Being Genki is Hard

'Genki' is a rather versatile word in Japanese. (Btw, forgive me for not yet having found the double quotation mark. Or rather, I see it, I just don't know how to type it yet. Damn elusive keys!). I'm sure I am far from grasping it's many meanings, but among them I have detected 'energetic', 'enthusiastic', 'strong', 'full-of-life-and-youthful-energy'. Basically, when JETs are hired, they're sort of expected to be genki, or at least to make the class more genki. So while this is relatively easy to do at first, I can see and feel that it's going to get tiring real fast.

To start with, I have to figure out my role in the classroom. Remember that I am an Assistant Language Teacher, so I am second (actually third, which I'll explain in a minute) in command. The English teacher's role is to get through the curriculum. My role is to pronounce words for the benefit of the students and make English more interesting and (hopefully) fun overall.

There are two English teachers with whom I work at the middle school. Nakamura Sensei teaches the 3rd grade and one of the first grade classes. Yanase Sensei teaches the 2nd grade and the other 1st grade class. But here's the catch: both teachers attend ALL of the English classes, usually. They just take turns being in charge and split up the management of the classes. This makes me 3rd in command at all times. A lot of the time, it feels like there are too many English teachers in the room, but at other times, such as during a speaking drill, it's nice to have the extra pairs of eyes and ears to help the students practice. It seems like there may well be times where the best place for me would be sitting quietly at the back of the room.

Now here's the biggest reason why being Genki is hard. The dynamic between 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders (7th, 8th, and 9th graders, to us Americans) is incredibly different, and each grade has a unique kind of energy that would be most beneficial to cultivate. The 1st graders are the best. They still remember elementary school when English class was Fun! In middle school, they're still willing to play games, sing songs, move about, and actually show some enthusiasm. 2nd graders are starting to get a little too cool for that. Some of them are rather dedicated students. Some of them are disruptive, but still try to learn a little. I can sense they might play some games, but it'll take a bit of testing to know just what kind.

But the third graders, oh, they're just too cool for school. They really are on the border between middle and high school, and quite a few of them are unafraid and even proud to show that they don't care much for class. One of my third graders is a disruptive punk. Seems like the best solution is to just ignore him and fight the urge to wack him upside the head. At any rate, it will be tough to find activities that the 3rd graders will actually get into.

Middle schoolers here get recess. I'm a little jealous. But then, they also clean the school - we're talking wipe-the-floor-with-rags-on-their-hands-and-knees cleaning! I feel too awkward sitting at my desk while they clean around me, so I went to help them clean in one of the class rooms. It's kinda hard work, especially on a hot day when there's no AC.

And this brings me to my next topic. I /really/ wish I could speak more Japanese! I played soccer yesterday with a group of boys, and I couldn't understand a thing! I couldn't even ask properly who was on my team, nor could they understand me when I asked, so there were a few awkward moments between passes. I couldn't figure out how to ask if I could help them clean either. Learning is slow, even while it's fast, and I'm sorta choosing my battles between learning how to speak and learning how to read. It's just going to be a long time before I can properly function in society in Japanese. *Sigh*

Ah well. At least folks are nice. I should try to be a little more Genki in my learning of Japanese so people will help me more and I'll get more practice. Guess I better start flexing my genki-muscles. They're going to get quite a work out...

Stray White Cats and Vitamin C

But first, an inspired poem:

Salt fills the ocean,
Perhaps that's why fish taste good.
Salt is Magical.

Yes, with a capital 'M'. Salt makes my food taste good, and man do I use a lot of it. You just don't notice these things until you're cooking for yourself on a regular basis. I'd like to think that I've been moderately successful so far with my cooking. My repertoire basically consists of stir fries (sometimes with instant curry), soups, and anything-that-can-be-put-in-the-rice-cooker-or-a-blender. My only complaints: my miso soup was rather lacking in flavor, and I bought these mushrooms that sort of overpower all other flavors, and they're not the tastiest mushrooms. Luckily, I'm not a picky eater.

Yesterday was my first day of school as well as the Opening Ceremony for the 2nd semester, which takes place after their summer holiday, which is their longest holiday. Right, their longest holiday is between their 1st and 2nd semesters. Seems odd. Anyway, I had to give a speech in English, and I even repeated it in Japanese. They had a student prepare his own English speech for me, which he presented about two feet in front of me in front of the school. There was lots of bowing and it was overall quite the disciplinary display. The whole rest of the day, if I walked about the school, the students would stare and giggle. It's like they've never seen a foreigner before, but they have - just last semester! Well, I guess I look different from Jay. The braver (or more brazen) students would try shouting things in English at me - usually things like 'Hello!' or 'How are you', though I did get one 'You are very beautiful' from a 3rd grade boy who quickly darted out of sight. (The junior high school is divided into grades, which are referred to as 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade.)

Today was my first day of teaching!!! I spent the morning and lunch time at Yamanishi Elementary School introducing myself to the 5th and 6th graders. I played True or False with them, feeding them some blatantly false information about myself ('I like to sumo wrestle') followed by some true information. I told them bits about Texas, mentioned NASA and longhorns. I showed them some of my origami and they were impressed. The homeroom teachers were very helpful with translating some of the instructions and questions and keeping order, though they are far from fluent speakers. They were really into it, though, and a couple of them even tried the yoga balance I demonstrated - to great comedic effect!

Oh - but the best part of today was the 10 minute break between classes that I spent wandering the hallways. I ran into a hall of first graders who just stared at me. Then they came closer. Then they started acting silly, one boy carrying a smaller boy up to me. 'Oh, present-o desu ka?' They all laughed, and the little one ran away. THEN they followed me to the library, where I had been teaching, after I said 'bye' several times. They stayed there until the bell rang, then they all ran away.

A side note on bells: at 5 o'clock every afternoon, the town clock plays the chorus of 'Yesterday' by the Beatles. Strange.

A different sidenote: I found my way and back (triumph!) to the HI Hirose (the equivalent of a Wal-Mart Super Center) in the next town over. Inside, they were playing Yankee Doodle on repeat over and over and over and over. It was maddening.

Ok, now on to the title of this post: Stray White Cats and Vitamin C - they're everwhere! Japan really doesn't have a problem with strays, but I've seen enough white cats around to generalize about it. And there is tons of Vitamin C water everywhere, and several different brands of it, as well as other forms of taking vitamin C. It's like there was a massive scurvy epidemic at some point. Which reminds me - limes! Where are they? My body senses that it's missing something, and I'm pretty sure that something is limes! My heart skips a beat every time I pass these small green lime-sized mandarin oranges that I haven't yet tasted because I begrude them their appearance. Oh limes! that perfect companion to salt and so many other things! I would probably write you a haiku, too, if you were here!

Basking in the Land of Origami Paper

I think I just died and went to heaven. There is origami paper EVERYWHERE!! I haven't gone out to buy any because people just give it to me, either because their kids don't use it anymore or they just happened to have it. The packaging says it cost ￥90-100, or about $1. This is for a packet of about 80 sheets of 6x6 inch paper - which would cost probably $8-11 in the US. The nicer paper comes in packs of 20-30, but same price. Osaki san, who is an incredibly sweet lady in the office, found some gorgeous patterned paper maybe in a magazine or something and gave it to me. Except for that, so far its all been small paper, but I imagine there must be larger sheets within easy, affordable reach.

But it's the elementary schools that shout 'Land of Origami'. The walls are COVERED with it! Little flowers, lanterns, and geometric shapes folded from origami decorate every art project and bulletin board. There seems to be so much paper that kids even cut up the foil-backed paper to make shiny crowns and suns for their illustrations. Foil-backed paper, especially in larger pieces, is rather hard to find back home, or else expensive.

When the elementary school teacher learned I could do origami, she insisted that I make some and bring it to class to show the kids. She also mentioned the possibility of Origami Time in class, time permitting. So now my homework is to fold origami. Terrible! Ugh! I hate my life! Anyway, I found a black laquered box in the house that I decided to use to house my origami so I could bring it to school unharmed. Turns out it's a bento box (Japanese lunch box). Explains why I found it with the tupperware. My coworkers asked me if I'd be eating origami for lunch today. I should learn to make awesome-looking origami Japanese food and really freak them out!

The people I talk to are often surprised to learn that Americans know what origami is, even more surprised that we call it 'origami'. The books I brought are definitely much more complicated than anything most of them have seen, so they might get the idea that Americans/Westerners are better at origami. They do have a tendency to generalize based on the nearest foreigner. I think it will be a while before I can explain, and I may never be able to convince them that it's fairly rare for Americans to be as interested/devoted/obsessed with origami as I am. But oh well.

One thing I've noticed how quickly I'm learning how to translate animal names into Japanese, in part due to origami and in part because of the wildlife, which consists of bugs (mushi) and frogs (kaeru) and bats (komori) mostly. But I've also learned giraffe (kirin), monkey (saru), elephant (zo), turtle (kame), and lizard (I only remember the consonants on that one...).

Oh man - totally just got petted (rather roughly) by a dude saying 'kawaii kawaii' (cute cute; this is every Japanese person's favorite adjective). Who is this guy? Oh!! My neighbor! Weird. Hello Oyama san! I doubt he ever did that to Jay.

10 Things That Should Shock Me More Than They Do

1) At traffic lights, the crosswalks are about 10 yards away from the brake line.

2) At construction sights, there is a screen showing a construction worker dude who bows to you as you go past. If they can't have the real deal, they'll use a computerized one. Apparently, there even exists a robotic construction worker dummy that they put out to bow to drivers as they go past.

3) Everyone, especially children, is comfortable with picking up large insects. Well, girls less so than guys, but that's fairly universal.

4) Within 1 minute of meeting me, my coworker asked me how much money I was making. The teacher who was translating instantly replied for me.

5) My first Japanese anatomy lesson came from a 9-year-old girl.

6) Japanese women are much more inclined to learn and speak English than Japanese men.

7) There is no Japanese equivalent of 'bless you'. When someone sneezes, language dictates that you ignore them.

8) Lots of people will wave to you when while you drive, just as lots of people will stare at you when you're visible.

9) The blood-curdling screams of young kendo-warriors-in-training coming from the gym across the street on Wednesday nights.

10) Some of my coworkers went to 3 drinking parties this past weekend. The mayor was up drinking until almost 4 last night.

Names! So many names!

Today was spent at the Nishihara Junior High School (chugako) touring the campus and organizing the desk, which is FULL of flashcard and teaching handbooks and activity books and curriculum binders, etc. Many of these sets of cards aren't complete, but I don't know which ones so I spent a lot of time in the teachers' office going through numbers, days of the week, months, weather cards, sports cards, alphabet cards, envelopes with pictures of food in them, etc.

I also met the two English teachers I'll be working with. Thankfully, they can speak English, if not quite as well as Tomoko. Every time a student would walk into the office (they're studying for exams and practicing for various athletic teams), the teachers would encourage them to speak with me. They were all levels of nervous and shy. One poor girl looked like she wanted to die and get it over with. 5 tennis players game in a group and they brought up Asheki (?), a Japanese boy band, I believe. They asked me which one I liked. I examined it, then pointed to the middle one, and they screamed! One girl collapsed to the ground because she is apparently obsessed with this dude, Musaki, Mosaki, I forget. I asked a lot of people their names today.

Oh, and I went to this delicious restaurant called Herbu. I had fish of some sort, and it came with an onion soup and a salad - super yummy! Apparently Nishihara has a slew of good restaurants since a main road goes straight through it and people outside of Nishihara often stop by to eat.

By the way, here is my house. It's rectangular in shape. Pretty simple-looking from the outside.

 This is my bedroom. Those white panels slide back and forth, and I usually keep them open unless the air conditioner is on, since it is located in the bedroom only. I closed them for showcasing purposes. You can't see the dresser on the right or the 3 closets on the left.

This is the view from the kitchen. You can see the bedroom on the right and the living room on the left. The small kitchen table never looks any cleaner than that. And you can see the some of the semicircular couch. And the mess beyond it. If I sit on the chair at the right, I can see the TV in the living room, which is hidden from here.

Next is the kitchen. You can see the two small gas burners, the sink, the Scary-Killer-Death-Oven-Microwave, and the top of a small-ish fridge.  It's quaint, I guess.

And finally, here's the spare room. In the photo, it has become the craft room. I'm preparing for my self introductions in the classroom. There's a tall bookshelf out of sight on the right, and to the left there is definitely room for a couch. This is also a good view of the tatami mats. This room was redone due to the cats who lived here before. My allergies occasionally flare up while I'm in here.











So that's a basic, quick look at the house. I didn't show you the entryway where you're supposed to take off your shoes (and I do - anything to help prevent bugs). You can probably also see that most of the walls are bare. Still looking for stuff to put up. Didn't show you the bathroom either. Ah well, next time.

And did you notice I mastered the photo technique? In the previous entry, I somehow managed to delete some and change the order of the text while getting the photos in a hodge podge. It's apparent from that entry that I still have more photos to show. But all in due time.

Sayonara! (which, incidentally, nobody says...)

As promised, PICTURES!

So here are some pictures of my house and my coworkers. I haven't yet taken a picture of my car because it's not mine yet, but I will.  

In an effort to avoid walking the 1 minute home in the rain, I am staying at the office a little while longer. It has literally rained (and by 'rained' I mean 'poured) at least once every two days while I've been here. And it's usually short, about 30 minutes to an hour of rain preceded and followed by clear skies. It's typhoon season, they tell me. Which apparently follows on the heels of rainy season.

Fail. Will try again tomorrow.

Technology 1. Rebeca 0.

OMG Posting pictures is hard!

I am currently in the middle of a valiant struggle to put many pictures in one blog entry. It's gonna take a while. You know what, maybe I'll post the first draft just so you get an idea. Feel free to wait until I get a better version up to read it.

3 Days 'til I Own a Car!

I have now procured paper and delved into the depths of the drawers of teaching materials left by former ALTs. I found sticky sheets of printing paper and now have nearly 8.5x11 inches' worth of Texas-related stickers. Now I shall proceed to make The Most Awesome Texas Poster Known to Man. Those Japanese kids won't know what hit 'em.

And I found a car! Or more accurately, Tomoko with the help of Takamoto san found a car! I was a little unhappy with the idea of having a station wagon. The roads and the parking spaces are just a bit small for a normal-sized, much less a Texas-sized car. So this is a nice one. It looks like a shrunk van, basically. Almost guinea-pig-esque in shape. And it was definitely designed with Japanese passengers in mind. Anyone taller than 5 foot 6 inches will have to sit sideways. But it's cute, and it's basically the Japanese version of an enery efficient car, with a smaller engine and lighter build I think. Oh, and guess what! It has a CD player with English labels! Woohoo!

One important thing to consider when buying a car is this thing called a Shakken. It's basically a mandatory biannual car inspection + tiny bit of insurance that can cost anywhere from ￥50,000-120,000, which translates to about $500-1200. So, if you buy a car in August for $1,000 and the Shakken runs out in January, you will actually be paying $2000 for the car, because you didn't get much use from the previous shakken. This car come with shakken, which is getting renewed the day I get it, basically, so I'm good for two years. Great deal! Other cars were being sold for $1000 more and with shakkens that would run out in 6-8 months. What's up with that?

Then I exchanged money. That was painful, since the Yen is basically as strong as it's ever been. Hopefully, it stays that way for a couple months and I can take advantage of it when I start to send money home.

So I have learned that it is possible to make bread and cakes in my rice cooker. WOW! I'm kinda excited to try that out, maybe tomorrow night. But I need butter. I found a simple banana bread recipe from a blog written by someone who is, would you believe it, cooking in Japan. Yesterday I successfully used my Scary-Killer-Death-Oven-Microwave to bake chicken. I call it my Scary-Killer-Death-Oven-Microwave because when I first saw it, I just assumed it was like a normal microwave. When I went to use it four days later, inside it was pitch black inside with a thick microwave plate, some sort of heating element up top, and virtually no space to maneuver. It looks like you're about to put your hands inside Death. It can be used as an oven (takes a bit longer than normal ovens) or a broiler, I think, or a microwave. It's a complicated little gadget.

Also, my rice cooker is also a clock. I wondered why it always said my rice needed 20 hours to cook.

かんじ or Kanji

So today is 'I'm-So-Excited-To-Learn-Japanese' day! In a slight change of pace, I have moved on to learning some kanji, or the Chinese characters that Japanese uses along with its two syllabaries, hiragana and katakana. I am learning how to write my address in Japanese, and quizzing myself on Anki. Now I'm tired of memorizing and writing, so I'm searching the Japanese internet for kanji that I recognize. Mind you, this is only what I've learned and their meanings are by no means 100% complete or accurate.

番 - Wow! This symbol is in my address! With another kanji, it notes my house number.

中 - This symbol I think means 'middle'. I've seen it in the written form of chugaku, or middle school.

西 - This symbol is sometimes read 'nishi', as in Nishihara, which is where I live.

原 - The other half of Nishihara! I remembered this symbol by noting that it looks like a hanging lantern.

I also learned the symbol for 'free' or 'relax' so I can read on the calendar which afternoons I have off. Good to know.

It really is fascinating learning another language this way. At least, for now. My vocab takes some interesting turns. I've seen a lot of frogs, so I know what the word 'kaeru' means. Nishi means 'west' and yama means 'mountain', and one of the elementary schools is named Yamanishi so when I met my neighbors yesterday, we were able to have a brief conversation about the geography of Texas. Yes, there are mountains in Texas, but only in west Texas. South Texas is flat (fu-ra-to).

In other news, I got the tv to work! I also bought a small hibiscus plant and it blossomed this morning! We'll see how long it survives. Also had my first cockroach and first (thankfully, tiny) centipede yesterday. Bugs. Cockroaches I can handle. They don't scare me so much as make the place seem dirty, and I'm trying really hard to keep it clean. The centipede fell out of a book as I opened it - scared the bejeezus out of me. I guess it's a tropical place, so no matter how hard I try, I can only keep the bugs to a minimum and never completely get rid of them. If they become a problem, I have actually considered luring them into the microwave with food or something, then shutting it and nuking them. I don't think I would ever do it, but it's reassuring just to know that I have options.

And tonight - I shall attempt to make fried chicken. I'm craving deep-fried food, but I don't think my cooking skills are that sophisticated. But it would be awesome if I could make my own tempura.

Shopping! ...and Internet Problems

So it's the weekend, which means I got up late, just like I would do at home. Must mean I'm getting acclimated. Tomoko, in her infinite kindness, took me shopping today! We went to two secondhand stores, the dollar store (here called Daiso, or Hundred Yen, or Hyaku Yen, take your pick),the grocery store, a furniture store and a couple of electronics stores to ask about hooking up the internet in my house. We had fantastic luck everywhere except the electronics stores. Let me tell you about it.

Secondhand Store #1: Located right in Nishihara itself, this store is basically like a giant garage sale. Not much in the way of clothes, but plenty in the way of furniture, dishware, hardware, house parts, and Random Things. I got two extension chords ($3), a hair dryer ($5), and two vases ($4) in which to put the fake cherry blossoms that I found in a closet in the house. It was a rather dusty place, but cheap, which is the point, after all.

Electronics store: We then went into the city looking for Yahoo BB, one of the major internet providers here. The first store couldn't help us, so we went down the street to a 'computer & internet' store. Here, the agent exlained to Tomoko who then explained to me that in order to connect through Yahoo BB, I would have to apply to be on the waitlist. Huh? A waitlist for internet? Apparently there are only a limited number of internect connections provided in Nishihara, and all of the Yahoo BB ones are full. But there is another company, NTT, and they have open connections right now. Great. But, if you sign up with NTT, you have to sign onto a two year contract, and the monthly payment is about $50. Compare to Yahoo BB's $32 per month and no contract required, and I think you can see why I'm now on the waitlist.

But wait, there's more! If I can somehow manage to get into the exclusive Yahoo BB internet club and sign up for a one year contract, I get a free gift! And I mean, a really cool gift! I chose a bike. Other options included a Nintendo DS, a digital camera, a rice cooker (go figure, it's Japan), a $250 gift card, and a Wii. Crazy, right? It gets crazier. As I was signing up to be on the waitlist, Tomoko told me there would be a connection fee. I asked how much it was. She said I could either get the first month of internet free or get $10 off each month for the first six months. So, how much is the connection fee? About $1 a month. And I'm required to do one of those first two options? Yes.

Head explosion.

How can there be a connection fee that requires you to get a discount worth so much more than the fee itself?

Japan.

So anyway, it looks like I'll be waiting for internet. I mean, for a deal that good, why wouldn't I wait? I can use the internet at the BOE every day of the week, including weekends, which it is right now. Remember how I said someone is always on call here? Well, that means as long as I mention it before hand and come in before 9pm, I can use this computer for internet. Yay! But that also means no Skype for anywhere from 1-6 months if I decide to keep waiting. The average wait time is apparently 2 months. If I'm lucky, it'll be less. But then, I'm already lucky to have this much access to the internet. I've talked to other JETs and they're not quite so lucky. This is basically the first real disadvantage of living in the country side that I've encountered. That and the smell of cows.

Secondhand Store #2: Was amazing! It was a much nicer store than the one in the village, since this was more of a chain of 'recycle stores' going by the name of Second Street. This one had furniture and nice towels and electronics downstairs and shoes, clothes, jewelry and purses upstairs. It was basically the equivalent of a Ross or Marshalls, but it sold more and cooler stuff. Tomoko found an ipod, never been used, at half price and so she finally bought one. I found a new, used purse, since mine is a bit too small for all the documents I have to be carrying around. The store had DVD players for $20-60 and digital cameras in the $50-150 range. It was awesome. I'm looking to get a sofa eventually, but I definitely want to look around first and organize the house a bit more before I buy one. The old one left in the house is unappealing and semicircular in shape. And an ugly shade of green. And has leather upholstery, which I also don't like much. So yea, I'm going to replace it and make this house my house. I'm going to change the curtains, too, especially since I saw some nice curtains for $10. I really like shopping.

At the dollar store I got de-humidifiers (the house NEEDS those), and super glue (I NEED it), and I got tons of stuff at the grocery store. I should be stocked for the next month, with both Japanese and American food, anything from cereal and oatmeal to soba and miso. Mostly Japanese stuff, though, since I want to learn how to cook it, and it will be cheaper in the long run.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, last night there was a local festival where people set up stalls and sold yummy food, beer, and light-up children's toys. The program consisted of 1.5 hours of karaoke and some fireworks. I met a few people that Tomoko knew, got a few stares, and a few eager students came up wanting to know my name and to try out their English. The popular question (in Japanese directed at Tomoko) is what university did I go to. The rumor has spread around the village that it's a famous one, but no one is sure which one it is. Ha-vaa-do. EEEEEEHHHH??!?! It's not the same typed out, but that's the standard Japanese expression of disbelieve. It has ridiculous intonation that goes with it. Very amusing.

Ok, time to go attempt to cook some of this Japanese food I brought home. You'll probably hear about a few of the many disasters I'll be having in the next few months.

Head Explosions

I am in constant danger of these. At least every 3 days, if not every 3 hours, my head reaches its saturation point and I just stop thinking. Wednesday I went to orientation, saw lots of familiar faces that I recognized from the plane ride over, plus a few new faces: 2nd or 3rd year teachers and people who flew in with the first batch of new recruits. So many names - of people, places, things - to remember. Or rather, to forget. More speeches about how we should get involved with our communities and try new things and learn Japanese while we're here. Tips on how to keep ourselves in a sound state of mind. It's all stuff I've heard before, but when I stop to reflect on my last two weeks (!!) here, it really is interesting to see how I am reacting to an enormous amount of stress and information. I'd say quite well so far, and this blog definitely helps. Emails and comments from friends and family help even more :)

I feel well-equipped to handle the next few weeks and months. I have the tools to learn how to survive, now I just need to study them. It's actually amazing how much Japanese I have learned in such a short time because I keep trying out new vocabulary, or writing out the alphabet. It really showed today during our 4 hours (!!!) of Japanaese lessons. I could read what was written on the board, and I found myself reviewing a lot of small grammar points that I had picked up along the way. It's so nice to have these tangible results - and other people really notice. At any rate, I hope I keep it up. The challenge will be not to short-circuit my brain.

And of course, the best part of orientation was meeting people and starting to build a small network of friends who live in this area. I met a few people who will be working about 2 hours south of here, in the furthest corner of the prefecture, a couple of people (Jay's friends, actually) who live nearby and regularly visit the city. One of these pleasant new people has even offered to sell me her car. It's a station wagon, so a bit more clunky than I'd like, especially considering how small the roads are out here, but she's selling it for $700 and the two offers from the car dealer are closer to $4000. I think I'll be going cheaper and less ideal rather than chalking up more than a month's salary. While it will be very convenient for getting around the village, the main reason I want a car is to be able to travel around Japan easily, and I could buy a whole lot of bus tickets for four grand.

Having a car will be my biggest expense by far while I am here. After buying it, there is a car inspection that you need to get every 2 years that costs around $1000. Then there is a car tax in April or thereabouts, $500. There's definitely-not-optional optional insurance. And there are tons of expensive toll roads. To drive 89 km, you will likely have to pay a $20 toll if you take the highway which would probably cut your travel time in half versus driving on the farm roads. Then, if I stay here for more than a year, I'll need to get a Japanese driver's license. The test costs $50 and NO foreigner passes it the first time. The average number of tests taken per person is 3-4. The instructors are incredibly strict and they will find problems where there usually is none. And of course, driving itself can be quite dangerous, and the chances of getting into an accident quite high. Old drivers and bikers apparently have some sort of death wish. There are lots of blind spots out in the country side, there are two-purpose, small drain ditchs off the shoulders of many roads that are used for 1) irrigating the rice fields and 2) trapping the wheels of foreign drivers unaccustomed to their existence. And if you speed just 5 km over the limit, which is quite low usually about 30-50 km/hr, the cops will pull you over. Drive 25 k or higher over the speed limit, and your license will be suspended, you could go to jail, and likely lose your job.

I think whoever designed Japan was very selective about the kind of person who should live in Japan.

Paranoia

While security cameras and mega cops will almost certainly keep away the theives and crooks, they most definitely will not keep away the bugs. There is currently a semi-large moth under a piece of tupperware that I forgot to free outside this morning and there must be ants living in the woodwork. But that's just the beginning. Japan is full of large insects, most terrifyingly the mukade, or 8-10 inch long centipede that delivers a nasty bite. They LOVE inhabiting Japanese houses. Jay said that just the other day, he was about to put his pants on when he noticed a mukade spanning across the inside of his pant leg. Eesh. Not looking forward to that. There are bees that don't sting and are apparently eaten by a good number of people, and there is a giant killer wasp (not quite, but you may have to visit the hospital if it stings you), and I have seen one of these wasps in my backyard. Hopefully he's not a frequent visitor.

Living alone in a house is going to take some getting used to. I jump at every unknown thump, click, and flutter, and even playing music doesn't quite get rid of the heeby-jeebies. I'm trying to resist the urge to live on just pasta and eggs, which are easy, comforting foods to make in a pantry full of mysterious labels and strange smells. Since I'm the only one eating, I just rinse and reuse my fork and bowl after every meal (yea, I still use a fork when I'm in my own house). Buying and making rice is easy, and noodles, but bread is sold in 5-slice loaves, where the slices are super thick and the bread is rich and sweet. Investing in a bread-maker is starting to sound like a good idea. One more thing, the soy sauce here is really good in some really subtle way - much better than any soy sauce I've had at home. I guess if you eat it with virtually every meal, you might as well make it tastier.

Pictures will be forthcoming!! Sorry for delaying on this point. The house is a total mess right now - I just emptied a couple of drawers worth of teaching materials. It's almost overwhelming. Emily (who was here before Jay) was obsessed with laminating things. There are Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day and Thanksgiving signs and stories with their translations and a bajillion flash cards. I just organized a big drawer of Christmas stuff, which included lots of little ornaments, fake snow fluff, 3 windchimes, 2 stockings, 2.5 santa costumes, and 2 mini christmas trees. Next drawer: Halloween. This time I'll take allergy medicine, since I think I stirred up a whole lot of residual cat hair. Emily, and then Jay had a cat, which is thankfully no longer there, and many of the walls and mats have been replaced due to cat damage. But it does make me wonder if I'll get a pet. Maybe a guinea pig. Jonathan suggested a tarantula so it can eat the bugs. Dunno if it would be big enough to eat a mukade, though. Hedgehogs eat bugs. Do they have hedgehogs in Japan?

Clean-Up Time

So last night was Enkai (Drinking Party) #2. I don't remember getting home, but I woke up this morning to find myself in my pajamas, my clothes mysteriously ended up where they should be (hung or in the laundry pile), and I apparently wrote half an illegible journal entry (I found my journal open, face-down next to the dirty laundry - maybe I was writing while I was changing? And it really is illegible, which is a bummer, since I would like to know what I was thinking in that state). The party was a lot of fun, at least up to the part I remember. Japanese people drink a lot and I really should not be encouraged like this. The party was held at the superintendent's Gi-normous House, which included 3 houses, a gazebo for barbecueing, a gorgeous rock garden, a huge plant-growing garden, and a toilet that does Crazy Things!! When you open the bathroom door, the lid automatically lifts up and there is a panel of about 10-15 different toilet functions. Thankfully,  the hostess was kind enough to point out which one was the Flush Button - helped prevent any unwanted surprises. Honestly, there was probably an eject button on that thing.

Breakfast this morning was refried red beans. I don't know how they cook red beans here, but beans are beans are beans so I did one of the only things I know to do with them: cook, mash, and fry. It was rather tasty.  Then I walked to the office, and on my way I noticed all the office workers were outside. With brooms. Sweeping the parking lot. In their office clothes. Hm. So I asked if I should help, and we all swept up the leaves and bagged them together in the very hot morning sun. That must have been what the announcement was about this morning.

Which reminds me, have I told you yet about the village PA system? It's like something out of World War II or 1984. The announcements so far have been for things like the women's club meeting, or (apparently) Clean Up Time. Fairly innocent as far as I can tell, but it seems to me that the effect is a colony of workers acting as One, as though all Japanese people were linked to one giant brain. It is a very group-oriented society.

BURUBERIS!!!

That's Japanese for 'blueberries' in case you were wondering. Before coming to Japan, my sources told me that there was very little fruit to be had, so I had basically resigned myself to a fruit-life of cucumbers and melons. So you can imagine my surprise and unbounded happiness when I discovered that blueberries grow IN THIS REGION!!! I was invited to go to the once-a-year Blueberry Picking and Somen Noodle Eating Event, which takes place next to the Shiraito no Taki, or White Waterfall, which is a well-known beautiful, wooded mossy creek area.

I went with Akiko, who is the youngest office worker at the BOE besides myself. She's 23, incredibly shy and easily embarrassed and wants to practice her English. Communication was definitely harder, but by the end of they day, her English had noticeably improved. Her friend Yosi also spoke some English, so by the combined efforts of all three of us, we managed to establish some rudimentary communications. Our first stip was to the kitchen where the onigiri, or rice balls, were being made for the day's event. We helped put daikon radishes and other other strange-looking garnishes into the plastic containers.

From top to bottom: Yosi, me, Akiko

Next we went blueberry picking! The bushes were huge and covered with spider webs, but those could be avoided. There were lots of families with little kids picking through the bushes. The kids kept shouting 'oishin! oishin!' (delicious! delicious!) as they ate the blueberries. I can't help but agree - they were quite good. I used some to make a smoothie for breakfast this morning.

Next we went down to the waterfall to watch them make somen (thin white noodles eaten cold, a great summer food). Somebody, somewhere has invented the two BEST WAYS EVER to eat cold noodles!!! Method #1: Sit at a table with a small circular tank with moving water. Place noodles into the Mini River, catch, and dip into your sauce. Method #2: line up along a bamboo noodle conductor. Prepare to catch the noodles as they are send down the pole with cold water, a lot like a noodle-slide. Dip noodles into your cup of sauce.

Method #1

Method #2

It was an exciting day. Akiko and I did some shopping for my house afterward, then I fell asleep for 13 hours after getting back to the house. Thus began Week #2 in Japan. Pictures courtesy of my new cell phone, which takes 8 megapixel pictures, the same as my digital camera, which I can then text to my email account. Hooray for technology!

Video Surveilance

So remember how I said that the BOE takes Super Good Care of it's Assistant Language Teachers? Well, apparently about 4 years ago, the girl who was teaching here thought she was being stalked. Whether or not this is true is still largely debated. To make a long story short, my house is under constant video surveillance - Alkatraz style. And there's a black box that I could (in theory, if not yet in practice) use to pull up this video surveillance and monitor my house. Crazy.

So safety is a huge issue, here and in Japan in general. My house is about a 1 minute walk to the main government office, which houses the Board of Education, the tax office, the alien registration office, the water-bill paying office and a number of other things that are municipal in nature. At all times, there is always someone in this office. This means that at night, people take turns staying overnight, sleeping in the office. In my house there is a small remote with one red button on it. If I were to push this button aｔ, say, 3am, someone wearing very little clothing (in the summer) would rush over with a flashlight asking what's the matter. This actually happened to my predecessor, so now I know NOT to push the little red button. Unless, of course, I need it.

All of this is incredibly unnecessary when you consider the virtually non-existent crime rate in Japan. Of course, one should not go wandering through dark alleys alone at night in order to test this theory (especially if one is a female gaijin, or foreigner). Why, you may ask? Maybe because if you get caught from doing anything from stealing a pack of peanuts to breaking someone's nose to smoking a joint, the police have a right to hold you in jail for up to 35 days. During the first 1-2 weeks, they can and probably will interrogate you for 9 hours EVERY DAY. 90% of convictions in Japan are the result of a confession. And the police here have NOTHING to do. So if they think you're acting suspicious, especially in smaller towns and villages and super-especially if you're a foreigner, they will follow you, ask about you, etc. The end result of all of this is, of course, a very low crime rate.

In short: In Japan, the law enforcers are far scarier than the law breakers.

A House of My Own

The Nishihara Board of Education (BOE) takes extraordinarily good care of its Assistant Language Teachers, or ALTs. Literally across the parking lot from the BOE office, there is a small, government-owned house. While I'm a teacher here, I get to live in this house rent-free. The house comes with a few basic appliances, including a TV which comes with 6 basic channels, a bed which just got a new mattress pad and for which I got to choose the new sheets and covers, and an old semi-circular couch. The house is rather decrepit looking from the outside, but the inside is nice since it was newly wall-papered after Jay's cat completely scratched up one of the rooms. The floors of the bedroom, living room and spare bedroom are covered with tatami mats, which cover the floors of most traditional Japanese houses. If you are new to living with tatami mats, their musk is the first thing you notice when you enter the house, especially when it is hot and humid, as it is all summer in Nishihara.

The house is entirely devoid of hallways. Rooms link to one another by way of sliding doors, which would be like removeable walls if you could take them off their tracks. The kitchen is equipped with two gas burners for cooking, a microwave, fridge, cabinet full of dishes and cooking and eating ware, and a small shelf that serves as a pantry. The bathroom is separated into a toilet room on one side of the kitchen and a sink/shower/washing machine room on the other side. There is a deep, though not very long, bathtub, which many Japanese people use for soaking after they shower - they fill it with hot water, cover it (my covers are missing) and use the same water for a couple days for an after-dinner soak. Or so I was told at an orientation about two months back.

In addition to getting a rent-free house, Jay has left me a number of useful things that he won't be taking with him back to Canada. There are bug sprays and mat sprays and soaps and air fresheners, all labeled in Japanese, so I'll need to be properly monitored before using most of them. The laundry detergent is pretty straight forward. Thankfully, Jay labeled the bleach. That could have been disastrous. There's a closet full of teaching supplies, anything from giant dice to Christmas decorations to an ancient stuffed Pikachu. There are also Japanese grammar books and flash cards, a random assortment of CDs and DVDs, old dish towels, and even 6 months worth of toilet paper tucked into various nooks and crannies of the house. Apparently, when I mentioned that I had worked Dorm Crew and cleaned dormitories in college, he worked extra hard to clean the house before I got there, and it showed.

Now my work is cut out for me. The walls of the house are bare, but that will change very soon. I don't have a decoration scheme in mind, but then I never really do. There are Glow-in-the-Dark stars on the bedroom ceiling, and those are going to be the first thing to go. I've never had anything against Glow-inthe-Dark stars before. Strange. Anyway, I'll give them away as prizes to the students or something. Meanwhile, I'll still have clothes to put away and Stuff to sort through, organize, and determine the use/meaning of. I should probably do laundry fairly soon, but I don't know when I'll have time between tomorrow's festival and buying a phone and connecting my internet (I'm currently on the office computer) and shopping for groceries and other necessities.

And somehow, in the midst of all of this, I'll learn some Japanese.

Culture Shock: Stage 1

Euphoria. Honeymoon phase. Open-mouthed amazement. The jitters. I'm there. I woke up this morning at 3:30, needing to use the bathroom after a night of drinking with the members of the board of education, and I could not go back to sleep. A hundred million billion thoughts came rushing through my head and I couldn't stop myself from planning all of the things I would do in the next week, month or year. I couldn't stop, so I couldn't sleep. So in front of the screen door I sat, cross-legged on the tatami mat, watching the sun come up from behind the mountains. Thinking about my future. About my life in Japan.

Oh man, today I am overwhelmed. I can't believe I'm here. I also can't believe I found the apostrophe key and can use it - I've been searching and experimenting and freezing the computer for hours. At any rate, there is absolutely no way I can write about everything I've experienced and felt these last few days in one entry. Rest assured, though, I will be jotting down lots of details as time goes by. This first entry is simply the result of necessity. You know that feeling you get when you have so many things to say that you feel you will explode unless you tell somebody right away? Well, whether or not you know the feeling is largely irrelevant, since I just told you what it felt like. That's why I'm writing today, to get it out of my system. Maybe even to convince myself that it's real.

Today is my third day in Nishihara, the village where I'll be teaching English for the next year (or maybe more). I just got back from opening a bank account at the post office - that's right, at the Post Office. In Japan, the post office is the widest reaching bank, since it has offices everywhere mail goes. To open my bank account, I needed a Certificate of SomethingMaybeResidencyMaybeWork (I'm not really sure since it's all written in Japanese), my passport, and my inka, which is a stamp that says 'Re be ka' in katakana (one of the Japanese scripts used largely for foreign words) and that serves as my signature. My bank account has no money in it, and probably won't until the 21st of August when I get my first paycheck. At some point in the next few days there'll be some more paperwork for that, too. I also paid the city $5 so that it's ok to use the water in my house and I received a package that I mailed to myself 10 days ago. I had to sign for it, which I thought was odd, in a metaphysical sense I guess. Lunch came from 7-11, which, like all convenience stores in Japan, has a decent selection of lunch and dessert items.

And now I have some down time. I'm currently sitting in the office for the Board of Education, which is my employer, munching on Pocky and generally passing the time until 2, when I'll have a meeting with the elementary school English teachers. It sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but not for me. Ms. Tomoko Yano is my hero. Also my supervisor. She has been doing everything, including translating at every meeting, meal, and welcome ceremony along the way. Apparently she is the only person in the village who can speak English fluently. Between her and Jay Penner, who is my predecessor, I couldn't be more well-cared for. They will each get their own entries later on.