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!

Spackle part deux

Did I say Monday...yes...Monday. Unfortunately this has been one of those madhouse weeks- I have not had 2 consecutive days off of work in the last 10 days, and I'm starting to feel the burn. As such, I've been focusing more on keeping my head above water than anything- but this weekend will be more relaxing, and I'll have a chance to take lots of pics (at least...here's hoping).

Here's a quick update- today I'm at Kanaya Shogakko- my once-weekly elementary school, and I've got 1st, 3rd, and 5th graders in the queue. This is very much a country school: the children are, by and large, the offspring of farmers and small business owners from the small town of Kanaya. Some of the youngest have not even heard of Sakamachi- (5 minutes away by car) where my apartment is. My bike is parked next to a big bag of rice and some farming implements (in a shed on school property), and smoke from burning rice fields is blowing in the windows. The view out of said windows is onto an expansive vegetable garden and set of greenhouses. I think Beethoven's 6th is playing somewhere in the background as well...

This weekend I will be attending a musical audition for the Niigata-ken charity fundraiser musical. I won't be singing myself, but I'll be doing sets and tech and they said it would be a good idea to attend. The musical raises money to build schools in fairly remote parts of Papua New Guinea- for whatever reason, it seems like different developed countries take on different pet aid projects- the U.S. has much of Africa, and Japan focuses a lot of energy on New Guinea for some reason. In any event, musical participants, once the show is ended, get to travel to Papua New Guinea for a 2-week service project to help build the school for which the money was raised. Oh yeah. I've always been a little bit fascinated by New Guinea after seeing a Nova special about it, probably narrated by a wheezing David Attenborough. In any event, it looks like I'm going to get to go. Moreover, I'm going to get to see places that I wouldn't "officially" be allowed to see as a normal tourist.

Alright- I'm going to scrape together some lesson plans now. For some reason (probably lack of familiarity do to infrequent visits) I'm still nervous teaching at this school, and it takes a little more gumption to get up and do the lesson right. The school's culture (children and teachers alike) is also palpably different- still very friendly and wonderful and all, but people just respond to things a little differently here. Hmmmm...

Spackle

For want of an actual post- today will be a spackle session. I need to take some more pictures before I can do a proper posting, that and I'm at a shogakko (elementary school) today, and I'm wading in Genki up to my hair. Keep checking back for photos of my daily existence (requested), and a quick report on the sports day over at the chugakko (middle school). Choto mate onegaishimasu! Arigato gozaimasu!

Thor`s Day and Nihongolalia

Back home, it will be Thor`s Day soon (updates from Captain Tomorrow! I love the international date line...)- a day I always looked forward to if only for its name. Here I have to settle for "mokuyobi" or "wood day." Ahem. In any event, it`s more middle school today, teaching ichinensei (first graders- in America they would be 7th graders) about breakfast foods and how to ask about them. These classes have had more prior English education in elementary school than my older students here- and their pronunciation tells of it. I hear "rice" instead of "raisu" and "milk" instead of "miruku."

I also introduced the class to the foreign concept of biscuits and gravy- alternately describing it as "truckstop breakfast" or "delicious but unhealthy breakfast." I`m not sure whether they understood or not, but the English teacher with whom I was working seemed intrigued. I`ve been trying to throw little tidbits like that into the lessons to break up some of the monotony of the drills. I also took the liberty of filling in the example spaces on the board as class was ending (I have salt and poison for breakfast. How about you?). Hopefully that will help to pique their interest.

Changing gears: I`ve been submerged in a turbid solution of Japanese speaking and Japanese writing for about a month and half now- and I can feel my fingers starting to prune. As much as the culture/aesthetics/whathaveyou have all been very interesting here, my greatest interest is still in the language. I think that this is because, irrespective of a civilization`s accomplishments, attrocities, artistry, or unimaginitiveness, its language is always cultured on the agar that we inauspiciously call "grey matter," which is an inherently beautiful thing. If you`ll indulge me for a moment, I would like to floradate this blog with some observations about the Japanese language.

Observation ichi: the Japanese system of writing with borrowed Chinese characters, or Kanji, really helps to keep the etymologies/imbedded meanings of words raw for the reader. For instance: 画家 (gaka), or artist, combines the kanji for "brush" and "home." I like to think: I`m an artist- I work outa da home. Also, 竜巻 (tatsumaki), or tornado, literally means "dragon scroll/spiral."

This, and the various readings of Kanji, also lends the language to creating puns very nicely. The East Wind, or 東風 (dashikaze), which comes blasting down from the mountains every so often in Arakawa (anywhere between the ocean and the mountains gets freaky wind patterns with the ebb and flow of heat and air currents), may also be read "tofu." When I told my coworker that the tenki (weather) was tofu today- he looked confused until I showed him the kanji. The Japanese seem to love puns, but Kanji puns are difficult because of the sheer number of Kanji and Japanese`s limited sound inventory.

Observation ni...or should I say futotsu? Having once learned the Japanese numerals, and ignorant gaijin might think that they can actually count or express quantity. Hahahahahahahaha. Silly foreigner. In addition to simple counting numerals (ichi, ni, san...), there are quantitative counting numerals as well (hitotsu, futotsu, mittsu...), which bare little semblance to their counting counterparts. Also- Japanese employs suffixes to designate just what is being counted. For instance- if counting cylindrical objects, one would not say "ro-gi" (four trees)- one must say "rogipon" (four trees which are designated as cylindrical objects). There are different counters for people, flat things, round things, and even poems.

If you managed to wade through all that, I promise you some high-carb, easily digested photographs soon. This may or may not be my last post before the weekend (given my level of activity at Elementary schools, however, I`m going to guess that the next post is on Monday), but hopefully I can rummage up some interesting Japanity for you to look at. Also, please feel free to ask about anything you want me to take pics of over here. So many exotic things have become normal for me, and I forget to record them.

時旋風 (time whirlwind)

Apparently I've been in Japan for over a month- this came to my attention the other day, and I'm a little bit blown away. Not so much by the fact that I've been here a whole month, but because I have been here for only a month. It feels like it has been a much longer span of time -mostly in a good way. My system is taking some hits from always being on high alert, but if I actually go through and look at all my individual experiences, they have been agreeable.

Weekend:

My weekend was divided between a trip to Sanpoku, picking up some necessities in Arakawa, and poking around Murakami-shi some more.

Sanpoku is a small coastal town about an hour north of Murakami by train, which is fairly unremarkable except that it extraordinarily picturesque (apparently the highway that runs along the coast in that region is considered a famous scenic route, even by Japanese standards), and that there is a JET there with whom I could stay. The stated purpose of the trip was to go see the Dark Night (the ticket said "dakko naito")in a Japanese theater. The movie (graciously) was subtitled, not dubbed, and was just as good as when I saw it in America. The reactions of the Japanese in the theater were probably actually more interesting than the movie- people here just don't gasp laugh or cringe the way we Americans did in response to the movie.

Going all the way up north just to see a movie seemed like a waste, however, so I decided to stay for a while, go to the beach, take pictures, collect rocks, et cetera. I was also introduced to a standard (read: tasty) noodle restaurant by Sanpoku station, where I got the normal ramen bowl, which n'er disappoints. I'll cap off this section with some pics of Sanpoku- it's not the most famous part of the coast, but it's pretty awesome all the same.






After I arrived back from Sanpoku, I mumbled around Arakawa a bit, and did some grocery shopping. Shopping has become more of an activity for me here than in the U.S., because here I am buying bananas and yogurt wearing a 9-foot tall neon LOOK AT ME hat. Not only do I get the stares (which I really don't mind, although I have to wonder to what extent the town's residents are discussing my banana purchase), I also get the kids pointing with a big "Hoy! Jessu sensei!" It's flattering and endearing, but it also means that if I forget to buy milk the night before, I have to bathe, shower, and otherwise preen myself before slinking down to the Enomoto (Nippon no Seifuwei) to pick up some milk. I've also had kids ask for autographs in a number of my classes, and I'm waiting for the first out of class one...

I also made some impulse purchases at a local floral boutique- a pitcher plant (which is awesome- it belongs to the family "nepenthes"- the name of the draft of forgetfulness), and a venus flytrap, which are just blatantly cool. Other than only costing a total of about $U.S. 4.50- I think that if the necessity of this purchase is not self-evident, then words would be wasted in defending it here. Suffice to say, my apartment is more of a cheery, savage, primordial garden than it was.

Partly seeking a break from stardom, and partly to get some English companionship, I caught the 18:27 to Murakami. The trains here run ON FREAKING TIME. If you get on a train on track #3 at 7:50, and the train you want is scheduled at 7:53, you are probably on the wrong train. That said, I haven't had any trouble with that since my Katakai adventure- and the trip to Murakami was full of fun and relaxing English conversation that doesn't really make for interesting blogging. The points I will highlight are:

1) Going to a bar called "Pakistan," which was about as Pakistani as Tom Cruise was Japanese in "the Last Samurai." The walls and floor were traditional Murakami wood architecture, and the walls were adorned with paintings of Geisha. The beers available were all from Japan, except Guinness, and if I had to guess I would say that the proprietor spoke precious little Arabic. All the same- the service was good, as was my drink (a passionfruit and orange liquor concoction: laugh it up if you like, but it was deeeelicious). So, for all the aesthetics, I will probably be returning to Pakistan some day.

2) This poster (as ever- click to enlarge- I'd really encourage it on this one):



Other posters I have seen have advertised dramatic adaptations of Beauty and the Beast, as well as an all-Japanese cast adaptation of Driving Miss Daisy (Duraibingu Misu Deizi). I am going to buy a ticket for the latter.

Today has been business as usual at Hounai Shogakko- more self-introductions. Today I was actually bold enough to bring my banjo for the 1st graders, however, which was fun. It also will be a good motivator for me to practice if I know I will need it for work...

As teachers in Japan, the kids are allowed to touch us (and we them) much more than in American schools. Today, some of my genkier kids discovered that I was capable of doing air launches and "kata karuma" (shoulder cars). What followed was a half-hour of activity that, if sustained, will make my trips to the sports center very unnecessary. Teaching in general seems to be going well- the kids are responding well to my lessons, and I keep moving so that they don't get bored. However, my schedule is pretty packed at my elementary schools- even by JET standards, so the real test may be whether I can keep it up into and beyond the bleak December (or whether my ghost will be wrought upon the floor...or just body).

(Finally) as you might have noticed- I now have links up and running (ooooooooh- you type it in here, stupid). More linkage to follow as opportunities present themselves.

Nacht und Nibble

The one thing that seemed to make any sense today was lunch- straightforward- grab your food, and eat it with a spoon. Classes also somewhat made sense, although the question-asking activity for the 2nd grade (American 8th grade) bred a degree of chaos that is proving difficult to cope with in correcting and grading papers. I will just have to wing it I suppose. The middle school is, as I mentioned before, more formal and also just generally bigger than my other schools. I miss a lot of what is going on, and between that and having fewer classes I often find myself wondering what I am supposed to be doing with myself. No doubt this will correct itself as time goes by, but for the time being I really need to be on the ball to find out anything.

The Shiibata fighting festival was more tame than I expected (several people we asked said it was different from other years), and that, coupled with not being able to understand the announcements in Japanese, made for a bewildering night of wondering around Shiibata. I missed out on the fighting action (such as there was), but had a good time getting to know some other JETs from the region. Also, we went and checked out this sweet Jinja (Shinto shrine) which was all lit up for the occassion.



Also, here are some pictures of the Arakawa area that I snapped whilst out on my bike- during the morning on my way to work at Kanaya Elementary school. I love the mornings here, because the sheer amount of moisture in the air causes even the smaller rises in the terrain to be capped with opaque fog. Also, if you have not figured it out already- rice fields are ubiquitous in Niigata, as these pics will testify.




Finally here is a small shrine that I encountered, also on my bike. It was very little: big enough to house a medium dog or a small Kami. Any reading of the big writing on the pictured stone translates to something like Big Black Heaven, as near as I can tell (Cilla feel free to correct me), which has a nice ominous ring to it. The figures in the shrine, on the other hand, are not quite so intimidating.




One final note- Cilla, I keep forgetting to photograph that stuff in my fridge. I will try to get that up here in a bit. I still have no idea what it is, but I know that I will never drink it again if it can be helped.

Buying Time...

It has not been a coincidence that the posts have gotten shorter, more frantic, and more ragged of breath as I have started teaching. So this is not so much a post, as a plea to you, good people who read this, to grant me a little more time. I think that the chugakko (junior high school) tomorrow will be a little less demanding (or at least my fingers are crossed), and I will be able to fill you in on the Shiibata fighting festival, the weekend, and all the gritty miscellanea that comes sifting down into the cracks between the big events here.

Now to go to the store, buy some bananas, natto, yogurt, and soy milk, and then head back to my apartment. I'm so tired I don't know if I will make it up the stairs with my bike (I'm not sure what the frame is made of, but I think that electron degeneracy pressure may actually be a factor in its structural stability)- my supervisor insists that I keep in in my 3rd story apartment for fear of theft.

More to follow- I promise!