I think the way Fall is meant to be liked is the way it is in Japan.
Crispy leaves, a chill in the air, apples, warm drinks and scarves beginning to sound good, and glorious, glorious foliage.
It's cooler and more subdued and, surprisingly, fairly rain-free.
It's not my favorite season but I can see why it's many Japanese people's favorite.
Some places I went in fall which are my favorites:
-Ikaho (once with Yurika, once with Shelby, Khim and Shizuka) The stone steps, Ikaho shrine, the deck and walking paths around it...everything is beautiful and crisp. We bathed in Ikaho hot springs, talking softly while red and brown maple leaves fell around us.
-Mount Myougi: A gorgeous hiking adventure. Steep rocks and rock walls with chains, rock arches and spires, narrow footpaths and still-standing rock precipices, all bathed in red yellow and brown leaves.
-Nikko: A winding hilly mountain road with lakes, waterfalls both tall and wide, temple upon temple, bright red bridges and small steaming manjuu stands. A town steeped in history and nature. Of course surrounded in the leaves.
It really is beautiful. And for a while, it is not so freezing.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
July and August
I absolutely love summer in Japan. I don't care how hot it is. I love the heat. Sure it can get exasperating and it can be a little draining, but if there's one thing I and anyone knows about me it's that summer ultimately gives me life and energy while winter depletes it. The rice fields bright green and teeming with little follicles of brown kernel-wrapped rice, the sky reflecting off of the pools of water between the stalks. The green green GREEN everywhere, bursting from the mountainsides and the fields and the tree-lined streets. The whirr of fans and windshield wipers, the screech of the cicadas, the deadening hazy stillness that seems to be around all the time. It makes me think of what the South must be like (and my experience with the South is limited to the first 30 seconds of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland and the movie The Color Purple.) And matsuri seasnon, ohhh matsuri season. Watching everyone go out in their yukata best, all the food stalls selling choco banana, fried chicken, crepes, shaved ice, yakisoba, takoyaki, etc. etc. And my personal least favorite, breaded and fried whole, scales-and-all ayu (sweetfish) on a stick. The little kids games. The lanterns and paper decorations. Fireworks. Seasonal beer. It's just a great time to be outside at night mingling among fellow community members. Now that I am in the thick of February cold, it feels like a different Japan a million miles away. Two different countries.
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Korea
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In late July I went South Korea to visit my friend Grace. This was my first time outside of Japan since I first arrived. I left on July 21 and came back on July 25. I stayed at Grace's parents' house in Yangju which is north of Uijeongbu which is north of Seoul. I thought that Seoul was very similar to Tokyo and had the same large-city feel. The suburbs were very much more spacious with low hills and large swathes of fields of rice and other vegetables. Propped up amongst the fields are apartment building upon apartment building, 15-20 stories high, grouped in dozens of groups of a few each, here or there. It seemed that most "groups" had their own market area which was walkable, with restaurants, grocery stores, a pharmacy, boutiques, etc. It seemed quite nice and convenient. Something about Korea's infrastructure seemed slightly not as crisply and fastidiously organized as Japan's, but I can't quite place it. Perhaps it's just the spread-out-ness of everything and the city-like living area mixed right in with agriculture fields, since in Japan they seem to be more separated.
Grace was sick with a stomach ailment, having just come back from Cambodia. Meanwhile I was excited as could be to explore my first New Country in many years. Korea was an experience I had been itching for, waiting for, for a long time. This gave us disparagingly different energy levels, and was a source of conflict for us on the trip. But I don't want to dwell on it because it makes me sad. Grace and her mother were nothing but kind and the best hosts to me on the trip and I am really really thankful that I was able to have this experience.
We had three days of sightseeing. The first day we saw two of Seoul's major sights: Insadong market/villege and Cheonggyecheon stream. We went to a cute little village artsy gift shop place and took pictures. At the stream we sat and relaxed and it was nice. Also that day we went shopping around the apartment complex in Yangju and Grace bought me a very beautiful royal blue button-shirt with a lace collar that I admired in a store. I was really really thankful for that. I usually show my affection for people through words of love, devotion of my time, or physical touch, but other people show they care through material things, and it always catches me by surprise.
The second day we went to Paju, a place outside of Seoul. We went to a kind of artist's village compound. I remember it was soggy everywhere from the rain and I had mosquito bites but I didn't mind so much. We went to this kind of toy museum, an Elvis museum, a Korean nostalgic museum (my personal favorite) and finally a trick art museum which was really fun since Grace and I love taking pictures! Then we drove to another cute plaza place called Provence. It had lots of cute shops and cafes and the grounds were really cute and it was really fun to window-shop and walk around in. It wasn't a typical tourist activity, but it was still really nice and perhaps a glimpse of more "real" Korean life. I could tell that Korean culture in general values art and creative self-expression more than Japan. Not that Japan doesn't have art, but I never really took to it because it always seems fussy and stale to me--things like ikebana, tea ceremony, bonsai, lacquering and gold-leafing--just not very free or self-expressive. But the Korean aesthetic I witness when I was there was much more free-wheeling, modern, abstract, creative. So I really enjoyed that. I met up with my friend Kei there (I had to give him back his lens that he left at my house when he visited) and we walked around and then got some breadsticks and tea at a cute cafe. Man was it delicious. And cheaper than Japan. And we don't have a lot of cute cafes like that in Japan, or if we do they are expensive.
The third day was my favorite day, because we did a lot of sight-seeing in Seoul and went to many famous places. First we went to Bukchon folk village which is SUPER cute. It looks anachronous right in the middle of Seoul--a neighborhood of steep hills of cobblestoned streets and old-style Korean houses crafted of wood, metal, and tile. It was a very unique architecture that I can't compare to other countries'. Along all the houses were also cute shop upon cute shop...we went into many. Grace would talk freely and jovially with the shop owners, something which I missed from home and long for in Japan. A shopkeeper-customer relationship in Japan is much more formal. The value they place on propriety and smooth, lubricated relations gets in the way of real contact being made. After Bukchon we went to the biggest of the palaces, Gyeongbok Palace!! It was a bit of a walk to get to and we got lost but it was fun. The palace was super beautiful and exciting to visit and it was golden hour and my favorite pictures of the whole trip came out of this visit. Grace and I had a really fun photoshoot amongst the pillars and the door frames and the statues, with the mountains in the background and the golden hour light making everything warm and glowy. Lastly we went to Myeongdong market, which I likened to Shibuya or Harajuku. Lots of stands of vendors selling random cheap items like accessories, shoes, belts, toys, and various foods. Really hectic and exciting. I ate an ice cream that was 32cm tall (over a foot!) and bought a pair of off-white saddle-shoe-style shoes. Grace had been egging me to buy something so I finally bought those and I was happy with them. Right before I left we went to Rich Mart, a big super center kind of place, and I bought lots of candy and souvenirs for my kids!!
Korea felt safe and I felt comfortable there. Even though I described many differences it doesn't seem all that different from Japan. Especially infrastructure-wise, I guess since they have similar economies/money levels, a lot of the ways the city moves and acts seem to be similar.
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In between Korea and Japan was the Shibukawa Heso Matsuri, or Bellybutton Festival. I was so excited because it was my first bellybutton festival!! Shibukawa's pride and yearly tradition! It was SUPER hot that day (I wore my new royal blue shirt from Korea and I was getting pitstains, much to my disappointment.) A bunch of friends from Takasaki and other places came to Shibukawa to attend the festival. But I didn't realize that the festival was only until about 5pm, unlike other festivals which only START at that time. So I should have invited people to come earlier. We started watched the big parade shortly after we got there, where people jump around with their bellies painted like faces, but it started raining HARD just shortly after it began. Everyone freaked out and ran for cover and the parade disbanded and the festival effectively ended. We were all huddling under a covered concrete parking space, wondering what to do next. Eventually a few people went home and a few people went to Numata for Karaoke, which ended up being really fun. At that time my voice was doing pretty well and I was proud at what I was able to sing.
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Taiwan
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About a week after Korea, I went to Taiwan. I met my friend Lisa there, who I knew from Circle K and who was teaching abroad in Korea. But I arrived and had my first day alone. I remember being very stressed--about exchanging money, about talking and purchasing things, about taking the metro and finding the hostel, etc. This time I didn't have a friendly, culturally-fluent guide like I did in Korea. Well, I did all of those things, but that's not to say it wasn't stressful. It was SUPER SUPER SUPER HOT. I think it was 39-40 degrees celsius and brightly sunny. It was very very hard just to be outside away from the air conditioning. I took a bus from the airport to Banqiao (a.k.a. Itabashi) station and found my hostel. But the owner wasn't there. So I just left my stuff there, chilled on the couch for a little bit, and went out again. I bought a sandwich and an Aquarius at a conbini that was surprisingly like one in Japan. (Everything is just cheaper.) Then I rode on the metro (they use these cute plastic coin tokens instead of paper tickets, so cool!) I went to Longshan Temple and walked around a bit there. It was in some ways similar to a Japanese temple and in some ways very different. It seemed like there was more emphasis on burning incense and offering goods such as oranges or water or jelly cups...and also there was a song playing the whole time but I'm not sure if that was just a touristy thing or not. East Asian culture and religion are intertwined in a way that Western isn't. Then I went to Ximen and explored Ximending and the Red Brick house thingy. Then I went back to Banqiao and had a fiasco trying to find Lisa, with wifi that was cutting in-and-out. I was really tired so walking in the still-hot evening was such a struggle, but finally we got back to the hostel. Even when you're tired, traveling is still really really fun. You have no immediate responsibilities except what you're going to do the next few days. It's so nice.
Impressions of Taipei: As expected, it sounds like people are yelling or talking in an angry way when they are actually just talking in a regular way. I really want to get over that and be able to "really" understand Chinese languages without viewing them through that lens. I am really happy I can read kanji because it helps me remember and understand EVERYTHING even without the right pronunciation. Like it is a godsend in this foreign land. I was very surprised to see SO many mopeds/motorcycles scooting around in the city. I associated that with Vietnam. But there are plenty here! Walking the streets of Taipei sometimes you can smell sewage coming up from the gutters. I think the slight dirtyness and all the motorbikes are what separate Taipei from the premier cities of the world.
The next day was amazing and filled from start to finish with greatness. We started out by getting picked up by my old piano teacher, Sheng. Sheng is one of those people I would never in a million years have imagined that I would later in life be seeing again. You never know who you're going to know in a place where you are! She drove Lisa and I to a breakfast place called Yong He and we had soymilk and different kinds of buns and sweetened bread. It was delicious! We had a great conversation and I was so happy that I was able to meet up with her, not only a friend from my past but a real Taipei resident. Then Sheng dropped us off at the Taipei main station where we met up with Calvin, my friend who was also coincidentally traveling Taipei at the time, and we took the train to Jiufeng! Jiufeng was BEAUTIFUL. The hills with the beautiful seaside views--I felt like I was in a Ghibli movie. We ate lunch at this beaaautiful restaurant with seaside views and I had REAL boba and it was glorious. We also explored these little art galleries and lots of little streets, and bought street food. After Jiufen we went to Jinguashi which was an old gold-mining community. It used to be occupied by Japanese (when Taiwan was occupied by Japan) so it was really interesting to see old Japanese-style houses there. It was cool but definitely not as cool as Jiufen. Riding on the buses and trains was really interesting. Of course it was a lot less coordinated and more crowded than Japan...people are talking loudly and you can't depend on the bus to be on time and the bus driver is not going to be very nice or have a lot of useful information (but maybe if we were natives, he would.) In situations like that I always feel like I should default to using my Japanese, when in fact English would serve me much much better. But speaking English feels like such a cop-out. After we got back into Taipei Lisa and I got lost looking for the Modern Toilet restaurant but we finally found it. It wasn't that good but it was a very unique experience! I enjoyed my ghost poop ice cream. Lastly we trawled through the Shilin night market! It's the most famous one so many people didn't recommend us to go there but we still had a great time. Just a really vibrant atmosphere, and lots and lots of fresh fruit.
The next day we went to Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall and Liberty Square which are really famous places in Taiwan. It was SO ungodly hot that we spent as little time as possible outside or in unairconditioned spaces. We explored around outside the hall and then walked up the steps to watch the changing of the guards. It was cool but we left early because it was just too hot to function. I was roasting in my shorts and tank top... I couldn't imagine what it was like to be the guard, standing stock-still for hours in that heat with his pants, jacket, boots, and hat! After that we met up with Kim and Casey, our Australian friends! They were staying at Casey's aunt's house which I expected to be a dingy little tiny apartment in some tiny backalley neighborhood but it totally was not!! It was a luxurious, penthouse-style apartment literally connected to a major train station! It was beautiful. We got sushi of all things, and after taking a long time getting ready, and we got lost on the way, but we finally went out to Zhongxiao-Dunhua, kind of a downtownish partyish place, to meet up with my friend Sky who gave us drinks at his friend's bar. We sat at the bar and chatted. After that we were supposed to go clubbing but Lisa didn't have appropriate shoes and both of us were just crazy tired so we both just went back to our nice, lovely hostel.
The next day, the last day, was an amazing trip to the coastal town of Tamsui and the island of Ba Li. We had lunch at a crazy delicious pizza place and walked along the shoreline, pausing to take pictures and go inside little shops. I remember a candy shop that seemed to have every type of candy imaginable. I also bought a long ice cream there, like in Korea, but it wasn't nearly as high as the Korean one. Then we took the ferry to Ba Li. We walked around, splashed in the water a bit, took pictures. It was nice to just be able to relax and not really have anything to do. But throughout this, the heat was so intense that we were constantly seeking shade or air conditioning. We wanted to keep walking, but it was so hot we just couldn't continue. We went back to the mainland and ended our trip by getting a spot at the really popular Shan Shan teahouse, complete with delicious drinks and air conditioning! It was a little expensive but worth it. We ended our final evening by mounting the famous Taipei 101. It was absolutely gorgeous at the top and I was so happy I was able to mail a postcard to my mom from the top floor. I learned a lot about Taipei 101, such as: there are 101 floors to symbolize the pushing of limits past what you think is the top, there are 8 sections because the number 8 is lucky in Chinese culture, the entire tower acts as a giant sundial to the people of Taipei, the tower has lights that change colors depending on what day of the week it is (Saturday was purple!!!!), and the tower is very inspired by traditional Chinese architecture. While we were there we met up with Calvin again and his friends, and after we finished at Taipei 101 we took the metro to Ximending to hang out. That metro ride was really memorable to me because we played language telephone. It went Jared(English->German)--> Matthew (German->French)--> Rebecca (French->Japanese) --> Calvin (Japanese->Korean)-->Lisa(Korean->English) OR Calvin (Japanese->Vietnamese) --> Kim(Viet->Chinese) --> Casey (Chinese->English.) It was sooo cool!!!! We ate at Chili's in Ximending (such an American place... but it was delicious) and hung out and got boba in Ximending before heading home.
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I only went to two different countries for less than a week each, so it's easy to think, well what what the significance of that trip? Why did I choose to spend the money and time to do this? How did it really change my life? What did I learn from my travels? I think I learned what I continually learn from traveling: That people in different areas of the world think, act, and operate differently because of home culture/home language (they are inextricable.) Just experiencing, even for a short time, how different daily life can be in a different part of the world lets you see your own culture in perspective that never would have been possible. It's a direct experience of contrast. In my mind I never want to travel just for a "break" or a getaway or that kind of thing...I always want to experience and learn and grow due to being in a different CULTURE. That is what makes it worth the money.
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Other events in August: Tanbara Lavender Fields (suuuper good lavender soft serve!!!!), Gunma Orientation (yay newbies!!!!), Gunma Games (hot but fun, and amazing onsen after!)
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Korea
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In late July I went South Korea to visit my friend Grace. This was my first time outside of Japan since I first arrived. I left on July 21 and came back on July 25. I stayed at Grace's parents' house in Yangju which is north of Uijeongbu which is north of Seoul. I thought that Seoul was very similar to Tokyo and had the same large-city feel. The suburbs were very much more spacious with low hills and large swathes of fields of rice and other vegetables. Propped up amongst the fields are apartment building upon apartment building, 15-20 stories high, grouped in dozens of groups of a few each, here or there. It seemed that most "groups" had their own market area which was walkable, with restaurants, grocery stores, a pharmacy, boutiques, etc. It seemed quite nice and convenient. Something about Korea's infrastructure seemed slightly not as crisply and fastidiously organized as Japan's, but I can't quite place it. Perhaps it's just the spread-out-ness of everything and the city-like living area mixed right in with agriculture fields, since in Japan they seem to be more separated.
Grace was sick with a stomach ailment, having just come back from Cambodia. Meanwhile I was excited as could be to explore my first New Country in many years. Korea was an experience I had been itching for, waiting for, for a long time. This gave us disparagingly different energy levels, and was a source of conflict for us on the trip. But I don't want to dwell on it because it makes me sad. Grace and her mother were nothing but kind and the best hosts to me on the trip and I am really really thankful that I was able to have this experience.
We had three days of sightseeing. The first day we saw two of Seoul's major sights: Insadong market/villege and Cheonggyecheon stream. We went to a cute little village artsy gift shop place and took pictures. At the stream we sat and relaxed and it was nice. Also that day we went shopping around the apartment complex in Yangju and Grace bought me a very beautiful royal blue button-shirt with a lace collar that I admired in a store. I was really really thankful for that. I usually show my affection for people through words of love, devotion of my time, or physical touch, but other people show they care through material things, and it always catches me by surprise.
The second day we went to Paju, a place outside of Seoul. We went to a kind of artist's village compound. I remember it was soggy everywhere from the rain and I had mosquito bites but I didn't mind so much. We went to this kind of toy museum, an Elvis museum, a Korean nostalgic museum (my personal favorite) and finally a trick art museum which was really fun since Grace and I love taking pictures! Then we drove to another cute plaza place called Provence. It had lots of cute shops and cafes and the grounds were really cute and it was really fun to window-shop and walk around in. It wasn't a typical tourist activity, but it was still really nice and perhaps a glimpse of more "real" Korean life. I could tell that Korean culture in general values art and creative self-expression more than Japan. Not that Japan doesn't have art, but I never really took to it because it always seems fussy and stale to me--things like ikebana, tea ceremony, bonsai, lacquering and gold-leafing--just not very free or self-expressive. But the Korean aesthetic I witness when I was there was much more free-wheeling, modern, abstract, creative. So I really enjoyed that. I met up with my friend Kei there (I had to give him back his lens that he left at my house when he visited) and we walked around and then got some breadsticks and tea at a cute cafe. Man was it delicious. And cheaper than Japan. And we don't have a lot of cute cafes like that in Japan, or if we do they are expensive.
The third day was my favorite day, because we did a lot of sight-seeing in Seoul and went to many famous places. First we went to Bukchon folk village which is SUPER cute. It looks anachronous right in the middle of Seoul--a neighborhood of steep hills of cobblestoned streets and old-style Korean houses crafted of wood, metal, and tile. It was a very unique architecture that I can't compare to other countries'. Along all the houses were also cute shop upon cute shop...we went into many. Grace would talk freely and jovially with the shop owners, something which I missed from home and long for in Japan. A shopkeeper-customer relationship in Japan is much more formal. The value they place on propriety and smooth, lubricated relations gets in the way of real contact being made. After Bukchon we went to the biggest of the palaces, Gyeongbok Palace!! It was a bit of a walk to get to and we got lost but it was fun. The palace was super beautiful and exciting to visit and it was golden hour and my favorite pictures of the whole trip came out of this visit. Grace and I had a really fun photoshoot amongst the pillars and the door frames and the statues, with the mountains in the background and the golden hour light making everything warm and glowy. Lastly we went to Myeongdong market, which I likened to Shibuya or Harajuku. Lots of stands of vendors selling random cheap items like accessories, shoes, belts, toys, and various foods. Really hectic and exciting. I ate an ice cream that was 32cm tall (over a foot!) and bought a pair of off-white saddle-shoe-style shoes. Grace had been egging me to buy something so I finally bought those and I was happy with them. Right before I left we went to Rich Mart, a big super center kind of place, and I bought lots of candy and souvenirs for my kids!!
Korea felt safe and I felt comfortable there. Even though I described many differences it doesn't seem all that different from Japan. Especially infrastructure-wise, I guess since they have similar economies/money levels, a lot of the ways the city moves and acts seem to be similar.
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In between Korea and Japan was the Shibukawa Heso Matsuri, or Bellybutton Festival. I was so excited because it was my first bellybutton festival!! Shibukawa's pride and yearly tradition! It was SUPER hot that day (I wore my new royal blue shirt from Korea and I was getting pitstains, much to my disappointment.) A bunch of friends from Takasaki and other places came to Shibukawa to attend the festival. But I didn't realize that the festival was only until about 5pm, unlike other festivals which only START at that time. So I should have invited people to come earlier. We started watched the big parade shortly after we got there, where people jump around with their bellies painted like faces, but it started raining HARD just shortly after it began. Everyone freaked out and ran for cover and the parade disbanded and the festival effectively ended. We were all huddling under a covered concrete parking space, wondering what to do next. Eventually a few people went home and a few people went to Numata for Karaoke, which ended up being really fun. At that time my voice was doing pretty well and I was proud at what I was able to sing.
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Taiwan
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About a week after Korea, I went to Taiwan. I met my friend Lisa there, who I knew from Circle K and who was teaching abroad in Korea. But I arrived and had my first day alone. I remember being very stressed--about exchanging money, about talking and purchasing things, about taking the metro and finding the hostel, etc. This time I didn't have a friendly, culturally-fluent guide like I did in Korea. Well, I did all of those things, but that's not to say it wasn't stressful. It was SUPER SUPER SUPER HOT. I think it was 39-40 degrees celsius and brightly sunny. It was very very hard just to be outside away from the air conditioning. I took a bus from the airport to Banqiao (a.k.a. Itabashi) station and found my hostel. But the owner wasn't there. So I just left my stuff there, chilled on the couch for a little bit, and went out again. I bought a sandwich and an Aquarius at a conbini that was surprisingly like one in Japan. (Everything is just cheaper.) Then I rode on the metro (they use these cute plastic coin tokens instead of paper tickets, so cool!) I went to Longshan Temple and walked around a bit there. It was in some ways similar to a Japanese temple and in some ways very different. It seemed like there was more emphasis on burning incense and offering goods such as oranges or water or jelly cups...and also there was a song playing the whole time but I'm not sure if that was just a touristy thing or not. East Asian culture and religion are intertwined in a way that Western isn't. Then I went to Ximen and explored Ximending and the Red Brick house thingy. Then I went back to Banqiao and had a fiasco trying to find Lisa, with wifi that was cutting in-and-out. I was really tired so walking in the still-hot evening was such a struggle, but finally we got back to the hostel. Even when you're tired, traveling is still really really fun. You have no immediate responsibilities except what you're going to do the next few days. It's so nice.
Impressions of Taipei: As expected, it sounds like people are yelling or talking in an angry way when they are actually just talking in a regular way. I really want to get over that and be able to "really" understand Chinese languages without viewing them through that lens. I am really happy I can read kanji because it helps me remember and understand EVERYTHING even without the right pronunciation. Like it is a godsend in this foreign land. I was very surprised to see SO many mopeds/motorcycles scooting around in the city. I associated that with Vietnam. But there are plenty here! Walking the streets of Taipei sometimes you can smell sewage coming up from the gutters. I think the slight dirtyness and all the motorbikes are what separate Taipei from the premier cities of the world.
The next day was amazing and filled from start to finish with greatness. We started out by getting picked up by my old piano teacher, Sheng. Sheng is one of those people I would never in a million years have imagined that I would later in life be seeing again. You never know who you're going to know in a place where you are! She drove Lisa and I to a breakfast place called Yong He and we had soymilk and different kinds of buns and sweetened bread. It was delicious! We had a great conversation and I was so happy that I was able to meet up with her, not only a friend from my past but a real Taipei resident. Then Sheng dropped us off at the Taipei main station where we met up with Calvin, my friend who was also coincidentally traveling Taipei at the time, and we took the train to Jiufeng! Jiufeng was BEAUTIFUL. The hills with the beautiful seaside views--I felt like I was in a Ghibli movie. We ate lunch at this beaaautiful restaurant with seaside views and I had REAL boba and it was glorious. We also explored these little art galleries and lots of little streets, and bought street food. After Jiufen we went to Jinguashi which was an old gold-mining community. It used to be occupied by Japanese (when Taiwan was occupied by Japan) so it was really interesting to see old Japanese-style houses there. It was cool but definitely not as cool as Jiufen. Riding on the buses and trains was really interesting. Of course it was a lot less coordinated and more crowded than Japan...people are talking loudly and you can't depend on the bus to be on time and the bus driver is not going to be very nice or have a lot of useful information (but maybe if we were natives, he would.) In situations like that I always feel like I should default to using my Japanese, when in fact English would serve me much much better. But speaking English feels like such a cop-out. After we got back into Taipei Lisa and I got lost looking for the Modern Toilet restaurant but we finally found it. It wasn't that good but it was a very unique experience! I enjoyed my ghost poop ice cream. Lastly we trawled through the Shilin night market! It's the most famous one so many people didn't recommend us to go there but we still had a great time. Just a really vibrant atmosphere, and lots and lots of fresh fruit.
The next day we went to Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall and Liberty Square which are really famous places in Taiwan. It was SO ungodly hot that we spent as little time as possible outside or in unairconditioned spaces. We explored around outside the hall and then walked up the steps to watch the changing of the guards. It was cool but we left early because it was just too hot to function. I was roasting in my shorts and tank top... I couldn't imagine what it was like to be the guard, standing stock-still for hours in that heat with his pants, jacket, boots, and hat! After that we met up with Kim and Casey, our Australian friends! They were staying at Casey's aunt's house which I expected to be a dingy little tiny apartment in some tiny backalley neighborhood but it totally was not!! It was a luxurious, penthouse-style apartment literally connected to a major train station! It was beautiful. We got sushi of all things, and after taking a long time getting ready, and we got lost on the way, but we finally went out to Zhongxiao-Dunhua, kind of a downtownish partyish place, to meet up with my friend Sky who gave us drinks at his friend's bar. We sat at the bar and chatted. After that we were supposed to go clubbing but Lisa didn't have appropriate shoes and both of us were just crazy tired so we both just went back to our nice, lovely hostel.
The next day, the last day, was an amazing trip to the coastal town of Tamsui and the island of Ba Li. We had lunch at a crazy delicious pizza place and walked along the shoreline, pausing to take pictures and go inside little shops. I remember a candy shop that seemed to have every type of candy imaginable. I also bought a long ice cream there, like in Korea, but it wasn't nearly as high as the Korean one. Then we took the ferry to Ba Li. We walked around, splashed in the water a bit, took pictures. It was nice to just be able to relax and not really have anything to do. But throughout this, the heat was so intense that we were constantly seeking shade or air conditioning. We wanted to keep walking, but it was so hot we just couldn't continue. We went back to the mainland and ended our trip by getting a spot at the really popular Shan Shan teahouse, complete with delicious drinks and air conditioning! It was a little expensive but worth it. We ended our final evening by mounting the famous Taipei 101. It was absolutely gorgeous at the top and I was so happy I was able to mail a postcard to my mom from the top floor. I learned a lot about Taipei 101, such as: there are 101 floors to symbolize the pushing of limits past what you think is the top, there are 8 sections because the number 8 is lucky in Chinese culture, the entire tower acts as a giant sundial to the people of Taipei, the tower has lights that change colors depending on what day of the week it is (Saturday was purple!!!!), and the tower is very inspired by traditional Chinese architecture. While we were there we met up with Calvin again and his friends, and after we finished at Taipei 101 we took the metro to Ximending to hang out. That metro ride was really memorable to me because we played language telephone. It went Jared(English->German)--> Matthew (German->French)--> Rebecca (French->Japanese) --> Calvin (Japanese->Korean)-->Lisa(Korean->English) OR Calvin (Japanese->Vietnamese) --> Kim(Viet->Chinese) --> Casey (Chinese->English.) It was sooo cool!!!! We ate at Chili's in Ximending (such an American place... but it was delicious) and hung out and got boba in Ximending before heading home.
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I only went to two different countries for less than a week each, so it's easy to think, well what what the significance of that trip? Why did I choose to spend the money and time to do this? How did it really change my life? What did I learn from my travels? I think I learned what I continually learn from traveling: That people in different areas of the world think, act, and operate differently because of home culture/home language (they are inextricable.) Just experiencing, even for a short time, how different daily life can be in a different part of the world lets you see your own culture in perspective that never would have been possible. It's a direct experience of contrast. In my mind I never want to travel just for a "break" or a getaway or that kind of thing...I always want to experience and learn and grow due to being in a different CULTURE. That is what makes it worth the money.
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Other events in August: Tanbara Lavender Fields (suuuper good lavender soft serve!!!!), Gunma Orientation (yay newbies!!!!), Gunma Games (hot but fun, and amazing onsen after!)
Renaissance
After not updating in over 6 months I will now attempt to resurrect this blog. This is for the benefit of posterity and my own memories. While reading the blog that I updated daily while I studied abroad in France, I realized how much of my own experiences memories could come flooding back just by re-reading my own words. I read detail after detail that I would have completely forgotten had I not preserved them in digital writing. And while it is partially too late for that, I don't want to have no record of my experiences in Japan. Moreso than my time in France, Japan is an unforgettable and irreplaceable experience that I will continually think about, remember fondly and reference for the rest of my life. I want to be able to re-read the thoughts that I thought while I was there.
But, the thing that kept me from updating before was the pressure I put on myself to produce quality blog entries. I obsessed over the writing and constantly berated myself for being too boring or not including pictures. This time I don't care. I'm not trying to win any awards or readers. I just want to record my memories, as simple as that. So I probably won't be including many pictures here, because it is tedious and tiresome and I can look at the pictures on my Facebook or computer.
So here's to a better and more collected record of my experience than my thoughts and memories can preserve.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
梅雨 | Rainy Season
It's June and the hydrangea are blooming.
The dampness in the air, the ubiquitous droplets on the windows of my car and the leaves of flowers, the whirr of windshield-wipers wiping, reminds me both of Nagasaki two years ago and of summers in Buffalo where I visit my family every year. Rain is so much more tolerable when it's warm out. Though it can be uncomfortable, something about a dense humidity also makes me feel alive. Think of a deep tropical rainforest bursting with life, a passionate jungle heat contained in the humidity under the treetops.
In California I never really noticed what flowers were around me or when they bloomed, but here everyone notices and leads their lives around the cycle of when things bloom and die. Maybe this is how it is on the East Coast, where they, too, have 4 distinct seasons?
Each three months I spend here feel twice as fast as the previous three. Fall seems like a long, elegant, detail-filled slide. Winter's cold days after days merged into one another and became indiscernable, one extended shiver. Spring's floral embrace felt like it had barely just started when we were suddenly enveloped in the cloak of summer once more. It's hard to believe that each day really moves just as fast as the one before. Before I can even stop to think about it, I'll have passed the 11-month mark and soon, the one-year-mark as well.
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I'm proud to say I'm growing as an English teacher. My goal since April has been to (get ready for this mouthful) effectively incite independent verbal communication skill, and due to my efforts so far I've seen a lot of improvement in my students in both willingness to converse and general speaking ability. But while my competence increases, my roles and responsibilities at school do not. It's frustrating that the amount of power we ALTs have over school and classroom decisions is so small that very few actual changes will ever be made. The school environment we're specifically put in to change, never does. And because ALT turnover is so high, all my growth and progress will be made irrelevant to the school as another brand-spankin'-new ALT takes my place next year.
-----
I'm becoming very aware of different cultural spaces. When I'm at work I'm in a Japanese cultural space. Even if I'm speaking English to my JTE, I must still speak and react and "be" Japanese. Oftentimes in class or while reading students' work I crack a joke to myself in my head (or sometimes out loud to no one...heh heh), briefly passing through a "Western" cultural space before I shoot back to Japanese. When I'm with fellow JET friends, I'm enveloped in a Western cultural space, with all the language and humor and rules of conversation and personal space that go with it, and sometimes it doesn't even feel like I'm in Japan. When, in the midst of that space, I need to interact with an out-group Japanese person, like a salesperson or a stranger on the street, I quickly shoot into a Japanese cultural space, instantly taking on the desirable attributes of Japanese culture as I switch languages. I guess this is all kind of commonsense, but this year is the first time in my life where I've even recognized the need to "switch cultures" back and forth like that. I think a lot of kids growing up with immigrant parents already get a fluent experience in this their entire childhood. Inside the home they act their parents' home culture; outside the home, they act American. I grew up with what felt like the same culture both inside and outside the home, so I never experienced this cultural pluralism, but it's an experience I hope to be able to bestow to my future children in some way.
-------
That's all for now! This entry sounded really serious and brooding! I'll try to be funnier next time! OK! Bye!
The dampness in the air, the ubiquitous droplets on the windows of my car and the leaves of flowers, the whirr of windshield-wipers wiping, reminds me both of Nagasaki two years ago and of summers in Buffalo where I visit my family every year. Rain is so much more tolerable when it's warm out. Though it can be uncomfortable, something about a dense humidity also makes me feel alive. Think of a deep tropical rainforest bursting with life, a passionate jungle heat contained in the humidity under the treetops.
In California I never really noticed what flowers were around me or when they bloomed, but here everyone notices and leads their lives around the cycle of when things bloom and die. Maybe this is how it is on the East Coast, where they, too, have 4 distinct seasons?
Each three months I spend here feel twice as fast as the previous three. Fall seems like a long, elegant, detail-filled slide. Winter's cold days after days merged into one another and became indiscernable, one extended shiver. Spring's floral embrace felt like it had barely just started when we were suddenly enveloped in the cloak of summer once more. It's hard to believe that each day really moves just as fast as the one before. Before I can even stop to think about it, I'll have passed the 11-month mark and soon, the one-year-mark as well.
-----
I'm proud to say I'm growing as an English teacher. My goal since April has been to (get ready for this mouthful) effectively incite independent verbal communication skill, and due to my efforts so far I've seen a lot of improvement in my students in both willingness to converse and general speaking ability. But while my competence increases, my roles and responsibilities at school do not. It's frustrating that the amount of power we ALTs have over school and classroom decisions is so small that very few actual changes will ever be made. The school environment we're specifically put in to change, never does. And because ALT turnover is so high, all my growth and progress will be made irrelevant to the school as another brand-spankin'-new ALT takes my place next year.
-----
I'm becoming very aware of different cultural spaces. When I'm at work I'm in a Japanese cultural space. Even if I'm speaking English to my JTE, I must still speak and react and "be" Japanese. Oftentimes in class or while reading students' work I crack a joke to myself in my head (or sometimes out loud to no one...heh heh), briefly passing through a "Western" cultural space before I shoot back to Japanese. When I'm with fellow JET friends, I'm enveloped in a Western cultural space, with all the language and humor and rules of conversation and personal space that go with it, and sometimes it doesn't even feel like I'm in Japan. When, in the midst of that space, I need to interact with an out-group Japanese person, like a salesperson or a stranger on the street, I quickly shoot into a Japanese cultural space, instantly taking on the desirable attributes of Japanese culture as I switch languages. I guess this is all kind of commonsense, but this year is the first time in my life where I've even recognized the need to "switch cultures" back and forth like that. I think a lot of kids growing up with immigrant parents already get a fluent experience in this their entire childhood. Inside the home they act their parents' home culture; outside the home, they act American. I grew up with what felt like the same culture both inside and outside the home, so I never experienced this cultural pluralism, but it's an experience I hope to be able to bestow to my future children in some way.
-------
That's all for now! This entry sounded really serious and brooding! I'll try to be funnier next time! OK! Bye!
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Golden Week and Beyond
In Japan there's a string of holidays, one after another, at the beginning of May dubbed "Golden Week." This is also the time of some of Japan's best weather, and it seems the whole country stops to take a break. Companies shut down and afterschool activities are cancelled. Some years, the holidays all fall on weekdays and you end up with a full 9-day break of glory. This year we ended up with one three-day weekend and one four-day weekend, but I still made the most of my time off with two trips, one to nearby Tokyo and one to far-away Hiroshima prefecture.
April 27-29: Tokyo!
I'm so lucky that my birthday falls during Golden Week!
Eating rainbow cupcakes and hanging out with friends in Yoyogi park. I celebrated my birthday by attending Tokyo Rainbow Pride. It was a ton of fun.
With my friends, Chihiro and Nanami, eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant (such a treat!!) Nanami and Chihiro studied abroad at UCI and are now working in Tokyo. FIVE whole years later I'm glad we are still friends. :)
May 3-6: Hiroshima & Environs
This is what's called the A-Bomb dome, one of the few structures that remained intact after the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the Hiroshima city center on August 6th, 1945. It was reinforced and preserved, and the area around it restored into what's now the Peace Memorial Park and Museum. The museum is all at once sobering, horrifying, maddening, and inspiring. Since I lived in Nagasaki and experienced the museum and Peace Park there as well, I was able to approach this one with comparatively more maturity and education. It's such a rich and thought-provoking experience just to be in such a place.
Hiroshima in general reminds me of Nagasaki, not only because they were both A-bomb targets, but because they are both small but lively port cities with slow-moving electric trolley systems and verdant hillsides dotted with cemeteries and homes.
Miyajima, one of Japan's historical top 3 most beautiful places, a cornerstone in the foundation of the Shingon sect of Buddhism. Everything here was gorgeous beyond compare: the temples and shrines, the plant and flower life, the views of the ocean, and the famous large "floating on water" torii gate captured here at sunset.
Bicyling across beautiful bridges on the Shimanami Kaido, or the "island wave sea route." This string of islands, connected by bridges, stretches through the Seto Inland Sea from the eastern coast of Hiroshima prefecture to the western coast of Shikoku. We rode about 40km that day, and made our way into Ehime Prefecture for a few hours. Now I can say I've been to Shikoku--three of Japan's four main islands down, one to go. :)
koi nobori, carp streamers, at a large shrine outside of Hiroshima Castle. Carp streamers are flown throughout Golden Week and the month of May, and are especially symbolic of Children's Day, which is on May 5th. One of my 6th-graders told me the story of why carp streamers symbolize Children's Day: In the wild, young carp swim upstream against the current to reach their mating ground. Carp streamers gain a shape and look stronger when the wind blows harder. This represents parents' desire for their children to be strong in fighting life's "upstream" obstacles on their path to adulthood.
------------------------------------------
And now, summer's almost here! It seems that such a short time ago I was wearing HeatTech long-sleeved shirts to work every day, a pair of tights under every pair of pants. Now the layers are shedding like crazy. In the past few days it has been 25-30 degrees which, for you Fahrenheiters, is 77-86! I can't believe it is happening this fast. I have waited so, so long for the return of summer. On so many icy nights, curled up under six blankets, I have pined for the warm and relaxing heat rays. As I sit here with my window open, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, listening to the cicadas' summertime scream, I can't believe it's happening now.
My Japanese is plateauing. I gained a LOT of knowledge rapidly in the first couple months after I came, and my conversational skills immediately got better, but now I am stuck in an area where, if I don't really push myself to practice and use Japanese more than is required at work, I won't get better. I need to make a more concerted effort to study on my own and practice speaking, a lot, in order to push myself to the next level. It kills me that my Japanese is now so much more fluid than my French. In terms of bulk knowledge, my French is still bounds ahead of Japanese, and I can still read and probably write much better in French, but for conversation, Japanese takes the cake. I never anticipated the day that this would happen, either. Je me sens bête.
I don't want to talk about my voice (both talking and singing) because it depresses me. My talking voice is better than it was but not as strong as it needs to be for teaching, and my singing voice is stronger than it was but NOWHERE NEAR where it needs to be for me to feel fulfilled in my hobby/passion/lifestyle as a singer. I have clear technique and usage issues in both areas. I'm currently on a speech therapy break because I wasn't devoting enough time to it and it wasn't helping. I feel a little trapped and unsure of whether I'll be able to get my voice back on track before I return to the states...and what will happen if and when I try to pursue a music-teaching job on a recovering voice. It scares me. But I can live in this suspended state for another year before I have to confront any choices.
Japanese Cultural Tidbit
-In Hiroshima, adults were warmer and more talkative to us than we usually experience in the Tokyo area. Within two minutes of waiting at our tram stop, a lady came up to us and asked us where we were from, where we were going, etc. She offered to guide us to our tram stop, making conversation the whole way. In Tokyo, one stranger approaching another, even an interesting foreigner, and making conversation is unheard of. People keep to themselves unless they have a clear reason not to.
-My students cleaned the school pool yesterday. It was dirty and gunky and nasty from 7 months of non-use. Students scrubbed away at the stuck-on brown dirt with bristle brushes and high-pressure hoses, swept dirty brown water down the drain, and polished the pool floor with wet rags. With all 48 students working, the pool went from disastrous to spotless in about an hour. During the polishing time, they had the time of their lives (no really, the TIME OF THEIR LIVES) having "rag races" where they pushed the rags with the hands on the ground, propelling themselves forward with their feet, and at the last moment diving forward into the inch-high water. Can you imagine American students so willingly all working together to clean the pool, with zero complaining and zero entitlement? Here, the idea of personal civic responsibility, of cog-in-a-machine individual contribution to a group goal, is so HUGE that it undermines any personal feelings one might have. And now they get to use the pool all summer with the satisfaction that they have all cleaned it -- together. The school belongs to them.
April 27-29: Tokyo!
I'm so lucky that my birthday falls during Golden Week!
Eating rainbow cupcakes and hanging out with friends in Yoyogi park. I celebrated my birthday by attending Tokyo Rainbow Pride. It was a ton of fun.
With my friends, Chihiro and Nanami, eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant (such a treat!!) Nanami and Chihiro studied abroad at UCI and are now working in Tokyo. FIVE whole years later I'm glad we are still friends. :)
May 3-6: Hiroshima & Environs
This is what's called the A-Bomb dome, one of the few structures that remained intact after the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the Hiroshima city center on August 6th, 1945. It was reinforced and preserved, and the area around it restored into what's now the Peace Memorial Park and Museum. The museum is all at once sobering, horrifying, maddening, and inspiring. Since I lived in Nagasaki and experienced the museum and Peace Park there as well, I was able to approach this one with comparatively more maturity and education. It's such a rich and thought-provoking experience just to be in such a place.
Hiroshima in general reminds me of Nagasaki, not only because they were both A-bomb targets, but because they are both small but lively port cities with slow-moving electric trolley systems and verdant hillsides dotted with cemeteries and homes.
Miyajima, one of Japan's historical top 3 most beautiful places, a cornerstone in the foundation of the Shingon sect of Buddhism. Everything here was gorgeous beyond compare: the temples and shrines, the plant and flower life, the views of the ocean, and the famous large "floating on water" torii gate captured here at sunset.
Bicyling across beautiful bridges on the Shimanami Kaido, or the "island wave sea route." This string of islands, connected by bridges, stretches through the Seto Inland Sea from the eastern coast of Hiroshima prefecture to the western coast of Shikoku. We rode about 40km that day, and made our way into Ehime Prefecture for a few hours. Now I can say I've been to Shikoku--three of Japan's four main islands down, one to go. :)
koi nobori, carp streamers, at a large shrine outside of Hiroshima Castle. Carp streamers are flown throughout Golden Week and the month of May, and are especially symbolic of Children's Day, which is on May 5th. One of my 6th-graders told me the story of why carp streamers symbolize Children's Day: In the wild, young carp swim upstream against the current to reach their mating ground. Carp streamers gain a shape and look stronger when the wind blows harder. This represents parents' desire for their children to be strong in fighting life's "upstream" obstacles on their path to adulthood.
------------------------------------------
And now, summer's almost here! It seems that such a short time ago I was wearing HeatTech long-sleeved shirts to work every day, a pair of tights under every pair of pants. Now the layers are shedding like crazy. In the past few days it has been 25-30 degrees which, for you Fahrenheiters, is 77-86! I can't believe it is happening this fast. I have waited so, so long for the return of summer. On so many icy nights, curled up under six blankets, I have pined for the warm and relaxing heat rays. As I sit here with my window open, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, listening to the cicadas' summertime scream, I can't believe it's happening now.
My Japanese is plateauing. I gained a LOT of knowledge rapidly in the first couple months after I came, and my conversational skills immediately got better, but now I am stuck in an area where, if I don't really push myself to practice and use Japanese more than is required at work, I won't get better. I need to make a more concerted effort to study on my own and practice speaking, a lot, in order to push myself to the next level. It kills me that my Japanese is now so much more fluid than my French. In terms of bulk knowledge, my French is still bounds ahead of Japanese, and I can still read and probably write much better in French, but for conversation, Japanese takes the cake. I never anticipated the day that this would happen, either. Je me sens bête.
I don't want to talk about my voice (both talking and singing) because it depresses me. My talking voice is better than it was but not as strong as it needs to be for teaching, and my singing voice is stronger than it was but NOWHERE NEAR where it needs to be for me to feel fulfilled in my hobby/passion/lifestyle as a singer. I have clear technique and usage issues in both areas. I'm currently on a speech therapy break because I wasn't devoting enough time to it and it wasn't helping. I feel a little trapped and unsure of whether I'll be able to get my voice back on track before I return to the states...and what will happen if and when I try to pursue a music-teaching job on a recovering voice. It scares me. But I can live in this suspended state for another year before I have to confront any choices.
Japanese Cultural Tidbit
-In Hiroshima, adults were warmer and more talkative to us than we usually experience in the Tokyo area. Within two minutes of waiting at our tram stop, a lady came up to us and asked us where we were from, where we were going, etc. She offered to guide us to our tram stop, making conversation the whole way. In Tokyo, one stranger approaching another, even an interesting foreigner, and making conversation is unheard of. People keep to themselves unless they have a clear reason not to.
-My students cleaned the school pool yesterday. It was dirty and gunky and nasty from 7 months of non-use. Students scrubbed away at the stuck-on brown dirt with bristle brushes and high-pressure hoses, swept dirty brown water down the drain, and polished the pool floor with wet rags. With all 48 students working, the pool went from disastrous to spotless in about an hour. During the polishing time, they had the time of their lives (no really, the TIME OF THEIR LIVES) having "rag races" where they pushed the rags with the hands on the ground, propelling themselves forward with their feet, and at the last moment diving forward into the inch-high water. Can you imagine American students so willingly all working together to clean the pool, with zero complaining and zero entitlement? Here, the idea of personal civic responsibility, of cog-in-a-machine individual contribution to a group goal, is so HUGE that it undermines any personal feelings one might have. And now they get to use the pool all summer with the satisfaction that they have all cleaned it -- together. The school belongs to them.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
沖縄・Okinawa
Okinawa, the land of the jungles, the beaches, and the butterflies. The Ryukyu Kingdom, replete with its own distinct culture and tradition, became part of Japan as recently as the 1870's. Okinawa boasts Japan's oldest-lived people (and Japan is already the #1 country in the world with the oldest-living people.) If I lived on an island this beautiful, maybe I would live a long time too.
Fellow UCI-er Evelyn and I set out on our six-day journey as a duo, but we met solo traveler Jason from Korea and he quickly became a part of our posse. It's fun meeting people when you travel.
We spent our latter three days on Okinawa's main island, and our first three days on a smaller, more rural island called Miyakojima. While Miyako didn't have much to offer besides beaches, sugarcane-field-laden country drives, and beautiful plant and insect life, in the end that's all I was looking for. I loved experiencing the world-famous Churaumi Aquarium and the hustle-bustle of Naha City on the main island, but if I could come back, I would choose the smaller islands all the way.
Regretfully, it was cloudy almost our whole trip, so we didn't get to experience the world-famous Okinawa sunsets, but at least the cloud cover kept the air temperature and humidity from rising to whine-inducing levels. In fact, the weather felt perfect the entire time--warm enough for shorts and T-shirts, but with a cool breeze and no sticky humidity to speak of. Yay for going in the off-season!
It's true what they say: Okinawa almost doesn't feel like Japan. Japan has such strong cultural associations with its four distinct seasons, which Okinawa doesn't experience. The Japanese are famous for their never-ending work ethic, while Okinawans seemed to be more relaxed at all times. The Okinawan expression なんくるないさ "nankurunaisa"-- comparable to "que sera sera"--embodies this. But what else would you expect from an island culture.
In Okinawan style, I'll spare you the lecture and let the pictures do the talking.
Fellow UCI-er Evelyn and I set out on our six-day journey as a duo, but we met solo traveler Jason from Korea and he quickly became a part of our posse. It's fun meeting people when you travel.
We spent our latter three days on Okinawa's main island, and our first three days on a smaller, more rural island called Miyakojima. While Miyako didn't have much to offer besides beaches, sugarcane-field-laden country drives, and beautiful plant and insect life, in the end that's all I was looking for. I loved experiencing the world-famous Churaumi Aquarium and the hustle-bustle of Naha City on the main island, but if I could come back, I would choose the smaller islands all the way.
Regretfully, it was cloudy almost our whole trip, so we didn't get to experience the world-famous Okinawa sunsets, but at least the cloud cover kept the air temperature and humidity from rising to whine-inducing levels. In fact, the weather felt perfect the entire time--warm enough for shorts and T-shirts, but with a cool breeze and no sticky humidity to speak of. Yay for going in the off-season!
It's true what they say: Okinawa almost doesn't feel like Japan. Japan has such strong cultural associations with its four distinct seasons, which Okinawa doesn't experience. The Japanese are famous for their never-ending work ethic, while Okinawans seemed to be more relaxed at all times. The Okinawan expression なんくるないさ "nankurunaisa"-- comparable to "que sera sera"--embodies this. But what else would you expect from an island culture.
In Okinawan style, I'll spare you the lecture and let the pictures do the talking.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Congratulations
You've made it through the winter and onto spring!
No more frost on my car in the morning. No more snow. In a few weeks' time I won't need a coat outside any more. From the blank brown branches of trees come little buds which turn into tiny round flowers in white, hot pink, and every shade in between. There's Ume (plum blossom), magnolia, or if you're lucky you can find a grove of Japan's national sweetheart, Sakura (cherry blossom.)
These flowering trees are everywhere. I pass small groves on my drive to work, and there are a few trees planted in the schoolyard itself. The "Sakura line" starts in the south of Japan at the beginning of March and work its way up to Hokkaido, Japan's northern island, by May. For us here in the middle, late March and early April is full bloom season.
My great, special, hardworking 3rd-year students graduated from junior high school last week, in an utterly serious, formal, and professional ceremony (read: I wasn't allowed to cross my legs at my seat.) Now they're off preparing for their entry into high school. When the new school year starts after spring break, my 12 adorable sixth graders will move up into the big leagues of junior high school, and the six just-as-adorable five-year-olds from the daycare/kindergarten next door will move up into elementary school first grade. The circle of life.
Slowly, I'm starting to find more energy to pull myself out of my sedentary routine, both physically and mentally. I'm recently more adept at evaluating my position here, seeing my work and social situations with greater clarity.
Socially, I crave the fulfillment I had in the states--a group of close friends who I can regularly hang out and feel a connection with. I'm not lonely here, but it's a different feeling when I'm so geographically disparate from my friends here who I've known only a short time. I miss hanging out at Spectrum or Diamond Jamboree. I miss urban sprawl. I miss wide, multi-lane roads and free, fast freeways. I miss meeting with friends on weeknights and feeling a bond, a connection. I miss frequent in-person contact with friends (both at home and abroad.) I miss the opportunity to let loose and party with good friends without spending $20 and two hours (as Tokyo is to me here.)
I don't miss work stress. I don't miss busyness and living paycheck-to-paycheck. I don't miss sharing a room. I don't miss rude and confrontational people.
I actually have a life here. And it's not the magical life of peace, tranquility and nature that I sometimes fantastically imagined. I work, I clean my apartment, I go to the bank, I sleep in on weekends. It's so normal now, but I know I will look back and miss everything about this. And things will fiercely remind me of it. The songs my school's PA system plays before school and at lunch. Once this feeling crystallizes. Once it's a past and not a now. It will be its own feeling. I'll never get it back and it'll only be a memory. It's so fleeting. I will live for 60-plus more years NOT abroad.
JAPANESE CULTURAL TIDBITS: MEGA-EDITION!!
Work affords me daily opportunities to experience real Japanese culture in-the-flesh. Of course I don't mean Kabuki and Sumo wrestling, I mean the daily interactions of my co-workers and students. I read about these things before coming, but experiencing them firsthand makes them real and meaningful. Briefly, here are some.
1. Passive Aggression. You may be angry, or devastated, but you better say it politely and with a smile! If you blow your cool in public, if you show your anger or devastation, you'll lose face forever. No matter how annoyed you are, no matter how big of a deal it is, act like it's just the tiniest little thing that you just almost didn't have to bring up. Always keep the lid covered, so everything looks smooth and fine on the surface. I think this is crucial to Japanese aesthetics and interactions. And because of this, social relations are smooth and conflicts are minimized. But, as you could expect, this can create grudges and strain relationships internally.
2. Lack of independent direction, from both students and teachers alike. "What should we do if we're not told what to do?" There is an unending compulsion to follow the rules. Individualism is denied on every level, from the complete uniformity of their uniforms to the lack of any assignment which praises a different, creative response from each student. Critical thinking and individual thought are not even mentioned, let alone valued. For English classes, this means communicative output is difficult to draw out of students. In the staff room, I see the incredible amount of collaboration teachers undergo with each other in order to adhere to the group. This is a large contrast to the individualism American teachers exhibit--their own room, their own decorations, their own teaching style. But as many cons as this system has, it has just as many pros as well. It produces students which are diligent, hard-working, detail-oriented, and earnest. They acknowledge their mistakes and strive to work harder. They adhere to rules and obey authority. This eliminates extraneous distractions and makes social relationships smooth.
-INTERMISSION-
At my school, the schedule is malleable. Each year's class schedule is decided the week before. Students can have 2 science classes one day, and zero the next. They can have English every day for a week and then only once the next week. Teachers collaborate with each other to craft a schedule which is tailored to their pacing, where they need to catch up. I think this is amazing and lets the students learn what they need to learn when they need to. It also means that they'll experience the same subject matter at different times of day, which I think increases their likelihood of paying attention. It's a great idea.
In addition to regular academic classes, there are also occasional classes such as leadership, civics/moral education, life planning, etc. I'm happy to see these and think they are useful, although I know they don't emphasize things that I value in education, namely social equality and internationalization. Sex ed is still nonexistent. And the arts are still grossly undervalued. They only get art and music about once a week, and at least for music, the quality of instruction leaves much to be desired, both in content and pedagogically.
-END INTERMISSION-
3. Emphasis on personal responsibility. Everything students do is geared towards contribution to a group goal via personal responsibility. Tennis or basketball team practice, daily cleaning of the classroom and school, student government, serving school lunch, individual rotating classroom responsibilities, etc. The responsibilities are carefully constructed by teachers for the students so that they can learn this invaluable and necessary way to contribute to Japanese adult society. You MUST be a hard worker and you MUST contribute your own efforts towards the group's goal, which is the ultimate (and only important) goal.
4. Hard work necessarily equals success, regardless of results. There is no entitlement or babysitting. Either you do the work or you don't. If you're smart you learn faster but you still have to study and complete work in order to achieve a grade. You cannot coast by on smarts alone like some kids in America can. At the same time, if you're not as academically gifted but you're good at robotically completing the work (as some of my students here are,) you can receive a good grade based on busywork (like rote copying), when you don't deserve it. Students can't fail grades here, and students aren't grouped by ability, so there is no differentiation of instruction between classes. Tests are given by the whole school at the same time and are not at the teacher's discretion, which can disrupt the pacing and flow of curricula. Tests seem to be for statistical/data purposes just as much as actual learning evaluation purposes, and, as in the States, there is way too much focus on paper tests and not enough on measuring learning in other ways.
5. Content versus Pedagogy. In Japanese teacher training, there seems to be much more focus on content and little to no focus on pedagogy/pedagogical methods. My JTE knows a lot about English, she has studied grammar intensively and memorized buttloads of vocab, but I don't think she's ever really learned how to teach: what methods work best for which students, how to differentiate instruction, how to produce independent communicators. I don't know much about the Japanese education-of-education system, but it seems to me that, in suit with the public school education, a big focus is on memorizing and retaining information, whereas applying it critically is sorely, desperately undervalued.
Enough for now. In shortly over 24 hours I depart for the islands of Okinawa for my spring vacation! When I return I shall regale you with tales of their splendor.
No more frost on my car in the morning. No more snow. In a few weeks' time I won't need a coat outside any more. From the blank brown branches of trees come little buds which turn into tiny round flowers in white, hot pink, and every shade in between. There's Ume (plum blossom), magnolia, or if you're lucky you can find a grove of Japan's national sweetheart, Sakura (cherry blossom.)
These flowering trees are everywhere. I pass small groves on my drive to work, and there are a few trees planted in the schoolyard itself. The "Sakura line" starts in the south of Japan at the beginning of March and work its way up to Hokkaido, Japan's northern island, by May. For us here in the middle, late March and early April is full bloom season.
My great, special, hardworking 3rd-year students graduated from junior high school last week, in an utterly serious, formal, and professional ceremony (read: I wasn't allowed to cross my legs at my seat.) Now they're off preparing for their entry into high school. When the new school year starts after spring break, my 12 adorable sixth graders will move up into the big leagues of junior high school, and the six just-as-adorable five-year-olds from the daycare/kindergarten next door will move up into elementary school first grade. The circle of life.
Slowly, I'm starting to find more energy to pull myself out of my sedentary routine, both physically and mentally. I'm recently more adept at evaluating my position here, seeing my work and social situations with greater clarity.
Socially, I crave the fulfillment I had in the states--a group of close friends who I can regularly hang out and feel a connection with. I'm not lonely here, but it's a different feeling when I'm so geographically disparate from my friends here who I've known only a short time. I miss hanging out at Spectrum or Diamond Jamboree. I miss urban sprawl. I miss wide, multi-lane roads and free, fast freeways. I miss meeting with friends on weeknights and feeling a bond, a connection. I miss frequent in-person contact with friends (both at home and abroad.) I miss the opportunity to let loose and party with good friends without spending $20 and two hours (as Tokyo is to me here.)
I don't miss work stress. I don't miss busyness and living paycheck-to-paycheck. I don't miss sharing a room. I don't miss rude and confrontational people.
I actually have a life here. And it's not the magical life of peace, tranquility and nature that I sometimes fantastically imagined. I work, I clean my apartment, I go to the bank, I sleep in on weekends. It's so normal now, but I know I will look back and miss everything about this. And things will fiercely remind me of it. The songs my school's PA system plays before school and at lunch. Once this feeling crystallizes. Once it's a past and not a now. It will be its own feeling. I'll never get it back and it'll only be a memory. It's so fleeting. I will live for 60-plus more years NOT abroad.
JAPANESE CULTURAL TIDBITS: MEGA-EDITION!!
Work affords me daily opportunities to experience real Japanese culture in-the-flesh. Of course I don't mean Kabuki and Sumo wrestling, I mean the daily interactions of my co-workers and students. I read about these things before coming, but experiencing them firsthand makes them real and meaningful. Briefly, here are some.
1. Passive Aggression. You may be angry, or devastated, but you better say it politely and with a smile! If you blow your cool in public, if you show your anger or devastation, you'll lose face forever. No matter how annoyed you are, no matter how big of a deal it is, act like it's just the tiniest little thing that you just almost didn't have to bring up. Always keep the lid covered, so everything looks smooth and fine on the surface. I think this is crucial to Japanese aesthetics and interactions. And because of this, social relations are smooth and conflicts are minimized. But, as you could expect, this can create grudges and strain relationships internally.
2. Lack of independent direction, from both students and teachers alike. "What should we do if we're not told what to do?" There is an unending compulsion to follow the rules. Individualism is denied on every level, from the complete uniformity of their uniforms to the lack of any assignment which praises a different, creative response from each student. Critical thinking and individual thought are not even mentioned, let alone valued. For English classes, this means communicative output is difficult to draw out of students. In the staff room, I see the incredible amount of collaboration teachers undergo with each other in order to adhere to the group. This is a large contrast to the individualism American teachers exhibit--their own room, their own decorations, their own teaching style. But as many cons as this system has, it has just as many pros as well. It produces students which are diligent, hard-working, detail-oriented, and earnest. They acknowledge their mistakes and strive to work harder. They adhere to rules and obey authority. This eliminates extraneous distractions and makes social relationships smooth.
-INTERMISSION-
At my school, the schedule is malleable. Each year's class schedule is decided the week before. Students can have 2 science classes one day, and zero the next. They can have English every day for a week and then only once the next week. Teachers collaborate with each other to craft a schedule which is tailored to their pacing, where they need to catch up. I think this is amazing and lets the students learn what they need to learn when they need to. It also means that they'll experience the same subject matter at different times of day, which I think increases their likelihood of paying attention. It's a great idea.
In addition to regular academic classes, there are also occasional classes such as leadership, civics/moral education, life planning, etc. I'm happy to see these and think they are useful, although I know they don't emphasize things that I value in education, namely social equality and internationalization. Sex ed is still nonexistent. And the arts are still grossly undervalued. They only get art and music about once a week, and at least for music, the quality of instruction leaves much to be desired, both in content and pedagogically.
-END INTERMISSION-
3. Emphasis on personal responsibility. Everything students do is geared towards contribution to a group goal via personal responsibility. Tennis or basketball team practice, daily cleaning of the classroom and school, student government, serving school lunch, individual rotating classroom responsibilities, etc. The responsibilities are carefully constructed by teachers for the students so that they can learn this invaluable and necessary way to contribute to Japanese adult society. You MUST be a hard worker and you MUST contribute your own efforts towards the group's goal, which is the ultimate (and only important) goal.
4. Hard work necessarily equals success, regardless of results. There is no entitlement or babysitting. Either you do the work or you don't. If you're smart you learn faster but you still have to study and complete work in order to achieve a grade. You cannot coast by on smarts alone like some kids in America can. At the same time, if you're not as academically gifted but you're good at robotically completing the work (as some of my students here are,) you can receive a good grade based on busywork (like rote copying), when you don't deserve it. Students can't fail grades here, and students aren't grouped by ability, so there is no differentiation of instruction between classes. Tests are given by the whole school at the same time and are not at the teacher's discretion, which can disrupt the pacing and flow of curricula. Tests seem to be for statistical/data purposes just as much as actual learning evaluation purposes, and, as in the States, there is way too much focus on paper tests and not enough on measuring learning in other ways.
5. Content versus Pedagogy. In Japanese teacher training, there seems to be much more focus on content and little to no focus on pedagogy/pedagogical methods. My JTE knows a lot about English, she has studied grammar intensively and memorized buttloads of vocab, but I don't think she's ever really learned how to teach: what methods work best for which students, how to differentiate instruction, how to produce independent communicators. I don't know much about the Japanese education-of-education system, but it seems to me that, in suit with the public school education, a big focus is on memorizing and retaining information, whereas applying it critically is sorely, desperately undervalued.
Enough for now. In shortly over 24 hours I depart for the islands of Okinawa for my spring vacation! When I return I shall regale you with tales of their splendor.
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