I started writing a post about the typhoon that hit us a couple of weekends ago, but rereading it confirmed the fact that the post sucked. Basically: there was talk of a massive typhoon over the long weekend; my town's super awesome festival was canceled; I hung out in Sendai with some other ALTs whose ferry to the surfing island was canceled; the typhoon was a huge letdown. Seriously, it was sunnier on the Saturday than it had been for the previous month. Although a couple of people did die in other parts of the Ken, so I shouldn't complain.

Anyways, it is now summer vacation! It has been since the 21st. I saw the latest Harry Potter movie, which was awesome, read the latest Harry Potter book, which was even more awesome, watched my elementary school kids take part in a town swim meet, and froze sitting in my desk at the office. Tomorrow I head to Tokyo for a few days, to say goodbye to my good friend Claire who is returning home via India. Then I make my way to Sapporo where I will study Japanese and eat fish and enjoy the mild summer weather. I will be back on the 21st.

We're famous!

Or so I'm told. Though I guess I am, in the micro sense of the word, quite recognizable in my town. About a month ago I received a piece of paper addressed to me at school with a bunch of incomprehensible (at least to me) kanji. According to my teacher, it was from Minami Nippon Shimbun (南日本新聞 - Southern Japan Newspaper), asking to interview me. I asked when, she didn't know, and I promptly forgot about it. Yesterday at my elementary school one of the teachers told me that she saw me in the paper from this weekend. I have no idea what it said, since they never talked to me, and today I tried looking at the old papers at school, with no luck. I'm slightly apprehensive that it's actually a secret expose on terrible ALTs, but since I may never know I'll assume it's not.

Yesterday I was forwarded this link from CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/08/japan.kamikaze.ap/index.html#cnnSTCText
It's an article about kamikaze pilots that talks about both the Peace Museum in Chiran and the recent movie about the Chiran pilots. Even though I disagree with how the article portrays the museum's depiction of the pilots, the article is worth a look. I haven't seen the movie so I can't talk about that, and I don't know enough about Ishihara to comment on him. Take a look at the pictures included. Those stone lanterns in #7 line the main street and the road I take to get to school. There are 1038 in the town, each one representing an individual kamikaze pilot.

I am very ashamed that I didn't update at all in the month of June, but since it was a pretty terrible month, nothing really was missed.

June is the rainy season in Japan, and it rained a lot. In my first months here I'd noticed and found odd the tall concrete walls and the shallow depths of water. Like why bother with all the concrete when the water barely dampened the earth underneath? And this was everywhere, in the city with the numerous bridges and Kawanabe, whose name means 'By the River'. But yesterday I learned that the 11 months of ugliness serves its purpose, in the one month where it rains and rains and the rivers often threaten to overflow. Yet another bullet in the list of what an important role the weather has in Japanese lives.

The rainy season is about to end, and I'm none too glad. It almost made me yearn for the freezing days of December and January, when no ants would use my house as their giant playground, no mold would grow on my dishes, my kettles, my clothes and my walls, and no puddles would amass in the bottom of my car due to the window being left a centimetre open. Nevertheless, I'm happy it's July now and not January, since it's uncomfortable but still bearable to take cold showers (as my hot water was lost since the strong rain knocked out the heating plug) and it also means only two weeks, and not six months, till summer vacation.

Yes, it's July, and we're still at school. Classes don't end till the 20th. I remember being in high school, finishing in early June, and silently laughing at my mom and my old elementary school that had to wait till June 28th to finish. And then university, where we'd end in April. Alas, the summer now starts three months later than it did last year. I guess that's fair, seeing as I'm supposed to be working, and in fact still have to go to work all through the summer. Somehow I finagled two paid weeks off, where I'll be in Sapporo, the far north and opposite end of Japan, where I'll be seriously studying Japanese and enjoying the non-crippling heat.

The sad thing about the summer, well kind of, is that I won't see my elementary schools till September or October. They're definitely the highlight of the day. I have seven schools, and there's only one that I kind of detest. And even then I can't hate it completely, because most of the kids are great and it's not their fault they go to a hillbilly school. It's not actually hillbilly, but I saw a snake slithering away down the road from the school, and literally half the kids have the same surname, and most of them have really bad teeth. Although bad teeth are common everywhere in Japan, I should mention. The kids there are mostly good though, except for a few smart-alecky fifth and sixth graders, and one first grader who just really creeps me out. I've never seen such a creepy looking kid ever. He should be cute, but he's so skinny and small with such old man sunken cheekbones. He looks like a Floridian retiree in a four year old's body. The kids had to introduce themselves, and the way his jaw moved when he slowly enunciated his name sent shivers up my spine. It was just so creepy, like as if an octagenarian poltergeist invaded his body. It doesn't help that he wears a blazer too.

Besides creepy 6 year olds, the kids are awesome. I visit 7 elementary schools, and it's very hard to remember names. Especially since it seems every school (if not every class) has its stereotypical staples: the skinny girl with short hair and glasses, whose intelligence is leagues ahead of her classmates'; the sweat-drenched sports obsessed kid who repeats every word in a deep bellow; and the smiling chubby boy who eats paste when the teacher isn't looking and always falls down with excitement when I say that we're gonna play Fruit Basket. Also the kid that hates English and refuses to participate, and the clingy 7 year old who bosses her classmates around and cries at the drop of a hat, but those ones aren't as cute or funny.

Some random musings:

There seems to be a disproportionate amount of gloomy Sundays and Wednesdays. Today was no exception. It wasn’t raining, but the sky and the landscape were a matching dull shade of blue-grey. Though this morning and the past few days have been beautiful. Sunday too, when I went to the Meiji Restoration Museum in the city. If any of you ever bother coming here, I’ll make sure to take you, as it’s not only very educational, but it combines two of my favourite things, Saigo Takamori and robots, into one amazing animatronic robot Saigo creation.

Nevertheless, most Wednesdays and Sundays are depressing. Sundays as they represent the end of the weekend and Wednesday just because it’s Wednesday. Coincidentally, it seems a great percentage of the gross kyushokus fall on Wednesdays too. Last week there was a cream stew which I couldn’t eat, although then there was a redemptive raisin cream sandwich spread. Today was another cream soup, but without any delicious alternatives. I made up for it by eating about 5 of those fruit jellies that come in individual packets shaped like coffee creamers. I ate them when all the other teachers were busy elsewhere.

Have I mentioned that I love my second year students? I’m a bit indifferent to the first years, with a lean towards liking them (because they’re so small and cute and have sword fights when they should be cleaning!), and I kind of dislike all the third years, but I absolutely adore the second years. Enough to contemplate staying a third year in order to see them graduate, although I highly doubt that that will happen. My desk is in the second year staff room, and I usually eat lunch with one of the second year classes. Today I didn’t, because when there’s gross food I like to eat in the main teachers’ room so I can eat what I want. As I was walking down the hallway, one of the second years dropped the giant Tupperware box that held forty sealed bags of three dinner rolls that he was carrying. All the dinner rolls fell out. This is not that noteworthy, and I wouldn’t even mention it if it wasn’t for the reaction from the kids around. They all seemed to burst into laughter. And not just a healthy chuckle, but tear-streaming, body-shaking, yelping, high-pitched laughter. One of my favourite kids, who I refer to internally as Fat Harry Potter (because he’s chubby and wears glasses!) and already has this incredible voice where it sounds like he’s always yelling, even when he isn’t, just lost it. His best friend, this tiny boy, Yamaguchi-kun, with his hairlip and squeaky cartoon voice, actually fell on the floor from laughing. From another kid dropping a box.

New Beginnings

On Monday, I had my first elementary school visit of the new school year. Over the two weeks that I was gone, much had change. This holds true for all my places of work. April is the start of the new fiscal year as well as the new school year. In order to prevent corruption in the workplace, most public employees are transferred to different departments after a certain tenure. As I arrived to my board of education office early on the Monday morning after my arrival, I was greeted by a new Office Lady and a new Supervisor. The old Office Lady (she of the Urine in the Cup) now works at a kindergarten in the town.　 My old supervisor has been promoted. I have no idea what he does, but I hear his voice every Monday morning over the City Hall intercom. I don’t know where the new supervisor and office lady came from, but it’s interesting to watch them go through the learning process and flub up every once in a while. It reminds me a bit of myself in August, except they actually have a bit of an idea of what’s going on. Again though, it’s a nice reminder of how much I’ve learnt.

It’s not just City Hall that’s gotten new blood. In the Kagoshima education system, teachers are also shuffled around every few years. The average time a teacher stays at one school, or in one district, is only about 5 years. Although the art teacher at my school is an anomaly: he’s now in his ninth year at Chiran, predating any other member of staff as well as the physical building itself.

Since there are so many small isolated islands in the prefecture, the teachers have to move to ensure that the same quality of education is available to all students regardless of where they live. It also ensures that no teacher is stuck permanently on an island that’s a 24 hour boat ride away from the city. Most teachers I know that have worked on an island have loved it. The schools are much much smaller, the students have less attitude, and the atmosphere much more relaxed. However, they all agree that four years was more than enough time to enjoy island life.

All but one of my schools has new teachers this year. All schools have gotten a new principal/vice principal. Last week the board of education had a big welcome party. Since I don’t actually teach ever, I was invited along beforehand to go on a bus sightseeing tour of Chiran. Most of the teachers fell asleep.

So the elementary school I went to on Monday got a new Kocho-sensei (principal). I normally interact mostly with the Kyoto-sensei (vice principal), but when I got to school I noticed that the man who I though was Kocho was still there. He’s this cool old guy who walks with a crutch and has surly eyebrows, a gruff voice and his own office. The kids seem to like him. Since he had his own office, I always assumed he was Kocho. But he’s not. I still have no idea who Kocho is, both the old and the new one. Nor do I know what this man’s job is. But I do finally know all the names of the junior high school teachers.

Kyushoku

Here is an interesting article about the origin and nature of what may be my favourite Japanese custom, the school lunch. Every month I pay Y3000, or a little less than $30, in exchange for school lunch. School lunch is, if you can believe it, lunch served at school. There is no choice in the daily menu. It is planned in advance, with everyone, teachers and students included, receiving a monthly menu on the first of the month. All in Japanese, the menu lists not only the meal, but the amount of calories and protein in the meal, but the ingredients, broken down into three columns: protein, carbohydrates, and nutrients (vegetables). There is also a little box in the corner listing all the locally produced ingredients that are used in the meals for the month.

I don't think we ever have the same meal in a month. Every day is different. I teach at 8 schools, and all schools eat the same meal everyday. That's because all the food is prepared at the School Lunch Centre, and delivered in cooler-like boxes to each school. Each class gets three coolers. One giant one for rice, one for soup/stew, and one for miscellaneous (usually either some sort of salad or fish/meat). There is enough food in the coolers for 40-so kids. Our plates are aluminum (maybe). They look like they belong in a prison. But I like them better than the dirty plastic plates used at some other schools. Depending on the day, we have either two or three different foods. Usually a soup in a bowl, with rice in a large plate, and the various miscellaneous other on a slightly smaller plate. Sometimes when we have a stew-type food, we don't have the miscellaneous food. On Mondays and Wednesdays we always have a bread. The other days we have rice. Everyone gets a carton of whole milk along with the lunch. I don't drink because of my allergy, and because milk is just gross. Many kids hate it, but they are told from a young age that they have to drink it, so they do. At the elementary schools in Chiran they serve green tea along with milk. I like eating at those schools (only on Mondays), except that then I have to eat everything on my plate in order to be a good role model. Sometimes lunch is amazingly delicious, other times, disgusting. Last week was an anomaly of a week, with at least three amazing meals. Usually there's one fantastic meal a week, one really gross one, and three good ones. Today was a gross one. Unfortunately, I was at elementary school so I had to eat it. It was a gross tomato-based stew, which I knew had powdered cheese in it due to reading the menu. There was also a salad with satsuma-age, which is the local specialty of grated fish mashed into a sausage like form. As well, we had raisin bread. I hate raisins. They look like ants. Yet I managed to eat the whole thing, gagging the whole time. But I still wouldn’t give up school lunch, because all in all it’s awesome. Anyways, here’s the link. Enjoy. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070422rp.html

I am back from my whirlwind Canadian adventure, without much to say about it. It was great seeing friends and family, Montreal is as amazing as it always seems, Toronto is still the last place I would ever want to live, and Ottawa offers the same comfort that it always does, with me moping about my departure for days despite (or because) not doing anything productive for the majority of the time there. It was interesting seeing people and talking a bit about my past eight months here. Living in Japan, being surrounded by either people who have lived here their whole lives or are experiencing the same expat existence as me, it is easy to forget that most people can't read katakana or have no idea what a Japanese school is like. I will try to be better and actually explain what the Japanese experience is, from the scenery that surrounds me to the random events that occur from week to week, but I wouldn't be surprised if I completely forget this promise during the next month that it takes me to update again. Your best bet is to email me, or comment here about what you want me to say. I think I changed the comments settings so you don't need to have an account to post.

Hopefully my next post will be about the beginnings of the new school (and fiscal) year. I would write about it now, but we had the town welcome party for the new teachers at all the schools, and as a result my car has been stranded in the community centre parking lot. Tomorrow morning I must wake up early and claim it.