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Saturday, April 19th, 2008
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four months have passed and a lot of new things have probably happened to us. I don't remember that well right now.
Probably the most note-worthy would be DeeDee (Nikkie's sister) visiting. We went sight seeing in the nearby area of Beppu, which is 1.5 hours away by train. We went with Alex (our friend from Miami University). We stayed at a cheap hostel, which was more like a hotel room for the four of us. Beppu is known for its natural hotsprings, which reach boiling point. There are many hotspring baths (called onsen in Japan) and there are pond like hotsprings in different colors (red, blue, white) and geysers and other natural attractions to visit.
DeeDee was here for about 2 weeks. She came during the beginning of spring break, which also marks the end of the school year for Japanese students. The Japanese graduation ceremonies were interesting compared to American ones, but still just as boring. The main difference is that every time a different person speaks, everyone in attendance stands up and bows before and after.
Due to the new school year, a few teachers were transfered to our school, and a few were transfered away. Also, we teach a whole new set of students. Classes just started last week, so it was fun to meet new students.
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Friday, January 4th, 2008
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For Christmas/New Year Nikkie and I went to Thailand. I have a friend who lives there whose name is Thai (actually his middle name, which everyone calls him by.) Thai was born in the US, but his parents are from Thailand, so he speaks Thai and English. He spent half of his childhood in the US and half in Thailand, and he went to Miami University. I studied Japanese with Thai for 4 years and he was one of my best friends in college.
Here is a summary of the trip:
Cheap everything (hotel, food, clothes, flights, movies, etc). Great Thai food and Western food in Bangkok that we can’t get in Japan (or is too expensive in Japan.) Beautiful beaches and corals. Warm, sunny weather.
This is where we were:
Dec. 23 to Dec. 26 AM. In Bangkok – lots of shopping and eating
Dec. 26 to Dec. 29 PM in Phuket – beaches, boat tours, snorkeling
Dec. 29 PM to Jan. 1 in Bangkok – more shopping and eating
Sections and writer: (Nikkie and I pretty much came up with all the material together, but we wrote the sections separately, so I put the name of the writer to avoid confusion.)
1. Food - John
2. Sights - John
3. Scams - John
4. The king - John
5. Shopping - John
6. Phuket - Nikkie
1. Food – Thai was an excellent restaurant guide. He lives right in downtown Bangkok, where it is common for apartments not to have kitchens. Therefore, he never eats at home. He goes out for every meal, and he can probably go a whole month without eating the same place twice. We had Thai food for maybe 10 meals or so, and every meal was awesome and cheap.
The first day we got there, we ate at a traditional Thai restaurant that would probably be considered fairly high class. We got four or five dishes which we split between the three of us. It’s common in Thailand to share all of the dishes rather than ordering separately for each person. We learned the hard way that there are often things in the food that you’re not supposed to eat, such as wood-like objects that are too hard to chew, and tiny slices of peppers that will leave your mouth burning for about 15 minutes for each one you eat. Despite the pain, however, the meal was delicious. We experienced many new flavors far more complex than foods we are used to eating. Also, this meal which would have cost probably $100 or $200 in Japan, considering the high class of the restaurant, was only $30 in Thailand.
The second day we had two small lunches at two separate restaurants because, in Thai’s words, “there are too many places to eat and not enough time.” The first lunch was a spicy soup with fish sausage balls. As soon as we finished eating it, Thai asked us if there were any foods we couldn’t really eat. I told him I could eat just about anything, but I didn’t like animals’ insides, like intestines, liver, and blood. It turned out that the soup we had just eaten was made of blood. It was a little bit hard to think about, but it was so delicious that I didn’t feel that bad about it. The second lunch was a bowl of noodles with slices of duck breast. It sounds simple but I can’t even describe how good it was.
The third day Thai took us to a Muslim “restaurant” for lunch that was basically just a street vendor under a large tent. However, the restaurant is constantly packed with probably 100 people or more. This restaurant would be considered very low class by American or Japanese standards, but the food was just as good as any I’ve ever had. We split four different dishes and ate until we were beyond stuffed, and it was only about $10 total.
Another important note is that there are 4 main spices used to eat Thai food. Like salt and pepper in America, Thailand has dried spicy chili peppers, sugar, salty fish sauce, and sour sauce. Usually you season your food to your own preference with the pepper and sugar plus one or the other of fish sauce or sour sauce.
2. Sights – We went to a few different markets/bazaars in Bangkok, which will be covered in the shopping section. One day we went on a private boat tour on a large river and canals in Bangkok. The canals were lined with houses that were half on the land and half on the water. The people living there seemed to be very poor. There were kids swimming in the canal and people fishing. The boat driver stopped in the middle of the tour so that a lady in a canoe could sell us things. She was offering lots of wooden carvings and other stuff we didn’t want, so I bought a beer from her.
3. Scams – It’s very common for people to try to scam tourists in Thailand. Here are the ones we ran into:
Thai tried to park in front of a temple so we could do some sight-seeing in Bangkok. When we got out of the car, a couple guys told us we had to buy some flowers and incense to pray at the temple if we wanted to park there. Thai bought the stuff, which was like $9. Later he found out from a woman in the temple that the guys scammed us, and parking wasn’t allowed there at all. However, we did get to experience praying at a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Basically you light the incense and then hold it while you say a prayer, then stick the incense in a tray of ash so that it stands up straight. Then you put flowers in a vase. Finally you take thin sheets of gold paper and stick them onto Buddhist statues.
There are taxis called tuk-tuks that are basically a motorcycle with a covered truck bed. One day we went out on our own. On the way to the train station a tuk-tuk driver pulled up and asked us where we were going. When we told him we were going to JJ Market he told us they were closed for the holiday. and he would take us to another market for 40 Baht ($1.20). This was hard to believe, because the holidays would be the least likely time for this market to be closed. We just told him we were meeting up with someone at the station and we had to go. We got to the JJ Market and sure enough they were open.
Taxi drivers will try to scam you by offering you a price to get to your destination. I didn’t know it was a scam and I got caught in it one time. The guy offered us the price of 300 Baht ($9) which I thought was way expensive. The guy told us it was because it was late (11PM) and the trains weren’t running anymore. I looked at the train station, which was close by, and it seemed to be dead, so I believed him. He offered to lower the price to 250 Baht, but when we got back to the hotel he tried to say it was 300 Baht again. Also, he didn’t have change for 1000, so he had to get a security guard to pay him and the security guard had to get change for us. We told the guard it was 250, but when he got change he only got us 700 instead of 750. It should have been about $1.50, but we spent $9 on the taxi, but even so, that’s about the same we would have spent in Japan. You have to insist that the taxi drivers use their meters instead of agreeing on a price.
Also, when you buy services, such as tours there is the Thai price and the tourist price. For example, we paid about $30 for one of our all-day tours in Phuket, but that was the price that Thai got us because he speaks Thai. Tourists have to pay something like $50. This happens everywhere in Thailand.
4. The King – Thai people love the king. The first thing we saw after our plane landed was a big sign that read “Long live the King.” There are large pictures of him EVERYWHERE. On Monday, Nikkie noticed that about 75% of the people on the street were wearing yellow shirts, and it turns out that the king was born on a Monday and yellow is his color. At 6PM every day the national anthem is played over PA systems downtown to honor the king. At movie theaters, in addition to the pre-movie commercials and movie trailers, everyone stands for a short video to honor the king. However, it’s not so much like they worship the king because they are forced to. The people love the king because of the great things he has done for the country. For example, he gave up his own power to establish a democracy in the country.
5. Shopping – Thailand is like a shopping paradise. Everything is dirt cheap, and there are bazaars all over Bangkok where you can haggle for just about any price you want on all sorts of goods. My favorite was the Silom night market. It’s downtown in the streets. There are hundreds of dealers lining the sidewalks with their goods laid out on tables and boards. There’s barely room to walk in some areas because the tables are so crowded and there are so many people. Everyone is calling you to buy their stuff. The Silom market sells mainly clothes, watches, and handbags. The first time we went, I got a pair of shorts for $12, which is expensive, because Thai doesn’t know how to haggle. The second time Nikkie and I went without Thai. We got a pair of silk elephant boxers for $4.50 from a lady who wanted $10.50, a t-shirt for the same deal, a watch for $20 from a guy who originally wanted $75, and 3 more t-shirts for about $6 each. The guy who sold us the first shirt wanted $10.50, and I was like, “that’s too much. I’ll give you $3.” He told me, “no, it’s $10.50. Look around!” So I said, “alright. I’ll look around,” and as soon as I took one step away from him he caved in and was like “Ok! $4.50.” I’ve never haggled before, but it was a lot of fun.
There was another market we went to called JJ Market, and it’s basically the biggest outdoor market in Asia. There are thousands of stalls and we couldn’t see all of them in one day. We heard that there are hidden places where you can buy all sorts of illegal things, including exotic pets. Unfortunately we didn’t see anything that exciting. We mostly saw useless junk, but it was an interesting place to see anyway.
6. Phuket - As excited as I was to explore a new country and culture, what I looked forward to most was our trip to Phuket. As many know, I love the beach and do not consider a vacation to be a “vacation” unless it involved being in the ocean. At any rate, Phuket is a small island packed with tourists. It took about an hour or so to fly there from Bangkok. Roundtrip tickets were only $60 each. The beach we stayed out faces west, but, being too busy, we didn’t get a chance to view the sunset over the water.
The color of the ocean in Thailand differs from beach to beach. The beach we stayed at had emerald, slightly cloudy water, while the place we snorkeled at had clear, aquamarine water. The weather was sunny, often with white fluffy clouds the days we were there…truly beautiful.
We spent the first day at Kata Beach, close to our hotel. It was nice to swim. The weather was a bit hot, and the water was a little cool going in, but soon our bodies quickly adjusted to the temperature. We found that the cheap sunscreen didn’t work as well as we hoped, so that night we bought a more expensive one. It would have been in our best interest to get some sunscreen and towels before we went to an expensive resort area.
The hotel we stayed at, Sugar Palm, was very nice. The only part that was disagreeable was the giant, curtain-less, barely textured window that separated the bathroom/shower with the rest of the room. It was uncomfortable using the rest room when staying with someone of the opposite gender you barely know.
The next day we took an island hopping tour to different areas. The boat ride was very long. The trip was nice and we saw many exquisite sights, including the place were the movie “The Beach” was filmed. We even got to go snorkeling and I wish we could have done that for longer. The reef and fish were beautiful. The last place we visited was an island where you could snorkel. It also had a bar. John and I got a pina colada inside a coconut, and a mai tai inside a pineapple. We snorkeled a lot, and John found it easier to use a life jacket. I, on the other had, have so much buoyancy that help floating was not necessary. Much of the time was spent in the boat. We tried to get a seat on the bow of the boat, but it filled up too quickly. When we made the return trip home, I was surprised to see that those who held the best viewing seats on the bow had shifted aside our belongings and stolen our inside seats because they had gotten too much sun. This forced me to sit near the noisy motor in the back, which gave me the worst headache of my entire life. The rest of the night was shot for me. It worked out alright because we needed to be up very early for the next morning, and we were very much exhausted. We had to move our hotels because every hotel on the island had no vacancy straight through. We stayed at Kata Garden. It was ghetto. I loved the outside scenery….it was like a jungle tree house…but the room was dirty and smelled old. It also didn’t have a TV.
Day three was spent taking a tour of the Similan islands, known for some of the best diving and snorkeling reefs. They were beautiful, and there were many fish. I suspect people feed them, because they come right up to you. I noticed a lot of trash around the reef….wrappers and water bottle containers, et cetera. That day, unfortunately, John felt very sick, and, while diving in the morning a little, didn’t dive at all during the last two stops. He missed a giant moray eel. It was as big as I was. I felt bad for my baby chicken, and hope someday we can take a snorkeling tour again. The car and boat rides there were far longer than the previous tour. Later that night we switched again to the Sugar Palm resort…thank god.
We had to check out on the fourth day, but were allowed to keep out luggage in storage until we took the hour long taxi to the airport at 4:30pm. We spent this day relaxing at Kata Beach. It was nice to swim with the Baby Chicken. When we took the taxi to the airport, it cost vastly greater than taking a taxi from the airport to the hotel. By the end of the trip, I seriously felt like I was being scammed by every Thai person I looked at. So what’s the difference between our cultures and lifestyles? I feel it has a lot to do with the openly tolerated scam industries.
When we got to the airport we had arrived early enough that we were able to catch a flight earlier than our normal one, which was going to be late. Hearing about the deal with that new “Golden Compass” movie, I aimed to buy the first book. As it turns out, the book I chose, which looked almost EXACTLY alike the rest, was the third one in the series, not the first. Only on the plane, when I saw the fine print, did I realize this. Later I did buy the first and I am almost done with it so I am wondering how to get the second.
All in all, while Phuket is a nice tourist area filled with luxury and beautiful scenery, if you want to know Thailand for Thailand, Bangkok is a better choice although still full of foreigners. The food is also much better in Bangkok. I suspect that Phuket caters to the tastes of its tourists and tones down the Thailand cuisine.
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Friday, November 23rd, 2007
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I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holidays. We certainly did, despite some circumstances that weren't so great.
This week I went to the hospital for surgery. I had a groin hernia, cause unknown. I didn't know what a hernia was until I got one, but it's when something inside your body develops a hole and then something else inside your body goes through the hole. In my case, my muscles in my stomach had a hole and my intestines were poking through into my groin. Hernias don't heal naturally, and if my intestines went too far through the hole they would have gotten stuck there and become gangrenous, so surgery was obviously necessary.
Anyway, groin hernias are apparently one of the most common sugeries, but nevertheless I was very scared since, first, I haven't had surgery since I was 4, which I can't remember, and second, my Japanese is far from native level, so communicating with doctors and nurses was a challenge. However, everythign went pretty smoothly.
I went into the hospital Monday morning. After dinner that day I wasn't allowed to eat until 24 hours after the surgery, which was on Tuesday from 9AM to 11AM. I opted for general anesthesia rather than local anesthesia. The risks of local anestesia were far scarier, including permanent paralysis of the lower body. Of course the risks of either anesthesia were very low. After cutting into me and analyzing the situation, the doctor decided that part of my intestines had to be removed because they were swollen, and a mesh patch would need to go over the hole in the muscle. My body is now only partially human, which is pretty cool I guess.
I woke up in a daze, back in my hospital room with Nikkie and one of the teachers from my school. I remember that my initial conversation with Nikkie was a little bit weird. The first thing I heard her tell me was that the doctor had to remove a section of my intestines, and I think I asked her, "why? was it dead?". She told me it wasn't, and then I asked, "were my guts too long? Is that why I had a hernia?".
The experience of being put under was actually pretty fun, in a way. They hooked me up with an IV drip and injected the anesthetic through there. Soon after it hit my bloodstream I started to feel really dizzy, kind of like being drunk, but without the nausea. It just got heavier and heavier and I don't even remember passing out. Waking up was the same but in reverse.
By the way, Kathryn, when I woke up from the anesthetic I was totally Deja Vu. I would have punched a toilet if I was only able to walk. Alas, you can't do that there.
The first 24 hours after the surgery were hell. I could barely move because the surgery wound would hurt horribly, and I was plugged into an IV on one arm and a heart rate monitor on the other. Surprisingly, the IV didn't bother me at all at first, but as time passed I got more and more sick of it being there. It supplied my body with nutrients and antibiotics while I couldn't eat, though, which I think is pretty awesome, but I almost would have rather starved. The IV bags actually tell you how many calories are in them too. Anyway, my body started to hurt so much from not being able to move in bed. I could barely sleep because of it, and because nurses were in and out of my room constantly.
For anyone who might need to have surgery in the future, I hope this doesn't scare you too much. If you need to have surgery then you need to have it. There are risks involved with surgery, but they are usually rare, and a lot better than the risks of going without surgery. Also, nurses are constantly there to pump you full of pain killers, so you probably won't even feel anything if you don't want to.
After 24 hours they took out the IV and I felt a million times better. It hurt a lot to walk at first, but I slowly progressed from barely moving my legs to standing for a couple seconds, then to taking a few steps, and finally to walking to the bathroom. I only took pain killers once and I did my best to walk because I really wanted to go home. They initially told me I'd be there for 10 days but I got out in 4.
In the end I really appreciated the whole experience of being in the hospital. The doctors and nurses were very kind, and I got the celebrity treatment as an American in a Japanese hospital. Many of the teachers from my school came to visit me and bring gifts, including money, comic books, and best of all a cake in the shape of Goku's face from Dragon Ball (see pictures!). Most importantly, Nikkie came to visit me every day and brought me everything I needed or wanted. One of the nurses enjoyed meeting me and Nikkie so much that she actually went so far as to come to my room at the very last moment, because it was my last night in the hospital and she wouldn't get another chance to talk to me, and she asked me if Nikkie and I would be her friends. She even gave us a letter that she wrote with her contact info.
Anyway, last night was Thanksgiving and my last night in the hospital. Turkey is hard to find here, so Nikkie picked up KFC after she got out of school and we had a fried feast, with Goku strawberry cake for desert.
( Read more... )
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I just walked across the street to the convenience store and there was an old guy, probably 70, sitting on a short concrete wall, a crushed cardboard juice box in one hand and a small jelly jar in the other. The first odd thing is that, In Japan, these are containers which cheap liquor is sold in. Second, this old man was chugging them. As I approached he took the full jelly jar to his face and tilted it about 30 degrees past horizontal, pretty much dumping the entire contents into his mouth. As I was passing him he was splashing the excess that wouldn't fit into his mouth onto the sidewalk. The third and final odd point of this story is that drinking in the streets is not even prohibitted in Japan.
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Sunday, November 18th, 2007
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| Time: | 12:55 am. |
| Mood: |  amused. |
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Today Nikkie and I were riding our bikes close by our apartment and a little girl stopped us. She looked like she was about 5 or 6, with lots of boogers and snot stuck to her upper lip. She asked us in Japanese "what kind of people are you?" and I answered "Americans." Then she was asked "did you come all the way to Japan?" At first we didn't understand what she meant so we asked her to repeat it. "Did you come all the way to Japan?" So we said yes. "On your bikes??" So we had to explain that, "no, we came by airplane. You ride airplanes at an airport. American has lots of them." It was pretty cute.
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Thursday, October 4th, 2007
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While the Baby Chicken teaches mainly 2nd and sometimes 3rd year students, I teach only 1st year students. I have been told that sometimes I will teach 2nd years, and I always grade essays and translations from 3rd years. I have found that I really love teaching. Even grading essays is fun. Most of my students can hold simple conversations in English. I have met a few very advanced ones, as well. The teachers seem to focus on the importance of conveying the correct meaning in translations instead of being able to translate difficult words exactly...which is where ALTs come in. We are to promote oral communication, and I feel that my students in general have the ability or real potential to communicate in English. Perhaps I am over estimating my students. The subject matter I teach from is very simple...I think too simple for the current students. I realized, however, that perhaps its meant to be simple because its oral communication, not vocabulary or grammar lessons. I feel students are encouraged by speaking simple English, and it lays the foundation, in my young first years, for more advanced conversations throughout their later school years as they get practice and gain confidence speaking. Its difficult to compare my Tobata students with John's Yahata ones. He not only teaches a different grade of students, but also our school's English goals are different, as evident from the difficulty of Yahata lessons.
Even harder to compare with is the Tobata Technical School, which I teach at once a week. Its really inconvenient. I feel that those students need a permanent ALT (thats what we are, BTW...assist language teachers). As it stands, I can only teach a quarter of the students who have English class a week. If they combine classes its almost impossible to teach a lesson. The students are terribly loud and do not listen. There is very little one can do. There are good points about teaching there though. The students, although boisterous, are not shy at all about using what small English they know. This is great in an oral communication class. I do enjoy their enthusiasm, although they are too loud. The differences in students from Yahata and Tobata, and Tobata Technical school are vast. At Yahata and Tobata, the students are studying hard so they can pass a college exam and enter the college of their desire. They are taught scholastic subjects like math and science. The technical school students are learning things like wood shop, car mechanics, electrical engineering, et cetera so that they can work in a company immediately after high school graduation. In fact, most of my technical students will be leaving in November for short internships at factories. During that time I have been instructed to come up with fun games and stuff to do, and will not be teaching real lessons. In short, they really don't need to learn English and most do not want to. Its mandatory for all of them to learn it by the board of education, however, hence the need for ALTs. So, if the students had a permanent ALT they might be able to get to know that ALT and have a deeper interest in English and other cultures. It should be noted that some of the students genuinely do want to learn English. Girls, also, have a deeper intereste in learning about me when I tell them I recently got married.
On Saturday I will take one of my English Club students to Dazaifu city, near Fukuoka city, for an English essay competition. Her pronunciation is almost perfect and I really hope she will place in the contest. The main teacher told me that private high school students frequently participate, and they often have native English speakers as main teachers instead of just ALTs. So, I am a little worried, but I have confidence in my student. If she doesn't place then we at least know she tried her best. After all, she did get accepted into the contest after submitting a tape of her speech pronunciation. Its also good for me to go to the contest so that I know what people are looking for in Japanese students English speaking ability.
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Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
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Highschools in Japan all have 3 grades, and they are called 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade rather than sophomore, junior, senior. Anyway, I ocasionaly teach 3rd graders and grade 3rd graders papers, and I haven't really dealt with 1st graders at all. Mainly I am a 2nd grade teacher.
For the most part I think the Japanese HS students' English abilities are similar to the abilities of American HS students studying a foreign language, such as Spanish. Most of the students aren't able to hold a conversation with a native speaker, while a few students do reach that level. The students' conversational levels improve very slightly with each year.
The interesting point that I'm leading up to is that the material the students are tested on is far beyond their abilities, and, unlike their actual abilities, the difficulty of the material does increase significantly each year. On some tests I was grading today the students had to translate the following sentences from Japanese into English:
"Modern society is changing so rapidly that I can't keep up with it. As I only have one life to live, I would like to live it to the fullest by finding things in life that don't change despite the many changes in society."
For me to translate this into Japanese would be a very difficult task. I haven't found one paper yet where the student could form a grammatically and logically correct translation of this sentence. Very few students were able to create sentences that might be comprehended by a native speaker with no previous knowledge of the subject.
As I am typing this, a teacher just came up to me to ask me a question about some of her material. It was an essay written about the Hopi language, and the paragraph she was having trouble with basically said "The Hopi language does not have any direct references to the concept of time." Only, the explanation was so difficult that I had to read it about 5 times to really understand:
"After long and careful study and analysis, the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions that refer directly to what we call TIME, or to the past, present, or future, or to enduring or lasting, or to motion as kinematic rather than dynamic (i.e. as a continuous translation in space and time rather than as an exhibition of dynamic effort in a certain process), or that even refer to space in such a way as to exclude that element of extension or existence that we call TIME, and so by implication leave a residue that could be referred to as TIME."
I don't think I need to comment further on that sentence, if it can even be called a sentence...and it's not even the most difficult one in the essay.
(to be continued)
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Thursday, September 20th, 2007
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Here are a few pictures from Yahata high school's sports festival practices. This is pretty much what every Japanese high school's athletic grounds look like. It's a baseball field; it's a soccer field; it's a rugby field; it's a running track; it's just dirt. Mostly these pictures are taken from the spectators' tent. The team backboards were all hand painted by the students and were very spectacular.
( pictures )
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On Saturday we went to Kyoto, and on Sunday we went to Osaka. We left Kyoto Sunday morning and it was about 20 minutes to Osaka by shinkansen. Osaka is the second largest city in Japan and it is a large port by the Pacific Ocean. It is known for its food and shopping. Okonomiyaki (shredded cabbage mixed with batter and your preference of various meats and vegetables, cooked like a pancake) and takoyaki (a ball of dough with a piece of octopus cooked in a hemispherical molded thick frying pan) are particularly famous. Apparently kaitenzushi (sushi that is served on a conveyor belt) also originates in Osaka, and it was created because the Osaka lifestyle is so busy.
We got okonomiyaki for lunch, followed by a visit to the Osaka Aquarium, which is the largest and most famous aquarium in Japan. This is the second time I've been there, and it's still just as amazing to me. It might be my favorite sight in Japan. After that we met up with Osuna-sensei and his father, who both live in Osaka. Osuna-sensei was the visiting teacher at Miami University when I was in my third year of Japanese, in 2000-2001. The first time I visited Japan was in 2001, and I stayed at Osuna-sensei's house part of the time I was here. At that time he lived with his father. Osuna-sensei was also Joey's Japanese teacher when he took Japanese at Miami for one year during high school.
We walked around some of the downtown shopping districts with Osuna-sensei and his father for a while, and we stopped by a famous takoyaki stand. His father went home early, but after some more walking around the town we went to a sushi restaurant for dinner. The food was really great and we were stuffed. Osuna-sensei had been given some money from his father to treat us to dinner, so we were very thankful. After dinner we went to a bar and bought him a few drinks.
The bar had a pretty cool atmosphere. It was a lot nicer/classier than any bar I've been to before. We chatted with the bartenders and we were surprised to learn that one of them was only 18 years old! Japan doesn't have strict alcohol laws like America. Legally you can't drink until you're 20 here, but in actual practice there is no drinking age. A 16 year old would have no problem obtaining alcohol without worrying about getting in trouble with the law. It may be surprising for some Americans, but it is much more surprising to people from all over the world that America is so strict on under-age drinking.
( beware of pictures )
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Last weekend Nikkie and I took a trip to Kyoto and Osaka because we had a three day weekend. Kyoto is the ancient capital of Japan, and therefore it is well known as a cultural center. There are thousands of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples located in the many very beautiful mountains, rivers, and forests of Kyoto. We only had time to visit one shrine in the morning and one temple in the afternoon. We also stayed at a traditional style Japanese hotel, called "ryokan." Ryokan are known for their tatami-mat floors with futons (a thick blanket on the floor that you sleep on rather than a mattress and bed), and their extravagant meals that are included with the price of the room. The meals often have about 20 or so small dishes. Some of the dishes are only the size of a single bite while some are bigger. Our hotel also had an "onsen" which is a Japanese public bath. It's hard to explain what's so great about a public bath. You probably think you'd rather just take a bath in private, but it's something you have to experience to understand. Nikkie and I both enjoyed the public baths very much, although not together, of course. Men's and women's are separate.
( lots of pictures )
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Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
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Thursday, September 13th, 2007
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Last weekend Nikkie and I had our schools' sports festivals. Mine was Saturday and hers was Sunday, and we both went to each other's together. My sports festival was geared more towards more aesthetically pleasing performances.
At my school the students were split into four teams (red, green, white, blue) and there were various athletic events and performances, such as relay races, tug of war, dances, and most importantly the panel presentation. Each team had bleachers set up for them with gigantic, beautifully hand painted back boards representing their teams (pictures to come later). For example, my team was the White Tigers. To perform the panel presentation, each team sat in their bleachers and the students held large books attached to a pole. The books were made so that each page was a different color and the students could flip the pages to display whatever color they want. As a group, the students formed pictures by using their panels. In time with some recorded music or taiko drumming the students flipped their panels to make pictures, words, or animations. Each team had a competition and at the end of the day all four teams cooperated to spell out messages such as "thank you to all the teachers" or "we love Yahata," etc.
As part of the panel presentation performace there was also a taiko drummer from each team and a group of cheer leaders. In Japan, cheerleading is very different from American cheer leading. Typically the cheer leaders are boys and the attitude of the cheering is much more serious. There is special dress and dancing, but it would say it's more similar to a commander yelling to their troops on a battle field, rather than a bunch of girls giggling and showing off their bodies. The dances and the dress for the festival cheer leading were very beautiful. Normal, every-day cheerleading, however, traditionally consists of a boy wearing a school uniform (or nowadays a girl wearing a boy's school uniform), and the cheers consist of yelling, taiko drumming, and arm movements while taking different body poses. It's not really like a dance or gymnastics as in American cheerleading.
Nikkie's sports festival was more athletically oriented. They had more relay races and tug of war games like my school, but they also had some games that my school didn't have. One game was the "horseback battle" where each team would split into many small groups of four. one student would ride on top of three other students. All of the groups would enter the battle field and wrestle agains the other team one-on-one. The goal was to wrestle the other team's horse back rider to the ground. Another fun game was called "knock over the pole". Each team would split into two groups. Half of the team was responsible for holding up a tall log-like pole while the other half was responsible for knocking over the other team's pole. When the battle starts the attackers from each side storm the other side's pole, jumping over the defenders and attempting to climb the pole or push over the pole and the people holding the base of the pole. The festival is also famous for it's marching. At the opening of the festival all of the students march while keeping their arms straight and raising their arms above their heads. They practice very strictly so that they all keep in time.
I have to go to class right now so I'll type more later and try to put up pictures tonight.
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
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Not much has been happening here other than work. I feel that John and I have almost completely adjusted to life in Kitakyushu. Japanese school are pretty tedious since I am not teaching until next week and the English recitation competition has ended....all I have to do at work is grade some occasional essays and help English Club once a week. The students are practicing for Sports Festival day. My school's festival in this Sunday and John's school's is this Saturday. Thus, this coming weekend will not be nice since we both have a teacher's party after our Sports Festivals....we will barely get to see each other! T.Tx
Last week sucked too....I had to come to work on Saturday for the whole day. We had an assembly in the excruciatingly hot gymnasium and then we had to go outside to watch the students practice. Everyday since then, classes have been held in the morning but Sports Festival practice has been held in the afternoon. The teachers have their own little tent that we all sit under....for hours. Yesterday I nearly fell asleep twice...and Ito Sensei, a kind teacher who is head of our English Department, admitted he almost fell asleep too. I suspect that today will be the same. I'll probably try and go outside about an hour late....I don't think anyone will care. Sleep is becoming more and more elusive. I am used to going to bed and waking rather late since college, so its very hard to go to bed early and wake up with John at 7am, though I have the option of sleeping a little later since my school is much closer.
A few weeks ago two of my English club students and one of John's English club student participated in a recitation competition. Although we could not attend, my students did very well. I spent nearly 2 hours everyday before the event working with them. Japanese students have problems with inflections, accents, intonations, and pronunciations because Japanese is a syllabic, flat sounding language. Also, my predecessor was from Britain and it was challenging, not being a linguist, for me to distinguish whether or not the students were saying the words wrong with a Japanese accent, or right with an English accent. The experience of helping these students was enlightening. Next to Japanese, American English, with its rise and fall of intonations, has musical characteristics. At any rate, the recitation competition was kind of shady because the winner was a student who had lived in the US and was nearly fluent in English. My teacher had other arguments to add, saying that others who were at the competition told her they felt that my students did really well and should have placed in the top 6 (the top 6 go on to the competition in Fukuoka). As it turns out, they didn't place at all and when my teacher asked why the (New Zealand?) judges told her it was because my students used body gestures....and that at this point in the competition (the regional competition, not the prefectural one), students shouldn't make gestures. It implies that my students used gestures too early in the game, and would not have been disqualified for using them at the next stage. Pretty shady, I think. I just hope that the students are not too disappointed. They worked very very hard and I know they tried hard, for I was quite strict.
On a lighter note, I have been attending kyudo, Japanese archery. The kyudo dojo looks very Shinto in style. I asked the students, who mainly don't speak English, whether or not kyudo has its origins as a game for the Shinto deities to behold, but they told me that this was not the case, and that kyudo was probably just used for warfare. Many things about kyudo tell me otherwise. The very act of entering the target area, raising the box, knocking the arrow, shooting, and leaving the target area is a ritual that students practice continually to perfect. I read that some feel the most important thing is hitting the target, but kyudo enthusiasts feel that it is the perfection of these actions, in a kind of meditation, that is the most fulfilling aspect. I was graduated to bow from "rubber bow" (a plastic holder with a long rubber tube attached creating a circle) in a matter of hours. Its probably just flattery, but most seem very impressed with my "skillz". Many students have told me that it took them a few months for this step. I've really only practiced for two days, so obviously I'm not good. I came into kyudo expecting its to be ritualistic. I did think it would be harder....when I first learned kendo it took me 3 months before I could practice with everyone else....3 MONTHS of learning how to swing a bamboo stick! I have an advantage now...I can understand everything the students are telling me to do since I know more Japanese....a luxury I didn't have before. I also think that doing archery at Fight Club helps. The targets are much more interesting at Fight Club (who wouldn't choose shooting humans over plastic targets?) , but kyudo is probably much more profound than Western archery. The most surprising thing I discovered was that the hakama (Japanese pleated pants) women ware in kyudo are actually skirts and not pants.
John and I have just bought tickets at a travel agency to stay in Kyoto and Osaka. We will go the weekend of September 15,16, and 17. Its pretty exciting. We intend to visit Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, the most famous Shinto shrine to the fox god. We will also visit a temple located in a shopping area. Its an awesome place....I have been to this are twice but I can't wait to go again! There is a crepe stand there thats delicious, and you can almost always see Maiko, or apprentice geisha. In Osaka we will go to the Osaka Aquarium which has a whale shark. Thats the highlight of the trip, actually. I asked the kind math teacher sitting beside me what he thought was fun in Osaka and he simply replied "takoyaki" (fried bread-like balls with octopus chunks in the center) and "okonomiyaki" (fried pancake with a lot of stuff in it like potatoes, cabbage, meat, et cetera)....those two things are famous in Osaka. We'll probably play it by ear in Osaka...I have never really explored the area.
Every Tuesday an episode of my new favorite anime, Claymore, comes out so today I am hoping to download it. Our evenings are spent watching anime or Japanese TV (which can get boring at times seeing as we only have about 5 channels). Besides anime and playing with Percival, the feral beast that lives with us after following us home, we have nothing really spectacular to talk about yet. 
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
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This last weekend we rode around on our bikes and found some interesting places. One of the places we stopped was a kimono shop that I had been told about. Shawn, One of the guys I used to work with in Dayton is from Japan, and his mom happens to be from the same section of the city where we live, Tobata. He told me the name of a kimono shop that his mom's family owned that has been there for 90 years. We found the shop and went in and talked to the people in the shop, who turned out to be Shawn's mom's cousins. Naturally, they were pretty amazed by the coincidence of the whole situation. They brought out tea and invited us to sit down and chat with them. I told them about working with Shawn and everything. One of the guys was talking to Nikkie and showed her a bunch of old pictures of the shop and even gave her some posters of Tobata and a little house decoration they had lying around. Overall it was a pretty unique experience.
On Monday we had an assembly where I had to give my introduction speech to the whole school. Nikkie gave her's last week, so I stole the first two sentences and last two sentences of her speech and then filled in the middle. I said it in English first and then in Japanese, and it went over pretty well.
After the assembly in the morning I worked frantically on my introduction lessons because I had to be ready by Tuesday afternoon to teach students. I didn't finish by the end of Monday, but then by surprise I was told I had to teach 2nd period Tuesday morning instead of in the afternoon, so I rushed to throw everything together. Basically I made a sheet of questions about myself and I had the students pick a question from the sheet and ask me in turns, while the all of the students had to listen and write the answers on the sheet. At the same time, when I answered a question I showed a picture using a computer and projector. The students seemed to like it well enough, and after each class a few of them came up to ask me more questions. There are a few students who can carry on a conversation so far, but for the most part they don't seem to be able to.
Today I have two more of the same introduction lesson this morning and after school I have judo practice. Nikkie will be attending kyudo today, which is Japanes archery.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
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Last week was boring, but now it's starting to get busy. On Friday we had an orientation that was held for all incoming JET ALTs in the Fukuoka prefecture. It was held in Fukuoka City, which is about an hour's train ride from where we live. We learned about our advisors and how they can help us, and we learned some about the Fukuoka area and the Kitakyushu area. We also had to choose whether to attend a session about driving in Fukuoka or basic Japanese for the office. Of course neither of those could help Nikkie or me. A lot of the day was wasted, but we did get paid travel to see the city.
After the orientation there was a party for all JETs in Fukuoka (not just incoming JETs). It was held at the Kirin Beer Garden on the roof of a building downtown. Unfortunately it wasn't a very tall building so there weren't many cool views, but the food was good. It was all you can eat/drink bbq and beer. They also had lots of side dishes like takoyaki and yakisoba, as well as a station where you could make your own mixed drinks. The beer selection had the standard version of all the major Japanese brands, as well as a dark Kirin and (nasty) Budweiser. We pretty much ate and drank slowly but non-stop for 4 hours.
When the party was over we had to find our way back to the subway to get to the train station to ride a train for an hour and then walk for half an hour back to our apartment, so we didn't get home until almost one. That pretty much wiped us out for the entire weekend. We were originally planning on looking for another beach near the one where we went last week, but instead we just mostly stayed in and did some cleaning.
Yesterday we had another orientation in the same place as Friday's. This time it was about teaching in a high school. Basically they just went over a lot of the same general, vague information about how to get ready to become a high school teacher, which we had already heard a lot of at the Tokyo orientation.
We returned immediately to Kitakyushu because we had planned to meet with the parents of one of the teachers at my school. They own a bike shop and we wanted to get a bike for Nikkie. They had three extra bikes, and Nikkie picked out a cute pink one, which they are going to prepare for us to pick up tonight. The bike shop was like a little garage basically outside of their house. They were super nice and the mom brought us out chairs and a little table with drinks because she thought we were too hot (which we were), even though I told her she didn't need to do anything for us. That's pretty much how Japanese old people are. They will practically force their kindness on you as long as you are polite to them.
The problem tonight will be trying to get them to accept money for the bike when we pick it up. We saw the price tag on the bike, which was about 17000 yen ($150), but I'm pretty sure they are planning on giving the bike to us for free. There will be a battle over the payment for the bike. If we win then they get the money for the bike and we probably never see them again. If they win then we get the bike for free, but in that case it would be important for us to visit them again and bring them some kind of present. I think this is pretty common in Japanese culture.
Anyway, I'm excited to get another bike because now we'll be able to explore the area a lot more. It's just too hot to walk more than even a few blocks.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, August 16th, 2007
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We have gone out to eat and also cooked a lot of really good food here. Kyushu is famous for ramen and we have gone to a few different shops that were all really good, and only about 5 or 600 yen (4 or $5). The last shop we went to had this old guy who kept on talking to us, but I could barely understand a word he said. It's funny that some people here I could have a someone long and meaningful conversation with in Japanese, but some people I can barely even exchange sentences with. I think the guy in the ramen shop was just trying to compare various aspects of Japan and America in order to relate to us. The other major restaurant experience was the yakiniku (Japanese/Korean bbq) buffet a couple blocks from our apartment. They are pretty common in Japan. It's a buffet of thinly sliced raw meat, shrimp, and vegetables that you take back to your table and cook yourself on a gas grill that's embedded in the table. The food is very thin and bite-sized, so it only takes a minute to cook each piece. You just load up the grill and as the pieces finish cooking you take them off and dump them into your sauce bowl to let them cool a bit. I think this type of do-it-yourself restaurant is popular here because each piece you eat is hot and fresh, but you still get all the other services of being in a restaurant. I don't know if people in America might think "why would I go to a restaurant if I have to cook the food myself?" Shabu shabu, which I mentioned above, is similar to yakiniku. You eat thinly sliced meats and vegetables, except you use a boiling pot on a gas stove to cook everything. Also you use a different sauce for it. Shabu shabu is common at restaurants and at home. We made shabu shabu at home the other night. We have also been cooking a variety of Japanese foods at home, such as soba (thin buckwheat noodle) in soup with tempura, curry and rice, broiled salmon with shiitake mushrooms, natto rice, etc. There aren't a lot of foods at the grocery stores here that would commonly be found in American grocery stores, so we pretty much just eat Japanese dishes. Also, we are right across the street from a 7/11, which is a lot like what you would expect at an American 7/11 except there's more stuff and everything is Japanese. There's plenty of candy, soft drinks, potato chips, alcohol, ice cream, microwave foods, etc. etc. but it all tastes a lot different, and better IMO than what you'd find in America. For example, I'd probably never get lunch at a convenience store in America because typically it's just gross looking hot dogs and nachos. In Japanese stores the hot meals are actually delicious. One of my favorite items is called "nikuman", or it's varient "pizzaman", which is a slightly sweet steamed bun filled with roasted pork and vegetables or pizza filling.
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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We don't plan on getting a car here, but there are buses and trains that can (eventually) get us anywhere we want to go in Japan. Our closest train station is about a 20 minute walk or about a 10 minute bus ride away. We'll both have bikes soon and then it will be even easier to get there. From that station we can go down a couple stations to catch the bullet train, which goes to Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Tokyo, and beyond. We can also catch a train to the airport and fly to those same locations. We have already done a lot of exploring in our area. We went to a festival in downtown Kitakyushu, the Kokura ward. The festival was to celebrate the fact that over 1 million people live in Kitakyushu for the last 20 years. It's called "wasshoi hyakuman matsuri" which means "hooray! 1 million festival". There was a big choreographed dance that thousands of people participated in, and there were fireworks. The next weekend we went to a city called Shimonoseki. Kitakyushu is on the very northern tip of the island kyushu, thus the name, kita (north) kyushu. Shimonoseki is on the very tip of the island honshu (the main island of Japan) and is only separated from kitakyushu by maybe 1000 feet or so. We found out on the internet that there is a tunnel made for walking through that connects the two islands, so we went and found the tunnel and walked across to spend an evening in Honshu. The city of Shimonoseki is apparently famous for fugu (blowfish), which is known to be a very expensive dish. We decided we had to try it, so we just started wandering around the city looking for a good restaurant. Some Japanese guys walked by and saw that we were puzzling over a map, so they stopped and stared at us for a minute and then one guy spoke up in English, offering to help us. We told him we were looking for a fugu restaurant, so he got on the phone and asked a friend where a good restaurant was. The friend on the phone said it was too late to go most places (aparently Japanese people don't go out after 8 on Friday nights), but he did know one place. Then the two Japanese guys offered to walk us to the restaurant. Along the way we learned that one of them had lived in America for a year about 10 years ago when he was 20, and went to school in San Francisco, while the other guy didn't speak any English. When we got to the restaurant, the English speaking guy (we'll call him E and the other guy K), E told us that he hasn't actually tried fugu, so we invited them both to have dinner with us, which I'm sure was his intention to begin with. This turned out to be a huge help because I didn't understand the fugu menu at all. We ended up sharing a meal of fugu sashimi, fugu shabu shabu (I'll explain what that is later) and various other sides. We had lots of conversation with E and K. K has a Korean wife and he speaks fluent Korean, although he is 100% Japanese. E was pretty funny and K kept on telling him to stop being so rude, which was equally funny, since they both seemed to be pretty young guys (although they were about 35 they seemed to be 25). For example, there was some item on the menu I didn't know, so I asked about it and E said "you know, you have a big balls, right?" as he points to his crotch. "That is the fugu's big balls." Which was followed by K smacking him and telling him to stop pointing at his crotch because it was rude. K and E actually didn't even want to eat anything. They had just had a huge dinner with work before they came, so they weren't even hungry. Obviously E just wanted a chance to speak English with us, since he hadn't gotten to practice in 10 years. We kept offered them food, but E refused, saying he was too fat, even though he was not even remotely fat, and lifting his shirt to point at his belly. Of course he got smacked and was told to stop being rude. Even so, he asked us if we wanted to order more food. We declined, but he went ahead and ordered another fugu shabu shabu for us to eat. After the meal we were going to just pay for everything, including their drinks, since they had helped us out, but instead E payed for everything and wouldn't accept any money, even though the bill was over $100 and he hardly ate anything. We agreed that we would hang out again and we would buy dinner next time. Our next adventure after that was our trip to the beach. It took forever to get there because we only had a very vague idea of where we were going. We caught a bunch of buses and got a little bit closer with each one. It was really tough because everything is in kanji with no English once you get just a little bit out of the main cities or main roads. Eventually we got to the beach, and when we left it was way easier to get home. We just got on the bus at the stop close to the beach, and rode it until it got to a train station. Then we got back to Tobata on the train. The problem on the way was that we didn't know which train station to go to to catch the right bus. Anyway, we found out later that we didn't even go to the beach we meant to go to. We went to a smaller beach practically right next to it. But it was still very pretty and nice and we got sunburned.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Nikkie and I each work for a single high school (although not the same school as each other), unlike Alex who works for many elementary schools. That means our office is at the school we teach at. This week was the Japanese holiday "obon" which is when the spirits of your family's deceased return to your house. Therefore, just about every teacher at our schools has been gone every day this week, except for one or two teachers who have to be there to watch over the school each day. I've just been playing DS and surfing the internet all day every day. We haven't started teaching classes yet. I start on the 27th I think. The students have all been on summer vacation since before we arrived. At our schools, though, the students have a different concept of summer vacation then what you're probably imagining. For summer here the students just go to school and take extra classes or do club activities all day. So I have met quite a few students in the hallways or in the teachers' office, and so far they have been pretty nice. When regular school does start I'll have 10 to 15 classes per week where I team up with the other English teachers (there are 10 of them). We were surprised that we had to report to our schools the same day we flew into Fukuoka. I thought we'd at least get some time to adjust, but nope. I had to give an introduction speech to the other teachers in the office the first day and the second day I was here, which I was totally unprepared for. The first time I hardly said anything, but the second time I was able to describe a little bit about myself. BTW, Fukuoka is the prefecture where we live, but it is also the name of the capital city or our prefecture. We flew into the Fukuoka city airport, where teachers at our schools picked us up and drove us about an hour to the area of our schools. The city we live in is called Kitakyushu, and then that city is broken up into several "wards". http://wikitravel.org/en/Kitakyushu Nikkie and I live in the Tobata ward. Our apartment is very small and very old, but it's cozy and we enjoy living there.Nikkie teaches at Tobata HS. I teach at Yahata HS in the Yahata ward. Nikkie walks about 3 minutes to get to school (we can see it from our apartment window), while I bike 20 minutes. |
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Nikkie and I are doing very well. We don't have internet at home yet. If we did I would start putting pictures online. Nikkie and I got awesome phones that have 5 megapixel cameras, 1GB microSD cards, and VGA screens, so it's the first time in my life that I don't forget to take my camera everywhere I go and take tons pictures of everything. http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/product/3g/910sh/ Anyway, I'll just have to describe everything for now from the computer here at school.
EDIT:
speaking of phones, I just looked up the specs on the iphone, and the phones we got blow it away in just about every aspect...2x the screen resolution, 2.5x the megapixels. The iPhone is probably a better mp3 player, but it costs $499.00. Our phones cost 0 yen.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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nikkieandjohn's journal
tired.