Commence Winter, or Japan's Pan's Pipes

Today is my last day of sitting at my local kouminkan (community center- also where my board of education happens to be posted. Curiously enough- the only languages in which the Wikipedia article is written are Japanese and Polish... so scrap linking on that one). I have a meeting with all my assorted supervisors (apparently I need a lot of supervision ;P) in about 35 minutes. I'm a little nervous because, like so many things in this work and in this country, I have no idea what it's about. On the upside, my primary supervisor was about to arbitrarily grant me vacation today until she realized that we had this meeting at all, so presumably it won't be terribly intense (at least it wasn't weighing on her mind).

Shifting subjects- I'm looking forward to the upcoming winter holiday, for which, as ever, I am woefully under-planned and unprepared. Wherever I go (more and more just looking like Tokyo), it's going to be cold. The long-tardy Niigata winter finally has finally arrived in Arakawa, along with the famous Arakawa winter-wind. This is the view out of my apartment window from this morning:



The wind is truly impressive, as was the storm that brought the snow. Thunder and lightning were on and off for about 5 hours, and the wind was very audible throughout. This morning as I sat parked under my kotatsu with my coffee, unwilling to move (kotatsu have that effect on me- especially in the mornings), I could hear the wind playing a kind of music off the topological irregularities in the roof. I'm not being poetic here- the wind really did produce a marvelous array of eldritch-flute-like sounds. I even tried to work out the range of the pitches in the car on the way to work (somewhere between a 4th and a 5th, incidentally).

This may be the last post for a bit. While cyber-cafes presumably aren't too hard to find in Tokyo, I don't know when I will have the pictures or the gumption to post again. At the latest, the next installment will be the Tuesday after next, as that is when I return to work. With any luck, I'll have some picks from my ski trip tomorrow (with young staff from one of my shogakko- should be very fun), as well as from wherever I manage to go in Japan. Until that time- stay warm, and happy New Year!

Day Tripper

Last Saturday, the weather was a balmy 13C (55.4F: not bad, considering it's the lee-ward end of December in a region famous for its snow), so more or less on a lark I decided to go for a drive up the highway into the mountains.

First thing's first, here's my trusty steed-



I chose blue partly because, believe it or not, it's one of the more assertive car colors you'll see driving around Japan (or at least Niigata). It's also a Kei Car, which is nice when trying to negotiate Japan's fun-sized parking spaces. I've yet to name it (accepting submissions now- I haven't even decided on a gender yet!), but for the time being, even nameless, it gets me from A to B, and I love it much. Incidentally, talking on a cellphone while driving is universally illegal in Japan, so periodically there are "moshi-moshi pittu" scattered along the highway (it means "hello pit"). This picture was taken at one such pull-over.

The highway winds through a number of breathtaking vistas more or less right off the bat, none of which I was able to photograph for a lack of space to pull over. The severity of the mountains is such (at least initially) that several times a tunnel will connect immediately to a bridge spanning a gorge, to yet another tunnel. It was arrestingly pretty. I did manage to find one pull-over, however, that offered something like a view. This is a poor representation, but still, have at-



My initial intent was to simply take in the scenery for a while, then turn around, so I arbitrarily chose a town fairly far away on the road signs, called "Nan'yo" as my destination, and pressed onward.

After a while, I got hungry and needed to use the bathroom, so here was my first stop:



Apparently this is what rest-stops are like in Japan. I passed a few more along the way, and they looked (from the outside) pretty comparable- toilet, restaurant, kitschy gift shop, and vending machines. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? One notable difference was that this particular stop was selling a number of seedlings and bonsai of plants endemic to Yamagata, whose boundary I had just crossed. Another thing worthy of note was that this rest-stop sold manju, not unusual in Japan, but always welcome. I bought a pizzaman!



After eating my pizzaman and having a look about, I kept heading into Yamagata. The ragged, fang-like peaks gave way to a more herbivorous terrain, with wide valleys spread between ranges of mountains. the distant view was, I must say, gorgeous. However, (and it's possible December without snow isn't the best time to look), many of the small mountain towns I encountered were, frankly, rather ugly. I was hoping for an experience like many I've had in Colorado, where traveling into the mountains is a good way to avail one's self of the personality eccentricities that tend to migrate to the isolated mountains. What I had forgotten is that Japan is both A) ancient and B) crowded- people have been living in the mountains here for a looooooooong time, and the migrations of oddballs that have taken place in the U.S. don't have a good corollary here. I didn't find much evidence of interesting and unusual shops or cafes- just people living at higher altitude. I did encounter one nice corner in a town called "Shokoku," however- and here it is:



Not breath-taking, but not such a bad little town either.

I drove a good ways more, but didn't see or photograph anything worthy of reporting beyond what I've already said here, so let's jump to Nan'yo. Nan'yo is an unimposing, unimpressive little community that probably spends most of it's time in Yamagata-shi's economic and cultural orbit. Consequently, there's not much there. All the same, here are some pics-




For those of you that can read Katakana- the sign that says "ramen" was also where I had dinner. I felt like I was in a scene from a movie about the lonely every-man at Christmas time- stepping into an unremarkable ramen shop in a small, twilit, chilly town, far from home. Nostalgic Christmas music was playing over the speakers (including, unless I am mistaken, "I'll be Home for Christmas"). However, there were (it being a ramen-ya aside) some distinctly Japanese touches: the Christmas decorations looked like they had been subcontracted out to a flying squirrel with a staple gun, and immediately after "White Christmas" or some such song, seizure-inducing J-pop started playing again. Ah, Japan.

The other thing this restaurant had going for it was that every entree came with a monstrous mound of shredded cabbage. The cabbage here was particularly fresh and wholesome-tasting, and I wondered for a minute whether I had finally found a bit of "local flavor" for which I had been searching. Maybe Yamagata grew a lot of cabbage in the cooler mountain elevations! Chatting with the server on the way out, however (itself an unusual behavior- customers don't really mingle with service staff here like they can in America- a Japanese cultural convention I blithely and frequently ignore) I discovered that cabbage is heavily grown all over Japan, and that my katsu-kare (pork curry) experience here had been, in almost every regard, unremarkable. C'est la vie.

When I came out of the restaurant, I did see one more thing worth noting, which almost made the whole trip worth it-



This didn't turn out very well, because of the dim light, but if you'll look down and to the left, you'll see a largish gorilla. It was holding a strobing electric torch. The building it was advertising is a karaoke place, with architecture that's bizarre enough to easily distinguish it from the surrounding town. It looks vaguely, I don't know what. Mongolian? Anyhow, I thought it was pretty cool.

That does it for the day trip- I drove back, obviously, but past the same places and in the dark, so what's more to say?

On another note- today is Christmas Day here, so Merry Christmas everyone! I'm at work (mwa mwa) typing this up on my trusty yellow lap-top, and exchanging Christmas stories with the other ALTs (also at work) via Google chat. I hope everyone's well, and enjoying the holiday!

クリスマスしましょう! (Let's Christmas!)

As I have mentioned before, things borrowed from the outside world get changed a little when they get Japan-ified. I don't know whether I've mentioned this yet specifically with regard to Christmas, or not, but in case I haven't- our favorite Western holiday is no exception to the rules.

For example- My one shogakko held it's annual "Christmas Festival." It was great fun- students were given a "free pass" to go from classroom to classroom and see what each class had set up for the event. The attractions included two haunted houses, 3 game rooms, and something else that escapes me. In any event, the whole event didn't have anything to do with what would be considered "Christmas" by religious and secular standards alike (and it was a lot of fun). The "reason for the season folks" would have a thrombosis in this country...

Also on the docket was directing hordes of children in the production of snowflakes and Christmas cards- the snowflakes turned out nicely, but let's face it- you've seen one paper snowflake...

The cards were a different matter. I taught virtually no vocabulary, and just directed the kids to make cards with some Christmas-y ideas on them. The results are (once again) better done justice with pictures:


First of all, some of the cards were almost obscenely cute (these were 5th graders, but the other grades made good ones too)- I submit the following:




There was also no shortage of cute snowmen (in Japanese- "yukidaruma").






There were also some nice, traditional types (in spite of being written on the blackboard, theories on how to spell "Merry Christmas abound)-







...and at least one non-traditional type-



The child explained that it had something to do with Santa going to jail- presumably for breaking and entering (although this was not made explicit). This card shares company with one featuring a yellow "Christmas ghost" (which looked for the life of me like a Halloween ghost- but maybe more cheerful), and a card featuring a Mario-style Bullet Bill (both regrettably not pictured).

The card making was also a good activity, because, as something easy and fun, it was tackled with enthusiasm. It also gave the creative students a chance to shine, and several of the cards that I didn't get pictures of were also quite impressive- one student even made a cut-paper poinsettia, which was quite pretty.

So that was elementary school Christmas. It was a blessed relief from the more high-intensity teaching I usually must carry out, and a lot of fun too. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

On a random interaction note- here's one more story-
one funny student (a 5nen from one of favorite classes) drew a parallel from the Japanese paper cutter I was operating (which I was joking reminded me of an invention by a certain French doctor), and Happy Tree Friends. For the uninitiated, well, there's the link. My question, however, is this- how did an elementary student get ahold of this?? Aside from being a bit on the violent side, I had no idea that Happy Tree Friends had made their way over to Japan. Who knew?

Alright- that's all he wrote for today. Stay tuned for whatever's next- probably pics of the truly impressive snow storm that can't be far away. Failing that, I am traveling to a couple of (currently undetermined) places around Japan for my winter break, and should come back loaded with photos Kyoto, Shikoku, Tokyo, or wherever. Mada sono toki!

Smoke-filled room

This weekend was spent largely in (as the post title would imply) rooms filled with smokers. The American perception of Japan is largely of a very clean, efficient country (or at least my perception)- so it came as a surprise that practically everyone in Japan smokes. Indeed- tobacco has been so taken to Japan's cultural bosom that it is often spelled on signs with Hiragana, whereas pan ("bread," from Portuguese), an everyday word in use for the last 300 years or so, is still designated as a loan-word with Katakana. They just love their smokes.

What's perhaps more surprising is that the Japanese still have the longest life expectancy of just about anywhere (shows what a good diet and health care can do for you, I imagine).

In any event, the first smoke-filled room was a nomikai (飲み会) with the staff at my local board of education. It was unremarkable as far as nomikais go- my Japanese and their English are both sufficiently limited that all we could talk about were hobbies and what America was like and whatnot. Most of what I took away from the experience (besides some leftovers) was a headache from all the smoke (not the alchohol-n.b.).

The second experience was intended to be a brief visit to the store of Tatsuro-san to pick up some Xmas-age, but turned into a 5-hour chat (mostly in broken Japanese), with a visit to an urushi (varnished wood) shop in the middle. I learned (among other things), that Murakami is a sort of center for the preservation of Japanese traditional arts- Taiko drumming, urushi woodworking, tea making, Shoudou, and sake brewing (not that that particular art is in any danger of dying out, mind). I learned a bit about the Japanese generation gap from an older generation source- which was quite engaging. Apparently (and I can confirm this) that the old etiquette of Japan that most Westerners think of is slowly dying out as the younger, more Western youth take no interest in it.

I'd write more, but I'm beat (today was shogakko). Tomorrow we're making Christmas cards! :) More on that later (I'll try to get some photos of the cute ones)

Weekend Review (mo ikai ne?)

This weekend- 3 notable things happened.

1) I went to a party in honor of the Liquor-store owner whose random acquaintance I had made previously (the one with the banjo). The three of us were there almost strictly for our novelty value as gaikokujin- so lacking an outline of set duties we just had fun.

memorable moments include

-Being (without prior explanation) being handed a plastic maraca shaped like a lemon (the other two JETs got tambourines) and being asked to play along with the band for a bit (in front of some of the wealthiest people in Murakami, no less).

-Befriending a Japanese pre-school boy who was the son of some of the guests- he sort of became our mascot for the rest of the evening, and helped us out.

-Watching our host (Tatsuro-san) change suits no fewer than 5 times over the course of the thing, and variously be guitarist, MC, and host.

Also the party's invitation roughly translated said something like "wine enjoyment party"- and it was all some of the guests could do to make it out under their own locomotion (some didn't).


2) I got a car! The story has a sad beginning- arriving in Higashi Sanjo and realizing that I didn't have my license to drive my car back (that's like going from Denver to Woodland Park, then realizing you've forgotten something critical, and having to go back for it the same day). Blah. Another damper was the discovery (once I got my car) that trying to park in Japan is like being handed a watermelon, and being asked to put it in a box with about .4cm to spare on each side. The watermelon can't touch the sides, and neither can your hands. Parking here is a such an assortment of 3-point turns and minute readjustments that one wonders why there aren't even more trains than there are.

Fortunately, with my new car comes great new-found freedom from the train schedules, as well as freedom to go where the train may not. I'm thinking about going for a drive just to get out and see the autumn foliage while I can, time permitting.

3) More preparation for the winter musical- (further explanations to follow)- but that was Sunday anyhow.

That's life- I'm completely out of it from teaching 3rd grade and below all day- so I'm going to slink off and relax somewhere away from the prying of little hands.

Hashi Game

I haven`t terribly much to add to my last post here- but here`s a bit about English teaching. specifically, getting overcrammed, overworked middle school students to enjoy English again. Generally speaking, well, you can`t. The kids are massively indifferent and have way to much on their plates.

One thing that I have found works, however, is an adaptation of the American card game spoons. Remember spoons? You pass cards around until you have 4 of a kind in your hand, and make a desperate grab at the spoons (or in this case hashi- chopsticks) in the middle. The person who doesn`t get a spoon is out, and the game continues. Change playing cards to vocabulary cards with English words and pictures, and hey presto! you`ve got a room of suddenly interested students. The 1nens still didn`t get into it (in America they would be 7th graders), but the 3nens liked it well enough to request to borrow the game during recess. This is a spike in interest which, if you`ll recall middle school, is pretty remarkable. I was very pleased- I`ll probably be making more decks of cards for more vocab sets as time goes by.

That`s all for now- sorry it hasn`t got more zing and sparkle, but education`s what`s on my brain. This weekend is practice for the musical, as well as a poorly-defined event I will evidently be helping to usher on Friday night. Remember the guy with the sake shop about a million posts back? He invited a few of us to come up and help with...whatever this is. All I know is to show up by 5:30 wearing a suit.
何ですかかな...

The Weekend Review

This weekend was an activity blitz for me and everyone else- we had one of our once-monthly national holidays on Monday (one of the nice things about Japan), so people took off for regions afar. I would have as well, but I had a car rental to attend to, so I made the most of my time off by going to nearby Niigata and checking out the sights. Events happened as follows-

Saturday:

The doorbell interrupted my late, towel-clad breakfast. I threw on a robe and answered the door to find three Jehovah's witnesses. I can't say I was terribly pleased that I had been dragged out from under my warm kotatsu to be proselytized in a language at yet which I am hardly proficient, so I told them that I had been a Theology student in college (a generous misrepresentation, to say the least, but I only know "shingaku," or "theology," and not the words to add the proper softness such as "minor" or "dilettante"), and that I was not interested in their special English language Bible study magazine. I was pretty polite, but still couldn't help but wonder whether they couldn't find anything better to do. I also have to wonder about their success rate- Japan is a very secular country that doesn't lend itself easily to the adaptation of Christianity (the whole "upside down kingdom" bit is much more radical in a country with a rigid social hierarchy than in the chaotic West), to say nothing of the Japanese Jehovah's witnesses' take on blood.


After failing to get saved, I went down to Niigata-shi to look at the Bandaijima Museum of Contemporary Art. It was chiefly devoted to one artist, who, in terms of modeling form, well... I'm sure he tried very hard. Apparently all his models were clothed in an inky mist, pierced only by the periodic effulgent body part. It wasn't a bad museum, but it was smaller than I would have liked, and the stronger work was all by different artists towards the end. It is, however, in the Toki Messe Convention Center, so I also went up to the free observation deck to have a look. Here are the pics-








This view provides a pretty good idea of Niigata-shi in terms of size, as well as Niigata-ken's climate and general environment. The observation deck is a sweet new deal, complete with a swank coffee bar and big plushy couches. Worth a visit, if ever you are in Niigata.

Sunday-

I took a 6-hour round-trip train ride to iron out 15 minutes of negotiations and paperwork for my rental car, which I will retrieve from the same location next week. Such is life. I decided to console myself by going to another art museum, this one the Niigata-shi Bijutsukan (page in Japanese). The collection features a very small number of very big names- Picasso, Redon, and Boccioni were all represented, but only with one piece a piece. The museum would have been an interesting but brief diversion were it not for an art show by the Niigata-ken artists council, which proved to be quite interesting. It held a colorful array of styles, everything from severe but well-rendered still life to paintings with whimsical and unidentifiable subjects, if indeed subjects they had. As the only foreigner at the event, I was also something of a celebrity, with the president of the council coming over (woman with short, spiky, fluorescent red hair- aged 50) and explaining everything at length to me in rather good English. Overall, a good event.

Monday-

Spent reading The Good Earth (which I highly recommend) and cleaning my apartment. I've also managed to acquire some acrylic paints (no mean feat here), and am trying to think of painting ideas.

For now, that's about the size of it. I'm off to plan a lesson for my 3rd graders, and have some lunch.

First Winter Storm (始めの冬の嵐)

The terrific storm that landed the other night remained all of yesterday, gradually moving from depositing cold rain, onward to some sort of strange frozen precipitation that wasn`t quite sleet, snow, or hail (I`d volunteer "sky poo" to fill this lexical gap- the stuff was heavy and miserable), to a heavy wet snow. People have generally said that the first snow would be sometime around the end of December, so you can imagine how well prepared I was in terms of snow boots and the like. I also tried to ride my bike to work this morning in order to stay above the slushy roads- this proved to be both comical and hazardous, and I won`t be doing it again.

Sakamachi and the surrounding land actually look quite fetching with a layer of snow on them- which is probably just as well because the stuff never melts during the long winter months. Here are some pics-

The Mid-week Shinbun

It has, for whatever reason, been a draining week. I haven`t any bad days per se, but I`ve just been worn out. I think some of it may be due to the fact that my 4th graders, whom I love dearly, haven`t quite got me figured out yet and it takes a little extra activity on my part to get them to warm up.

As a consequence of this, last night was spent entirely inside of doors, parked under my kotatsu, reading a Bill Bryson book about travel in Europe. I also ate several persimons. It was one of those nights where I would have gone to the convenience store to buy a candy bar, except that this would have necessitated putting on pants (presumably, at any rate- the cultural expectations bar is pretty low, and while people would no doubt be disturbed by a pantsless candy bar purchaser, they would probably attribute it more to my foreigner status than to oscilations in my sanity).

It was just as well that I didn`t go out anyhow- halfway through the evening a storm blew in that sounded like the world was ending, and kept it up until I went to sleep. Come to that, it`s still keeping it up, and there are periodic flashes of lightning outside my middle school windows. The storm also seems to have brought winter with it- it is very cold today, and between gaps in the clouds I could see snow on some of the mountain tops.

Today and tomorrow are school-wide exam days for my middle school students, which means that there is absolutely nothing for me to do. I guess I`ll go study Japanese or something. Writing this blog was supposed to take up some time, but I`m finding myself finishing it with a discouragingly large chunk of morning still ahead of me- which I`m going to go try and fill now.

Mada tsugi bura-gu no jikan.

Guess who got his camera chord back...

Life goes on here- the trees are finally turning some real autumn colors. The kanji for Autumn- 秋 -is literally composed of the roots for "tree" and "fire," which I kinda like. The weather is colder, and the kids are learning the English (hopefully).

The real news, however, is that I did in fact get my camera chord back- so here are pictures!

These first two pictures don't require any explanation- they would only be encumbered by one.




Here are some pics from the Murakami bamboo-candle Matsuri: a night of awesome candles, tea ceremonies, and live music. The former photo is at ground level (I didn't have a tripod), looking through a forest of candles into the shrine of an otera. The latter is also in a temple- the gentleman playing the flute was quite skilled. At the time that this photo was taken, he was playing an arrangement of the theme from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." All this while Amida Buddha looked benevolently on.





This next pic attests to some things that are just different here. For one, especially in fishing villages, it is not unusual to see strings of dessicated, enormous fish carcasses dangling from the outsides of buildings. I have no idea whether they are being preserved for consumption, or what. Here's one of my co-JETs posing with one.



Next are some pics from a taiko concert I went to in Murakami. It wasn't Kodo, but the show was still very good.





Finally, today I taught my 6th graders about oomoji (capital letters) and komoji (lower case letters). I decorated the worksheet to make it less onerous for them, and was vastly entertained by some of the ways they defaced them before handing them in. It also makes me hopeful that even if they are doodling, they are doodling ideas that I started for them- so even if they aren't learning English, I am establishing a kind of rapport.






I'm going to eat some food, and play some Final Fantasy 3. No not 6- 3 (tanoshii!). Oyasumi.

Let`s enjoy mixing cultures!

Well, my camera chord is still lost over the foggy horizon. So here`s some more text for your mental mastication.

The election helped to bring to the fore some of the things that one always notices while living here, only more so. One that`s pretty hard to miss is the Japanese tendency to whole-heartedly and whole-sale adopt images and conventions from other cultures, without assimilating much (if any) of the original meaning or context. Every culture does this, no doubt (ever been to an "Asian restaurant" in America?), but Japan imports so much American culture that the sheer volume increases the odds of things going strange exponentially. Let`s enjoy this photo, for instance (that a friend thoughtfully posted on facebook for me):

mo sukoshi Obama-san da

This is a pretty impressive degree of devotion, considering all he has to do with the town is a common name (post-transliteration, although if the town were smaller it would be buraku Obama, which is pretty awesome). It`s also impressive considering towns in America that even supported Obama by a majority didn`t quite pull a stunt like this one (to my knowledge).

While I`m at it, there`s also the bizarre hortatory injunction "let`s enjoy (name of activity here)." It`s just one of those useages that, while technically correct, leaves a strange ring in the ear- particularly when used with certain "ing" verbs, as in "let`s enjoy eating." As Japan gradually becomes an English-fluent nation, perhaps constructions like this will enter the lexicon as "Japanese English" much as we have American and British English now, but I`m not holding my breath.

As far as the actual election itself went, the staff at my schools were good about humoring my enthusiasm, and I got to try to explain the electoral college in Japanese (the word "chigaii"- different- made a lot of appearances, but comprehension never showed. It might be easier if it could even be comfortably explained in English, after all). Needless to say I`m pleased with the turn-out of the election, although I thought McCain`s concession speech was artfuly done as well. I don`t know whether the ballat I sent whizzing over the Pacific made much of a dent, but it was still kindof exciting to send it whizzing anyhow.

Finally, a tidbit for wrapping up-
McCain`s name sounds to the Japanese ear like "makanai"- or "don`t lose." The race between don`t lose-san and small-town-in-Kyushu-san was, I think, monitered with a fair ammount of interest here. I`ll be curious to see how people react to Obama-san as his presidency begins to unfurl.

addendum

Also, since I posted a little bit ago-

On a worksheet that I had handed out for Halloween, which had a drawing of a bat, one 6th grader edited it so that the bat was saying "death" (spelled 'deth') with a heart after it. This during a lesson when I taught them that English word (the 6nens are into the scarier stuff), and I thought they weren't listening. Just goes to show you...

Verbal Snapshots

Well, my camera chord is still in Sanpoku. My sanity, I know not where. My workload has increased quite a bit (yea, verily, more even), hence the two week lag in between posts. I don't really have time for a proper post today either (perhaps never will until I get internet in my apartment- which is a process unto itself. I swear I can hear the jingling of bells and smell the fumes of an animal upon the altar whenever I try to approach the issue), but, just so everyone knows that I am still alive, here are some items from the last two weeks.

1. My Denshi Jisho's (electronic dictionary's) entry for "oblivion" utilizes the drug "Nembutal" as an example: "He took two Nembutal and slipped into oblivion."

2. For whatever reason, the bunkasai (culture festival) at one of my shogakkos had a sugar cane plant standing in with the exhibits of PTA-created art. No name plaque. No explanation. Just a random sugar cane plant. Now that the festival is over, it has been dismembered and the stalks lie in a box in the teacher's room, awaiting I know not what fate. At any rate, we've got sugar cane here in Arakawa-machi, Japan.

3. For whatever reason, "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" are in wide parlance here, but not the word "vampire." Just one of those things that you discover teaching English around Halloween.

That's all for now. Hopefully (and I know I said this a long time ago) I will get my camera chord back and be able to actually post some photos. Until then...you know...hang tight.

...and what`s really new...

Hahahaha no posts for 10 days and now two in one! Good luck ever keeping up with this blog. All the same, I had an experience this afternoon that was surreal enough that I thought I would share it quickly.

First, it is worth noting two things: my "outside shoes" that I wear to work on any given day are actually pretty nice black leather shoes, but since they have been outside ever they are prohibited for indoor useage in Japan.

Second, One of the great strengths of the American psyche is the ability to wing it. Certainly other countries have this MacGyver-like ability as well, but Americans have it too. Conversely, Japan`s strength seems to be having a rigid social system and massive advance planning such that there are no surprises. For example, all my JTEs (JET lingo for Japanese Teachers of English) speak pretty good English (other JETs have not been so lucky), but I have still had to teach them all the word "improvise." One who speaks better English still I taught the phrase "flying by the seat of your pants."

Now, today on the schedual was a "marathon"- which is Japanese for any kind of race at all (this one turned out to be 3k and 5k for the girls and lads, respectively). I had seen it, and assumed that as the ALT my duty would be to cheer the kids on in English. Not that I mind my usual duty, but it`s not terribly exciting.

The plan changed when I was approached by a pair of 3nensei girls (in America- high school freshman) who invited me (in English- they had probably worked on it for a bit with a dictionary) to run with them. On the one hand, I was wearing my shoes that were designed to withstand the rigors of the office carpet, or maybe even floorboards, as well as nice pants and a button-up shirt. On the other hand, here was an opportunity to do something spontaneous, slightely stupid, and good for rapport. Also, they went to the effort of figuring out the invitation in English. I decided to run 3k wearing my nice work clothes (although I did lose the tie beforehand), and it was big fun.

I`m not sure whether this has some sort of moral or pithy conclusion- it`s just one of those things that happens over here (to foreigners). I`ll leave it at that for now.

What`s new...

I realized this morning, as activity spiralled around me in my chugakko teacher`s room, that it had been 10 days since my last post. This is partly due to job-related stress, and partly (read: mostly) due to the fact that I forgot my camera at a fellow JET`s apartment, which had all kinds of awesome pics on it. Pics, as a matter of fact, of a bamboo-lantern matsuri, which may well be the coolest thing I`ve been to since coming here (although I guess it can`t beat out Kodo). It also contains pictures of a nifty taiko concert I went to up in Murakami proper (not as good as Kodo, but still very good). For these and other images stay tuned- I just need to get my mits on my camera again and I`ll put some picture posts up.

In the meantime, as I mentioned, this job can be stressful sometimes. Times like when you are informed that you are giving a mini-concert on the banjo at your shogakko`s bunkasai (culture festival), or just the overall energy drain of working with small children. So for the last week or so, I`ve been contemplating what exactly I want to do with the shogakko part of my career. Working at the chugakko, while the teachers are open to input, they generally prefer to create their own lesson plans and write me in as a part of them. Fair enough. At the shogakko, I am not provided with a curriculum, nor, I suspect, am I even expected to really have one.

This kind of free-and-easy atmosphere would probably be great for someone with some teaching experience under their belt, but I have trouble coming up with activities suited to small children (what do you mean they can`t form a line without adult supervision??). This then, is my challenge. That, and finding a way to make the subject interesting to 6th graders- whose stone-wall-like countanence often greets me at the beginning of English lessons with them. Sometimes I can break the ice, and sometimes the ice breaks me (I swear I can hear "nearer my God to thee" playing faintly somewhere nearby as the classroom decends into chaos).

Actually, the difficulty with 6th graders is as much cultural as age-related. Certainly adolescents can be difficult anywhere, but in Japan the standards for what is considered "childish" are markedly different from in America. To wit- 6th graders here unabashedly love upset the fruit basket. They`ll play English upset the fruit basket for an entire period, practically unsupervised. That`s the one that comes to mind immediately, but there are others. Suffice to say, children (and, I would argue, adults- more on that in a later post, methinks) in Japan enjoy more playful/squirrely activities than American children. The problem is, I don`t know what (in their minds) is the cut-off between activities that are goofy fun and activities that are patronizing (and after having to sing that blasted Noah and his arky-arky song in Junior high camp, I live in mortal terror that I would ever subject another human being to same experience-if I ever work with children in America, there will be frost on the flowers in Tartarus before I ever make 6th graders sing something like that...).

Alright- now everyone`s up to date on the psychological situation of an untrained English teacher. Whew. As I said, when I am able to retrieve my camera I`ll update on my other activities here, and have some more general "Japan interest" type posts. Until that time (probably after this weekend sometime), peace out.

Oh no! Text only post!

As the name would imply, there won't be any pictures this time. Alas. I was running a bit late this morning and didn't take my camera along with me when I went to work.

Japanese autumn is kicking into gear here, with the weather getting somewhat cooler, and notably greyer (the leaves haven't changed yet, so there's nothing to neutralize the grey). I may have mentioned that Niigata-ken gets more rain than Seattle in a previous blog, I cannot remember. In any event, it does, and it follows that we have a lot of cloudy days here, especially during the winter months. Another fun fact- Niigata gets more snow than anywhere in the world outside of the arctic circle. Anywhere. Sometimes the fall from a single storm (and storms are frequent) will have to be measured in meters. it's not snowing yet, but obviously I'm having to get ready for it.

I invested some yen in a nice new kotatsu- a table with a heated underside. There's nothing like them in America, but in a country where houses have basically no insulation (or in at least one house I can think of in Newton, KS), they can be quite nice.

After a month at my various schools, I'm also getting settled into the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of my new job. One thing I'm learning is to take it easy on the Elementary school planning- I was very stressed about the lack of constructed curriculum and set schedule, but then the school started canceling and switching a number of classes, sometimes on the day I had them. If anything, it was a relief to me, because I know now that aren't expecting and English performance extraordinaire, but just a decent lesson covering some aspect of English (maybe- mostly just a decent lesson covering something...).

I'm going home soon, to snuggle with my kotatsu and maybe read a book. A fellow JET happened to have some Tom Robbins on their shelves (Another Roadside Attraction- in case you were curious), so right now that's what I'm reading. I'm trying to study some Japanese every night with my denshi jisho in hand, but the brain gets weary after a while and needs something soft to gum at. Gum gum.

I'll try to cobble together something about Japanese culture or something in a bit here- the particles from the avalanche of moving here are re-freezing into a solid mass again, and I don't have as much chaos in my life to write about just now (blessedly). Once I've done a little more reading (read-translating), a little more playing of games, and a little more living here in general, I'll have more to say. For the time being, I'm going to go get some groceries (hot chocolate mix if I can find it) and settle down for a quiet evening. Oyasuminasai!

Living la Vida Local (私の毎日の生活の写真)

I tried to create this post earlier last week, but Blogger was feeling cantankerous, and I couldn't get the photographs to post. This is attempt number two, and I've accumulated some more odd pics since I gathered the ones I was originally going to post. They will follow shortly...

First off, someone requested photos of my daily existence here in Arakawa, so here they are:



Here is my apartment building- not the most glorious-looking thing in the world, but it's not bad inside. The businesses on the first floor are both hair-styling studios (the one is called "myu myu" whatever that means). There are about 12 barber shops and styling salons within a one-kilometer radius of my house. As much as it seems like a direct contradiction of the laws of supply and demand, a new one opened right under me even as I was making jokes about the sheer number of extant hair salons. It will probably just remain a mystery...



Here are the stairs that I haul my lead-and-tungsten bike up every day.



Persimmon trees grow in abundance here in Arakawa, as well as in the surrounding countryside. I wasn't acquainted with persimmons prior to arriving in Japan, but they have an agreeable flavor and texture, which are difficult to describe if you haven't had one.



Behold, exotic Japan! This is a 7-11... The only difference between this and an American 7-11 is that this one has an ATM, a place where I can pay water and electric bills, and healthy pre-made refrigerated meals.



This one of two supermarkets (Japanese: su-pa-) where I shop for this that or the other thing. It's a little on the expensive side, but is generally well-stocked with a number of things that I thought I wouldn't be able to find here. I've also befriended the bakery workers who work here, and we have brief conversations every time I come in to buy a loaf of bread.



This is the local book store. I don't know if it's called "Book Star" because of a mistranslation, or simply a creative use of English. The line between the two is often indistinct anyhow... This store sports everything you could ever want, except for too many actual books. It has video games and systems for said games, videos, music, art supplies, a large supply of manga, and a smallish supply of books which actually contain predominantly text. Several commentators have expressed worries about Japan's decreasing interest in literary books in favor of manga and video games (although the average Japanese still reads more books per capita than people in most countries, the trend is on the decline).



This is a look at the train station platform- I took this photo waiting for a train to Niigata-shi. Nothing remarkable, perhaps, but there it is. I know I've mentioned this many times, but the trains are a great way to get around this country- relatively cheap and extremely punctual.



Here's the train bound for Niigata-shi. Hello train!



This is my chugakko, or junior high school. It is theoretically my base school, although I only actually spend 2 days out of my working week there. I have omitted pics of my other schools because once you've seen one Japanese government building, you've seen all of them. Concrete, squarish, etc.



This is our friendly local sports center (Japanese- supotsu senta: loanword? Perhaps...). For being located in a relatively small town, it
offers pretty much whatever you need- gymnasium, tatami room (for martial arts practice), weight/cardio room, running track, and a swimming pool in the building adjacent. The fact that the track only ever runs one direction, however, vexes me. Me, and my increasingly differently-sized leg muscles.

Additionally, I went on a bike ride out to the ocean yesterday, and I took some pictures. Arakawa is located conveniently close to the ocean (see map below),



so I can bike there whenever I want. Or almost whenever- my bike isn't exactly top of the line material, as I've mentioned, and the roads leading to the sea suddenly become more convoluted immediately before reaching it. It takes about 20-25 minutes out, and the same back, depending on the route. This particular ride, I went in the late afternoon/early evening- so here are some pics:





Not much more to comment on the ocean here. It's beautiful, of course, but beyond that...you know...there it is.

That's all he wrote for now- I'm completely whacked after a day at the Shogakko (as ever), so I'm going home to eat some spaghetti and a salad. Sorry for the long delay between posts!