Saturday, May 19, 2007

Peeps!  About 6 weeks ago my mom sent me a package with Easter peeps and a ziplock full of ground coffee.  Unfortunately she didn’t realize she selected ground shipping instead of airmail.  So after a few weeks we had given up hope of its arrival, but it finally arrived yesterday.  Inspectors in Kyoto had opened and repackaged it.  They probably thought the coffee was drugs, and the peeps little colorful bombs.  The package of green peeps had also suffered a puncture wound somewhere along the trip, and the little chicks were all as hard as little green rocks.  But the yellow and pink peeps were still their happy squishy scary preservative little selves.  So I began distributing them to the Jr high and high school kids.  They were amazed!  They’ve never seen such a thing before.  The girls were going on about how cute they were, and the guys got out their cellphones and starting taking pictures.  They seemed afraid to eat them though.  Wakana ate three.  

Sadly, the 6 week old stale coffee still tasted better than the stuff I can buy here.  

Thanks mom! 

Current Mood: insanely bored

A few weeks ago I went to Sendai for a Sunday.  I spent 7 hours on trains round trip, which was tiring, but that was part of the fun.  The small local trains are nice.  The seats aren’t especially comfortable, but the tracks run along the coast so the view is nice.  The conductor was very friendly and tried to chat a bit.  He led me up to the front of the train to show me a better view.  The movement and the sound of the train are also relaxing.  I was able to half doze for a large portion of the time.  When I got to Sendai, I had about 5 hours to explore before my return train.  The time went fast, as I wandered around downtown looking through shops, wandering into a café for lunch, exploring a big park, and walking through rows of modern shiny skyscrapers.  The novelty of a big city was more impressive to me than the Japan aspect of it, though a few cultural things did pop up.  I tried to use the park restroom, only to discover they don’t provide toilet paper.  Thankfully I realized this before actually using the toilet.  I ended up having to find an expensive clothing department store in order to find a bathroom.  Though it is difficult to find a public restroom, they are often very fancy.  The toilets are surrounded by strange contraptions and have many options. 

Sendai:  modern, shiny, bustling, and crowded!
 

A little bit of old temple mixed in with the modern city...                        Weird fancy toilet controls...

 

I saw a lot of other foreigners on the streets, but none of them were friendly, and they were mostly men of varying ages.  I only saw one other foreign woman.  She looked about my age and she smiled at me at least.  When I went into a donut shop, an older Japanese woman who was standing behind me in line suddenly started asking me a bunch of questions in Japanese and ooohing and ahhing over me.  She started petting my hair and going on about how beautiful I was.  It was amusing, though a bit embarrassing. 

I found a petstore during my wanderings, and I was shocked to see the massive amount of tiny puppies for sale inside.  It was a clean and professional looking business, but the cages were small and the puppies looked a bit young to be sold.  They were almost all small breeds.  There was an entire wall of dachunds, and a lot of chiwawas and other similarly sized types, though I did see one Bernese Mountain dog puppy.  Those things are almost the size of St. Bernards when full grown.  They also had some cats, but there were a surprisingly number of expensive exotic purebred breeds, which is not so common in American pet stores.  They had a beautiful Abyssinian kitten that I drooled over.  The real shock came when I went to the upstairs portion and was confronted with a tiny monkey staring up at me.  It was an adorable fuzzy marmot and I wanted to steal it, but mostly I was just shocked and a bit horrified that they could sell it there.  I’ve never seen such a thing in a pet store.  I think it must be illegal in the US.  And I imagine they require a lot of attention and care, much like parrots. 

I also wandered into an organic food store.  I’m used to tons of those types of stores in Eugene, and I was curious what kind of organic food they had in Japan.  I was surprised to find one of my favorite brands of American organic food.  I laughed in horror when I saw the price though.  An organic burrito that costs $2 in Oregon, was about $10 in Sendai.  I guess the import costs are pretty high, and organic food is still a bit of a novelty here. 

Anyway, there were lots of interesting things to see.  And the day went quickly.  I’m glad I went, and it was a fairly cheap trip, so I’ll probably go more often.

Monday April 2, 2007  (Notice the date.  I forgot to post this for a few weeks.  oops.  lazy me.)

Last Thursday I went to Takata at 1:30 like normal, but this time was a no class day.  So at first I just cleaned and then worked on the cover design for the new attendance notebooks that we give to each student (because the new school year is starting next week).  I finally finished that around 4:00, and I hated doing it.  I’m not an artistic person at all, and projects like that just stress me out and don’t turn out well.  I spent hours on it prior to Thursday as well.   It was all carefully hand drawn and included many small detailed pictures and special lettering.  I originally wanted to just use clipart because I can’t draw, but Rie said the foreign teacher always draws or traces the cover. 

Then Rie suddenly asked me to drive back to Ofunato to pick up some yellow paper she ordered for the notebook covers.  It’s a 30 minute drive one way, and I ended up going between the cities 4 times in one day.  That made me a bit grumpy, because I pay for my own gas.  But I’d rather spend 2 hours on the road than in the classroom I suppose.

 I finally found the paper place (I hate how this country doesn’t use street names), and I discovered it was a tiny family business.  The woman was so excited when I arrived, and she asked me to come in and have coffee with her.  And then we had a 20 minute conversation, but we didn't speak any English.  And she didn't talk slow at all.  I understood less than half of what she said, but it was enough to chat.  I had to concentrate really hard listening.  A lot of times she would say a word I would recognize but I couldn't quite remember what it meant. We actually learned a lot about each other.  And she introduced me to her family and other coworkers. When she introduced me to her father, he was this really old man with a hearing aid and a really raspy voice.  I couldn't understand a word he said.  And then his daughter kept telling him that I couldn't understand him, but she had to yell it.  It was both awkward and amusing.

I finally wiggled out of there and returned once again to Takata to find that my detailed and time consuming cover art had been scrapped for an overly pixilated dragon clipart.  I was then assigned a different, less artistic page to design.  This time I used Word because it required some tables and a few simple graphics.  Word is a little bit more difficult to use when the menu is in Japanese.  I could figure some things out, but it would have been much easier on my computer.  After that I finished the day with relaxing collating. 

Saturday, March 17, 2007

I haven’t posted for awhile because I’ve been lazy, so the following is actually from a few weeks ago. 

I had to work for a few hours on Saturday again.  But it was interesting, because I took over a Jr. high class and a high school class.  I normally don’t get to teach older than 6^th grade, which is still elementary school, but I was covering for one of the other teachers who couldn’t work.  The high schoolers understand me pretty well, though they weren’t chatty.  I had to drag information out of them, but they were friendly and interesting.  Despite their shyness, I think they were happy to be able to have a class with me. 

Afterwards I went grocery shopping.  That is usually my favorite time of the week.  I saw a few of my younger students at the grocery store.  One of them ran up to me all excited and said my name, but then when I tried to talk to her she panicked and ran away again.  I also sometimes meet my students in the parks as well.  They are surprisingly shy outside of school.

On Sunday I went to a Jr. High school band concert.  I went mostly because Wakana dragged me and I had nothing better to do.  Some of our school’s students were performing.  It reminded me of my own middle school, back when I played clarinet.  Besides the kids playing, they also had an adult 40s style brass band play, and their singer did songs in English.  I couldn’t understand anything she said though.  Overall it was a good performance, but it lasted 3 hours, so I was quite ready to leave long before it ended. 

Before walking to the concert, Wakana and I went to lunch at the most traditional looking Japanese restaurant I’ve been in yet.  It had sliding paper walls, tatami mat floors, and ground seating.  You sit on the floor with your legs under the table (which is only about a foot high so it is a bit difficult to maneuver under it), and honestly the whole thing was incredibly uncomfortable.  But the decorations were nice.  

Inside the traditional Japanese restaurant.  The seating was uncomfortable, and the menu rather difficult for me...
   

On Thursday, I lost my best student.  She suddenly said that she couldn’t afford the lessons anymore and she wouldn’t be coming again.  I had enjoyed finding interesting psychology articles for her, and she is advanced enough to actually have intelligent conversations with.  So that news was rather disheartening.  But at least the kids classes weren’t as bad.  The youngest kids class only had the two girls, and they are usually good.  When we were doing the song, they thought it would be fun to stand on little chairs in front of me.  At that point they were suddenly about chest level, and Ruru (who is 4 or 5) suddenly exclaimed, “sigou, ookii oppai!”, which means “wow, big breasts!”.  I laughed and said thank you.  What else can I do when a tiny girl says that?  At least she didn’t grope me. 

            Oh and I am in the local newspaper.  They put an ad in with my picture.  Wakana clipped out a copy of it for me.

            The weather is finally changing (as in progressing from the 30s to the 40s), so I look forward to more time outside.  I’ve been bored.  Some weekend Goki is going to try to convince some of his friends to join us for karaoke.  I’m looking forward to that, even if none of his friends speak English.  Singing and drinking with people will definitely be fun. 

Current Mood: satisfied

Friday, March 09, 2007

The Thursday kids are quickly turning my life to hell!!!!  ARRRRRGGH.  This time the evil boy was absent, but another girl in the class has followed his example and become a little brat as well.  She has also taken to mocking me and ignoring my commands.  And this week she decided it would be funny to grab my breast.  This made my already bad mood worsen. 

Goki spent some time going over the school cleaning routine with me, and I learned some interesting cultural things.  It is common for smaller businesses to have the employees do the cleaning, as hiring someone is expensive and uncommon.  This also happens in the public schools, where both the students and teachers do the cleaning, instead of janitors.  So in between my classes I am supposed to wipe windows, vacuum, empty trash, and clean the bathrooms.  And apparently in Japanese society it is good to be seen cleaning by the parents and students when they come to the school.  I think maybe that is the opposite in America.  I’ve also been given instructions on how to answer the phone.  Prior to this I have ignored it, as I can’t speak Japanese.  But sometimes I’m the only one in the office and no one else is there to pick it up.  So Goki taught me to say:  “Hai, Sato Eikaiwa gogakujuku de gozaimasu.  Syou syou o machikudasai,” which is a very formal way of saying “Hi this is Sato Eikaiwa cram school.  Please wait a minute.”  I still need a lot of practice to say it well. 

In normal conversation the above would be more like, “Sato Eikaiwa desu.  Matte kudasai”, but the level of politeness required for a business is very different.  I’ve decided that this is something I dislike about Japanese culture.  The importance they place on formality is annoying to me.  And they also clean everything everyday, as if the most microscopic particle of dust or dirt would harm their reputation and business.  It feels like, if you make a small mistake you commit a great rudeness and deeply offend people.  I know that people are willing to forgive my rudeness because I’m a foreigner, but I don’t like that feeling around me.  If feels restrictive.

Wakana and I have had lots of time to talk lately.  I’ve been driving her to and from work for the past few weeks because she cut her hand pretty badly while cooking, She doesn’t feel comfortable driving with one hand (she can’t understand how I do it all the time).  Yesterday she told me a funny story that I feel the need to share.  We both did research on “worms” in college, but she studied silkworms rather than nematodes (silkworms are moth caterpillars rather than worms, in case you didn’t know :-).  We were having a conversation about creatures, and I said something about how I like the way snakes feel.  She countered with how nice silkworms feel.  They are smooth and cool to the touch. After that she proceeded to tell me how, on hot summer days, she would stick her hands in a bowl of silkworms to cool down.  It was a pleasant thought.  At least until she continued with, “But I have to be gentle or else I will…I will…them…”  She forgot the English word so I provided it for her, “squish”.

Sunday, Mar. 4th, 2007

My apologies to my faithful fans for my long literary silence.  But as I have been sick, my life has become restricted to working and sitting in my apartment resting.  This equates to a rather boring few weeks with little to report.  But now I will update you on recent things worthy of mention!

Last weekend, to relieve my boredom in a non-strenuous way, I went for a drive.  I was attempting to discover the open ocean, which is a difficult feat around here.  This bay is hemmed in on either side by mountains (see picture below).  I had to drive over one of those mountains to get to the ocean.  It was a beautiful view, but the road was so windy and narrow and terrifying that I didn’t dare glance out long.  I wanted to take a picture, but I couldn’t find a good place to pull over.  I’ll try again in the future when I have more daylight and good health.

A picture from the back end of the bay.  The gap between the distant mountains is the mouth of the bay, and I drove to the ocean side of the left mountain...

So the town music goes off at 7am, noon, and 5pm.  I realized recently that the 5pm music is the song “Yesterday”.  There is a widespread Beatles obsession in this country.  They actually play a lot of American music wherever I go, especially oldies music.  This is perfect for me!

I finally have wireless internet in my apartment!  I’m so happy!  Now I can make online phone calls for really cheap and download anime to my hearts content.  I also no longer have to freeze to death downstairs in the mornings.

I also got my first full sized paycheck and this weekend I went on a shopping spree!  I bought a new electronic dictionary/translator for around $100 (normally almost $250 but it was the grand opening sale of the new electronics store).  This is the only model that has an English menu option, and it was recommended to me by one of the other Americans in the area.  I’m very pleased with my new (and useful) toy.  I am also quite happy with the new orange chair I bought.  The current chair (which I spend half my life in) is very uncomfortable and falling apart.  This new one was only 2,000yen and it is much more comfortable, not to mention orange!  My current bed is also sagging and uncomfortable, so I bought a new mattress top for it.  I hope it will be comfy.  We’ll find out tonight.  And I also bought a scale.  After doing the kg to lb conversion online, I realized that I have not lost any weight since I came here.  Damn the cake!  I need to simultaneously ramp up my exercise routine and calm my sweet frenzy if I want to make any progress. 

I went to dinner last night with the two American couples that live in this city.  They are all JET people and have been here 2 and 3 years.  It is a bit of a tight crowd to wriggle my way into, but they are nice people and very entertaining.  They would make good Eugene hippies, though they are from very different parts of the country.  After hanging out with them I also don’t feel so bad for not learning much Japanese.  They don’t know much either, because they never study.

And now for a few random pictures of the school where I work:

This is the main study area for the cram school students.  That black and silver thing on the floor is the kerosene heater for the whole school.  It is much more "heavy duty" than the one in my apartment.  The second picture shows part of the front reception area, as well as doors leading into classrooms.

  

One of the classrooms, and the entrance where you leave your street shoes and put on a set of indoor slippers...

  

The office/reception area and my desk by the window... 

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Yesterday I went to Morioka with Wakana and Tatsuki.  It is the capital of this prefecture, and the closest big city (about a 2 and a half hour drive, and 300,000 people).  It is also the location of the closest Starbucks, which is probably 50% of the reason we went there today.  Tatsuki is addicted to Starbucks coffee, so they go every few months to stock up. 

It was a beautiful drive through snowy mountains, with many nice rivers and lovely white terrarced rice fields.  We stopped at a few farmers’ markets out in the middle of nowhere to pick up cheap produce.  I bought some of the super sweet (and monstrous) apples that this area is famous for.  I also found an interesting little “fertility shrine” inside the first farmers market (see picture below).  Apparently people like to pet it for “good luck” (with making babies!).  

Fertility shrine...
 

After arriving in Morioka, we went to a big mall for lunch and shopping.  The lunch was a buffet of Japanese food.  It was quite good, but sometimes difficult to know what I was eating.  I think I inadvertently ate some particulate chicken.  After the meal we all filled out a little customer satisfaction questionnaire and Tatsuki thought it would be fun for me to write a little note in English in the comment space.  So I wrote, “Thank you for the wonderful Japanese food.  Yummy!” and signed my name is fancy cursive.  I hope the employees are enjoying that one. 

One custom of this country that I greatly appreciate is the way restaurants display their food in a well-detailed plastic manner.  Though it didn’t matter in the case of the buffet, the other restaurants we passed had their full menu revealed in an unspoilable fashion for easy visual decision making.  Doesn’t it almost look real in the photos?

Visual menus!
  

 

           After food we wandered through the various shops, but most of them were fashionable clothing (i.e. too small and too expensive).  Walking into that mall inspired a rather bizarre feeling for me.  It was eerily like an American mall, with a similar layout, products, and some of the same stores.  Most of the clothing stores had English names, but they didn’t all make sense.  “Right on” and “ABCmart” were a few I happen to remember (remember these are clothing stores).  One shop reminded me strongly of Eugene.  It was a lot of tye-dye hippy type stuff, incense, and pot paraphernalia (yeah, like any of these people have actually smoked it).  I even saw a few other foreigners in there, though once again I didn’t talk to them.

Finally I found a store that made me feel like I was in Japan again;  the kimono store!  The ones on display in front were ¥390,000 yen.  That is basically $4,000.  They are custom fitted handmade silk fabric.  Some poorer quality versions were as cheap as $500.  The shopkeeper was eagerly showing me gorgeous fabrics, but was rather disappointed when Wakana told him I want an orange yukata.  Apparently this isn’t the season for them.  I will have to go back in the spring.  He had assumed I was only a tourist and wouldn’t return, so his face lit up considerably when she told him I was living here for a year.  I asked permission to take pictures of the kimonos on display, and of course they were happy to let me.  One of the shopgirls even ran up to move some of the signs out of my way.  I felt bad, because I think they would have been grumpy about it if I weren’t a foreigner.  

Kimonos!
 

Just before leaving the mall we stopped at Starbucks.  I bought a mocha and a bag of coffee (my total was ~$15), because sadly, Starbucks really is the best coffee in all of Japan. 

After the mall we went to a massive electronics store.  One of the shopgirls suddenly said “Hello, how are you?” with a surprisingly good accent, and I was a bit startled.  I thought maybe she has traveled in America.  I tried to stop and answer her, but Wakana was trying to talk to me and dragging me somewhere else.  Being in the countryside for 6 weeks, I have gotten used to no one outside of my school being able to speak English, but I forget that many Japanese people speak it pretty well, especially in bigger cities.  When I was in Tokyo for my first few days, everyone I encountered spoke enough English for me to have no trouble (though they were all in the travel industry). 

After that we went to a special second hand clothing store where the prices were indicated by tags with fruits and vegetables.  The eggplant was 100 yen, the watermelon 500 yen, and the banana 1,000 yen (remember 100 yen roughly = $1).  I ignored the produce that was more expensive than that.  Apparently the value for each food item changes depending on the day of the week.  On Wednesday the values shift down, so the watermelon will be 100 yen and the banana will become 500.  I’m not sure what happens to the eggplant.  But anyway, I was rather surprised to find 4 sweaters I liked and that actually fit well.  And they were half price off of watermelons!  I never thought I would find clothes that fit me, but maybe their larger size was why they were discounted.  I’m glad to have a few new sweaters to wear to work.  I’m getting tired of wearing the same clothes every week.  I only brought about two weeks worth of sweaters with me, and the cold weather drags on here. 

Our last stop was a special grocery store that has a lot of imported foods, though their selection is rather random.  I ended up buying Corona, some European chocolate, peanut butter pretzels, and root beer! (to go with the rum I also bought).  That store has a huge selection of imported liquor and wine.  I’d say 1/3 of the store was alcohol.  Unlike Oregon, you can sell liquor wherever here.  I see bottles of Jack Daniels in the Lawson convenience store I always go to in Takata, though I usually talk myself out of buying such things while I’m supposed to be at work. 

Finally we drove home.  It was a long shopping and driving day, and I had about 5 bags to carry inside (I have no idea how much money I spent).  I was tired, but it was a very interesting day.   I hope you enjoyed all the pictures!  If you would like to see bigger versions of any of them, please visit my flickr website:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/67457135@N00/

Friday, February 16, 2007

Thursday was rather eventful.  First I had to get up early to teach two kindergarten classes.  I had the same class as last time, and then a new one that was a lot bigger (like ~40 kids), and they were younger (4!).  The kids in the first class made me a present.  It was a book of pictures they drew for me.  I took a photo of the class to share with you all.  After I finished teaching, the ladies in the office made me tea and snacks again, but this time Rie wasn’t with me, so our attempt at conversation was interesting.  They know about as much English as I know Japanese, but we managed.  Mostly we laughed at our own confusion.  By the time I left, I was already exhausted, but then I had to get ready to drive to Takata for my 8 hour work day.  

My once a month Kindergarten class (all about 5yrs old)...

             I had the evil little kids again today in Takata.  The youngest class was better than I had thought they would be.  I guess Rie returning their routine last week actually helped (though they still weren’t angels).  But as I predicted, the older class was even worse now that it was just me again.  The big trouble maker who is the root of all the problems, Ryunosuke, was once again loud, disruptive, violent, and incredibly rude.  This kid is constantly yelling, beating on the girls, and running around.  I could almost shrug it off as energetic if he weren’t so rude as well.  He purposely interrupts and mocks me, and throws out all sorts of Japanese obscenities and name calling in my direction.  He thinks it’s funny because I can’t understand (except I can understand these words.  Elena taught me well).  The problem is that I can’t say anything to him in return.  If I try to tell him to stop or be quiet or sit down, he just repeats what I say in a mocking tone, or ignores me completely (this is true if I try to say it in Japanese as well).  This school has no sort of discipline system set up.  It is very frustrating, so I basically had to make up my own method.  At some point I managed to get the rest of the class settled down for an animal lesson (taking stuffed animals out of a basket and having them identify them), but Ryunosuke decided to do everything in his power to interrupt me and distract my audience.  Finally, I just decided that I must do something or this would never end (basically I ran out of patience and got a bit angry).  I stood up quickly, picked him up as if he were a toy, opened the classroom door, and chucked him (gently but forcibly) into the hallway.  He was screaming and struggling the whole time, but I am a helluva lot stronger and more stubborn than a 6 yr old boy.  I didn’t actually have to exert any effort to do this.  Then of course he tried to force the door back open, but I just nonchalantly leaned on it and gave the rest of my animal lesson with the other kids standing around me at the door.  They were ok with that.  Once I finished the animal bit, I let the little demon back in for desk work time.  He was crying, but he was a perfect angel for the rest of class.  It’ll be interesting to see how he acts next week.  I’m not particularly proud of myself for having to resort to that sort of method, but maybe that is the best I can do.  I’ll never be good with kids, methinks.

Two of my students brought me edible gifts today, including shrimp gratin, cookies, and a fruit & cream sandwich.  Desert sandwiches are popular here.  It weirds me out a bit, but it tastes pretty good.