English Camp!

Tamura is a special place for students to learn English.  I think you would be hard pressed to find another part of Japan with a student-to-ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) ratio as high as the one here.   As such, we can do some things here for students that you wouldn’t find in other parts of the country.  One of these things is English Camp.  English Camp is a two-day program that all the sixth graders in the town get to experience.  All students begin studying English in middle school, so one goal of the camp is to give kids a little bit of a head start in English study.  We also want the kids to start having fun with English, so we play a lot of games and crafts, and teach a little lesson about the most important American holiday (at least in the mind of a sixth grader), Halloween.  Yay candy!  Another goal of the camp is for kids to get to know students from other schools – when kids go to middle school, much like how we do things in the states, students from various elementary schools are combined.  We group students together that will be at the same middle school next year.  So not only are kids getting a head start on English and having fun at the same time, they are also meeting new friends and forming relationships they can look forward to next year.  We ran a total of four camps over the past two weeks, one for each of the middle schools in town. 

Day one of camp was always a little awkward to start.  Kids can be shy, especially when you put them in a group with a crazy off-the-wall American.  But we would always get over that quick enough.  Camps had anywhere from 70 to 170 kids, and we would break them into groups of 15 or so.  We started the day with simple introductions and then played some ice breakers and name games.  It’s fun being in a new country doing these sorts of games because they are all new to the kids here.  I’m used to kids being bored with ice breakers and name games back in the States, because they’ve seen them all already.  Kids over here are hesitant at first, but they get really excited about these games once they understand the rules.  I wonder what Japanese ice breakers look like, or if they even have an equivalent for that over here.  Some students did teach me a Japanese version of Red Light – Green Light a few days ago; they were excited to learn the American variant after teaching me how the Japanese play the game.  After ice breakers we would have to come up with our team name.  We gave each team a list of adjectives and a list of nouns.  They would pick their favorite from each list and combine them to make a name.  This led to some interesting names.  This year English Camp got to see the Big Bananas, Pink Monkeys, Dangerous Underpants, Cool Tigers, and Rainbow Kings, among others.  After choosing a team name students would have time to make a team poster.

The second part of day one was the infamous shopping game.  Each team was a different store (pet store, candy store, school supply store, etc.).  We took time to teach the vocabulary of what each store sold, and then we taught a simple shopping dialogue.  After some practice, we let the kids loose in our makeshift strip-mall, half the kids manning the stores, the other half trying to buy all the items on their shopping lists with the fake money we provided them.  It was a fun game, and a good way to get kids speaking English.  When we would teach the shopping dialogue, most of the students would be really nervous to try and practice.  But the chaos of the kids running around trying to get to each store provided the perfect cover for students to try the dialogue without being afraid of making mistakes.  I’m pretty sure everyone had it down by the end of the day, even the students that had been terrified to speak in English at the start of the day. 

Day two was all about Halloween.  At the start of the day we would have plenty of supplies set out and the kids would get busy making masks and decorating candy bags in preparation for the afternoon’s Halloween Party.  After all the sequins and stickers and pompoms and markers were cleaned up, we would spend some time practicing writing the alphabet; most students already knew the alphabet, but it was good for them to practice, and there were enough students that didn’t know much about writing letters that it was a worthwhile time.  But after lunch came what most of the kids would say was the highlight of camp: The Halloween Party.  All the teachers got dressed up in costumes and paraded around the students, with another teacher and myself giving energetic introductions of each costume.  We had a couple cowgirls, some Barbies, Pooh and Tigger, and I was (of course) Pikachu.   After the parade we would take some time to explain what happens on Halloween in the States, and then we got into a massive jonken (rock, paper, scissors) tournament.  Let me pause here at say a word about rock, paper, scissors.  It is way more popular over here than in the States.  Students are playing all the time; teachers will play with students sometimes to determine how big a homework assignment will be; they have different things you say depending on how many times you throw the same thing (e.g. both throwing rock, both throwing paper).  People take it pretty seriously over here.  Anyway, that to say that a jonken tourney in Japan holds a lot more excitement that a rock, paper, scissors tourney would in the States.  After that we would play one last large group game before ending camp.  That would be sharks and minnows, if the space allowed.  Again, here is a game that is old hat to any kid in the States, but is brand new to the kids over here.  Needless to say, they have a lot of fun with it. 

After the Halloween party we conclude the English Camp.  A quick note on meetings or programs in Japan: formality and structure is highly valued, even when working with 12-year-olds.  Before and after each section of camp it was imperative that someone would announce that we were officially starting or officially ending.  At the beginning of day one each teacher would have to give a brief introduction and say how excited they were about camp.  At the end both teachers and students would get up and say something about their favorite part of the camp.  There is a particular way to do everything in Japan, it seems.  Sometimes as an American the Japanese way seems strange or even inefficient, but what can I say?  When in Rome…

So we did it.  English Camp 2012 is done!  And this weekend comes the celebratory retreat to a nearby onsen, which you will probably be hearing about in a future post. 

This post was long overdue; sorry for that.  As you can see, though, I’ve been a little busy with English Camp the last few weeks.  And maybe a little bit of culture shock has left me without the energy necessary to bang out a new post.  That might be an interesting topic for a future post: culture shock.  Everyone experiences when they come over here, but for each person it looks a little different.  I’m still figuring out how it’s really affecting me, so maybe I’ll let ya’ll in on what it’s like.

(And thanks for the pics Ashley!)

Streets and Squares

This past weekend I took a trip to Sendai and got a small taste of what life looks like outside rural Japan.  So forgive me if this post becomes something of a ramble, but here are a few things I noticed in comparing villages and cities in Japan.

Life in Funehiki is pretty calm.  Until a few years ago, Funehiki was its own entity, a small village among other neighboring small villages.  Funehiki still feels like a small village, but now it is technically a district of Tamura City.  Tamura was formed when Funehiki and four other villages decided to combine into one municipality.  So even though I technically live in a city of 40,000 (still a small city, but twice the size of my hometown of Ashland, OH) it still has the feeling of a small village.  There are two shopping centers within walking distance of where I live, so shopping for groceries and other general household needs is pretty easy.  Not much in the way of entertainment exists in town.  But four years of living in the middle of nowhere Western New York (aka Houghton) taught me lots of ways to find diversion when the locale is less than bustling.  They tend to roll up the sidewalks here just after sundown (which is pretty early here, compared to the states).  I’ve found one cheap diner open 24 hours, but that is definitely the exception to business in Tamura. 

I’m not that far away from diversion, if I ever feel so inclined.  The city of Koriyama is only a 30-minute train ride away, and a round trip ticket only costs about $10.  I haven’t done too much exploring in Koriyama yet, but I have made it to a couple of malls.  Book stores, coffee shops, international food stores, music shops, gyms, and even a bigger and better version of Dave and Buster’s can all be found within a 20 minute walk of the train station.  Koriyama is by no means a big city; it feels about the same size as Buffalo (my last city of residence) with a population of just over 300,000. 

That's a bowl of tail soup, fyi.

This past weekend I got my first taste of a big Japanese city: Sendai.  Lots and lots of people.  I think this was the first time I really got a chance I got to see other foreigners out and about since I’ve been here.  Meeting a stranger that doesn’t speak Japanese is rare in in Funehiki and Koriyama even, but I heard people speaking all sorts of languages in Sendai.  Sendai has just over one million residents, and the streets are wide and always full of people.  This past weekend was a holiday weekend too, so I probably experienced the city at an especially busy time.   

Moo.

 Sendai is known for its cow tongue, so I made a point to give it a try.  It was good, but still weird.  Isn’t it strange that eating other bits of a cow doesn’t give me the slightest pause, but when I start chewing a tongue I wonder why I’m not a vegetarian?  Anyway, tongue will not become part of my regular diet, but I would definitely get it again if I ever return to Sendai.  

One of the few places you can't be on a bike in Sendai.

Another difference in the big city was bikes.  In Tamura and Koriyama, bikes are not too common.  Sure, there are designated bike parking areas at the grocery stores, but they are always pretty empty, at least when I’m there.  This was not the case in Sendai.  Bikes are everywhere, which is a little strange because the streets are not bike friendly in the least.  In fact, bikes aren’t even allowed on the big streets and have to be ridden on sidewalks, which make for pretty slow biking because of the crowds of pedestrians.  But still you see bikes parked everywhere, and even small underground parking areas with special ramps for bikes.  But wherever you see a bike parked, there is usually no more security on it than a simple wheel lock.  This brings me to a similarity between cities and villages in Japan, and one of the biggest differences between Japan and the States.  Japan is very very safe.  I was told this before I got here, but wow.  It took two nights in Buffalo before we learned the hard way that you need a super heavy-duty lock if you are going to keep your bike on the porch overnight.  I wouldn’t ever leave my bike alone without securing it to something sturdy with a big U-lock.  But now I live in a town of 40,000 with a security force comprising of four unarmed police officers.  Of course, the police forces in Koriyama and Sendai are a little bigger than that, but the cities still feel just as safe. 

I look forward to getting to travel throughout Japan and get a better sense of the differences between rural and urban life here, but I still have plenty to learn about life in little Funehiki yet.  It will be interesting to look back after I’ve been here a while and see if my initial impressions were at all accurate to how things really work.

First Day Of School! First Day Of School!

“Are we different, or are we the same?  We are different, and we are the same.”  This is the final line of one of my students’ speeches to be presented at next week’s contest.  I know it’s a bit obvious, but my time here is going to be filled with realizations of how people are different and the same.  This week was no exception.

The Japanese do school different from Americans.  For those that are unfamiliar with how education works in Japan, here are a few of the observations I’ve made so far:

• I teach in a middle school.  It contains three years of students and is the equivalent of grades 7-9 in the states.  My school, Funehiki Chugako, has five classes of about 30 students each for each grade.  These classes will stay together for all three years of their middle school experience.  These kids get to know each other well; each class develops its own sort of culture.  Already I’ve noticed a difference between the atmospheres of the different classes.  Not only do the classes not change students throughout the day, classrooms don’t change either.  Each class stays in its own room all day, and teachers are the ones that have to change classrooms.  There is one large teachers office where each teacher has a desk to do whatever prep work, lesson planning, grading, etc. he/she needs to do, and they have to carry whatever materials they need to class with them.  (Actually, a couple students will come to the office before class and help the teacher carry materials for class, but the point is that teachers don’t have permanent teaching area – it’s always changing.) 
• School lunches in Japan are really good.  Teachers and students all get the same thing, and it is really good and healthy.  At lunch time a few appointed students from each class don a special shirt, face mask, and hair net and walk down stairs to carry up lunch for their class while the other students rearrange the desks from rows into table groups.  Once this is done the appointed students serve everyone else in the class.  The students wait in their seats until everyone has been served and then let loose a hearty “itadakimas” for the feast to commence.  Each day lunch has some sort of salad/vegetable, rice or soba, milk, vegetable, and soup/curry.  Food in general seems much healthier and school lunch is no exception.  I think about gross school lunches in the states and wonder how hard it would be to get them to the state of Japanese lunches.
• Uniforms aren’t that much of a distinction in a comparison to US schools, but there is one interesting element to them.  Each class has its own color of shoes.  First year students have yellow shoes, second year have red, and third year have green.  Students’ shoes stay with them so next year yellow shoes will indicate second year, red shoes will be third year, etc. 
• Japanese schools have no janitors.  Students and teachers are in charge of keeping the school clean.  Each day at the end of class we have a cleaning period called souji.  Students put on white hats and go sit in silence in the hallway waiting for the signal for cleaning to commence.  As soon as they get the go-ahead they head off to various roles, some students cleaning their classroom, others in the bathrooms, some cleaning the teachers’ office, some in the principal’s office, etc.  Teachers and students clean together, mopping on hands and knees, pushing desks from one side of the classroom, until the job is done. 
• Extra-curricular activities look different too.  In the states you can be involved in as few or as many student clubs or sports teams as you want/have time for.  Not so in Japan.  Each student has to be in one and only one club.  You choose your club first year, and you work at that one thing your entire time at middle school.  So if you are on the soccer team you can’t be in band or choir.  This has advantages and disadvantages.  By focusing on just one activity, students get really good at that one thing.  The choir performed last week at an assembly and they sounded like they could have been a top class high school choir or maybe even a college choir back in the states.  But no boys are in the choir.  And there are only two boys in band.  The boys tend to gravitate more towards the sports clubs which means they can’t do any sort of music in addition to that.  Kids look at me surprised when I try to explain all the different things I did when I was in school.

These are only a few of the things I noticed in my first week – who knows what I’ll see after a month, a year….

Hajimemashite

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that any of this is real.  But I tell myself that it is, that I’ve been in Japan for a week, and that I’m not just here on a vacation.  It’ll sink in soon enough.  

After breakfast last Tuesday we made the four-hour drive from Narita to Funehiki.  Upon arrival I was greeted by a crowd of teachers from the kindergarten, a few of my fellow American English teachers, and some others.  After a brief introduction everyone returned to work and I went out to lunch to start meeting some of the other team members.  But before we left Kawai sensei handed me a paper to write down my name, home town, and a few of my interests/hobbies.  I briefly wrote down that I was from Ashland, OH and that I liked saxophone, biking, and snowboarding.  Little did I know, this paper was to be typed up in Japanese and handed out to every person that I would meet for the rest of the week.  

We went to lunch at a restaurant called Gusto, sort of a Japanese attempt at Denny’s.  The rest of the afternoon was spent at my apartment, moving in, getting to know some of the guys on the team.  That evening was team dinner, Japanese curry, where I got to meet the other team members that I had missed earlier in the day.   Honestly much of these first few days is already a blur because of the jet lag, so I won’t be able to give much more description than this.

Wednesday morning I got all dressed up in my new suit jacket and met the Board of Education.  I met Encho sensei on the drive over there.  He’s the guy running the show over here, the reason I was able to come over at all.  (To my friends in Buffalo, imagine him as a sort of Chuck Massey figure, except a little older.)  While in the car I told him how I had been in Japan as a baby, a story which he has already repeated many times as he introduced me to various people in town.  Most of the meeting with the Board of Education consisted of me sitting and smiling as everyone spoke around me in Japanese.  (My time in Japan has already given me a new appreciation for the refugees I worked with in Buffalo and the difficulties they face in trying to learn a new language and culture.)  Someone brought out some cold tea for us to drink.  It was made from roasted barley and tasted delicious.  I understand that it is a summer specialty around here.  I’ll definitely be getting some to have at home.  The board members had a couple of questions for me, which were thankfully translated into English.  One of them asked me how much Japanese I knew, and I responded that I mostly knew kid’s songs from when I was here as a child, which of course prompted a request for a performance.  So I rattled off the first few lines of “Zo-o-san, Zo-o-san” much to the general approval of the audience.  We said our goodbyes, and then it was off to Funehiki Jr. High (Fune-Chu) to meet with the principal before lunch.  Unfortunately the Principal was out of the office, but I was able to meet the Vice Principal.  It was similar to the meeting with the Board of Education, down to another cup of cold barley tea.  I sat and listened to their Japanese as the Vice Principal read my introduction sheet, learning that I like saxophone, biking, and snowboarding.  Lunch that day was out at a different restaurant where we had cold soba and tempura.  And the soba was freshly made.  The rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur, that’s when the fog from jet lag starts to set in.  It involved some shopping, a trip to the bank to get money changed, etc.  We did make a special stop at a shop to get some daifuku.  Ever had those bean filled mochi-type balls you can get at Asian markets in the states?  It was like that, except they were filled with cream and fruit and all sorts of other goodies, and they were fresh.  Changed my life.

Thursday was my last big introduction before starting work: the mayor.  Seems like a really great mayor; he was happy to have me in the city.  The intro went pretty similar to my other introductions, except we got a picture and he gave me some of the special water they bottle out of one of the nearby caves. 

Me shaking hands with the mayor.

That afternoon some of the guys on the team took me out to the gorge, a little swimming whole just outside town frequented by us Americans, and no one else, it seems like.  They had just set up a rope swing, and we spent a couple hours swinging and swimming and dodging horseflies (rather unsuccessfully).  I’m sure I’ll be spending a lot more time out there as long as weather permits swimming.  

Friday was a pretty relaxed day with nothing official scheduled for me to do.  A few team members showed me around town, and we went to lunch at the new conveyor belt sushi place in town.  I don’t know when I will cease to be amazed at the food over here, but it will probably be a while.  Let me describe this place.  So there is a constant stream of different sushi plates making their way by the table on a lower conveyor belt.  If you see one that looks appetizing, you just grab it off the line.  If you want anything in particular there is a touch screen to place your order.  When your food is ready, it comes on a little train that runs above the main conveyor.  You take your food off the train, push the button, and send the train back to the kitchen.  When you are ready to go, you tap a button on the screen, and a waitress comes by to count up your plates.  It’s pretty simple: each plate is 100 yen, so however many you grabbed from the line and have sitting next to you empty dictates your bill.  I’ll be back there again soon.

The fast food of Japan.

Koriyama is the closest big city to Tamura.  They’ve got a couple of shopping centers, Starbucks, and an international food store.  So Saturday Celeste and Hope showed me how to use the train and gave me a brief tour of the high points of the city.  We went up a sky scraper called the Big-I next to the train station where we could see the mountain that is right next to Funehiki, so that was neat.  At the sporting goods store I found a bike I will probably buy, but I didn’t have the cash on hand to do it then.  I really really miss my old bike; I hope it is enjoying its new life without me.  On the train ride home Celeste offered her seat to and elderly lady who graciously accepted it.  The lady spoke excellent English, and we talked with her all the way back to Funehiki about her travels around the world, how Japanese schools have declined in the past few years, and the recent Buddhist festival.  Celeste said it was really surprising to run into anyone that spoke that level of English, especially someone that old.  There was one funny miscommunication, though.  She was asking where I lived, and I said just down the street from Celeste.  But she misunderstood, and responded, “Oh, you’re like me, homeless.”  I guess she thought I lived on the street, not down the street.  I will probably never see her again, but I am glad I was able to give her some company on the train and a chance to practice some English. 

Today was my first chance to go to Funehiki Evangelical Church.  I think I counted 10 Japanese in attendance, which meant that all the English teachers present nearly doubled the congregation.  At the end of the service they surprised me with a request to say a few words about myself in front of the group, but I’m starting to get used to being asked to do these sort of things last minute, so it wasn’t so bad.  School starts tomorrow, and it will be a day full of more introductions and who knows what else.  Fingers crossed.

The Arrival

I made it.  Well, almost.  Right now I’m looking out the window of my sixth floor room of the Narita Crowne Plaza Hotel.  After breakfast we still have a three and a half hour drive to get to Tamura, but that’s not so bad.  Sunday morning I woke up around 7am EST, hastily shoveled some oatmeal down the gullet, and was driven to Cleveland Hopkins International by dad and sister.  There we met Adam and Hannah Hange, coordinators for the US side of operations for the program, at the Delta ticket desk.  After checking my luggage it was time for my final goodbye before heading through security.  But not so fast – I quickly realized I had left my phone in my pocket.  It’s not going to do me much good overseas, so I gave dad one last call; he came back and I got one more chance at goodbye, but then we were off and through security without a problem.  

I don’t understand why they tell you to get to the airport so early.  Three hours for international flights, is what they tell you.  So we were there three hours early, and we spent two hours sitting around waiting at the gate.  At least we didn’t have to worry about missing our flight.  The jump from Cleveland to Detroit went smoothly.  I sat next to a friendly veteran who spent four months in Japan back in the 70’s and was jealous of the adventure I was just beginning.  At Detroit we had a couple more hours before the next leg of the journey commenced so we took our time finding some lunch.  Adam and Hannah asked me what I wanted my last meal in the US and all I could think of was a burrito.  I don’t know why I thought Mexican would be a good idea before getting on a 747 for 13 hours, but we went anyway.  The burrito was really good, though, and I didn’t suffer too many adverse effects on the subsequent flight.  

Waiting to board the 747 in Detroit

Before boarding the flight I started to get excited about my journey.  Up till this point there had been a lot of nervousness – I was so focused on saying goodbye it was hard for me to look ahead and get excited about where I was going.  But being in front of the gate, seeing a crowd of Japanese all eager to get home, it gave me an image of something to look forward to, what I’m going to be seeing and living with for the next couple of years.  There was a large group of Japanese students returning from a rowing competition, if I read their matching t-shirts correctly, about the same age as the students I’ll be working with.  I think the hardest thing about this trip has been the sense of stepping out into the foreign, the unknown, but by shedding some light on what things will look like I’m able to get excited about what is coming. 

Our 3:30 flight began boarding around 2:45.  It takes some time to get 400 people situated on an airplane.  But then they realized that one of the light bulbs on the plane’s exterior was burnt out, so we all had to sit and wait while they replaced it.  How many flight mechanics does it take to change a light bulb?  I don’t know, but we obviously didn’t have enough of them – the repair took almost an hour.  I just felt bad for all the folks who missed their connecting flights in Tokyo just because of a light bulb. 

After the light bulb was fixed we were underway.  Two rows behind us was an American mom and her three small children.  You can imagine how that went.  I let you know it was an American family, because there were other children on the plane as well, but they weren’t nearly as loud and rowdy.  Other than that, there wasn’t much special about the flight.  We were flying west, so the sun was up the whole time, only just starting to set when we landed just after 6pm in Tokyo. 

Driving from Tokyo to Tamura, feeling "Happy Refresh!" with a Calpus I got at a rest stop.

Upon arrival we were met with a couple of small surprises.  First was immigration.  Adam and Hannah went through first just fine, but when I went through they pulled me aside into a small room with benches, took my documents, and told me to wait.  It wasn’t a big deal; they were simply making my gaijin (foreigner) identification card, something I was planning on doing later this week in Tamura.  After the machine spit out the card, they let me go through to baggage claim and customs.  I found Adam there pretty quickly, but Hannah was nowhere around.  I guess they got a little worried when they saw me pulled aside at immigration, and Hannah had gone looking for me.  She came back soon enough, so we got our bags through customs and met Okubo-sensei outside.  Normally they drive straight back to Tamura after picking up teachers at the airport, but since it was so late they decided to put us up in a hotel at the airport.  We got situated in our rooms in the hotel and freshened up before going down to dinner.  A quick word about the room, though.  The toilet was one of the most advanced pieces of technology I’ve ever sat on before.  It took a little guesswork and experimentation to figure out how it worked.  After a quick shower we met downstairs at the hotel restaurant for dinner.  I could get used to the food over here: Shrimp tempura with udon.  Oishi!  Sleep was next on the schedule (I think I almost nodded off once or twice during dinner).  I roomed with Okubo-sensei, and he showed me the complimentary Japanese pajamas provided in the room, so I had to try them out.  They worked great.  I only woke up once during the night wide awake, but luckily I had trusty David Copperfield next to my bed, and I was snoozing again in no time.  Now it’s 7:25 and almost time to rendezvous for breakfast before making the final leg of my journey and arrive at my new home.