you know that it's likely that you'll get plenty of gifts from people that went to trips and come back with things to show their remorse for leaving us all alone (ONE part of omiyage). Some people in the office give gifts whether or not they go anywhere. It's still a form of omiyage, but it isn't truly. For the past couple of weeks, I've been given shitloads of Japanese oranges and tangerines. Their oranges don't taste like oranges we're all used to, but it's not bad. We were talking about Japanese tangerines and he was saying that these tangerines are delicious. He said, "There have been studies that show Japanese tangerines are the best in the world." It's okay, I'll give you a minute to let that digest...............
OK?
Japanese tangerines are the best in the world?! My main source of surprise truly wasn't his Japan horn tooting since I hear that pretty much everyday. It was mainly the fact that he said "studies have shown....." like wow, that's great English and I've never heard any other Japanese person say that. His English is usually pretty bad so I'm guessing those tangerines were so important to him that he had to look up how to emphasize that Japanese tangerines blow any other tangerines from any other countries clear out the water. Right.

I create listening sections to tests here. It's everything that I've covered already, there's nothing new on my test papers. It's also quite simple because I'm at an agricultural school. Well, I made it SLIGHTLY harder because I was pleasantly surprised and excited about how they did so well for the first test. Nothing TOO bad though, it was still everything I already covered. I even read a passage with all of the answers in there in the first part, did dialogue with the answers in the second part, and read another passage with the answers therein in the third part. So there's no way these kids CAN'T do well since I didn't even do that for the first test...RIGHT?! Well, imagine my surprise when they tell me Halloween is November 5th, you carve ghosts for Halloween and you're supposed to say "Get Down!" if you're a trick or treater for Halloween (I did laugh about it for while though). It was a tad frustrating and I told the guy I sit next to that it was bit frustrating. You know what he tells me? "Well....I believe that Americans think that they don't have to learn any other languages because English is a universal language. We Japanese (he loves that phrase) HAVE to learn English if we want to go to college and get a very good job, and even if I talk to a Chinese or Korean, we use English to communicate so I think Americans think that they don't have to learn other languages. Don't you think?"......................

Is he out of his damn mind? I asked him ,"Have you ever been to any other countries?" He says,"No, I haven't." I said,"Oh.......well that explains everything doesn't it?" I said it in rapid fire (standard speed for me though) English and of course he didn't understand me. Like why the hell would I agree when I'm SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO HIM and he's met PLENTY of other Americans. I couldn't explain to him that he'd never meet those kinds of Americans because obviously they wouldn't leave America, but to make such a stupid broad statement TO AN AMERICAN is truly mind-boggling, I could only just sit there with wide eyes. The other crazy thing is that he TRULY believes what he's saying and if he said it to other Japanese people they'd agree (well surface agreement- one facet of "tatemae," but who knows if they'd truly believe it). If you don't know what tatemae is and you want to come to Japan, please look it up. Now. Tatemae and honne. Now. Go on...I'll be here.................
OK?

I spoke with this nice Japanese library lady (who according to other librarians, doesn't do anything in terms of working and pulling her own weight) and we were talking about languages. I told her Japanese is very hard but English isn't that bad (of course right?). She explains that English is very hard, but Japanese is the "hardest language ever." I'm like "??????? Really?" She truly believes that Japanese is the hardest language to learn. Let that stew while I continue. Now... she truly does believe that but I think the most frustrating part of that whole thing is that some Japanese people don't even think about other countries but are scholars in whatever thing they think Japan is the best in (fruits, etc). Don't get me wrong though, Japanese is pretty damned hard, but there are other impossible languages that are more impossible than Japanese. I know for a fact that Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese, as well as Arabic, and one of the many languages in India and are damned difficult to master. It's just strange how I had to remind her that there are more languages in the world than Japanese and English. I think the main strange thing about it is that this was a Japanese lady who has been speaking Japanese for 60+ years and would be willing to bet that Japanese is the "hardest language ever." Right.

I spoke to a friend who was explaining something about Japanese bananas to me. She was speaking with some Japanese ladies and they let her have some special Miyakonojo (where she lives, 45 min by train from me) bananas. Why are they special, you ask? Well, according to something that she read, it said that the special bananas she was eating was actually raised with the soothing sounds of Mozart and were especially made for her town. What the hell? Well, I'm guessing that eating those musical bananas will allow you to put some music into your sad music-less life. Yeah...someone in the government offices REALLY needed to sell some bananas, spun this wonderful story, then watched the money roll in. The sad thing? Everyone there bought it... and the bananas.

Fashion in Japan

2008-12-02T11:09:00.004+09:00

Hm...let's go over the list one more time.
Ankle winter boots with a fur trim. Check.
Leopard skin tights. Check.
Corduroy-shorts jumper with another fur trim. Check.
Black puffy blouse with grey sleeves. Check.
50s beehive hairstyle. Check.
As much make-up as humanly possible. Check.

Okay, we're good to go!

What I just described is the typical outfit of a Japanese female college student. Feel free to replace the ankle winter boots with thigh-length black high heeled boots and the tights and jumper with very, very short miniskirts and you're still on the right track. What she is doing, while it being labeled as "fashion," is pretty much wearing everything readily available in her closet. A friend that's been living here for 3 years has come to a more accurate conclusion: they're wearing their "favorite" things all at one time. Like, "Oh..this is my favorite yellow corduroy jumper...I'll wear my favorite maroon tights with it, with my favorite green plaid scarf and favorite red high heeled boots." She would know more than I do, so let's take her word for it.
Just try and imagine the other things as well...

I personally like a lot of Japan's shoes, sneakers and boots. The clothes? Well, I do like their accessories too! The clothes? Umm....well...I guess I like some of it. The way they put their clothes together in an outfit however, is ...eer...interesting. When I see my students, regardless of the time of day, they have their school uniforms on because it's likely that they just came from school. College is the one of the only times in which Japanese people can dress and look however they want to look. It's no surprise, judging by the strict hair and eyebrow check that the high school (and I'm pretty sure middle school) students go through in the beginning of every semester, that once they're given the opportunity to be out of a uniform, they tend to er...go all out.

The men are absolutely no exception to this rule and it's quite to common to catch a male college student with snake skin pointy shoes, tight jeans, snazzy suit top, blond dyed spiked up hair, a lot of make up to give their faces a smooth porcelain look, with a man-bag or murse, and yes, they are quite popular here. I can't really imagine what's in a man-bag, since I've never looked in one, but what they can they possibly need?

Well, in any case, that's part of Japan's fashion in a nutshell, and it makes one wonder exactly why they go all out. There was definitely a decent sized portion of men and women at my college who dressed to the nine's, only to go to math class. Why is it such a big deal here? The answer is simple and a little sad. First off, let me explain a little bit about Japanese colleges. When I was in college in America and I spoke with Japanese people who just came to America to graduate, I was told that in Japan, students must study to get into a good elementary school (?!), then they must study to get into a good middle school, then of course they have to study hard to get into a good high school, and definitely everyone attempts to study hard to get into a good college. What comes after that? I was told that college in Japan is also referred to as the "four year vacation." Granted there are plenty of difficult colleges in Japan to study at, as well as there plenty of stressed out Japanese college students, but it's called a four year vacation for a reason. There are more people that can simply just lay back and enjoy college for what it is because I have heard that once Japanese people get into a good college, they are almost guaranteed a good job because of its reputation (similar to the U.S.). Also, I have been told that the parents pay for their college tuition and anything else they might need, so even if some students get part-time jobs, it's merely just to pay for their fashion preferences. This is one of the first times in a long time for Japanese students to dress however they want, get piercings, color their hair, do whatever they want. It's common knowledge that once college is over, they are back to uniforms and rejoining with the group collective again. There's also the other group who just dress up for picture taking (called Purikura) and so they would dress to the nine's..take pictures, then just hang around and do other fun things.

However, how was I able to accurately describe a good portion of the people's clothing here? It's because most of the clothing stores here sell the same exact things! Go into any Japanese mall and you see cute scarves and boots. Great! Walk down, past five stores, and in 4 of those 5 stores, you'll see more scarves and more boots of nearly identical style and pattern. So......it's like...why the hell are there so many stores if they're selling the same things? I can't answer that. What I DO know is that everyone here is buying the same looking clothes and accessories, and so everyone ends up dressing the same anyway. I think it can even be said that those students are technically still in uniform. I think that's kind of sad, but I think that even if you attempt to dress differently than the next person, the person next to that person will have the nearly the same kind of outfit, or the same kind of accessory. (Well honestly, I shouldn't even say "sad" because that's just my American love of individuality talking and Japan is a completely different culture and society. I will instead say it's "different." So, I apologize for that). I don't think that people here would even WANT to be completely different and unique from everyone else because then there won't be any group for them to belong too. It can be seen all the time; the men with the snazzy tops, dyed blond spikey hair and snake skin pointy shoes all hanging out together. You can also see the 50s hair style, miniskirt, blouse (which might or might not come with a fir trim), and thigh length booted girls all hanging out together. Even with the guys that are into hip-hop culture and the way that they dress. Perhaps in that way, the group collective never really left and just had a casual appearance.

Some people however...are a bit different.

Slight..cultural...differences

2008-10-21T09:41:00.006+09:00

I hate it when people repeat things over and over again. I especially hate it when they repeat, they say it in a 'matter of fact' tone as if they just didn't say it a second ago. I'm having slight gripes with some of these people, and it's not even bad compared to what I hear from other ALTs. It's just small things that get on my nerves. I try and multitask, but even if someone is talking to me, I will listen, regardless of whether or not I'm looking at the person. That's simply what some people in western culture do. However, doing that here will result in people getting mad, leading them to explain things...ad nauseum. I will take the blame for not understanding upon my arrival here that I would have to drop absolutely everything I'm doing so some butthead can explain something (for no reason) three times. I rarely even do that anyway, but today I was trying to look for something to teach, and I didn't have much time to do it, and here comes the teacher who likes to say everything over and over, and even has the nerve to say "do you understand?" in Japanese almost as often as he likes to explain himself, to start yapping. I had this problem even in America when I spoke with this Japanese guy in my college e-board (I was event coordinator of the Japanese association on campus), it's all well and good that English isn't his first language, but when he struggles with absolutely everything he says, he adds in little Japanese phrases to fill in the blanks. There's nothing wrong with that, but when it takes 3 minutes for him to say, "I think we should buy the grapes," it gets a little........annoying. So fastforward to now when the guy whom I sometimes teach with and sit next to does the same exact thing....it's annoying. Not to mention the fact that he feels the need to tell me absolutely everything about nothing. Our speaking Japanese would be faster than our speaking English, but he wants to torture me and take 5 minutes to say, "Please look at me when we speak." Damn that's annoying. I'd also be more inclined to look at him if he didn't treat me like I was 7. I'm very appreciative of his help, but there's only so far someone can go before their explanations get rather tedious and it becomes a 10 minute effort for him to say ONE fucking thing. None of the other Japanese teachers of English do that either....it's just him.

They also claim that I can be honest with them and say whatever I feel about any situation, but it only works from one direction. Even if I told them something very slight and random, they're quick with a retort and pretty much say that what I think is silly or just flat out wrong. So....then what's the point of telling me that I can say whatever I like? I can say positive things all day though. Even if I actually took what they said and ran with it and said whatever was bothering me, they'd probably end up complaining about me behind my back, so speaking my mind wouldn't help anything. Well in any case, this is quite common to struggle with these minor things, especially when everything feels like it's piling up on each other, but usually they're solved in like one day....I still can't stand that damn repetition.

It's also interesting in where you can be doing absolutely everything right for two months, then you do one thing differently, and everyone freaks the hell out. There's a daily cleaning time, in which everyone picks up a broom or wash cloth and cleans something. It usually involves students moving the very minimal dirt from one spot to the next. Regardless of that, I always pick up a broom and start sweeping. This one time last week, I was talking to my supervisor during cleaning time so I missed it. My teachers' room includes the vice principal who's fairly important in Japanese schools. He's the one teachers have to go to when they want to take vacation days off or when they're going on a business trip. He's not much that of a prick, but I heard from other teachers that he has the potential to be one every now and again. So I miss the first cleaning time ever. The next day I hear from another teacher that I'm ALWAYS SUPPOSED to do cleaning time. Welll...duh, I know that...that's why I pick up a broom and sweep everytime the annoying cleaning music comes on. The issuse that I spoke with my supervisor about was a hell of a lot more important than cleaning time, to tell you the truth (visa stuff), but that was only one time out of two months. This one time when I took one minute longer to pick up my broom this jerk goes "Hey! It's cleaning time!" And claps three times quite loudly while staring at me. I give him a calm stare, then wait a minute or two before I actually get up. I know I'm not supposed to do that and rock the boat, but I'm not Japanese so I'm not going to jump up, apologize and run for the broom. It's all about hierarchy so he's supposed to talk down to me, like he talks down to everyone else (except for the principal of course ^-^ ), but I'm not going to react the same way. He only did it once, but I still get slightly annoyed when I think about it.

In any case, these are isolated incidences, except for Repeat Man up there, despite my slight gripes, I'm quite happy with my placement and I love the students. Most are bad at English and don't have a particular interest in it, but they're willing to speak with me about everything in Japanese. I get a lot of "You are.......soooo cute," from the boy and girls students. This one crazy kid, from the crazy kid class, had his friend write the Love kanji (愛) on his arm in pen. Then after he was finished, he decides to point at me and point at his arm...then point at me and point at his arm...for a good three minutes while I'm just standing there in front of the students. I suppose in a way it's.....kind of endearing? You can't help but laugh at their crazy antics, and I mean even if you didn't like their behavior, they aren't going to change for you, so you might as well roll with the punches and laugh about it anyway. Such is life in Japan as an English teacher.

My first Japanese movie in a Japanese movie theater!

2008-09-19T09:41:00.001+09:00

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.

2008-09-05T09:11:00.002+09:00

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

2008-09-03T12:31:00.001+09:00

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.

Sports Festival

2008-08-28T13:34:00.001+09:00

I'm an ALT in Miyazaki, Japan at an agricultural senior high school so I get to see a lot of cool and strange things. Tomorrow is the Sports Festival (taikutaikai), so there are no classes today. It's a sports festival, but there are a lot of random things that go on during the practice. Yesterday, because of the sudden and oft-occurring crazy downpours, there couldn't be any practice outside. So we were all inside; the students weren't practicing sports, they were practicing how to march in place. When they're not doing military style like marches, I usually talk to the students. If I pick any random group to sit next to, they freak out. One girl asked me if she could touch my hair, and saying yes apparently means EVERYONE in the area can, my poor hair...sigh. Also, constant affirmations of how cute I am is also quite common since the semester started, even though I'm older than all of them. Awkwardly enough though, I've managed to get some cat calls from some of the all male classes as well being called Beyonce more times than I appreciate :-\.

I ran into the students that I know won't be doing any worksheets and will most definitely give me the most trouble. It's easy to see spot it now after a helpful orientation. After the opening ceremony, the boys and girls were separated and the teachers had to check the clothes and hair of all the students. Girls cannot get manicures or pedicures, they can't have different color hair, their nails can't be too long, nor can they do anything to their eyebrows. If any students are caught, their name is written down and after the procedure is over, they're sat down and scolded for a couple of minutes. I didn't see the boys' section but I assume it's similar. So imagine my surprise when I see a group of guys, whom one in particular has a strange Japanese mullet type hair cut with shaved eyebrows. I guess that's as bad as they can get. Awkwardly enough, he knew more about Jamaica and reggae than most of the other kids. At the school, I also see a lot of kids with Red, Green and Yellow and Jamaican paraphernelia, towels or pencil cases and etc.

Everyone here also seems to "love" Jamaica (without really knowing anything about it except Bob Marley and the Jamaican colors), and if anyone watches Japanese TV, they'll know that it's filtered. It's more obvious during the Olympics since I usually ended up always seeing the matches in which Japanese people won. The only time where that didn't happen was when they were covering Jamaica, which was nice. It's a little strange though now, seeing as how people assume that I can run really fast because of it.