Last week I had my classes at Kanaashi, my agricultural school. For those of you who have been paying attention, you will remember that I adore this school. The kids are exceptionally friendly, and something(s) hilarious happens every time I have class.
Here's what happened in 2B.
Last month when I was there, we did a Jeopardy-style game in a bunch of the classes. So this time, wee had trivia questions in five categories, but instead of the worth of the questions being pre-decided, the kid who answered rolled a die and got fake money for whatever amount s/he rolled (a cartoon picture of me was on the $100 bill).
The category: People.
The question: Who is the prime minister of Russia?
The first guess: Jackie Chan.
Now, this albeit creative answer really confused me for a minute until my JTE wrote out the word "Russia" on the board, and then "Rush Hour" underneath it. Apparently, the class was a little confused about the difference between these two similar-sounding things (the Japanese pronunciation is nearly identical). I give them props for even knowing about the movie, seeing as it came out in 1998 when most of them were only three or four years old.
And this mistaken identity - which we cleared up, don't worry - was followed by one of the answers to the question, "What is Jessica-Sensei's favorite color?," (Yes, I was also one of the five categories) being "You're beautiful," and me giving out a stack of fake money for flattery. This is something I have done before and will shamelessly do again. At least they are flattering me in English. I think half the boys in that class are also on the baseball team, and I have yet to meet a baseball player here whom I don't like (unlike in the States, where most of them are asses). My JTE is the baseball coach, and I know he runs a pretty tight ship with those boys. He has had me start class by myself once or twice because he was busy scolding some of them in the hallway. But they are good kids, and they have a lot of respect for him. So it's all good.
In other news, it has been snowing loads here the last few days. A couple weeks ago we had a heat wave, where it got above 40 degrees for a couple days! That, however, made everything a slushy mess, which has since turned into a frozen, slippery mess. It has also screwed my bus-to-station schedule - buses basically show up whenever they feel like it now, and the time-table has gone to hell. This has in turn made catching trains a bit of a nightmare. One morning last week, I just gave up on the buses and grabbed a taxi that was going by instead because I refuse to be late for school ever again.
Hope everyone is well! Seattle, I have zero sympathy for your weather conditions. I'm looking out the window and thinking, if it was snowing like this in America, I would not have left the house. And yet I do. It's a whiteout right now, and we continue to press on. I am perpetually cold here.
All my love!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
If Only Every Classroom Had a Kissing Machine…
And now for something a bit different…
Common Misconception About Japan #1: That Everyone and Everything is Technologically Savvy and Up-To-Date
False.
Maybe it was all those travel shows I watched or the fact that half the appliances in my American house had Japanese names or maybe I just watched Lost in Translation too many times (okay…I only saw it once), but before coming here I had this idea that the entirety of the country of Japan had fancy, fancy techy stuff, that even the common man walked around perpetually plugged in. I didn’t think that the whole country looked like the pictures I had seen of Tokyo, all lit up, shiny, and eternally flashing advertisements for ramen and karaoke, but I did think that, at least, government-run facilities (i.e., my schools) and the people who worked in them would utilize technology like they utilized chopsticks – with skill and efficiency.
I have come to discover, however, that not really any of this is true. None of my classrooms, even at my top school, have computers or projectors in the classrooms. There are separate technology rooms and computer labs, but even these do not have anything as fancy as Smartboards or document cameras or things that seemed pretty much vital for my classrooms in America. I haven’t been able to locate a color printer in any of my schools. The computer the school lets me use is running Windows 2000 (granted, the full-time teachers do have nicer computers). Most of my teachers can barely handle transferring files via flashdrives, and for all those spiffy Japanese cellphones, most people are still rocking fairly basic models (they do pimp them out with ginormous stuffed animals and wacky colors, however). After talking to Rick and Martha in Kyushu, I think this is pretty much the state of affairs everywhere. Students don’t take or use computers in class – which I think has more to do with an inbred need for homogeny than lack of resources – and I have only seen one sensei use a computer and projector in class for something other than what I was doing.
And yet…some of the hottest tech is coming out of this place. In a way, the Japanese mindset would say that if one school had those resources, than every school would also need those resources, and I can see how that could be a pretty daunting if not unattainable goal, since technology is always improving and consequently going out of date. But the inclusion of technology into classrooms, and even daily life, doesn’t really seem to be on the radar for most Japanese. Students freaked when they saw my iPhone. Teachers want to know everything I can tell them about my Kindle. And these things are as common as driver’s licenses in the States.
So, all this to say, that despite your (and my) preconception that all of Japan is booming with endless access to out-of-this-world technology, that’s just not the reality that I have seen. All of Japan is not Shibuya Crossing, despite what Sophia Coppola would like us to believe.
In their defense though, I doubt the life of anyone would be much improved by creepy things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PspagsTFvlg
Common Misconception About Japan #1: That Everyone and Everything is Technologically Savvy and Up-To-Date
False.
Maybe it was all those travel shows I watched or the fact that half the appliances in my American house had Japanese names or maybe I just watched Lost in Translation too many times (okay…I only saw it once), but before coming here I had this idea that the entirety of the country of Japan had fancy, fancy techy stuff, that even the common man walked around perpetually plugged in. I didn’t think that the whole country looked like the pictures I had seen of Tokyo, all lit up, shiny, and eternally flashing advertisements for ramen and karaoke, but I did think that, at least, government-run facilities (i.e., my schools) and the people who worked in them would utilize technology like they utilized chopsticks – with skill and efficiency.
I have come to discover, however, that not really any of this is true. None of my classrooms, even at my top school, have computers or projectors in the classrooms. There are separate technology rooms and computer labs, but even these do not have anything as fancy as Smartboards or document cameras or things that seemed pretty much vital for my classrooms in America. I haven’t been able to locate a color printer in any of my schools. The computer the school lets me use is running Windows 2000 (granted, the full-time teachers do have nicer computers). Most of my teachers can barely handle transferring files via flashdrives, and for all those spiffy Japanese cellphones, most people are still rocking fairly basic models (they do pimp them out with ginormous stuffed animals and wacky colors, however). After talking to Rick and Martha in Kyushu, I think this is pretty much the state of affairs everywhere. Students don’t take or use computers in class – which I think has more to do with an inbred need for homogeny than lack of resources – and I have only seen one sensei use a computer and projector in class for something other than what I was doing.
And yet…some of the hottest tech is coming out of this place. In a way, the Japanese mindset would say that if one school had those resources, than every school would also need those resources, and I can see how that could be a pretty daunting if not unattainable goal, since technology is always improving and consequently going out of date. But the inclusion of technology into classrooms, and even daily life, doesn’t really seem to be on the radar for most Japanese. Students freaked when they saw my iPhone. Teachers want to know everything I can tell them about my Kindle. And these things are as common as driver’s licenses in the States.
So, all this to say, that despite your (and my) preconception that all of Japan is booming with endless access to out-of-this-world technology, that’s just not the reality that I have seen. All of Japan is not Shibuya Crossing, despite what Sophia Coppola would like us to believe.
In their defense though, I doubt the life of anyone would be much improved by creepy things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PspagsTFvlg
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
あけましておめでとうございます!
Back from Christmas!
After being out of Akita for almost two weeks, I am back at the office and back to the snowglobe that is my city. Although I missed it terribly, it was nice to get out of the snow for a while, to Miyazaki for Christmas and Tokyo for New Year’s.
I do believe I had a right proper Japanese New Year’s. I was at Sensoji Shrine in Asakusa (one of the most famous-y shrines in Tokyo) at midnight when the bells rung 108 times, which took almost a half hour due to the long pauses, the much bowing, and the old men who rung them. At ten in the morning on January 1, we beat mochi with the guys who ran the hotel we were staying at. Mochi is a traditional Japanese food eaten on New Year’s. You put the rice paste stuff in this hollowed out tree trunk-like container, and then smash it with giant mallets resembling Thor’s Hammer. You do this for a long time. Then you can eat mochi balls in several different ways. There was a plate of sugar and brown granules of some kind (I don’t ask questions), or the mochi dipped in soy sauce and then wrapped in nori (which was surprisingly delicious…and nori is seaweed), and then mochi added to soup. All drunk down with beer and sake. At eleven am!!
We also visited Meiji Shrine on New Year’s Day to wish our luck for the next year. The first shrine visit of the year is a really important part of the Japanese New Year, and Meiji Shrine being the other famous-y shrine in Tokyo, it was flooded with families coming to start the year off right. The organized chaos of the massive crowd was a testament to the efficiency of these people – if that many people assembled anywhere in America, the line would be out to the street, and people would be getting tasered. But guards with nice signs featuring a cartoony animal and ‘please wait a moment’ let people up to the shrine in waves to throw in money, bow twice, clap twice, and bow again, before praying and then making their exit. Even with the surge of bodies, we were only in line for thirty minutes, a feat which would easily have taken a few hours in America.
I had visited Udo Shirne when I was in Miyazaki with Rick and Martha before Christmas, and the place had been covered in rabbits, since 2011 had been the year of the rabbit. Meiji and Sensoji shrines were instead covered in pictures of dragons! And arrows, and all kinds of imagery I didn’t really understand. I asked my Japanese teacher to explain some of the things to me, but it’s still a struggle to look at Asian art and architecture, and to understand the images and the concepts and the worldviews that are going on there. In Europe, I understood how cathedrals and churches worked, because I understood the imagery and the worldview that made them work. Here, I don’t, and I am beginning to appreciate how much worldview affects how a society is built up, both ideologically and physically. Architecture has nearly as much to say about what a society believes as its laws and customs do. Everything I see is something I need to learn, and very little by very little I am putting pieces together that make Japan make more sense to me. The Japanese want foreigners to understand their culture, to ask questions, and to think about it. I’m trying to get better about understanding and asking those questions.
A big thank you to everyone who sent me a package or a Christmas card or a letter (I had a whole pile waiting for me when I got back to my apartment, and it was like second-Christmas!). I hope you all enjoyed your holidays!
For your edificiation:
How to write "Happy New Year" in Japanese - あけましておめでとうございます
How to say "Happy New Year" in Japanese - Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu
After being out of Akita for almost two weeks, I am back at the office and back to the snowglobe that is my city. Although I missed it terribly, it was nice to get out of the snow for a while, to Miyazaki for Christmas and Tokyo for New Year’s.
I do believe I had a right proper Japanese New Year’s. I was at Sensoji Shrine in Asakusa (one of the most famous-y shrines in Tokyo) at midnight when the bells rung 108 times, which took almost a half hour due to the long pauses, the much bowing, and the old men who rung them. At ten in the morning on January 1, we beat mochi with the guys who ran the hotel we were staying at. Mochi is a traditional Japanese food eaten on New Year’s. You put the rice paste stuff in this hollowed out tree trunk-like container, and then smash it with giant mallets resembling Thor’s Hammer. You do this for a long time. Then you can eat mochi balls in several different ways. There was a plate of sugar and brown granules of some kind (I don’t ask questions), or the mochi dipped in soy sauce and then wrapped in nori (which was surprisingly delicious…and nori is seaweed), and then mochi added to soup. All drunk down with beer and sake. At eleven am!!
We also visited Meiji Shrine on New Year’s Day to wish our luck for the next year. The first shrine visit of the year is a really important part of the Japanese New Year, and Meiji Shrine being the other famous-y shrine in Tokyo, it was flooded with families coming to start the year off right. The organized chaos of the massive crowd was a testament to the efficiency of these people – if that many people assembled anywhere in America, the line would be out to the street, and people would be getting tasered. But guards with nice signs featuring a cartoony animal and ‘please wait a moment’ let people up to the shrine in waves to throw in money, bow twice, clap twice, and bow again, before praying and then making their exit. Even with the surge of bodies, we were only in line for thirty minutes, a feat which would easily have taken a few hours in America.
I had visited Udo Shirne when I was in Miyazaki with Rick and Martha before Christmas, and the place had been covered in rabbits, since 2011 had been the year of the rabbit. Meiji and Sensoji shrines were instead covered in pictures of dragons! And arrows, and all kinds of imagery I didn’t really understand. I asked my Japanese teacher to explain some of the things to me, but it’s still a struggle to look at Asian art and architecture, and to understand the images and the concepts and the worldviews that are going on there. In Europe, I understood how cathedrals and churches worked, because I understood the imagery and the worldview that made them work. Here, I don’t, and I am beginning to appreciate how much worldview affects how a society is built up, both ideologically and physically. Architecture has nearly as much to say about what a society believes as its laws and customs do. Everything I see is something I need to learn, and very little by very little I am putting pieces together that make Japan make more sense to me. The Japanese want foreigners to understand their culture, to ask questions, and to think about it. I’m trying to get better about understanding and asking those questions.
A big thank you to everyone who sent me a package or a Christmas card or a letter (I had a whole pile waiting for me when I got back to my apartment, and it was like second-Christmas!). I hope you all enjoyed your holidays!
For your edificiation:
How to write "Happy New Year" in Japanese - あけましておめでとうございます
How to say "Happy New Year" in Japanese - Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu
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