Haiya Dance Festival

There is one event that draws people from all over Japan to our humble Amakusa islands: the Ushibuka Haiya Festival.

Ushibuka, the second largest city in Amakusa located at the southernmost point, is an important port for large fishing boats.  Come spring, the people of Ushibuka pray for another year of big catches 大漁 by dancing the Haiya dance. This dance, which has been danced by the people of Ushibuka for centuries upon centuries, is thought to be one of the most important dances in the traditional Japanese dance repertoire.  Dancing groups from all around the country come to perform in the festival and compete for prizes.  We JETs, though not professional dancers, are lucky enough to be able to dance with the locals in one of the dance parades during the festival.

While some people do take the dance competition very seriously, for most people it is an excuse to party, get drunk, and dance around in the streets.  People start 'pre-gaming' from the early afternoon, then don their outfits and line up for the parade.  As we were filling into the parade line, people from all sides of the street were hanging out their windows, cheering to us and offering us sake and beer (a few of us did actually jump away from the dancing line to receive a drink). A very festive atmosphere indeed.

I'm not exactly sure which haiya dance is the 'real' haiya dance because every group in the parade has their own variation.  I posted a video on facebook of one haiya dance performance I saw many months back in Ushibuka;  that one is probably the most authentic of them all.  Our dance was much simpler, with only about three basic motions, one of which involves stepping forwards while pretending to row a boat and another of which requires you to act liking your pulling a fishing net.  Even with the fairly simple moves, it took all of my concentration to do it right for the two hours that we danced.  I saw some of my co-workers and neighbors in the crowd, but I was totally incapable of doing anything but smiling at them because my brain was completely focused on dancing.  It was quite mesmerizing, but really fun.  I felt that I did pretty well in doing the steps, but still messed up numerous times when I made attempts at looking around or talking to people in the crowd.  Our leaders, all JETs who have been in Amakusa for more than two years now, did a great job of riling up us and the crowd and putting their own whacky spins on the dance routine.  In a scary way, that's going to have to be me next year because I'm one of the few JETs staying;  most of the current JETs in Amakusa are second or third years who will be returning to their home countries soon.  

If anyone wants to participate in a great Japanese tradition and act really wild and crazy while dancing in the streets, come next year in April to Amakusa!

Pottery Post #1

Here's an easy way to get back into my blogging rhythm (no smart comments about how it never existed!): blog with photos.

So in case you didn't know,  I'm currently taking pottery classes twice a month in 鬼池 Oniike, about 50 minutes away from my village, with another JET who lives in that area.  Our instructor is a retired English teacher who took up his father's profession of pottery and now teaches several classes a week, while still spending time to produce his own works for exhibition and sale.

While I took a class sophomore on the Japanese Tea Ceremony (one of my favorite classes I took at Swat), and learned a bit about pottery there, I never had any hands on experience with until I came to Japan.  I can say with certainty that I'm not that good, but I definitely have gotten better since I started.  Unfortunately, most of the works which I can say I'm proud of have not been fired yet, so I can't show them to you now.  Here are some of my first works.

My instructions were to build up rings straight up into the air as tall as I could.  You can see the results for yourself.  I think I saved the work a little by picking a shiny blue glaze that will distract from the unsightly misshapen form of this vase.  Trying to prevent the clay from widening near the top was tough.  In general, it was difficult to keep the form consistent as it got taller and taller.  How are you supposed to get your hands inside?

My first attempt at a bowl.  I don't know why I'm showing this, as their is not much to be proud of.  The shape is whack; the color dull and consistent.  The teacher showed me how to pinch the edges right to be level and of uniform shape, but I didn't really get it until later.

This one's a little worthy of showing to you.   I got better and keeping the edges fairly level as I built it up from the base.  Keeping the outside smooth seemed to be easier this time around as well, but I sort of obsessed to much on the lip and the smoothness of the inside and outside to notice that the whole thing was spreading out to much and that the bottom was getting to big and flat.  I think I've learned not to forget about that part and to work a little faster so the clay doesn't dry out so much, but I've still got a ways to go before I can make perfectly symmetrical bowls.  When glazing, I tried to be artistic with the pattern inside the bowl by tilting the bowl so as to let the glaze run in certain directions on the inside.  It sorta worked.

When I came to class one week, I thought to myself beforehand "I want to try making rectangular plates." My teacher said to me at the start of the session "What do you want to make today?  Plates?"  "Yes." That's how it happened.

  

I have seven of these guys.  They're quite easy and fun to make.  You tie several knots in a strong and then run the string through the clay to cut your slab.  Along the way, you can make undulating patterns by moving the string back and forth to make groves with the knots in the string.  My patterns aren't as cool as the ones my teacher did, but still cool enough that he showed my works to some of his students in another class.  I also got to apply the white slip with a big brush made of dried grasses.  Attempts at making the brush strokes artistic had mixed results, though it was really fun doing it even though I had no idea what I was doing.  I guess I should say I enjoyed pretending I knew what I was doing.

I still have two Christmas mugs, a miniature Japanese samurai helmet, a rabbit for Chinese New Year, and a tea bowl waiting to be fired and finished.  

Let's Chant...My Daily Routine

Get up. Get up. I get up.  Study. Study. I study. Eat. Eat. I eat lunch...

Sorry. “My Daily Routine” is a name of one of the ‘chants’ that my 5th and 6th graders do.  Chants are like songs that contain the key phrases from each chapter, but students just say the words to music rather than singing.  Some of them are really silly and pathetic sounding, but some get stuck in your head, which is exactly what they are designed to do.  

Anyway, in case you’ve ever wondered what my daily life is actually like here, I’ll explain it now.  

Get up. Get up. I get up at 7:00.  I try to get up earlier so that I can make a nicer and larger breakfast, but sometimes I hit the snooze a few times.  I can get ready and out the door pretty quickly, so I know I can get away with it.  I usually wear dress pants and a button down shirt, and sometimes I’ll even go for the tie as well.  At some of my schools, the teachers all wear suits, even though they are just elementary school teachers.  At other schools, all the teachers were track suits, as if they just came back from the gym.  It’s really confusing, and difficult for me because I have to change what I wear each day depending on which school I go to. 

At around 7:45 or 7:50, I hope in the car and drive off to work.  On the days when I go the schools within my own village (the middle school and the elementary school down the street), I’ll bike to work, unless I have a large amount of luggage that I’m taking with me.  Since I travel between different schools throughout the week, I have to take all of my teaching materials (props for games, picture cards, worksheets, textbooks, etc.) with me wherever I go.  As a result, my car is a mess of binders, loose papers, and packs of picture cards for elementary school. 

Getting to work at around 8:00, I walk in the teachers entrance, slip of my shoes, put them in my cubby, and put on a pair of slippers.  Saying “Good morning”  (お早うございます ohayou gozaimasu, the final u is almost always silent) in a cherry voice is very important when you see someone for the first time that day, so usually I come into the teachers’ room, bow, and give a big OHAYOU GOZAIMASU to all my teachers.  You need to show that you are a.) awake, b.) ready for the challenges of the day and c.) wish the best to everyone else. 

Morning faculty meetings are not rare.  While the students are doing some morning studying, the teachers gather in the teachers room, stand up, bow, and then go through several points about the day, upcoming events, students’ progress, etc. There is always an emcee for these meetings, who will tell us when to stand, when to bow, when it’s time for the principal to offer his comments, etc.  In other words, it’s very formal.

Next, on the days when I’m at my middle school, I’ll consult with my co-teacher about the days classes (if I didn’t already do so they day before).  After that, if there is not some preparation work I need to do, I’m basically free to do whatever.  I’ll sit at my desk and plan lessons and make worksheets, but also study Japanese, check my email, etc.  I try to always do work, or at least what looks like work.  

When it’s time for middle school class, I’ll go with my co-teacher to the classroom and begin class with a “Hello! How are you?”  Sometimes we’ll quiz the students on what the date is and what the weather is outside or what we did in the previous lesson.  Class usually consists of me and my co-teacher doing dialogues, the students repeating after me for reading and pronunciation practice, grammar lectures by my co-teacher, and worksheets. On very rare occasions we’ll play a game too.  When class ends, the students say “Goodbye Ms. Kaneko and Mr. Erik!”  “See you!”  

At elementary school, a student will actually come to the teachers’ room and bring me and my stuff to the classroom.  The students have various rituals to start class, all different depending on their grade level, their school, and their teacher.  If they are really awesome, the students will say “Stand up. Attention. Bow.  Please Mr. Erik and ________.”  

Elementary school classes are all about games, or rather, the object of each class is to get through the repeating and memorizing part and on to the game part as quickly as possible.  Most times I’ll have the students sing a song or do a warm-up game or review.  Then, I’ll introduce the subject of study in Japanese and get them thinking about it.  What foods do you like?  Oh, I like ramen.  Do you like ramen.  What do you like? Yes, please. etc.  When the students have thought about it in Japanese, I explain that today we’re going to learn the words/phrases in English.  Then there is about 15 minutes spent where I put picture cards on the board, say “What is this?”  and the students respond in Japanese (or English if they happen to know the word already).  After saying the word in English and repeating a few times, we rinse and repeat.  Before the students get too weary, we move on to a game.  You probably know charades, memory, and simon says, but other popular games include karuta (listen for a vocab word and then run to the board and slap the right picture card;  if you have tiny picture cards, then kids play on the floor) and variations of rock paper scissors (changing ‘rock paper scissors’ to a key phrase or having a dialog before hand like “I want to play soccer.” “I want to play baseball.”  “I WANT TO PLAY SOCCER.” “NO, I WANT TO PLAY BASEBALL.”  “ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS...”).  

Note: I think I’ve said it before, but Japanese people love rock-paper-scissors.  I’ve heard that it actually originated in Japan.  People play rock-paper-scissors all the time, and often replace coin tosses with games of rock-paper-scissors.  It’s great to use in class, because the kids get really excited and forget that they are speaking English.

Eat. Eat. I eat lunch.  I eat lunch with the students, rotating between grade levels each time I visit.  Sometimes the kids get caught up in their own conversation and don’t talk to me or the homeroom teacher very much, but most times they’ll ask me questions and such.  

Play. Play. I play baseball.   Actually, I don't play baseball, but I do play soccer or tag or whatever else the elementary school kids play at recess.  This is one of the best parts of the day.  How many other people my age get to have recess and play on the playground with super excited and adorable Japanese kids who love you? 

Clean. Clean. I clean the room.  I usually join the school kids during cleaning period to help them clean up the classrooms.  See previous article on 'the life of my students' to understand what cleaning period is.  

Study. Study. I study.  When I'm not teaching class, planning lessons, or preparing teaching materials, I sneak in a little Japanese study.  A lot of JETs like to think that this is part of their job too, so they don't feel guilty about it.  Others think that studying is not work, and it's an insult to the other teachers working hard around you.  Since I'm not exactly in desperate need of improved Japanese skills, I try to limit my Japanese studying (at work) to only a half hour or so a day.  I am working to pass the Japanese Level Proficiency Test, Level 1, in December. 

Go home. Go home. I go home....or I don't.  At middle school, I try to stay until 4:30 when the school day officially ends and the kids are allowed to go home (or start sports practice, which most of them do).  In the winter months, I worked out a lot with the baseball team doing physically training.  Now I only occasionally get to work out with them since they are mostly doing real baseball stuff now, but sometimes my teachers like to come out and run a few laps with me, so I do that and then hang out with the baseball team a little.   

Elementary school ends much earlier, so sometimes I get to go home as early as 3:00 PM, but I usually head over to my Board of Education office (where I pick up my schedules and receive other job-related info) and then go to the middle school to work out anyway.  

And...that's it! What I do in the evenings is a different story, but we'll just say that I have a bible study, pottery class, and dance class that take up some of my evenings. Thanks for reading through this very boring article.

Now, as to not ignore the giant elephant standing in the room I guess I have to talk about the current disasters befalling the Tohoku region of Japan.  I've reiterated that I have been no way affected by any of the disasters so far, so I won't say it again here (though I basically just did).  I can say, however, that you should all keep the people of Japan in your prayers and continue to be hopeful and optimistic about the outcome of the nuclear plant crisis.  Much of the media abroad has no doubt exaggerated the crisis a little in a ploy to get more ratings and readers, and although I wont' say I'm an expert on the situation myself, I know that Fukushima's Daiichi plant is not as bad as Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, where much more radioactive material was leaked out of the plant.  

The charity that everyone seems to be rallying around here and abroad is the Red Cross.  There are many places you can donate to this charity both online and in person, so if you haven't done so yet, consider donating.  Most of us JETs have made a pledge to donate tomorrow when our paychecks for the month hit our bank accounts, so why not try to do the same and make a donation right after getting your paycheck.  Thank you.

The Life of My Students

Writing these types of blog entries is far more interesting that writing the ones about me.  Anyway, it’s about time I talk about the daily life of my students and my fellow teachers so that you can better understand the type of life I have here.  

The problem with writing this is that I don’t really remember my life as a middle school student too well.  This is partly because my middle school experience melts together with my grade school one.  I went to a Catholic elementary school, grades K-8, and I entered it in the 3rd grade.  Therefore, from 3rd grade to 8th, I was in the same building with the same group of classmates.  My mom was a 6th grade teacher at the school, so everyday I came to school early with her,  helped her set up her classroom while the other students socialized outside, and stayed late after school while she had meetings and such.  Ok, enough about me.  The point is that the middle school years of 6-8th grade were not that distinct from my grade school ones, other than the fact that the classrooms and the teachers were different.  Here in Japan, however, middle school is taken quite seriously as a separate experience from elementary and high school.   

So, the daily life of my middle schoolers.  I’ve never walked in my students shoes before, but I’ve seen enough to understand what it must be like. 

A good estimate would be that most of my students get up around 6 AM, maybe a little later or earlier depending on how far away they live.  If they live in the same village as the middle school, they must walk to school, rain, snow, or shine, with their backpacks (they have two) and gym bags weighing them down like pack-mules.  Only if they live in a part of the village REALLY far away from the middle school can they ride bikes to school, and I think means only one of my students.  The students from the other villages walk to the nearest bus stop and hop on a school bus; it is not yellow and looks like a coach bus.  

All the students arrive around 7:50.  On most days, there are teachers and some student council members lined up outside of school waiting to greet them.  The students all stop and bow towards the school before they walk on to the school grounds.  They then go to the students' entrance where they take of their outside shoes and put on their inside shoes.  

From the time they arrive until 8:40, they have independent study time and a short, 10 minute period of instruction by their homeroom teacher.  The morning’s study is often regulated by a schedule, with time spent writing in a journal one day, reading a book the next day, taking a quiz the next, etc.  

Starting at 8:40, they have four 50 minute periods with 10 minute breaks in between.  They do not change classroom unless they have gym, shop, computer, or music class.  After a student comes to the faculty room to ask the teacher for the next class what is needed, the teacher comes from the faculty room, bringing all their materials with them, and arrives in class as the students take their seats.  The students stand up, bow, and request the teacher to begin teaching.  Class ends with the same custom, with the students saying “Thank you.”   In our English classes, of course, things are different.  The students stay seated, say “Hello Ms. Kaneko and Mr. Erik,” and then we ask “How are you?”  and such.  

Come lunch time, half the students put on masks, aprons, and hair nets and walk to the lunch center next to the school where all the school lunches are made.  They carry the food back in big pails and tins, along with baskets containing all the dishes and chopsticks.  In their classroom, they setup a line and start dishing out the food and setting up the trays and plates on each student's desk.  When everything is ready, the rest of the students (who have been reading in the nearby classroom) come in and lunch begins.  The students all put their hands together and say “I (humbly) receive,”  a Japanese custom before eating a meal.  When lunch is finished, they say “It was a feast,” clean up, and haul everything back to the lunch center.  

Next is a 40 minute lunch break!  Recess! Yeah!  Well, at least sometimes they go out and play.  The baseball team usually goes out and does a little bit of practice, but sometimes all the students decide beforehand to play a game in the gym or outside on the field.   Other times is seems like everyone stays inside and catches up on homework or just screws around.

When break is over, it’s time to clean the school!  Yes, that’s right, everyday the entire school, teachers included, stops what they are doing, breaks out cleaning rags, brooms, rakes, and vacuums, and cleans the school.  They clean the bathrooms, scrub the floors, clean the windows, sweep the grounds around the school, rake up dead leaves, water the flowers, and gather up the trash.  There is no school janitor.  This continues on for 15 minutes.  At 2:10, the last two class periods of the day start.  

After a last 10 minute period of instruction (like the one in the morning), the students get ready to go home, have a school wide 1 minute period of silence (to reflect on what happened that day?), and then burst out the doors and head home, right?  Wrong.  From 4:30 to 6:30 (sometimes later in the longer days of summer), almost all of the students stay at school for club activities.  I’m sure larger schools have a very wide range of activities, but at my little country school we just have sports:  baseball, volleyball, soft tennis, and basketball.  That’s it.  Students have to choose one at the beginning of their middle school career and stick with it until the end.  Practice is quite tough, at least from what I’ve experienced working out with the baseball team.  Running a 4K, doing 300 sit ups, doing upper body workouts, doing sprints, and pushing car tires along the ground (weird but exhausting) might be one day of baseball conditioning.  

Finally, the students board the bus and go home.  Sometimes it is already pitch black outside.  The students who walk home have to have flashlights and reflective gear.  I’d estimate that most get home by 7:30.  The whole ordeal of school has taken almost 12 hours of the day, and that’s not including homework, which can take up to three hours if you are a third year student getting ready for high school entrance exams.  I’m not sure how they can concentrate on homework when they are no doubt exhausted from school and sports, and to get up the next day they probably have to go to bed quite early.  

Saturdays offer no respite, or at least, not the type of respite we expect in America.  Students still wake up early and pile on the bus, but this time they just spend the entire morning, 8:00 to 12:30, doing sports practice.  The teachers who run all of these sports clubs sometimes have to show up too, driving from their homes 40 minutes away just to show up to practice on Saturday morning.  Basically, the point is that everyone spends like 60% of their waking lives at school.

Next time, I’ll talk about what my day is like at the different schools.

卒業 Graduation

Graduation.  In both Japan and America, graduation ceremonies are emotionally charged ordeals.  The work of so many years is paid off with a little piece of paper, school officials give talks that are sometimes inspiring and sometimes boring, and tears are shed as classmates make their final goodbyes to each other.  There are, of course, many differences in how these school ceremonies go, and that’s what I’m here to talk about.  I’m here to talk about my middle school’s graduation ceremony which happened last Sunday.  Now, before you continue, you have to realize that middle school in Japan is way more important than middle school in America.  I’ll right another blog entry to preface this one so you can better understand, but for now just understand that middle schoolers have a tough time, but go through those tough experiences with their classmates together.

Caveat: Not all Japanese graduation ceremonies are the same, and my small countryside middle school obviously does things differently because the small size of the graduation class allows it to do a lot more for each student.  

The diploma.  In American graduation ceremonies, this diploma, despite it’s deceiving physical insignificance as a piece of paper, is give the upmost importance in the ceremony.  The distribution of the certificates/diplomas is the climax, with many speeches building up to it and a sense of celebration when the diploma is finally in hand.   --- Not so in my middle school’s ceremony.  The distribution of certificates is first order of business.  Rehearsed to the point of automatization, the students stand up and walk slowly and carefully to the front, bow to the guests, bow to the teachers, go up to the stage, wait for their names to be called, respond with a very genki (spirited) “HAI!” (that means ‘yes’) when their name is called, walk to the podium where the principal holds the diplomas, bows to the principal along with the student who went before them, bow when they receive their diploma, take a step back, wait for the next person to come, bow together, and then walk off the stage at the opposite staircase.  As you can tell, there is a lot of bowing that goes on.   At larger schools, there isn’t enough time to call everyone’s name and have all of this ceremonial bowing and standing and walking around, so a representative will just receive the diplomas for everyone in the class.  

Oh, and also, just in case the parents aren’t crying yet, they play very majestic music in the background as the diplomas are being distributed.  Life with a soundtrack...

Now, talking about my middle school’s graduation specifically, AFTER the diplomas have been handed out, the atmosphere changed.  There were a few speeches made by the principal, the head of the PTA, and the head of the Board of Education (the students simultaneously stand up and bow to the speakers at the end of their speeches at a robotically fast pace), but the real change came when the students started making speeches.  Yes, they had sad music playing in the background for this part too. The student rep started crying as she recounted for the class all of the memories they’d shared together, thanked the teachers for all they have done, and mourned the coming parting as many will leave their hometowns to go to high school boarding schools far away.  At this point, most of the students and the teachers were crying too.  It’s hard not too when you see even the toughest looking, high-school aged boys sobbing.  Afterwards, the graduates sang a sad a capella song to the teachers and the underclassmen.

Next, a student representative from the underclass gave a speech to the graduating class, thanking them for all of they did, explaining how much they will be missed and how they were such an inspiration to all.  The underclassmen then stood and sang a song of parting to the graduates. 

The parents then take their turn to express gratitude to the teachers for working hard to educate their children.  The father who gave the speech had to stop several times so that he didn’t cry, but it was obviously hard for him to talk about how ‘it seemed like just yesterday they were 1st graders in elementary school.’   

Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, it does. The graduating students stood up one by one as a different underclassmen stood up and said something about them, like how they were their mentor/role-model and how they can’t imagine life without them.  All the students (except for the underclass boys; they never seemed to cry, though came close at times) were in tears at this point, of course. 

Finally, with almost all of the graduates incapacitated by tears, they lined up and sang one last song for everyone.  The boy who was charged with being conductor and introducing the song to the crowd tried to stop between words to wipe away tears, but gave up towards the end and just did his best to struggle through the ‘this is our last performance as a class...ever. Please listen,” part at the end.  Even though the graduates obviously didn’t sing their best because half of them were crying and not singing, it was still beautiful.   

As for me, I got quite choked up by all that went on, but didn’t exactly cry.  While all that was going on was very heartbreaking, I couldn’t help but smile a little, being happy that my students had had such a happy middle school life, had so many good relationships with their classmates, and had so many happy memories.  I’ll also admit that I wasn’t THAT attached to this particular group of students, as, unlike the 1st and 2nd year students, very few of them had ever really talked to me much at all.  Sometimes I got to joke around with a few of them in class, but not to the extent that I do with my 1st and 2nd year students.  As a result, there were maybe only one or two students who I was sad to see go.  Some of them will also go to the high school in my village, so I will see them walking around town and at some middle school-high school joint events.   However, words cannot begin to describe how heartbreaking next year’s graduation will be when my favorite group of students will say goodbye to me (forever!).  I know, teachers shouldn’t play favorites, but we all do.   May I cherish every day of this last year with them!

駅伝大会

There is, in Japan, a somewhat unique form of cross country racing called Ekiden　駅伝.  Unlike most cross country races which are set distances and run by individuals, ekiden is run as a relay race, with each team member covering a different part of the course.  No parts of the course are necessarily the same length.    

In the case of my town’s 駅伝, which we ran this past Sunday, we ran the length of 24 KM from the village up in the mountains, west down to the coast, and along the coast to the southernmost village.  There were seven parts of the race, ranging from 1.0 K to 4.4 K segments.  I ran one of the 4.3 K segments, but one that was considered the most きつい　 (kitsui) difficult because it was mostly uphill. 

 In the weeks leading up to the race, I had done my best to practice every other day, if not every day, but it was quite difficult to motivate myself when it was freezing cold outside, raining/snowing, and already getting dark outside by the time I got off work to start running.  My co-workers at the city office, where I have to go to every other day to pick up my schedules and talk with my supervisor, would ask me every time I’d come in “Are you practicing?  We’re counting on you! ‘Heard that you’re really fast!”  They would also joke about how last year’s lose was do to my predecessor’s poor performance.  Needless to say, there was pressure on me to perform.  Luckily, the week right before the race, the weather all of a sudden became very spring-like, which helped me get out doors everyday to run my course along the coast to the next village. 

The day of the race,  everyone in my middle school, the neighboring high school, all of the fire fighters (there are a lot for some reason in my sleepy little town; I think the life of a fire-fighter, working out all day, appeals to most of my male students) and all the workers in the city office convened at Fukuregi’s community center (the village in the mountain) for the opening ceremony before driving off to the various pass-off points in the other villages.  Everyone left their houses and lined up on the side of the roads to await and cheer on the racers.  Once they’d pass, everyone would pile in a car and drive to the next check-point to see who would pull ahead, cheering out the car windows as they passed by the runners on the course.   The mass continued to grow until everyone was at the finish, eating the free pork soup and rice balls and watching the end of the race.  

When it came time for my leg of the race, I was waiting anxiously with my middle schoolers in the tiny village north of my own, nestled in a mountain valley that fed out into the city.  We all ran to the beach shore and back to warm up, watching the fisher man on the rocks and enjoying the Spring like breeze.  As the racers started arriving,  the numbers of the approaching racers were shouted down the line of spectators until it reached us.  The official regulating our leg finally made the connection:  16 was coming, so that meant I was up.  I grabbed the yellow band from the racer, strung it around my back, and ran off the line with two other racers who started at about the same time as me.  Cars passed alongside us, people hanging out their windows and shouting.  "FIGHT ERIK! 頑張れ！Ganbare! GO!　走れ！" I saw my students, my co workers, familiar faces from town, people I see everyday, people I hadn't seen in ages, and people I had never seen before all cheering me on from their cars and from the roadside.  Despite all of the pain of the uphill climb, it was a fantastic experience.  I could see our rival team's runner up ahead, and did my best to try to close the gap.  The high school runner behind me traded places with me several times, but I finally managed to pull ahead of him for good as I sprinted down the last hill.  Down to the last 100 m, I saw most of the people I had seen 10 minutes before lined up anew at the finish line of my leg.  

Track meets have always been pretty nerve-racking to me.  All of the time you spend waiting for your race, getting anxious as you watch other run and warm-up can really do a number on you. The town ekiden, however, is the best type of racing environment you could ask for.  Everyone you know and more line up to cheer you on, and you have a team to celebrate with afterwards!  Plus, if you don't do well in the race, there is always a game of bingo to finish up the day (I won Cup Ramen in bingo).  

五足の靴

This is an extremely old story, but at least I'm living up to my promise of posting it. The title means 'Shoes of Five Feet,'　 or maybe 'Five Pairs of Shoes,' but is really the name for the journey of five famous poets who came from Tokyo to Amakusa in the early 20th century to learn about its history, look at its beautiful scenery, and, you know, be all emo about it and write haikus and tankas.

On the fine day of November 3, designated in Japan as 'Culture Day,' all of my schools had a day off to enjoy, well, cultural activities.  In my case, I called up some local JETs and told them about the mini-hike happening in my town on the 五足の靴 (Gosoku-no-kutsu) trail, a roughly 5K hike through the hills and forests along sea coast.

As I was anticipating, most of the attendees were either old-folks, parents, and elementary school students, with the exception of us three JETs and one of my middle schoolers.  Luckily, the one middle schooler who came is probably the best English conversationalist in the school.  I say 'conversationalist' because, while there are definitely a number of girls who and totally dance circles around him when it comes to doing worksheets, he can, unlike most of my students, remember the phrases he's learned and actually string them together to make meaningful sentences, which in turn results into quite natural sounding dialogue.  Also, he's cool because his name is sounds a lot like the Japanese Tiger Woods, Ishikawa Ryo, who is a sports icon in Japan.

Introducing my kids to some of the other 'big scary foreigner' JETs was fun, though one of those aforementioned big scary foreigners is notoriously late for everything and caused us to be late in getting on the trail.  All fun, though, as most of the staff running the event knew him for some reason and jokingly rebuked him when he did finally appear.

The hike itself was fairly short, though enjoyable.  The path lead up into the forested hills where we reached a lookout post and enjoyed the view of the shore, and the path ended by diving down into the cute village with plenty of friendly old people out gardening and saying hi to us as we passed by.  There were several quiz challenges along the way, as well as a task that involved measuring 1kg of sand exactly, without consulting a scale.

While I was perfectly satisfied with this memorable morning of hiking and fun, I didn't realize that most of the people who came had a different motivation in mind...  You see, in order to get people to come to community events, sometimes you need to offer some incentives.  In this case, there was a raffle at the end of the hike that included such prizes as a brand new folding bike, 20 kg of rice, fresh vegetables, and all sorts of gifts cards and other types of food.  As luck would have it, almost everyone got something except me, though one of the other JETs was nice enough to give me his prize futon warmer as consolation.

So now you know.  Go to local events in your small Japanese town, because they will have fabulous prizes at the end for you.

The rest of the day I'll abbreviate:  with George, the JET from two towns below me, I drove the long way to Hondo to see enjoy the nice weather along the cost, went to an onsen, ate the most tenderly cooked whole chicken in my life (it was like the whole thing was edible; there was no need for knife or even fork, since it was already cut into chunks that you could just pick off), went to several pottery and photo exhibits in abandoned shops in Hondo's old shopping arcade where I met hippy Japanese people who had funky English nicknames like "Chop,"  and went to Uniqlo, everyone's favorite clothing store.  I think I got my fill of culture for the day.

Cold Soapy Fate

This is a delayed blog post.  Also, the title has nothing to do with the contents.  Merely a snippet of goodness from a recent skype conversation I had.

This morning was the first day of work of 2011 (平成２３年度, 23 year of the Heisei period).  To my interest and surprise, everyone wore slightly better clothes to work today and spent the first 10 minutes of work going around and bowing to everybody in the office saying 今年もよろしくお願いします Kotoshi-mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu (This year too, may we work well together).  Yoroshiku onegaishimasu, something that is said very often around the work place and almost as a rule when you meet someone.  It’s probably the strangest phrase to translate and, though you learn from day one in Japanese class, it is still difficult for me to understand when and where to use it.  Often I just throw it in to whatever conversation I’m having at work at the very end, just in case.  Yoroshiku is an adverbial form of ‘good,’  and onegaishimasu means ‘to request, ask, or implore.’  Literally, I guess it means “I will goodly request of you,” or better “I will humbly rely on you.”   Most textbooks translate it as “nice to meet you,” when used in the context of a self-introduction.

Now you can give your self introduction in Japanese too: to say “Hi my name is _____. Nice to meet you,”  you say “Watashi-wa ____________ des. Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”  私は＿＿＿＿です。どうぞよろしくお願いします。

Right now, I'm in a sort of 'vacation limbo' because, while I have no classes to teach as my kids are still on vacation (or at least the Japanese version of vacation, wherein they still come to school everyday to do sports and have tons of homework), I still have to go to my Board of Education office and 'work' all day.  This can be good at times, because sometimes I do get around to making lesson plans, studying Japanese, or shooting the breeze with my co-workers, but sometimes it can be excruciatingly boring.    Maybe I'll use this time to write those blog entries I've always meant to write...

Trip Memories- 旅行の思い出

It's the night of New Year's day, and I'm finally back in Amakusa. The trip sure was tiring (the average distance we walked each day was around 17K), but we're finally back safe and sound.

Sam and Sayaka unfortunately suffered from some illness during the trip, so it was all for the best that we came home on the afternoon of the 30th.  Sadly, this also meant that we missed the snow fall on the 31st that would have created some great opportunities for photos, but since we had no way of knowing and since we were already exhausted, we can't feel too bad.  

Please check out some of the photos here. （リンックをクリクすると、京都の旅行の写真が見えます。）

While I got a lot of good pictures on the trip, some of the best memories we/I had on the trip weren't ones I captured on film. For example, consider our second day in the city:

After going to Kinkaku-ji the famous gold covered temple in northern Kyoto, and after visiting a few neighboring UNESCO world heritage sites, we walked through a strange complex of temples called Myoushin-ji 妙心寺 to get to a train station.  After a trip to the bathroom, it started hailing and raining.  We only had one umbrella between the three of us, but as we were passing a cafe on the way to the station, an elderly man おじいちゃん stepped out and handed me a handy compact umbrella.  I tried to refuse at first, but he told me to go ahead and take it and not worry about giving it back.  Now I have a new umbrella! It's amazing where and when you'll be touched by the kindness of other people.

Continuing the theme of 'encounters-with-kind-strangers' (sort-of), there's a story attached to our journey back to Sam's place in Nagasaki.  Upon getting off the train at Nagasaki station we crossed the street to wait for the bus to Sam's neighborhood (about 10 minutes away by car).  A punk-ish, twenty-something Japanese dude with fake glasses, spiky hair, and more than a few ear piercings saw that we were a little confused by the bus schedule and pointed out that we missed the last bus.  Since he had to go to the same neck of the city as us, he decided to walk a couple blocks and then get a cab with us.  Sure, I understand that he was probably looking to get a deal on his cab fare, and there was the possibility that he was probably drunk too, but it was nevertheless and interesting encounter.  He did a pretty good job talking in English now and then, and in the car he tried to explain elements of Japanese culture to me (as if it was his duty to explain the mysteries of Japan to us foreigners), and at the end of the car ride he gave us both a big man-hug and told us we should go out drinking sometime.  Interesting fellow...

Finally, one of the best memories of the vacation was on the day we visited Nara.  After walking a fair amount around the park area where most of the temples are located, we headed back to the shopping arcade streets that led up to the train station to grab lunch.  Along the way, we saw a huge crowd of people gathering outside one particular shop.  What could possibly so good/interesting that would draw so many people's attention and cause traffic jams in the narrow street?  FRESH MOCHI OF COURSE! I had spotted the giant wooden hammers and stone basin in a store window on the way to the temples that morning, and now two buff guys were hammering away at a steaming mass of freshly cooked mochi rice.  After adequate pounding, the sticky mess was thrown into a machine, powdered with flower, and filled with anko paste (sweet bean paste), and sent out to be rolled into perfect balls of dessert-y goodness.  People started pushing and shoving to get in line for the still-warm treats, and a extra salesman was sent out in the street to direct traffic around the hordes of people lining up to buy mochi.  We jumped in line and got two pieces fresh off the line.  They were so warm that they practically fell apart as we bit into them, but it was the best mochi I've ever head.