Barcode Haircut

After two grueling days of orientation and fun-filled nights in Kumamoto city, we finally checked out of our hotels and dragged ourselves to the Kokusai center for the last day of seminars.   This last day was completely devoted to Japanese language classes, and for the 10 of us JETs who had placed into the top level Japanese class, this meant we got spend a whole day playing games like 2 truths and a lie, studying slang words and the local dialect, and learning more complicated business phrases associated with answering the phone at work and exchanging business cards.  Since all of us already knew enough Japanese to get around and fulfill our basic needs, and since there weren’t any grades or tests associated with the classes, it was a pretty laid-back affair.  Learning dialect phrases was a lot of fun, though.  An easy example of Kumamoto-ben is what one says to express surprise:  most Japanese say “eeeeeehhhhh!?”  with raising intonation whenever they are shocked or surprised at something (go ahead, trying finding a Japanese TV show that doesn’t feature everyone on-screen going “ehhh!?” at some point during the program) , but when Kumamoto people are surprised or maybe slightly disgusted at something, they just say “BA!” in a very explosive way.

Even though we were the top class, we still practiced giving our self introductions 自己紹介 at the beginning.  Self introductions are strangely important in Japanese society.  Most times in America it suffices to say “Hi!  I’m (first name). Nice to meet you!”  and then give supplementary information like where you’re from, your hobbies, etc. later in the conversation, or bit by bit in the following days.  Not so in Japan, apparently.  Depending on the situation, your self-introduction might feel more like a speech than a formal greeting.  Anyway, since all of us had already practiced 自己紹介 exhaustively, we mixed it up by including two truths and a lie with our self introductions .  Almost everybody’s two truths and lie were related to experiences or skills that they had.  Mine were the following. Can you guess which one is the lie?

1.)  My brother and I, in certain seasons, involuntarily sneeze when we step outside into the sunlight.

2.) I like to nap on the kitchen counter.

3.)  Seeing shaving cream makes me feel uncomfortable, as does whipped cream.

The person who identifies the lie first and posts a comment on this blog might get a special prize mailed to them ....

Quick break:.  100 Yen stores (100 Yen is approximately a dollar, usually a little more).  I was lucky enough to have time to go to when while in Kumamoto city to get my own personal chopsticks + case, cleaning materials for my tatami mat room, and dehumidifiers for my apartment (prevent mold), among other things.   Anyone who has been to Japan will rave about 100 yen shops; everything is so mind-blowingly cheap and there are so many different things you can buy.  Pots, pans, kitchen knives, notebooks, umbrellas, socks, ties, shirts, shoes....  Sometimes I think that I might want to come back to Japan in the future just to shop at the 100 yen stores. I could rave for an entire blog about how amazing 100 yen shops are.  You can watch a virtual tour of a 100 yen store at this youtube link (the narrator has an Australian accent?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEb0b1GEaE8&feature=player_embedded

Returning to Hondo/Amakusa laden with crap that I bought at the 100 Yen store and at Don Quixote (a store that sorta defies category), I was felt that I was finally ready to spend a weekend by myself (or at least a day by myself), sorting through all of the things I had accumulated from multiple orientations, trips to various department stores, and cleaning out/disposing of things left over by my predecessor. Was I finally out of the spotlight?  Of course not.  Rather than let me cook ramen or curry at home by myself, Horiguchi-san offered to take me to his place to eat the left overs from dinner at his family reunion for Obon (a festival where your entire family returns to your hometown and visits the graves of your ancestors).  First imagine the typical, summer-time family reunion with aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and scores of little kids running every which way, lighting fireworks and bringing gigantic beetles into the house.  Now make sure everyone in your mental picture is Japanese, and then throw me into the picture.  Yes, once again I had to introduce myself to many people, be complimented on my Japanese and chopstick using skills, and answer peoples questions delivered in butchered English (they really are trying; it is not always the case that they don’t think I can understand their Japanese, but sometimes they want to try to speak English, if not just for good laughs).  What can I say: I’ve only being doing this for a week and a half, so it hasn’t gotten that old yet.  Being at  Japanese family reunion was a lot of fun, and for some reason or another I spent a lot of time with the branch of the family that had moved to Kyoto and didn’t understand Horiguchi-san’s colloquialisms and dialect.  I guess I liked them because we shared that point in common.

I tried asking how to say ‘family reunion’ in Japanese, but since these types of gatherings are so uniqsue to the holidays that they are associated with, it doesn’t really seem like their is a word itself for ‘family reunion.’    There is, however, a word in Japanese for a comb-over (that I learned today): a barcode haircut.