Holy Squeaking Children, Batman!

Work has finally started to pick up, which means that I'm grading papers and making exciting plans instead of sitting at my desk and drawing pictures of alligators for the AET board. My students are mostly middle-school aged and just beginning their English education in earnest. As I have been reading through their summer homework essays I am struck by a few patterns:

1. They're really good artists. A number of students had drawn, in painstaking detail, the various theme parks and old castles they visited during summer vacation.
2. Most of them have electronic dictionaries, and they use them. In their essays, my first year students will be writing along using simple grammar and vocabulary when suddenly...bam! A long word that I barely know will appear, “accommodate” and “rendezvous” would be good examples.
3. “R”s and “L”s are difficult. It annoys me a little that westerners seem to find this so funny- I was four before I could make “r” sounds correctly, and I had been speaking English full-time for a couple years. Also, I'd like to see a native English speaker pronounce the Japanese “ra/ri/ru/re/ro” syllable category. We write them out with “r”s, but in reality they sound closer to a mix between “ra” “la” and “da”. Anyway, this difficulty with the English “r” appears in writing as well as speaking for my students...and sometimes this errors are pretty amusing. Not because they're dumb mistakes (they aren't), but because of the earnestness with which they write. For example, “gland” instead of “grand” (this exact mistake hasn't been made, but it illustrates my point). “I had a gland time grading papers!”
4. Finally, our students are effing brilliant. I have studied Japanese for six and a half years (on and off) and am just barely beyond the ability of my middle-school students who have been studying English for three or fewer years.

In other news I explored the local mall over the weekend and found the local foreign-import foods store. I hadn't thought that I'd been missing western food, but as I started seeing familiar food items such as spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, and even spam, I found tears welling in my eyes. I'm finding that I like most Japanese food, but there's something to be said for a jar of foodstuffs that can make a person cry.

While I was at the mall I also discovered that my backside has been upgraded from a western small/medium to a Japanese large. That's right, I went underwear shopping! (*saucy music here*) As I was perusing the selection I noticed a sign that indicated underwear was two-pair for 900 yen. Now, in America this would mean that you could buy one pair for 450 yen, so I made the error of selecting an odd number of underpants and trying to buy them. The following dialogue unfolded in Japanese:

Clerk: Oh! It is two for 900 yen, did you know? See! Two for 900 yen, you only have three.

Me: Oh, it's okay, I only want three.

Clerk: Did you know it is two for 900 yen? You could go get another pair, and it would be four for 1800 yen.

This went on for a while, when it finally dawned on me that it was actually -impossible- to buy an odd number of underpants at this particular store. Oh Japan...

Because I visited the mall on the weekend there were many small children and their families present. As I ate my McDonald's Quarter Pounder with cheese (kuo-ta- pounda- chi-zu) I bent my mind to the task of figuring out what makes Japanese children so much cuter than American children. I came up with the following theories:

1. I am a foreigner, and thus I am as fascinating to the small Japanese children as they are to me. At least two run-away toddlers stood and gazed up at me in awe as I sat on my ass and ate a cheeseburger. Equally adorable are the small children who find my pale visage frightening. A pair of rough-housing siblings tussled their way in my direction, only to stop and give me their best deer-in-the-headlights impression before beating a hasty retreat.
2. I am a foreigner, and cannot speak colloquial Japanese. Small children are probably cuter when you can't understand their complaints. I haven't a clue if that toddler was expressing his love for his mother or whining about needing ice cream.
3. Japanese children squeak as they walk. Okay, only some of them do. In a brilliant move to help parents track their energetic offspring a company in Japan began manufacturing foam sandals with squeakers in the soles. In turn, this created small, dimple-faced children who squeak like a dog toy with ever step. The serious look of concentration on their faces as they master the art of walking is perhaps offset by the jubilant exclamations of their footwear.

That's all for today. It's 7pm and I'm ready to sleep ^^;

-Andrew

Not Like Your Mother Made It!

In honor of my six day vacation (alas, coming to an end as of tomorrow) I thought I would write an extra blog entry today. If you're just now joining us, be sure to check the blog entry titled “Obon” which I posted earlier this evening.

So, to get down to business. Entering my third week here in Japan I've begun to realize that things are a little different here (!!!) Tonight I will focus on food and toilets- the ins and outs of living in Japan, if you will.

One interesting aspect of living in a foreign country is that most of the brands are different. In America I could count on knowing that a brand name or a particular character sold a type of soda, cereal, fruit, etc. Here in Japan I'm having to try different foods by trial and error to see what I like, and brand loyalty is back to square one. For example my favorite fizzy drink here in Japan, recommended to me by another Kyoto JET, is called “CC Lemon.”

It's basically a strong lemon soda, with a catch. According to the label each 500 ml bottle it contains as much Vitamin C as 70 lemons. In milligrams that's a little under a third of an Emergen-C packet, but it tastes about ten times better. I have no doubt that it's unhealthy for me, but I like how it sounds when I tell people I drank 70 lemons with lunch.

Before I continue, the American brands that I -have- found in Japan are Coke, Pepsi, Dole fruits, and strangely Kellog's Frosted Flakes.

Our other comestible item tonight is the Japanese invention known as “peanut cream.” As my family and friends can attest, I love peanut butter. However, the stuff is damn hard to find here in Japan. As a result I found myself crossing my fingers and taking home a small carton of “peanut cream” from the grocery store the other day, in hopes of making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The good news is that peanut cream tastes (at least to me) like peanut butter. The bad news is that it looks like caramel spread.

I hope the folks back home can take me at my word that this tastes and smells like peanut butter. Although I suppose it is wholly possible that I've been eating caramel and jelly sandwiches for the past three days...

Anyway, I present you with Part II of this blog post entitled “Worrysome Washlets and Warmlets”

The Japanese have two styles of toilet, the first we call a “Japanese Toilet” which is essentially a groove in the floor that you squat over. For a westerner who has been painstakingly trained to use a sit-down toilet since his formative years this poses a serious problem. To stay in the correct position one might cling to the water piping behind the toilet so as not to keel over. One might also post such a confession on the internet. ...I shall do neither...

(This picture courtesy of google image search, I did not have the frame of mind to photograph one of these while actually in its presence)

The other kind of toilet is a “Western Toilet” which is only similar to the toilets back home in shape. These toilets can be found in hotels, homes, and sometimes public restrooms. They come with a variety of delightful functions, for example some will warm the toilet seat for you. In America we have to rely on other people's bottoms to do this for us, but in Japan your “Warmlet” toilet will serve admirably. Other toilets will help you clean yourself by shooting jets of water at you under-carriage as you sit. I encountered one such toilet in my hotel room at Tokyo orientation:

At the time I was suspicious that this “Washlet” function would engage automatically as you sat down- much like the automatic flushing toilets we have in the States. Anyway, it was not a surprise I wanted to experience, so when I heard the sound of rushing water I leapt away in terror. Turns out this sound was a different function of some Japanese toilets. The idea is that some Japanese women are terribly embarrassed by the notion that someone else might hear them answering nature's call. The solution to this was to have toilets that start running a stream of water as soon as you sit down- voila! Bystanders have no idea if it is you or the toilet!

(Consequently, don't pour noxious chemicals like benzine down your toilet. It will make the toilet sad.)

The more Eco-conscious among us might argue that masking natural sounds with running water is wasteful, but other western style Japanese toilets have ingenious ways of saving water. For example, my toilet has two flush settings “big” and “small” depending on what I need to get rid of (never benzine).

Additionally, my toilet refills its tank after every flush through a little sink that sits on top of it. Thus when you flush, the tap at the top of the toilet starts to run and you wash your hands with water that will later be used for the next flush. It saves water and space with no need for an additional sink in your toilet room!

That's all for tonight. I would write more, but I need to go use the bathroom.

-Andrew

Obon

Yesterday marked the last day of the Obon festival here in Kyoto. Obon is a Japanese Buddhist festival to remember and honor ones deceased ancestors, and according to Wikipedia the actual start and end date depend on the region of Japan you're in. At some point in my Japanese education I had heard that people lit giant kanji made from bonfires in order to lead their ancestors back to the family home. Something akin to “Turn south at the giant boat symbol.” It turns out this is somewhat backward- my accidental guide last night, a 50-year alumn of my JET High School, explained that the fires are lit to usher the spirits back to their eternal reward at the end of the Obon festival (which lasts for three or so days). Thus the fires are a send off instead of road markers. Also, there are Daimonji (the name for these giant characters) other places in Japan, but Kyoto is the best known for them.

Anyway, we assembled on the roof of Rakuhoku High School and watched the hills light up. Of the six Daimonji around Kyoto city we could see five of them- and given that hotels were charging for the view on their roofs I think the faculty and families of Rakuhoku did very well! I took photographs of four of the Daimonji, the fifth was at an angle and identical to the first anyway. If you would like to see better pictures of these bonfire kanji, check them out on google images- there are better photographers with better cameras than I!

Dai

Myo

Hou

Fune (a boat, not actually a kanji but still pretty damn cool!)

Near the end of the bonfire display the moon came out- low and full and almost as orange as the fires. It was a cool way to end the Daimonji viewing!

Until next time!

-Andrew

The Local Flora and Fauna

Hello All! As promised I am trying to get out and do interesting things during my special summer vacation. Today I visited the Kyoto Botanical Gardens with Libby (my coworker) and her fiance Simon. I took a bunch of photographs, so today I'm going to write less and let the pictures do most of the work. I saved these a bit larger than I usually do, so if you click on them you should get a larger, more detailed picture.

So, off we went. The Kyoto Botanical Gardens are about 20-25 minutes walking distance from my apartment. It cost 200 yen, or about $2.00 to get in to the park itself, and another 200 yen if we wanted to walk through the conservatory (which we did).

In this photo Simon and Libby stand by the gate and flaunt their entry passes. They were quite pretty, actually- they had flowers and a fairy on them. (the passes, not my friends)

This area was just beyond the gate, it was a sort of wide open Plaza, with lots of planters.

The bamboo garden held some 100 varieties of bamboo. Some of them were little more than shrubs, while others were 40 feet tall at the very least.

I think these are lotus plants. They weren't flowering when we came by, but the seed pods were still very pretty.

We found a whimsical statue of a sumo wrestler near the garden's playground. The sign explained that he was undergoing maintenance, and that we shouldn't mess about with him. The literal translation, however, could also be read as "In the middle of maintenance, please do not associate with."

 Into the Conservatory!

 The label on this plant read "Benihimonoki" which I think is Japanese for "plant that resembles a pink pipe cleaner."

(Insert a sharp remark here...that was a pointedly awful joke, wasn't it?)

Here I am! The three of us were sweating pretty constantly, as you can see from the front of my shirt.

Either I blinked or I really was that blissed out by having a giant leaf on my head. With all that heat it's hard to say...

Bonsai!

On our way out we visited the carp pond. The larger carp were well over two feet long, and all of the fish were so muddy brown that none of the photos came out very well. However, there were some very charming turtles that came to say hello, so I took their picture as well.

Anyway, the gardens were very nice and I look forward to maybe revisiting them in the fall when the leaves start to change!

-Andrew

Everything Counts in Large Amounts

Today we had our second downpour since I arrived here in Kyoto, making me a very happy Oregonian. It started right as I was leaving work, and naturally I had not brought my new umbrella to school with me. Unlike the rain in the Pacific Northwest, however, the raindrops were large and warm. Oregon rain generally manages to be cold with a bit of a sting; this rain simply soaked me to the skin like a second sweat. Still, I enjoy watching it come down and things have cooled down a bit here (however slightly) as a result. ^^

On a completely different vein I am finding that now I'm actually -in- Japan I'm having more dreams about coming here than I ever did in Oregon. For the third night in a row I've woke up in a sort of haze not remembering if I'm in the United States, Japan, or some intermediary space in between (perhaps the island of plastic flotsam in the Pacific). It's a bit surreal to be sure.

Similarly surreal is my experience with the Japanese Patisserie. I had believed that I would be eating mostly rice and vegetables while I was here, figuring that bread and other baked goods had never really caught on in Japan. Two days ago I had a revelation in lieu of forgetting to pack a lunch- my supervisor had mentioned that her favorite bakery was right across the street from the school. I reasoned that I could go buy a couple of dinner rolls to hold me over until...well, dinner. So my coworker Libby and I wandered over to investigate around lunchtime.

Now briefly I want you to think of the nearest bakery to you in the United States. It might be a grocery store bakery that makes cookies and baguettes, or it might be a healthy whole-grain loaf sort of place (i.e. Safeway and Great Harvest Bread Co. for those of you in Oregon). Anyway, the sheer glory of this bakery was apparent from the moment we walked into the door. Customers needed only to pick up a tray and a pair of tongs by the door and then select whatever they wanted on their way over to the cash register. The choosing was the hard part. There were buns, danishes, tarts, cinnamon rolls, little pizzas on pastry crusts, sausages wrapped in biscuit, and nine different kinds of bagels in six different colors. Only after you moved past the generous sandwich selection did you get to see the rolls, artisan baguettes and bread loaves. This might be taken as a fluke, except these places are -all over- Kyoto city. Like the protagonist in Miyazaki's well-known film “Kiki's Delivery Service” I have flown away from home and found my city- and now I've found my bakery as well!

(Drawn on my work computer during a lull in activity)

On a similar caliber of excellence are the 100 yen shops here in Japan. This is not to say that the quality of the goods are the same, but the sheer variety and volume of items (“cheap plastic crap” as my dad would say) is quite exciting. The store we visited last Saturday in downtown Kyoto was a two-floor shop with house wares, clothing, and craft supplies on the basement floor and food, toys, stationary, dishes, etc. on the first floor. I took some pictures of my purchases below. I'm a sucker for cute stationary sets, so they got their own picture.

I get a six day weekend coming up because of the Obon festival here in Japan. Expect to hear lots of exciting things!

-Andrew

It Takes My Breath Away

Hello everyone!

For dinner I'm eating chicken nuggets off of a lacquered plate. And before you ask- yes, the Japanese make good chicken nuggets (they make good lacquered plates too!). Getting them unfrozen was the hard part. As I may have already told you, Japanese homes do not have regular ovens. Indeed, they would take up too much space in the relatively cramped living conditions. Instead they (and now I) must make do with toaster ovens with buttons so numerous that they fall just short of airplane cockpits in grandeur. For example my oven boasts that it is able to cook sponge cake (suponji ke-ki), gratin (guratan), and cookies (kukki-). This is very impressive, but so far I have been unable to find the setting that simply re-heats food. Until I discover this carefully guarded secret I will have to lie to my oven and tell it that my chicken nuggets are actually “toast.” Hopefully it does not leave me in a gourmet huff when it finds out otherwise.

Anyway, Monday was my first day at the school office. I went in around 8:00 am and soon thereafter a teacher arrived to show me around the school. As everyone may or may not know, Japanese teachers live together in one large communal office rather than having their individual classrooms. Instead it is the students that have their own classroom, divided up by cohorts within grades. The teachers visit these classrooms from their office, and the cohorts of about 25 students stay together for all of their classes. I believe the theory behind this is to create a strong sense of “The Group” within the students, along with a sense of pride in their space. Students are in charge of cleaning the school, and one imagines this chore comes more easily when students feel ownership in their classroom.

(Side Note: Alistair is all ready to go to work with me now that I'm done making his tie!)

Classes do not start in earnest for another couple weeks, so the tour was pretty quiet. Quiet but hot. The majority of the school is not air conditioned and for the majority of the week temperatures were in the 90's with humidity up near 70%. Hoping to look sharp I was dressed in linen slacks with a dress-shirt and under-shirt tucked into them. By the time we returned to the air-conditioned staff office I was sweating like an adulterous politician. I sat down at my desk to watch videos of language assistants demonstrating effective lessons. Moments later I had stopped sweating and started feeling nauseous. As I began to fan myself a dialogue sprang up between mind and body. Body remarked that it felt pretty crummy, and that perhaps asking for help might be a good idea. Mind retorted that Body was clearly overreacting, and that sitting tight would improve the situation. “Nope! Still feeling like fainting!” remarked Body. Mind groused about making a bad impression on the first day of work by looking needy. Body described in lurid detail the amount of bowing and formal Japanese required should the notion of vomiting on the office laptop be realized in actuality.

Getting over my pride I finally asked for help. The dress-shirt came off and one of the other teachers got me a cookie to settle my stomach. Then the vice-principal went to turn the air-conditioner down even lower. (Keeping in mind that Japan has been moderating their AC use because of the power shortages) Basically, my co-workers are the best. This is one delicate Oregonian who won't be forgetting that any time soon.

-Andrew

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Hello from Kyoto city where the humidity reaches 89% at night! (Can -your- city do that? I thought not.)

A friend congratulated me last night on living my dream of visiting Japan. First of all, I want to thank everyone who has been wishing me well- you guys are great! ^^ Secondly, it's hard to tell if I'm living my dream just yet because I'm so busy just tending to my basic needs. Living in a foreign country is a funny thing- even the most basic of things becomes incredibly baffling! For example, I spent a couple hours yesterday trying to figure out how my washing machine works. Later I took about an hour to shop for a simple grocery shopping list because little to nothing at my local grocery store is in English. Thankfully with each challenge comes a victory of some kind- now I have clean underwear -and- I managed to buy everything on my list at the grocery store (although I might have gotten two containers of salt instead of salt and sugar, I'll find out soon enough!)

At any rate, I'm still living day-to-day and my mood is bouncing around from hour to hour as I acclimate. I spoke with a few other JETs about this at dinner a couple nights ago, and this seems to be a common feeling. One of them likened the experience to a scene from Disney's “Tangled” where Rapunzel has just left her tower for the first time. As you may recall it is a series of split screens where she is alternately cartwheeling joyfully and positively catatonic with sorrow. Before you folks back home feel sorry for me, don't worry. It's just as funny to watch myself do this as it was watching Rapunzel. I've also been making an effort to find out what activities cheer me up and found that shopping and eating out with friends are high up on the list. Yes, even in a foreign country the best way to feel better is to spend money! ^^;

In closing, I'm making some great memories here in Japan and here are some photos of my new apartment:

The last two photos were taken from my balcony. I'm on the third floor and as you can see I live in a really beautiful area. The hills off in the distance are especially cool- Kyoto is in a valley just like my home town!

Much affection,

-Andrew

Andrew's First Enkai

Hello all! First off: I uploaded a picture of my shinkansen lunch and put it in the post before this one. Check it out ^^

Also, behold my first photos of my new home city, taken from my hotel room window on the fifth floor:

We have one additional half-day of orientation here in Kyoto before I meet my daily supervisor and continue on to my new apartment tomorrow. Last night we all went out for our first enkai, or work-colleague drinking party. For 3500 yen, or about $35 each we got unlimited drinks and a vast collection of Japanese bar food. The only thing I did not try were the little deep-fried fish that looked up at me from their plate. I don't think I'm quite to the point where I can eat fish heads, though I did eat some cubes of processed root vegetable that tasted like hot-dog jello. As for the drink, it is worth noting that it's possible to attend a drinking party without drinking alcohol. I drank Coke and orange juice instead and no one seemed to mind.

This being a welcome party of sorts, we were joined by four members of the board of education. Miyajima sensei said that they were self conscious of their English and they sat at their own table a little ways away. Occasionally Miyajima sensei would usher a couple of us over to introduce ourselves and make conversation, which is the point in the party that I found myself explaining the London Eye Ferris Wheel in halting Japanese to the board of education. “It's a big circle,” I explained, “That people ride on!” this was accompanied by complicated gestures of finger-people ascending into the air.

More to come soon!

-Andrew

Things That Go Fast

Hello from sunny (and humid!) Kyoto City! We arrived here a scant hour ago by the Shinkansen or bullet train. The ride from Tokyo to Kyoto was about two and a half hours long, in which time we ate our lunches purchased at the Tokyo train station. I'm pleased to say that I ate my first takoyaki (fried octopus balls) and onigiri (rice balls) this afternoon, and also had coca cola from what looked like a thermos.

Another activity on the Shinkansen was to practice our introductions in Japanese. One thing that struck me was how different Japanese sounds with a British accent- about half of the JETs at our orientation were from the UK (including my future co-worker) but I had never heard them speak Japanese before. It's been interesting for sure, had I met any of them in England or America I might have been more shy but because we're all in Japan our similarities are overwhelming by comparison to the rest of the population. Thus I've met more people from the UK in the past three days than I had in my life up until now! This is not what I expected when I got on the plane for Japan.

In other news I have found myself very dependent on others ever since we arrived. With my conversational Japanese almost zilch and my poor knowledge of Kanji rendering me illiterate I'm relying heavily on other people to take care of me. Yesterday this dependence hit a critical point when I got sick- at first I was just feeling over heated so I went to my room to take off my tie and dress shirt and have a lie-down. When I woke from my nap I was shivering and too dizzy and nauseous to stand up for more than a minute at a time. At that same time my next three appointments, meeting the American Ambassador, shipping my luggage ahead to Kyoto, and lastly having dinner with the other Kyoto JETs were looming ahead.

Americans tend to kid ourselves that we are totally self sufficient, but given the circumstances I was more than happy when my Prefectural Advisor, Jeff, answered his phone. He and Miyajima Sensei arrived a short while later to take my suitcase for shipping and shortly thereafter reappeared with sandwiches and an electrolyte drink for my dinner.

There is nothing more frightening than being that ill in a foreign country. Thankfully I was well enough to stand up and get around this morning, but I was honestly afraid that I wouldn't be able to make it to Kyoto with the rest of the group. Because of this Jeff and Miyajima Sensei have my deepest gratitude. どうもありがとうございます！！！

-Andrew

Bowing and Burger King

Hello all!

It is presently 8:30pm in Tokyo, which means that my body thinks it is actually 4:25am. Oddly I was exhausted two hours ago but now seem to be experiencing a second wind, so I thought I would sit down to record my exploits thus far in Japan:

Last night I went out with another JET, Tiffany, to try to find some dinner. We found a local food court and did a lap around the plaza with the goal of finding some quick Japanese food. Turns out all the restaurants either looked too expensive or else required us to go in and seat ourselves for an extended period- something neither our wallets or weary bodies were keen on. The only alternative food venue looked oddly familiar. Yes, my first meal in Japan was Burger King. I'm also pleased to say that my six and a half years of studying Japanese allowed me to order a cheeseburger, although I did so clumsily as I did not know the correct counter used for counting cheeseburgers.

After sleeping like the dead (and then waking up at 4am local time!) I followed the other 800 some JET participants to our opening ceremony. Sitting in rows assigned to us by prefecture we were welcomed by the master of ceremonies who informed us that he would be teaching us how to bow. Moments later 800 JETs were practicing our “90 degree bows”- the purpose of which is either to apologize for a grave blunder or else gently rest your forehead on the bottom of the JET in front of you. (Again, there are 800 of us doing this).

I would leave you with that mental picture, but I also wanted to express to you how much information we have gotten over the past 24 hours. Below is a photo of only half of the materials I have received thus far- I ran out of bed to put them on.

So there you have it. I'm going to bed now- it's 9pm and way past my bedtime ^^;

-Andrew