A little hiccup in the plans

Well, we were going to be good and try to update on a set schedule but then we ate at Gusto.

See, last sunday Caleb, Claire, Rachel and I all went down to Morioka to take the JLPT ( Japanese test). When we got out, all of us convinced we had failed the level we took, we decided to go out to eat and cheer ourselves up.

If you don't know what Gusto "family dining" is, imagine a Shoney's ... then make it a Japanese Shoney's. Gusto serves big hamburger patties with cheese and other items. There is nearly always a pile of yellow corn too. Because Japanese people love yellow corn. Here's the website: http://www.skylark.co.jp/gusto/index.html

Anyway Caleb's dinner looked like this exactly:
And by that night Caleb looked like this:


Well, like that but with more projectile vomiting. I thought about putting up a picture of someone vomiting. I thought it would be funny. After google image searching for "sick" and "vomiting", I can decidedly say that vomiting is not so much funny as it is gross. Also, a picture Glenn Beck was on the first page result for "sick".

Student Story Compilation

Sorry for the delay. Samantha and I have been very busy lately so we didn't have much of a chance to blog. Also, to an amazing degree our lives have become so normal here nothing seems interesting enough to blog about. We are going to try and get more regular again. Here are a few great stories of English mistakes and interesting things my kids have said. Names have been changed to nick names to protect the guilty.

First a cute story. I'm well known for not having a car and riding my bike to school everyday from my house. So my students will often ask me if I rode my bike today and things like that. Well one day I'm eating lunch with the second grade and they asked me if I rode to school that day. I say no I took the train because of the rain. Well the same student then asks if I live in America. I tell him I'm from America. Then he asks how long it takes to get from America to Japan everyday.The teacher and I quiz him to figure out what he meant by that. Apparently, he thought I rode my bike from America to school every day. Which would explain why he was always surprised and excited to see me. The teacher asks how I could ride to Japan or does my bike fly. The students response was just, "maybe."

I have a Ninth grade student who is my favorite of all. He is far from the best at English but he always tries and talk to me between classes. He is outgoing and funny. The first day I taught his class. I was doing the "get to know you dialog" where I would ask, "what do you like" and "why". The typical conversation is like this:

Me: What do you like?
Student: Strawberry.
Me: Why do you like strawberries?
Student: It's delicious.

This is my dialog with my favorite student.
Me:What do you like?
Student: I like PERFECT BODY. (said while flexing)
Me:OK, why do you like perfect body?
Student:Because.....it.......(flexes and yells)PERFECT BODY.

Since that day his nickname has been "perfect body kid".

Here is another perfect body kid story. For about a week perfect body kid had been coming up to me in the hall and saying, "I god hand." So I finally ask him about where he heard god hand, and he says it is in his book about ping pong. So I no longer think its strange to hear god hand over and over again. Then one day in class. They are trying to say play but it keeps coming out pray. So I explain the difference in meaning between pray and play to the kids. After class perfect body runs up and says, "You pray my god hand." Now, I don't know if he was challenging me to ping pong or trying to start and new religion, but I have my suspicions.

Here is a last perfect body kid story. Samantha and I were at a school event waiting for the kids to get ready. The boys, being lazy, are standing around Samantha. So, they walk over and one of the kids says to Samantha, "You're tall." Then perfect body says to the others in Japanese, "Did we say she was tall or big? Maybe we called her fat? Was tall the right word?" Finally after much whispering to each other they conclude that they have not in fact insulted Samantha, who understood every word they were saying.

Occasionally Claire and I are asked to go to events with Japanese teachers to help them learn to teach English. They like to have us go because we speak Japanese, so that helps. At one such event we are going over the example lesson and the Japanese English teacher had written this great sentence, "Then student will crap hands." Claire and I look and each other and go to laughter covering coughing. Over the course of that example lesson the teacher repeatedly said "crap (your/ their) hands".

A student was trying to translate a sentence to English. The sentence he was supposed to write:" I want to cook". Let me just say that he didn't close the last O in cook rendering it a C. So you and figure out what he actually wrote.

Now, I don't want you to get the idea that me laughing at their English is a one sided thing. My students and teacher frequently laugh at my Japanese. Once, I was try to tell student to speak in a big voice and instead I said speak with a big face. I often say battleship (goonkon) instead of entrance way (ginkon). So I say things like I put my shoes in the battleship. Samantha confuses the words for "people" (ningen) and carrots (ninjin). So she has asked where the "People soup" was at the grocery store.

Bunkasai 2010

Hello all!

We're very sorry that we've not been posting lately. We're going to try to get back on a schedule starting now.

I do have some good news though. My parents and parents-in-law were gracious enough to give me my christmas gift (new computer!) early. Said new computer has much better video editing software, so we're finally getting some video clips around here. Yay!

I've got two clips for you today. I would post more, but video takes a really long time to upload. I'll work on getting more up tomorrow.

Yesterday, Caleb and I attended a bunkasai, also known as a school culture festival. The kids acted out plays, sang songs and performed traditional dances.

The first video is of a fan dance. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for the blurry picture. I forgot to take my real video camera ( I know, smooth right?) so I had to film these video clips with my ipod. I'm a little impressed with the quality of picture it produced anyway. I mean the thing is half the size of a poptart.

The second clip is of the lion dance. I know those costumes look like dragons, but my sources tell me that they are, in fact, lions. My sources also inform me that it is lucky to receive a bite from the lions. Caleb got a bite this year. Unfortunately, the students were close enough that even my blurry ipod video shows their faces, so I chopped that part off. (Also, my thumb covers the camera for about half a second. I still can't figure out how to hold a camera that small.)

Tomorrow I'll try to put up video of wooden plate dance and the crazy formal cheering they do at the end of the festival.

Earthquakes

I had never felt an Earthquake before I came to Japan. Now, I have been through more than a dozen small ones. At first I was quite frightened of any Earthquake because I imagined the house falling down having to dive under a table and what not. These types happen sure but much more common are small quakes that leave you going was that a quake or did the door just start rattling. I have become so jaded to them that when they happen at night I wake up for about 5 seconds think about opening the door so that if the house shifts we can leave room. However, I always fall back to sleep without even getting out of bed. When one happens during the day we all just stand still to see how strong its going to be and just wait it out. The only way to describe a quake is bizarre suddenly what has for your whole life been solid is now moving. Things rattle and your drink might spill but mostly everything is fine it just happens to be moving. If there was a big one all bets are off and its going to be so terrifying but till that happens I'll keep being surprised by how normal they are.

Fishing

mean to complain about that in this post. While fishing is not usually my favorite activity it was nice to be out doing something just guys. I caught a fish in the first five minutes we were there. Not to sound like a fish story but at about 6 inches it was the biggest one all day. Today I went fishing in Hachinohe with some of my friends. I was the first time since coming here that I have done something the was just some guy time. It was really nice. With there being so few young people in town having friends close to my age has been tough. Oh well I didn'tYamabi caught a tiny fish next and then we had a dry spell for a few hours so we went to a different place. There were some other tinny fish caught but the real strange thin was the fugu (puffer fish). At the last place we went I caught a puffer. Then another puffer. Then Kawamura caught a puffer. Then I caught another puffer. Yamabi even caught a flat fish today. Before anyone worries we put the puffers back in and didn't even consider eating them. Sorry for the quality of the pictures they were from my cell phone.

The first fish I caught.
Yamabi's fish. A puffed up puffer fish.

Festival

I can safely say that this festival has wrung us out. Here was our basic schedule for this past weekend.


Friday: I help pull the giant cart around town.. for 6 hours. After work, Claire and Caleb joined me.

Saturday: Caleb pulled the cart. Miyuki, Rachael and I went to the salon to get our hair festival ready.
The hairdresser had no trouble with Miyuki's hair, but found my hair to be too thick and Rachael's hair to be too thin. Somewhere between the two of us is perfect hair for Japanese festival hairdos.
In the evening All of us danced the Ichinohe dance about a mile down the main road. (If I can navigate the treacherous youtube upload system there will be a video of this soon.)
The woman who dressed us in the yukata grumbled constantly about the size of my chest and the size of Claire's hips. We were not built for kimono. Racheal and Miyuki were fine though.

After the dance Claire had an after party. JETs came from miles around to attend.
Sunday: We attended a pottery firing at the Goshono Jomon center. (Which I should probably write a post about.) After the pottery firing we helped pull the cart for about 7 hours and attended an after party with the other people who pulled the cart.
We've had a great time but I'm so glad to relax.


This is just a scattering of pictures that other people took. I'm encouraging Caleb to get on soon and post some of the pictures we took with our camera.

Say it with me everyone

It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

May I be frank?


Y'all, it's been 99 degrees in my house the past few days. It's been 92 degrees at night.

Safe to say, it's been hot.

Our new neighbor, a wonderful lady from the UK, asked how southern Americans dealt with the heat. I almost felt sheepish admitting that most people have air conditioning.

It's true that Ichinohe's summer isn't as bad as Tennessee's summer ( or Georgia's summer or Mississipi's summer or...). The heat wave broke yesterday when some rain finally made it into town. Rain can easily cut down the temperature by ten degrees. Two days with scattered showers (like the ones we've been having) leave the temperature in my house at a very agreeable 87.

There are some great perks to summer as well. Most towns in Japan have a festival or two during the summer. Our big festival is still a couple of weeks away but we had a fun little event just this week.

They call it a caterpillar race. Well, really they call it a long Japanese word that I didn't quite catch.

Teams are tied together at the ankles. They have to complete little challenges along the way. Oh and several teams had cool little group outfits.
We all loved the grapes.


This bus costume was in-SANE. They had this little generator on wheels behind the group. There was 0ne station that involved tossing water balloons between group members. I wonder if it made them nervous.




The group that dressed up as packs of cigarettes were almost dead last.



Our seats were right beside the third station. A "Mystery Food and Drink" station. When the racers reached the station they had to eat or drink whatever was given to them before they could continue the race. The fastest groups to move on were the ones that got bananas. The slowest by far were the groups where each member had to eat a whole cucumber. A cucumber doesn't seem like much food, until you're trying to eat one in under a minute.

Here's my favorite group (dressed as Alice in wonderland characters) eating bananas.

Don't you just want to squeeze the Cheshire cat?


The Queen of Hearts was the fastest eater there. She had that banana gone in two seconds!
And here's us! The other blond lady is our new neighbor, and the shorter lady is Miyuki ( who is even cuter than the Cheshire cat).

Year One: In Summation

August 1 was the one year anniversary of working for the JET Program in Japan. I realize that this post is a bit late but I have been traveling for summer vacation. This has been one of the most event-filled years of my live. It has been my first year of marriage, my first year out of college, my first full-time job, and my longest stretch of time outside of America. To make a long story short this year has been great. There have been highs and lows but overall this year was one of the best ever.

The first year of marriage does not perfectly go along with our time in Japan but close enough. There have been times that we have argued and had trouble getting used to living with each other. Those time have been fairly rare and I'm sure I love Samantha more now then ever. She is a great wife and I hope that I'm always the kind of husband she deserves. I think that living in Japan has taught us a lot about relying on each other. We have to work together to solve the problems that come up. Even the winter will be something that many years from now we can look back on and laugh about. Many many years from now.

Teaching has been great too. At first I was very nervous but I think (hope) that I am more coming into my own as a teacher especially at the Elementary level. This is mostly because at the Elementary schools I have a lot more freedom in the classroom to be what I want. I have the main teacher there to back me up but mostly just for help with order and explanations. There is only vaguest of curriculum for K-4 so those are mostly just vocabulary building and games. In 5th and 6th there starts to be a text book. A text book that I truly hate. They dont want to call it English so it just Foreign Language and at time wants me to say words in French, Chinese, Italian, Korean, Arabic, and Russian. They dont have any English pronunciation guide for them so if you cant read the Japanese one you are out of luck. They also dont have an English teaching guide so it can become pointing and read this to the kids. Even the chapter names are different in English and Japanese. For example the English is I like Red and the Japanese is lets do self introductions. This can cause no end to the confusion between the ALT and the other teacher.

Middle school, or Junior High School as they call it here, is very different. I'm much more of an assistant to the regular teacher. Part of that is because of the the fact that I'm only there every other week. The main reason is my teachers personalities. Most are determined to get through every page of the text book in the year which means that you have to set a decent pace. This means that my main tasks are games and English pronunciation. Also, I correct the teachers and students grammar mistakes. There is a bit of an art to correcting the teacher is class so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. I usually will change it myself while the teacher is not looking if its just something tiny. If it is a big mistake I will tell them about it during a pause in the lesson. I'm just glad my teacher want corrected at all so they dont teach kids the wrong things.

People ask me if teaching is my life's calling fairly frequently now. I have to say in all honesty yes and no. I love teaching and want to find something that would allow me to keep at it. However, I want to teach older students who are self motivated. At least one every two months I hear someone say, "I dont need English. I live in Ichinohe." I always try to tell them that they might not want to always live in Ichinohe and that learning English will open all kinds of doors for them. The students who say that they cant imagine not living in Japan at least and in Japan they can go through life without using a foreign language or talking to a foreigner. I want students who want to learn, not students that have to be tricked or convinced into it. I'm sure every teacher has said that at some point.

Being out of college has been, frankly, a bit strange. I still try and study everyday but now its just Japanese. I still have tests but just twice a year. The next being in December. I'm hoping to pass the level 2 Japanese Language Proficiency Test this year. That would qualify my for many jobs back home and even college here if we decided to stay. There is a lot I miss about college and a lot I dont. I miss being able to take a class in something that interested me. I really miss debate team. I dont miss professors and I dont miss general education requirements. Having a full time job, even an easy full time job like mine, was not that big an adjustment. The hardest of the adjustments to having a full time job was the jobs location in Iwate. In college you had the occasional snow day for 3 inches of snow. Here all winter there is at least a foot and not one snow day.

This has been a year full of adjustment but I'm glad I have made it. I'm more glad that I have had Samantha to help me.

Tomb Of Christ

As many of you know, there are many many strange things in Japan. Many of these things are quite famous online, but this is one that I don't think that many of you will have heard of. It's the Tomb of Christ. Yes, that Christ, Jesus Christ. In the town of Shingo, Aomori, Japan there is a legend that in the missing years of Christ's life he came is Shingo to study religion. Then he returned to Judea for the events of the New Testament. When Christ was arrested his Japanese brother Ishikiri took his place on the cross and Christ returned to Japan. He then settled in Shingo, had a family, and died at 103 years old. I'm not sure to what degree this is actually believed in Shingo but I don't think that it is well known in Japan, because the Church folk had never really heard of it. It really was out in the country too. There were a few signs and a museum that was closed, but no Tomb of Christ gift shops or anything of the sort.
This is the first sign you see for the tomb of Christ. Apparently it has a dance.
This is the Tomb of Christ. Whatever I was expecting this was not it.
Read the above.
The Tomb closest is the tomb of Ishikiri.
I'm Jesus, Samantha is Jesus' Japanese wife, and Stephanie is his child.
Group Picture.
Me.
This sign says Christ's Tomb. Look at it closely you will notice that the Tomb of Christ is brought to you by Coca Cola. Yes, Coca Cola sponsors the Tomb of Christ.
To be honest it was a very strange experience. It would have been just a lovely park if it didn't call itself the Tomb of Christ. However, the atmosphere created by the Tomb of Christ and Ishikiri along with the odd but very serious plaques created such a strange feeling. The final straw in making it one of the most bizarre places I have ever been is the cutout thing where you can be Christ and his rice farmer family. I'm glad we went because it will be great to tell people the story of Christ's Tomb in Japan.

Election Posters In Japan

These are election posters that I have seen up around town. Since this is a rural area the Japanese Communist Party has a very strong following and most of the poster around are from them. They are the farthest left of the main parties here. Their big issues are getting rid of American bases, nuclear disarmament, not raising the consumption tax, and farm issues. Also, for the posters I have only translated the main statement and others might disagree with my specific wording, but the gist is whats important.

Japanese Communist Posters:
Japan needs a party that can stand up to countries like America, and on issues like Financial Matters. (The more exact would be a party that can be insistent but I think stand up makes more sense.)
Because safe food come from Japanese soil, stop import liberalization. (This one is on a rural bus stop where there are only farms near by. Also, they use the literal English word stop as stopu to make their message pop.
Working people are important for the country/ Making working people is important for the country. (Even though this on is simple seeming it gave me a bunch of trouble.)
We definitely oppose upping the consumption tax. (This is another one that they use English written in Katakana to make the poster stand out.)
Stand up to America. New Politics! (The signs in the picture says Abolish Nuclear Weapons. No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!)
Proportional Represented Constituency Social Democratic Party. (That is a direct translation of the main part and the bit in red at the bottom is about the importance of peace. )Cleaner Politics. (This is from the New Komeito Party which is a center right party. It was started by members of the Soka Gakai Buddist sect and is heavily associated with it.)
Politics that receive the peoples voice. (New Komeito)
Toward the founding of an ocean nation. (I dont know what this one means it makes no sense. Its literally just ocean national founding toward.)

Happy Fourth Of July

Hey everyone Happy Fourth of July.

English Conversation Class

Hey its been a while since I have posted so let me go on and say sorry. To be perfectly honest I have been in a bit of a doldrums. I'm getting close to my big summer break and now it feels like a count down. Outside of school we have started an adult English Conversation Class. Its been a lot of fun. Most of our students are of a fairly high level so we can really talk to them. Its been nice running in to people from the class around town that makes this seems homey. There are about 10 regular student, with only one man. The one man is a character to. He speaks English like he newk it really well 40 years ago and now he remembers words and phrases but not grammar. During our first class we asked him how old he was and he said, "many many years ago 20, 20 many many years ago." The whole thing interspersed with Japanese. He also loves to talk to the young women in class. He was talking to one of the ladies and he goes, "you babies, how many babies?" My favorite is when we did the lesson on directions. We were teaching words like, straight, past, turn, traffic light and types fo buildings. There was a map drawn on the board and the students would ask direction from one point to another on the map. He goes to Stephanie and goes, "I'm crazy, I'm drunk. From police station how get to my house." Stephanie starts to answer and he says is a joke. Then he starts again and goes, "ok ok I'm drunk at police station how do I get home." Needless to say with great stories like this he is our favorite student. He frequently hijacks class to tell stories about the US military (which he has friends in) or an orphanage he volunteers at in an endearingly rambley mix of English and Japanese. Also, the class has several student who are from China. Its really made me wonder how many Chinese women live in Ichinohe. They speak excellent Japanese, so to be honest I wouldn't have thought they were Chinese unless they told me. My Japanese will never be that good.

In other news its not long now till Stephanie goes back to America and a new teacher comes. That is one of the down sides of teaching abroad is few people stay more then 2 or 3 years at most. This means that you can have almost all your friends leave at once. Also, with Japanese school system they move teacher around every few years so half way through your contract you can lose a favorite teacher then months later lose your foreign friends to them going home. This means that two years in the same town at the same schools can give you two very different years. Now we have been very luck I did lose a great teacher but he was replaced with someone equally good and that has been nice. Also, with the church and our friends there we have help and support outside of school that wont change. This August I will start my second year teaching so my next post will probably be a sumation of my whole thoughts on a year of teaching ESL here.

Shoji

So maybe the wasp was too scary.

How about some Japanese home maintenance to calm everybody down?

When a westerner thinks of Japan they probably think of sushi, sumo, ninja, cherry blossoms and shoji. ( And those darned used panty vending machines. Yes, I've heard they exist. I've never crossed paths with one. Why is this considered the pinnacle of Japanese weirdness?)

Shoji, in case you don't recognize the name, are those sliding doors that divide off rooms in traditional Japanese houses. They are made out of some kind of lightweight wood and rice paper. They have a minimalist, clean look to them that westerners seem to instinctively love.

" I love the shoji! They're so pretty", I said to my tutor, brimming with naive enthusiasm.

" You love them because you are a westerner. I hate them.", said my tutor with a knowing grimace.

I now know why she hates them. The papers on the shoji has to be changed every so often.
I'm not sure how often they are supposed to be changed, but our shoji papers had little spots of mold on them in places so we decided it was time. I thought it would be a fun little project, and it was fun... for the first door.

I took some pictures to give you an idea of the process.
We start out here. It may be a little hard to see, but the paper is torn, mildewed and turning brown at the edges.



Step one: splash some water on it. I took the this picture because of how dramatic the splashing was, in reality though the goal is to completely saturate all of the paper.
Okay. Now that the whole thing is wet, you let it sit for a few minutes. This gives the water time to break down the rice glue that is holding the paper on the door. Next comes the fun part ( at least for me): stripping off the paper.



I get the strangest urge to play burlesque music in the background.


Now! The frame is all nice and bare and ready to be set out to dry.






Here's the pile of old papers that I pulled off. Oh and my feet sticking out into the picture.








And here are several frames sitting out to dry. I let them dry overnight to make sure I wouldn't have trouble with mold.






The next day I started here. I put the empty frame on the floor and applied rice glue to each and every little slat. Then I put the paper on... crooked. So I pulled it up, reapplied glue and tried again... this time I put it on upside down. So I pulled it up again, reapplied glue again and finally managed to get it on right.




Next, I take my trusty razor and trim away all the excess.

Much better, but now I had to do something scary. Caleb had talked to his teachers, and they all agreed that after you glue the paper down, you have to spray each panel with water to tighten the whole thing up. So I spray the thing down.
I am immediately certain that I have ruined all my painstaking effort. Little wrinkles appear in the paper and I hate every one of them.

After the paper dried though, I was treated to a happy surprise. What do you know, Caleb's teachers knew what they were talking about. The wrinkles were gone and the paper now made a very satisfactory, drum-like thump when tapped.


I'll leave you with this last image (even though Caleb completed the doors in this specific picture). Don't they just look lovely? I still like how shoji look, but I will never look forward to re-papering them again.