Differences : Doors, and How They Open

The other day I was walking up to my apartment. I live on the fourth floor of a walk-up, and although I never notice all the stair climbing until I get to the third floor, by the time I get to my door, I don’t want to climb stairs anymore. On this particular occasion, my hands were full of mass mailings I didn’t want, a grocery bag, and all the things in my purse I had had to pull out while rummaging for my keys. Everything was precariously balanced in my arms while I struggled to put the key in the lock and turn it, and then…it hit me. The thing that had been unsettling me for the last ten months I have been living here. The thing that strikes me as odd every time I come home and which I had not been able to put my finger on.

I realized that every time a similar, hands-totally-full scenario had happened in the States, once I had managed to unlock the door, all I had to do was open it with my shoulder, walk in, dump all the stuff on the nearest surface (and then leave it there for the next five days), and let the door close behind me. However, as the culturally-conditioned instinct was about to take over now, I remembered what had been throwing me off about Japan –

The doors don’t open in. They open out. In order to get into my house with my hands overflowing, I had to not only unlock the door and turn the door knob, but pull the door towards me, prop it open with my elbow before entering, and also struggle out of my shoes before I was able to reach an open surface on which to dump all of my stuff (and then leave it there for the next five days. Or week, since I live alone now, and no one tells me what to do with my junk!).

In America, doors open in, allowing for simpler entry (physically forced if need be, like in the movies) and a generally more welcoming vibe. Oh, hello, let me open this door inwardly, and gesture you into my home! However, here, doors swing out onto the landing (in my case), which makes it awkward any time I need to sign for a package or pay the pizza delivery man, because I have to hold the door open with one hand while receiving the package/pizza with the other, and then either throw it on the floor next to the shoes (gross, and would probably illicit strange glances from Japanese person making said drop-off), or continue to hold heavy package/hot pizza while signing for the package/paying the pizza man.

Now, I understand why the houses do it, because you can’t have doors swinging in when there is a mountain of shoes on the concrete landing that is culturally required to be there, since you absolutely must remove said shoes before making the baby step up onto the actual floor of the house. Always, always shoeless. An inwardly swinging door would get snagged on all the shoes, and then I would have a further awkward situation with the package/pizza delivery man, because then the package/pizza I was receiving wouldn’t fit through the small open space, blocked by the shoes. It’s a bit viciously circular if you think about it.

Also, doors here tend to be heavy and close on their own, while most American doors need a bit of a push to close. This means that no matter whether door swings in or out, you are still having to hold it open with your arm/body during any package/pizza transaction.

So, I get it. Doors are different here. What really surprised me, I suppose, was how I went ten months without being able to name the difference that had been bugging me for so long. That is really the root of this lengthy explanation of door-opening dynamics, though it really is the worst to have to set down a bag on the landing outside your door, far enough away so that the door can still open outward, of course, and then picking it up again once you have the door propped against your hip or shoulder or some other body part. I have yet to think of a good solution to all of this, besides maybe making sure my keys are easier to find.

Youth is Like Diamonds in the Sun, and Diamonds are Forever

Most of the time my job is really fun. I get to interact with great teachers who are very kind to me, and my students make everyday new and exciting. As if this needed any more proving (although I feel like the rest of this blog does a pretty good job of covering the fact that my students are awesome), this morning when I walked into class with my ninenseis, one of my favorite rugby boys let out a loud, Oww, OWWWWW, as soon as I walked in, and then spent part of class trying to decide if the Tanaka family lived in the house or on the house.

However, despite all the constant awesome, the fact remains that I:

Spend everyday in high school.

I am surrounded by kids who are trying to figure out where they want to go to college, what they want to do, how their families will feel about everything, while also facing an incredible pressure to study and perform well on tests that is, frankly, unknown in a vast majority of American high schools. And some colleges. And then I think about when I was seventeen, really only about five years ago, and how at that time I really didn't have a clue that I would be living and working in Japan and, generally, have a pretty epic life that is about as close to what I would have wanted as...what I could have wanted.

So, in the spirit of irrepressible youth, I give you this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQi8wEHMm5Y

BOY STAY, and Other Classroom Mysteries

Things at my agricultural school are always a good time. I am going to be planting rice with the ichinenseis later this week, and so during one class period I consulted my all-girl sannensei class for advice. Mostly, they told me ways to avoid getting splashed with mud, that I’m supposed to put the baby rices about two inches into the ground, and also some cryptic suggestion, “BOY STAY,” that I’m not exactly sure the meaning of.

These students always surprise me with what surprises them and how they react. One girl gave me a dango (a sweet dumpling snack) stick (which is usually served four on a wooden skewer) after I said that I never ate breakfast. She actually tried to feed it to me at first, but then I took it from her and ate it myself. Another made me an origami bow out of scrap paper. They asked me if I like Lady Gaga, and then told me to sing her songs to them using the stick from the dango as a microphone. Dango Girl spent twenty minutes trying to remember the name of her junior high school ALT from three years before, whose name was apparently close to the word ‘Christmas.’ She kept saying “Merry Kurisumasu ja nakute” (rough translation: It’s not Merry Christmas, but…) over and over again and still couldn’t remember. My suggestions met with no recognition, so that remains a mystery.

They also asked what I wanted to do whenever I went back to America, so I told them grad school. Origami Girl freaked, and kept saying, “Ehhhhh, studying diakirai!” (translation: Seriously?! I hate studying!). Trying to set a good example, I told her that because I had studied hard, I got to come to Japan. She paused, looked at me, and then said “Nice fight.” (translation: You win, Sensei.)

Kanano will also start selling packaged pancakes that they have made at Lawson’s, one of the ubiquitous convenience store chains. Although the campaign starts on Friday, today all of the teachers were given a package, which has a cute little chicken wearing a hat on the front and kanji I can’t read. I didn’t know that businesses in Japan did the grassroots product thing, so it’s cool the school (and students) get this opportunity.

On Friday, I plant rice, and I’m interested in seeing how that happens. It’s been raining for a week here, and it’s cold, and I have to trudge around barefoot in mud for a while. But it should be a good time, and I doubt I will ever have the chance to plant a rice field again, so I’m going to take advantage. I’m hoping to also help harvest it in October, to lend a kind of symmetry to the experience. Ganbarimasu!

The Newbies

I’m sitting in the office drinking coffee on the first sunny day in a week. The quality of the coffee at this office has gone downhill since Coffee-Sensei got transferred God knows where at the beginning of the new school year about a month ago. My first day back after spring vacation I didn’t see him, and I was worried but thought it was possible he had just taken the day off. The next day I didn’t see him, and I knew that he was gone – moved to another school to make coffee for some other desperate, caffeine-addicted ALT, and never again for me. Alas.

In addition to the unforeseen disappearance of Coffee-Sensei, I also have a whole new round of ichinenseis. Since it’s the only grade I teach here, everything kind of changed around me (except my desk position, which is in a prime location to watch everything else that goes on in here…including when a fresh pot gets made). I have new (to me) JTEs to teach with and all new students. The ichinensei class, at this school and my others, has surprised me with how immediately genki they all are. Nearly all the classes have, of their own accord, asked me questions, wanted to chat in English, and are generally less shy and more confident in their English than the ichinensei class last year (they are now my badass ninenseis, and they have improved a lot since nine months ago).

I think part of it is due to the fact that I’m not the new kid this time around, which means that the students don’t have to put up with me not having any idea what is going on and not understanding anything they try and say to me in either Japanese or English. I can now confidently answer questions like, Do you watch anime (Sometimes), and, Who is your favorite Japanese artist (Arashi). I know what One Piece is, and I know that Chopper is everybody’s favorite character. I also sing AKB48 at karaoke. These new kids have the advantage of not only possessing more English ability than last year’s models, but also having an ALT who is not fresh off the plane from America and has way more shared cultural knowledge with them. Now, I (most of the time, at least) know, when they repeat an English question back to me in Japanese, whether it is what I am asking or not. It’s a lot easier for me to help them say what they want to say in English because I know what English words in a Japanese accent sound like, I know what kind of things they generally want to know, and I understand a lot more of the chatter in Japanese that fills in the spaces while they struggle for English translations. We are both doing better, I think.

I’ve already had a couple instances of students being really excited that they could make themselves understood to me in English, and that is what makes me happy too. They already understand quite a lot, and I’m excited about having a full year of classes with them to get even more confident.

How I Learned to Love a Cherry Blossom

Hanami. An entire word created to express the very specific act of viewing cherry blossoms. Because, for Japan, cherry blossom viewing is the highest and most pure form of flower viewing, partly, I'm assuming, because the window of opportunity every year is so narrow. In Akita, I would say the peak cherry blossom viewing time lasted only about four days. Nothing had happened with the trees on Saturday. By Thursday, when the rain set in, the blossoms were all mostly gone. But for those few days, Akita really was glorious.

My hanami-ing was limited to an afternoon in Senshuu Park, the prime location in the City, and a day in Kakunodate, one of the main tourist destinations in the prefecture. Due more to coincidence than anything else, I saw Senshuu in all its glory on Monday, but by the time I got to Kakunodate on Friday, it was drizzly, and most of the trees were bare and had dropped their blossoms on the paths and puddles beneath their branches.

Apparently, it is good luck if you get hit by a falling blossom. In Senshuu, a blossom did fall on me, but I mistook it for a bug and tried to shoo it away. However, it still touched me, so I'm going to continue to think it was lucky.

Japanese have this idea that people need to look at trees during all seasons. Although I can understand hanami, because it doesn't last very long and we don't really have an equivalent in the States, hanami's autumn sister, fall color viewing, just never made sense to me. I'm from Portland. Fall colors are my life. I mean, they are pretty and all, but fall colors last a lot longer than cherry blossoms, and there isn't really the accompanying festival propaganda that goes along with hanami-ing. Cherry blossoms at least make an appearance on my Japanese visa, so you know they are a big deal. I've never seen "fall colors" on anything.

Anyway, hanami was pretty, though I was unprepared for how fleeting it would be and how at the whim of nature the event would put me. I will have a better mindset next year. Here's some pictures.

                                                   Senshuu Park on Monday

Kakunodate on Friday

Annyong ha se yo.

First off, it's hanami season now here in Akita, so the cherry blossoms are blossoming, and everything is warm and sunny and beautiful. As I was walking home last night, I realized that a mere month ago, the same streets had been coated in ice, and now I wear only a light jacket. It's worth putting up with the winter for how lovely everything is right now.

Second, I got a chance to spend last weekend in Seoul, Korea. Korea is only a two hour flight out of Akita airport, so I went there with my supervisor from my base school.

Now, prior to visiting, I couldn't have cared less about Korea. I have never seen a Korean drama. I cannot recognize Lee Min Ho at a glance. I had to look up what the alphabet was called. So, I wasn't expecting much out of the trip or that I would care much either way. However, upon driving into downtown from the airport, I instantly liked the look and vibe of Seoul. The light was different somehow from Japan. More like Seattle if anything. And as far as the level of development of Korea, it lies somewhere in between Thailand and Japan, and you can see the differences and intersections of where the infrastructure is transforming from one to the other.

There were lots of things I liked about Seoul. Here is a brief list:

a) Korean fashion. Minus whoever okay-ed the neon running shoe, hose, and mini skirt combination that seemed so pervasive, the Koreans I saw, especially in some of the trendier neighborhoods we trolled around, looked like they had walked straight out of some epic magazine editorial.

b) Korean driving. Korea drives on the right side of the road, like the States. That fact was oddly comforting.

c) Korean men. In the day and half I was in Seoul, I saw some of the most beautiful men I have ever seen in my life, lounging around on train platforms and haunting cool restaurants. They were so attractive it hurt my eyes a little.

d) Korean won. It's like paying for everything with Monopoly money! Which is an okay impression to have, because stuff is really cheap. The euro also has this feel, but unlike Korea, things are actually really expensive in Europe, and you shouldn't pay for things like life is a board game.

e) Koreans. My JTE has a friend who is an English teacher in a high school in Seoul, so we met up with her, and she showed us around, how to use the metro, took us to dinner, had the ability to speak and read Korean, etc. I told her that I was interested in Korean authors, so she gave me her English translation of this really popular Korean novel. What a champ!

We also met up with one of my JTE's former students, who graduated from my base school (before my time there) and has been studying at a university in Seoul for the past year. The four of us went to dinner, and thus I experienced one of the most linguistically bizarre experiences I have ever, well, experienced.

There was:
- My JTE. Fluent in Japanese and English.
- Her student. Fluent in Japanese and Korean, with a little (though functionally useless) English.
- Her Korean friend. Fluent in Korean and English.
- Me. Fluent in...English, with functionally pretty useless Japanese.

During dinner, we were speaking three languages, without one common one between all of us, so there was loads of translating in between anything that anybody said in order to get a point across. But it worked. Sometimes the lines between 'language' and 'communication' get blurred for me, even living in a country where I can't speak the native tongue, but that dinner was all about communication and had little to do with language. It was fascinating and eye-opening, and more than a little made me feel how little we value being bilingual in America. That's a problem, people. Learn something.

So, all in all, I really enjoyed Korea, even though I expected not to, and I have every intention of going back, staying longer, and seeing, now, my friend there. Maybe I will learn how to say Thank You in Korean for next time.

Words That May or May Not Exist

A couple weeks ago I was leaving school. My supervisor’s homeroom was responsible for cleaning the downstairs hallway and the principal’s room that day (the kids clean the entire school every day after classes finish), through which I must go in order to exit school. A few of them saw me, yelled my name, and then stood around me in a circle all talking at once. Every time a kid came out of the principal’s room, it was, JESSIE!, and the circle got bigger. There were about fifteen chattering ichinensei girls by the end.


Then, one of them says, Jessie, new Japanese word!

New Japanese word?

She continued. Do you know ‘tehepero’?

Tehepero?

Ahhhhhhahhhh, kawaii! Yes, yes, she said. Do you know?

I had never heard this word before. What does it mean. I asked.

They all looked at each other. Hmmm. It means…

She put her hand against the side of her head, tilted her head, and made a high-pitched, anime character-like squeak. Eh-heh.

I blink my eyes.

They repeated the gesture. It means, Eh-heh.

Eh-heh? I asked, and tilted my head in like fashion.

Ahhhhhahhhhh, kawaii!

I roll my eyes. Okay, girls, what does – tilt head, Eh-heh – mean?

They all look confusedly at each other again. Hmmm. It means…Very Shy!

Very Shy?

Yes, yes, they say.

I blink my eyes again.

Eh-heh – repeated gesture – means very shy?

Ahhhhhhahhhh, kawaii! Yes, yes. Very Shy! New Japanese word!

Uh, okay, girls. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Exit Scene.
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Next Day, after class, different classroom with different group of girls.


Two other ichinenseis, whom I swear had not been there the day before, come running up to me after class.

Jessie, Jessie! Do you know tehepero?

Yes, I do! It means – tilts head, Eh-heh – very shy.

Ahhhhhahhhhhh, kawaii! Yes, yes!

They run away giggling.

My JTE looks at me and says she has never heard that word before.

That’s because I'm pretty sure they made it up.

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UPDATE: I have since done some re-con about this word. It, apparently, is a real word, but I was told by a seventeen year old boy that it is a word only fifteen year old girls use. Eh-heh.