Travel Home and My First Impressions

Travleing home was crazy. I stayed up as late as I could the night before I left, I made it to around 1:30. I woke up at 3:30 am in Tokyo so I could bring my Mom, step-Dad and girlfriend to Tsukiji Fish Market. You have to get there really early to get into the tuna auction. They've become very strict with how many people get in. Anyway it was a grand old time. We went back to the hotel and were there by 6:30am. Everyone else went to sleep, I decided to stay away so I'd pass out on my flight home. I also tried to use some of my frequent flier miles to upgrade to business class. I figured this was my 8th time flying between Japan and America, I deserved some pampering.

I got to the airport early and I could barely stay awake. I was running on about 2 hours of sleep. It got the point where I couldn't tell if I was saying things aloud or not. I'd think something in my head and hear myself say it but I really didn't say it. Or I'd start to have a dream and not realize that I was dreaming and mention something about it aloud and no one would know what on earth I was talking about. Then I'd have to cover up really fast. Example:

They played "California Girls" by Katy Perry all over the place in Tokyo when I was there so it got stuck in my head. I had a dream about it on the bus to the airport and thought I was listening to it. I was like "This song has great bounce." to my girlfriend and she didn't really hear what I said, she said "what was that?" then I had to cover up but the best I could say was "Oh, I said I'm so tired."

I got to the airport, I was denied an upgrade to business class since the flight was full. I got to my seat and the two people next to me were in their early 60s and had giant name tags pinned to their shirts that said their names and then "TO PITTSBURGH". I could tell from their last name, Nguyen, that they were from Vietnam. Also because they were speaking to each other in Vietnamese. They both look like they had no idea what was going on. They kept saying/kind of yelling stuff to me in Vietnamese and I'd just kind of raise my eyebrows and smile and try and figure out what they were saying. They were asking how to lean their seats back, where their headphones jack is, stuff like that. We figured it out.

Once we took off, I couldn't sleep. I'm an anxious flier. It also didn't help that we didn't get those personal TVs for each seat. I know that sounds kind of spoiled, but every flight I've flown to Japan has had those, the first time I flew was in 2002 and this plane STILL didn't have them? Just the one screen in the aisle for people to watch the selected programming... booooo. Our first meal came... curry chicken with rice, a roll and butter, a salad and dressing. I ate some of the rice, the chicken was bad, I ate my roll, didn't touch my salad. The woman next to me opened her butter and started eating with with a spoon. After about two bites she screamed something in Vietnamese. I'm not sure what it was but I'm pretty sure it meant "I THINK I JUST ATE A SPOONFUL OF BUTTER!" The same thing happened with the salad dressing. I felt bad so I tried to show her that the butter goes on the roll. She took this as "GIVE ME YOUR ROLL!!!!" so she started looking scared and shoved her roll at me. "No no no" I waved my hand in a "no no no" kind of way. She imitated this movement and then yelled at me in Vietnamese, then shoved the roll to me. "No no no, you." I gestured it to her with a smile. "NO NO NO!" followed by more Vietnamese. I showed her with my roll what I did, then she just put the roll (it was wrapped in plastic) into her purse and went back to sleep.

There were occasional other moments like this throughout the flight. I never really knew what she was yelling at me about, but it was kind of funny and kind of scary... I was seated in the middle section of the plane on an aisle. Then next to me was the lady, followed by her husband, then some other American guy. The husband was doing the same thing to the other American guy. We often gave each other a look like "Do you happen to understand what is actually going on here?"

Eventually the flight attendants handed out our customs and immigration forms. I filled mine out. The lady next to me was asleep when they handed them out and about 30 minutes before we landed. They hadn't filled out their sheets so I tapped her on shoulder and showed her the slip. I showed her mine which was filled out. She took out her passport and handed it to me. Then she gestured that I write for her. "No no no" I said, again. Then I gestured toward her to do it. Again, this was followed by, what to sounded to me like complete gibberish. I filled out everything I could. I had no idea how to explain to them things like "Do you have any disease agents, cell cultures, or snails?" "Have you been in close proximity to any livestock?" and so on. So I just checked "No" for all of the things. I knew I was definitely going to get arrested. I gave it to her to sign. I pointed to mine, showed her that I signed it and she looked terrified and again, yelled at me in Vietnamese. She shoved the pen back at me and I signed her name for her... I wondered, what if I just checked "Yes" for "Has disease agents" and handed it back, they'd have no idea... and it'd be the craziest welcoming to America ever for them. I didn't, but it's just a slightly entertaining thought. They would have been fine, it just would have been crazy for a while.

My dad picked me up and I was home.

It's been one whole year since I was in America and here's what I think...

1) Grocery stores are amazing. I forgot how many kinds of apples, onions, tomatoes, chips, cookies, cereals, juices, yogurts, and crackers actually exist. The aisles were massive they towered above my head. In my local grocery store in Japan the aisles were about 5 feet high and I could see the entire store over the tops of them. I could see all the shoppers and all the items pretty much. Here, the aisles must be about 40 feet tall and are filled to the top with all sorts of crazy items.

2) People are giants. Not that everyone is short and skinny in Japan but honestly, most people are. Especially in Urasa where the highest age population is 60-80 (it's a fact, I looked it up on their city's website). People were often tiny. In America there are some really really tall people. There are, of course, tons of fat people, but in general people are just larger. Like you just zoomed in on someone and they became that size... does that make sense?

3) It's weird seeing Asian people who are so good at English. I know it's a bit "off" sounding, but it's just weird. I was surrounded by tons of people who, even if they were great at English, still had a strange accent. Here, Asian-Americans of course are naturally fluent in English and it was so surprising.

4) Diversity. I don't think I saw a single mexican person in Japan. That means I went over a year without seeing a single Mexican person. That is weird. I saw a couple of other races but no mexican or latino people. When I went to the grocery store it was amazing, there were all kinds of people all walking around and shopping. It was amazing. America's population is soooooooo interesting looking. I love it so much.

5) We really do have bad attitudes. I was at the deli counter at the grocery store. I was the only person there, with my dad. The woman behind the counter goes "who's next?" in a slightly cold tone. I didn't really hear her so I said, "What's that?" She got mad and repeated herself. "Oh, I am. Can I have a half pound of the oven roasted turkey breast?" Then, of course, my Dad goes "WAIT! I'M NEXT!" as a joke. I thought it was funny, he though it was funny, the lady at the counter... she didn't think it was funny. She rolled her eyes and stood there. When my Dad and I giggled, she just grabbed the turkey and walked away. I got my half pound, but I got it with a side of attitude.

In the parking lot, I saw a guy kicking his car. I imagine because it didn't work. I wasn't really sure what was going on.


My first few meals were the following...

1) Poppy-Seed Bagel with turkey and provolone cheese. YES. CHEEEEESSSSEEEE I MISSED YOU! TURKEY! I MISSED YOU TOO!! BAGELS!!! OH MY BAGELS!!! I MISSED YOU!!!!!!

2) Mexican food. Salsa, Guacamole, rice, refried beans, and some tasty softshell crab. Hooooooray!

3) Limeade. Limes are expensive everywhere but in Japan, one lime cost between 2 and 4 dollars. You can't just buy a giant bottle of limeade, it'd cost about 150,000 dollars. I bought some here and it was magnificent.

I'm so glad to be home. I miss Urasa, I miss my students, I miss Japan, but damn it's good to be back.

Home Sweet Home

After living in Urasa I've really grown to love small town-ness. I'm sure it'll go away once I get back to life in a really convenient city but I just love Urasa so I'll be sad to leave it... here's what else I'll miss...

Edzumiya - The local restaurant that has awesome fresh Japanese food. I went here often and even though the owners and waiters didn't directly say they knew me, they stopped bringing me the "English Menu" after going there twice so I knew they knew what was up.

Heated toilet seats - seriously, there's nothing better. At first you're like "eeeew, it feels like someone was just sitting here." You slowly get used to it and after a you finally get used to the seat and don't really notice it's heated, you'll sit on an unheated seat and say aloud "This feels like I'm sitting on broken glass or something... where's that heated seat???"

Good fruit and vegetables - Even though the prices were pretty ridiculous at times (seriously, who pays 30 dollars for a watermelon?) the fruit was good 99.999% of the time. It was amazing. At the end of the year the famous Yairo Watermelon came in season. This watermelon... is crazy. It's not one of those square or heart-shaped ones... but it's insanely good. The best watermelon I've ever had.

Other things I'll miss...

Good service

Trains that come right on time

Being able to see mountains all around me

The snow (Even though the winter was rough, the snow was beautiful... )

Japanese pumpkin (it's plain old fashioned delicious)

Great TV commercials

Yummy - The local place with all the crazy flavored ice cream/gelato/sherbet. I'm convinced it's the best ice cream/gelato/sherbet place in all of the world.

Festivals - The naked man shoving festival was awesome.

most of all

My students. I love my students. Even the ones with the bad attitudes who hated my class, they cracked me up, I loved giving them a hard time. I'll really really miss them the most. There were some great teachers I worked with but the students still really pull ahead by being awesome.

I CAN'T WAIT

I HAVE ONLY THREE MORE WEEKS IN JAPAN AND...

I CAN'T WAIT: until a 1.5 hour drive to a mall with an import store is no longer necessary in order to enjoy a root beer or tortilla chips.

I CAN'T WAIT: for someone to give me a sassy *sigh* or "ugh." when I take a long time counting out my change at a convenience store in America. Japanese people just politely wait in silence...that's not going to make me go any faster.

I CAN'T WAIT: until the night when frogs no longer keep me up. (Even though they're cute.)

I CAN'T WAIT: for a variety in breads. (See my posts about rye and wheat bread.)

I CAN'T WAIT: until I get my pension refund... gimme back my money, JAPAN.

I CAN'T WAIT: for pizza without mayonnaise

I CAN'T WAIT: until I can sleep at night knowing I'm safe from poisonous centipede attacks (the evil mukade).

I CAN'T WAIT: for breakfast food! (Baaaaaaaaagels!)

I CAN'T WAIT: for insulated homes!

I CAN'T WAIT: Air conditioning!!

I CAN'T WAIT: to see movies when they come out! (we get them 1-6 months later than you folks... Iron Man 2 just came out a few weeks ago...)

I CAN'T WAIT: For restaurants other that aren't Italian or Japanese. (Here's looking at you Mexican. *Wink*)

I CAN'T WAIT: for all things barbeque (the sauce and the actual party around some charcoal with hot dogs and hamburgers)

I CAN'T WAIT: to live in a place where the the average age of the local population isn't in the mid to late 50s. (That is true, I checked the city's homepage [based on 4 year old data.] 20-24 year olds are even greatly out numbered by 75-79 year olds...that probably means now that 20-24 year olds are out numbered by 79-83 year olds.)

I'm compiling the things I'll miss for later.

Happy 4th of July

By complete coincidence my 4th of July was filled with grilled meat. A local family who has helped me out here a bunch invited me and my girlfriend to "yakiniku" which literally means "grilled meat." It's basically the same as korean bbq, you order plates of raw meat and grill it. You can also order salads and all sorts of random side dishes...it's also the place to go to drink a lot of beer. I've been to this many times and knew what to expect for the most part. I was told to meet at the station at 6:30 to catch the 6:40 train to Muikamachi to chow down.

We arrived at the yakiniku restaurant around 6:55... The husband from the family was going to be late so the son, who is my age, ordered the first round of meat, salad, bibimbap, and beer. I think being an American, I'm spoiled when it comes to my cuts of meat. If you ask me what different cuts of meat are I'd say something like sirloin, filet mignon, skirt steak, pork rump, pork shoulder, ribs, and so on... in Japan... absolutely none of these register at a place like this. Our options were...

Pork esophagus
Pork tongue
Pork intestines
Pork liver
Pork ovaries
Pork heart
Pork fat
Beef tongue

Here's part of round 1:


Yeah, that's about it. It wasn't bad. None were as awful as they might seem. Liver doesn't taste bad, but the consistency is just bizarre to me. Ovaries were a bit tough and took some serious chewing but they made it down. The fat was just gross because I knew it was just pure fat, it didn't taste so bad though. The tongues were actually really good, especially the beef tongue. I have to admit, pork esophagus is probably one of the least appetizing of all, though. It literally is just a cross section of an esophagus, there's a bunch of cartilage in it and barely any meat. When you chew it, it's got this kind of rubbery crunch to it. Here's a photo of it (it's on the right and the ovary is on the left, i'm not sure what the top one is...)



The bibimbap came and that had some nice red meaty steak. Unfortunately it was raw and was intended to be eaten raw and covered in raw egg. I downed it though, I was assured I wouldn't get sick.

Finally the husband showed up, after we'd been eating for an hour and a half. He sat down and ordered whole new slew of ovaries, tongues, intestines, and all the gutsy-classics from earlier in the evening. He ordered everyone more drinks and more salads, bibimbaps, and four bowls of kimchi. I hadn't been hungry for about 45 minutes at this point but I figured, what the hell? It's the 4th of July!

Eventually we got some kind of beef and pork rib meat that had been marinated in yakiniku sauce. Not that the other stuff was as bad as it sounds, but it was a total relief to get some recognizable meat.

So after over 3 hours of eating (for which the second half I wasn't even hungry...yet continued to eat) we realized our train home (the last train) would be leaving the station in 5 minutes so we booked it out of the restaurant and got on the train to head home. On the walk home my girlfriend and I picked up some sparklers and enjoyed some good ol' fashioned 4th of July fun... with all the thousands of frogs in Urasa.

Wheat and Rye Experiments

As a gift for my teacher who didn't know the difference between/anything about Rye or Wheat bread, my mom sent me a surprise package with a loaf of wheat and rye bread.

I delivered this to his desk and he smiled wide and said "Thank you!" moments later he appeared at my desk "Do you think you could come to my class and share this bread with the students??" "HECK YEAH!" I loved getting food in class when I was in school so I assumed they'd be no different.

So we brought the bread to 1st period class and first I talked about how big the average loaf size is compared to Japanese bread. I pulled out the bags and they grew excited. We gave a piece of bread to split between 4 students.

First I gave them the wheat. The general concensus was "This is very good, it tastes so American." Many of the students had studied abroad in America for 10 days and likely had wheat bread then. Then I took out the rye bread. Actually, I had two kinds of rye. First I gave them a pepridge farm rye. I had tasted it that morning and the flavor was a little weaker than the second rye. They kind of cringed, many said it tasted like cheese.

Then the last rye, this was clearly a more expensive rye and it was much stronger and, in my opinion, it was SUPER delicious.

Students gasped as they took their small nibbles of this bread. I don't think I could overstate the amount of disgust they felt as they attemtped to politely swallow it. "How is it??" I said. First there was silence... then they all started laughing. One student raised he hand, he looked like he was going to be sick. "Can I go drink some water? PLEASE???" The teacher said "OK." and with that, about half of the class got up and ran out into the hallway to drink water and throw their small pile of remaining bread away.

I asked them which they liked the best. Of course they all liked the wheat the best. I asked which was the worst, the last rye. They asked me and I said that actually the last rye was my favorite. "WHY!?!?!?!" asked one student. I think it made him feel sicker that I liked that one the best. "Because! It's DELICIOUS!" of course eating a piece of rye bread on it's own is a bit intense, especially for the first time.

There's a food here calle "Nattou." It's fermented soybeans. They're brown and they are insanely sticky, When you put some in your mouth, there will surely be little strings of this gooey sticky goo from the bowl to your mouth. Nattou is the test for American who come to Japan. Pretty much no one likes it...except for the Japanese, they LOVE it. Apparently it's insanely healthy. When Japanese people ask me if there's any foods I don't like or don't eat when we are selecting a meal, first they always go "Raw fish ...ok?" I say "Of course, anything is fine." Then they go, "Nattou???" and let me get this straight, I don't like nattou, but I don't hate it. The taste isn't so great but its tolerable, the goo-factor is the hardest part. So I go "Nattou is ok." They applaud. "WOW, so RARE!"

I've always wondered what the western version of nattou is. Now I know, it's rye bread.

A video of my spring break trip

CLICK HERE FOR THE GREAT JAPAN TRIP!

This is from a 10 day trip I took with my friend from Niigata, Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.

There's some strange audio artifacts and distortion that come up thanks to Youtube's awful compression but it's less audible after the first minute or so... enjoy!

-Mike

Another Creative Answer

When I have extra time in class, I like to give my students a short assignment where they recommend something to me.

Last week we learned about movies and how to talk about them so I asked for the students to recommend movies to me. They had about 10 minutes to write 4 short answers. The recommendation could be a western movie or a Japanese movie but it had to be written in English and it had to be a movie.

All they had to write was... (I wrote these directions on the board)
1) The title of the movie
2) When it came out (or guess if they don't know)
3) The genre
4) Why they recommend it

my favorite two answers were written completely in Japanese but here are the translations of them...

Student 1
1) Avatar
2) I don't know
3) Science Fiction
4) Because the humans turn blue.

Student 2
1) Udon (noodles)
2) Long ago
3) Food
4) Noodles are delicious, next period is lunch and I can only think of food.

Gross.

So something gross happens in this story...

I had this big bag of rice sitting in my apartment for a while and decided I should try and finish it up before I left. The easiest thing for me to cook that goes with rice is curry. I hadn't eaten curry in a while because it's not particularly healthy, but it's easy to make and tastes good so I treated myself.

I needed some things from the store, a carrot, an onion, some potatoes, and some chicken. I measured out my rice, washed it, and threw it in the rice cooker (it takes about 40 minutes to cook the rice). I went to the store, got my ingredients, came back and started cooking.

I made my curry in record time, I even found a piece of chicken in my fridge that was a few days old and cooked it with the rest of the food. I had to leave to pick up my girlfriend at the train station by 8:20 and I finished cooking at 8:00 and ate my dinner quickly. A big bowl of rice, a bowl of curry, a glass of water.

When I got back to my apartment I still wanted some rice, so I just took a big spoonful out of the rice cooker and ate some...

I thought I'd be a gentleman and offer m'lady, "Ya want some?" I held the spoon out to Hilary.

"No, thanks."

I brought the spoon back to my face and noticed a little something that didn't look like the rest of the rice.

"Oh my god, there are worms in my rice."

Little skinny white maggot worms with a teeny black dot on their head. There wasn't just one or two, there were a bunch.

My first thought was "Jeez, I must have left the rice cooker opened when I went to get Hilary at the train station." Then I realized they were cooked too and knew that they came from the old bag of rice.

We emptied out the rest of the rice from the rice cooker and it was peppered with little maggots. The rice in the bag still had some living ones that were crawling around... how wonderful. I guess it coulda been worse, but it's never a pleasant feeling to find those knowing you just had a big serving of them.

The Food.

I was invited to give a special presentation about American food in Japan and Japanese food in America to some third year classes and let me tell you, I was excited. The only thing more exciting than talking to my students about food is actually eating the food. Most students don't really have a good idea of what food chains in Japan are actually American chains and I figured they'd find what Japanese foods Americans think are Japanese... but aren't really.

I printed out some menus and some photos and I was set.

First students had to guess a few chain stores that were American by were in Japan. We gave some descriptions...

"This is expensive ice cream that you can buy at the grocery store, 7-11, or at an actual ice cream store." Answer: Haagen Dazs

"This is a good place to go when you are in the mood for a hamburger, fries, and a coke. We sometimes call this place "The Golden Arches." Answer: McDonalds

there were a few more, but I'll spare you.

Other companies were Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, Subway (which just came to Niigata this year so no one has been yet), KFC (which they call "Kenta" or sometimes "Kentakki" for short), 7-11, and so on.

Then I explained about American pizza. I showed them a picture of New York style pizza. "See, it's thin and delicious looking." then I showed them Chicago "See, it's THICK and delicious looking." The giggled at the New York style photo but their jaws dropped about the Chicago style one. "IT'S TOO BIG TO BE CALLED A PIZZA!" "WHY IS ALL THE SAUCE IS ON TOP!?!?!" "DO PEOPLE BECOME SICK FROM TOO MUCH CHEESE???" Though, they all agreed it looked good.

Then they had to guess typical foods that we eat in America. I explained to them the difference between Japanese sandwiches and American sandwiches. Japanese sandwiches are often these little crustless danty white bread finger sandwiches with a bunch of lettuce, a layer of mayo, then one slice of meat. I showed them a picture of sub sandwiches from America, including a cross section of a sandwich from Potbelly's and they all, again, gasped. "SO MUCH MEAT!" "THERE'S TOO MUCH BREAD!" "IT'S TOO BIG TO FIT IN MY MOUTH!!!" They laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then we discssed how even though hamburgers are popular, they're not really a staple food (as many Japanese people seem to believe) and that a typical healthy person doesn't often eat a lot of hamburgers. I showed them tacos, burritos, and salsa. I talked about various pies (apple, pumpkin, peach, cherry, and so on...), of course the wonderful world of bagels, grilled meats, gyros, American Chinese food (which is pretty different than Japan's take), and Italian food (also pretty different from Japanese take).

Then I went on to explain Japanese food in America. "So, we have Sushi everywhere. Anytime you go to a Japanese restaurant in America, they have sushi...but also have OTHER foods like chicken teriyaki and other Japanese foods." This was a surprising concept for Japanese people because when it comes to Japanese restaurants in Japan, most of the time they specialize in ONE food. You got a sushi restaurant and can pretty much only get sushi, tempura shops sell tempura, ramen shops sell ramen, and soba shops sell soba. There's sometimes a few extra items hidden on menus, but you don't get menus that say like "FROM THE GRILL!" followed by a "SALADS AND SOUPS!" section with a "HOMEMADE PASTAS!" secion and then a "FIESTA MEXICANA!" section.

Then I went into my American style sushi lecture. In the world of Sushi there are two main kinds of styles, the "pressed" or "Nigiri" sushi and the "rolled" or "Maki" sushi. America's nigiri is pretty much the same as Japan's in terms of style and variety, but when it comes to Maki, we're worlds apart. You see, in Japan there is no "Spider Roll" or "Dragon Roll" or "Beauty and the Beast Roll" (which was on a menu I printed out for the class.) Japan has simple rolls, for the most part. Some fish or vegetables wrapped in rice and seaweed. Sometimes you come across "Futomaki" which means "Fat roll" which usually has egg, cucumber, pickled vegetables, and sometimes a kind of fish or crab in it. They usually look like this...

(Tuna roll)


(Futomaki)



So I showed them the American maki menu along with some photos like this...



...And then their heads literally exploded. They thought it was beautiful and also said it looked delicious, which surprised me. They'd never seen rice on the outside of the seaweed before either.

Don't get me wrong, Japan definitely has some creative sushi and even sushi art, but they aren't really common. Just for fun, here is some Japanese sushi art...

Tomato

I grade a lot of papers for the other teachers, they're often busy and I have time to grade stuff. It's actually pretty relaxing sometimes and it's fun to see what my students write about.

Today my students had to summarize a short essay they read about food migration. Most students wrote about 2 paragraphs... but there was one paper that just had three sentences on it that I found refreshing.

"Europeans brought tomatoes to North America. But the Native Americans grew tomatoes along the Atlantic coast to make for sightseeing and not eating. I think this is very insult to tomatoes."


My favorite part was that there was nothing about Native Americans growing tomatoes along the Atlantic coast for sightseeing in the essay at all.

-Mike

Fire Drill? What Fire Drill?

Wednesday is my half-day at my base school. In the morning I work at a school about 45 minutes away, then at lunch I drive back to my base school for the afternoon. When I arrived about 10 different teachers informed me of the fire drill planned for 7th period.

I was all "Yeah yeah yeah, got it." This was the first time this school had really informed me of anything this far in advance, I usually get a 5 minute lead on things like meetings, parties, festivals, and so on.

7th period started and I was grading some papers, then the bell went off. No teachers in the teachers office moved. I stayed seated and decided I'd take the cue from them. There was some announcement that students should exit in an orderly fashion out of the exit closest to their rooms (there are basically 2 exits in the school... though in a real emergency there's actually something closer to 5... including windows on the first floor... there are almost infinity.)

I noticed that many of the teachers were kind of gigglign and making jokes. They'd take out their handtowels and cover their mouthes and pretend to cough and choke. I decided I'd finish whatever I was grading then go... then I heard a stampede of students running down the hallway. This was my cue.

I looked up and all of the teachers had gone, I stepped into the hall and there was a giant cloud of white smoke flowing through the hallways. Students all had handtowels over their mouthes and were walking in an orderly fashion out of the building. The smoke grew heavier and heavier, luckily the teachers office isn't so far from the exit and the halls are really wide so there wasn't a problem. As I rounded the last turn toward the exit a group of firefighters came running into the building, "cover your faces!" We all kept going to the entry way of the school and I found myself thinking "am I supposed to change into my outdoor shoes? Is it OK to wear my indoor shoes OUTDOORS?" I saw another teacher run out the door in their own shoes. I decided not to change my shoes...a big risk.

We got outside and I was a little confused whether there actually was a fire or this was some elaborate fire drill. When I got outside there were more firemen in their gear standing outside. All the students lined up in their student number order and by year waiting for the final word.

I wanted to ask one of the other teachers "Was there ACTUALLY a fire?" but this would end in one of two ways.

1) "HAHA! YES! Did you REALLY think there was a fire??? We TOLD you there was a fire drill!"

2) "There are firemen all around us and there was smoke in all the hallways... can you do the math?"

I decided I'd wait and fire it out. Sure enough, it was an elaborate drill... with smoke machines and firefighters. I guess I could have changed into my outdoor shoes afterall, but no one else did.

This was only Part I of the fire drill. Part II involved everyone moving into the field where there was a giant can of gas, like you'd see on a gas grill, seven fire extinguishers and a long metal container with some mystery substance in it. A firefighter came and demonstrated that if you're in a fire, you should get a large plastic bag, fill it with air (not from your mouth) and put it over your head so you can breathe clean air while you escape. Then he got seven first-year students to come up.

He used lit a cigarette lighter, held it in front of the gas cannister and turned the nozzle. Immediately there was an ten foot stream of fire blowing across the field. "OOoooOOO!" He used this stream to light this mystery substance in the long metal container. It burst into flames and he handed one of the students an extinguisher and said "Put it out."

They repeated this seven times, once with each student. Each time reigniting the metal box with his makeshift flame thrower.

After this lesson on how to put out fires, we were given very specific instructions on how to clean our now-tainted indoor shoes off so when we go back in we don't ruin the beautiful floors. "First, stomp all the dirt off in the parking lot, drag your feet as you walk. When you get inside first walk across the green plastic mats, again dragging your feet. Then proceed to the damp towels were you will stand until your feet are clean.

So many lessons learned.

The Music Teacher

Ever since I arrived one of the only teachers who approaches me with ideas to utilize my being here is the music teacher. First she got me to perform some jazz with two other students, she had me give notes to the brass band on how the "Star Spangled Banner" should be performed for the American exchange students, she had me teacher guitar during music class (which was hilarious.) She is also just truly hilarious, she was the one who let the students know that I know Japanese (it was supposed to be a well kept secret... but I was glad to get it out.) She always complains about some students never do what she says so she says "I must..." then puts her fingers on her head to make horns. She says "Devil devil devil." Then she covers her mouth laughing in disbelief that she had just said something so crazy (when in fact, it wasn't that crazy to begin with.)

This week she invited me to give a class on the history of jazz in America. It'd be brief, but it'd likely be the most accurate and most in depth understanding of Jazz/Blues the students would ever have.

I went in and explained pre-jazz music like ragtime, marching band music and so on which became the whole dixieland movement in New Orleans. Eventually I got to describing improvisation and a basic intro to improvisation. I then played this old recording of Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong. The teacher goes, in Japanese, "These men were likely drunk and high on drugs while they were improvising. That's why it's so good."

I swore that I'd misheard her and thought maybe she said "People listening were often drunk" as in "people listened to this music at bars." which we had talked about, how this music was performed at clubs and bars. Then she looked at me and said "Right?" I asked her to repeat. My ears hadn't fooled me. She HAD said that these men were all on drugs and drunk. Now, I may be totally wrong but I was like "no no no no no no no no." The students burst out laughing, the teacher broke out laughing and covered her face, got really serious and turned to the students and said "Never tell anyone I told you that."

After class, she explained that her friend had told her that in order to improvise properly you had to be drunk or on drugs. While there's plenty of cases alcohol and drug use all over jazz's history, it's by no means REQUIRED. I had to explain that that would be on par with running through an obstacle course while drunk or on drugs... while I'm sure some people would have a blast, the result wouldn't be as graceful as the one participating might expect... although I'm sure there are exceptions.

After class she let me play the schools piano for the rest of the day which was wonderful because I hadn't touched a real piano in almost 10 months... she definitely redeemed herself for likely spreading the word around rural Japan that all people who improvise are on intoxicated. Also, she's still one of my favorite teachers at school.

Rye, Barley, Wheat, and Oats

"Rye, Barley, Wheat, and Oats"

No, the title of this is not in reference to an unreleased secret recording of a rare Simon and Garfunkle song... this is what I've been speaking to classes about as of late.

One of the teachers I work with came up to me and kind of was confused about something. He's the teacher that often asks me questions about things he reads. I'm always glad when he does because it means 2 things... 1) I get to communicate with another human (a major departure from my daily schedule) 2) The questions are usually about things that I never really notice about western culture.

Today the question was "In this book, it says 'their diet usually consisted of rye and wheat bread, cabbage soup, and...' Does this mean that the bread was wheat and rye in one bread? or two separate things?"

Of course the answer is two separate things. Then came the interesting part "In Japan we think of wheat, oat, barley, and rye as one group. They are all resembling the same thing, a form of wheat. They are in one group. Do you think this?"

Weird. This explains why when I bought rye bread and wheat bread at the super market, they both tasted like white bread. This resulted in a conversation where the teacher kept saying "heeeeeeeeeeh" the Japanese equivelent of "whooooooaaaaaa." I'd say "Rye bread tastes nothing like wheat bread. Wheat bread tastes nothing like white bread... they are all different, completely different. If you order a sandwich at a store, sometimes they ask you what kind of bread you want. Other times if you order food that comes with toast, they will offer you a choice of wheat, white, or rye. It's THAT different."

His mind was so blown by this concept that he asked me to speak to some of his grammar classes about it. I went in and lay it straight about my grains and breads. Let's just say, I totally flipped their world upside down. I even went so far as to mention that there are different kinds of wheat breads. "We have 7 Grain or 12 Grain bread, dark wheats, wheat breads with nuts and seeds... all sorts of nifty wheat breads" I didn't go into pumpernickel, challah, cinnamon rasin, or other things yet... they aren't read for that.

I might have to find some true wheat, rye, oat, and barley breads to send to this guy just to show him what he's missing. I wonder if he's even emotionally, mentally, and physically prepared to experience these different kinds of breads, I guess that's a risk I'm willing to take though.

-Mike

When communication starts to fail...

I walked into school today and there were no teachers int he office and none of my teaching materials had been copied for me (they usually supply me with copies for each class after I fax them a new lesson plan.)

I wasn't in a mood to be teaching...

I thought "I should either be really really worried about what is going to happen today... or really relieved that maybe there is a small possible chance that maybe there are no classes."

Turns out..

No classes. Score.

-Mike

A short message on insulating homes....

There is a crazy wind storm right now. In fact, it's so windy outside that it's windy INSIDE my apartment. Yeah, the windows and doors are all closed but the curtains are blowing around and papers blow off my desks and stuff. Insulation, people... Let's insulate.

My new students

One of my new students has a monocle.

I don't even know what else to write.

-Mike

JAPAN EPISODE 2! *UPDATED*

The previous link to "How To Know You're In Japan! Episode 2" linked you to a video about weird raccoons... now it is fixed...

CLICK HERE FOR EPISODE 2 of HOW TO KNOW YOU'RE IN JAPAN!

-Mike

Another Snow Video

I put up a little video in celebration of the snow fiiiiiinally starting to melt. I had a lot of video footage of the snow from February when it was pretty high so I thought I'd edit it together. As for now, there's only a little bit of snow left... finally.


CLICK HERE FOR THE SNOWY URASA WALTZ

Japan Episode 2!

CLICK HERE FOR EPISODE 2 of HOW TO KNOW YOU'RE IN JAPAN!

VENT

It all started before I left for my spring break. The teachers classroom is organized in a way that all the teachers desk are clumped into groups. There's 1st year teachers in one clump, second year teachers in another, then the 3rd year teachers. The vice principal sits in the middle of the room. Every school year the teachers move up with their students. So basically you have the same teacher 3 years in a row (unless the teacher changes school... which I'll get into later...)

I don't move, though. The JET will always stay in the 2nd year area because the JET teaches all 3 years of students. I was informed that I'd be moving to a new spot in the 2nd year teachers clump.

The conversation didn't go smoothly, it was along the lines of this...
"Clean out your desk completely, today... and move it."
"Ok, where is the new desk?"
"We don't know."
"...ok... where should I put my things."
"Umm... ummm just please clean out your desk so it is clean and empty."
"Yes, I understand. Do you have some boxes I can use?"
"No, we have no boxes. We will get a desk for you but we won't have it until after you have left for spring break."

I wanted to say...
"Let me get this straight... you want me to empty my entire desk and move to another nonexistent desk without using boxes? Is this a brain teaser or some team building exercise?"

I sat back down at my desk and decided whatI was going to do. I'd clean off teh entire top of the desk and fill up the drawers as much as I could then just move the drawers when I was ready... if they got my desk. All the desks are the same there's no reason that shouldn't work.

Later the Vice Principal came up to me and said "Did you move your stuff?"
I explained the plan. "No, that won't work." He said.
Ugh...
In my head, I knew this would work. In fact, I noticed that a few other teachers had done the same thing.

"I think it will work," I said.
"No, we can't do that." He replied.
"Well what should I do?"
"Let me ask someone else."

He asked another teacher who said "Tell him to fill up his drawers and then we'll have someone move them while he's on vacation."

Done and.... done. Another point for me and my problem solving skills.

Then I went on vacation.

...10 days later...

On my first day back I got to the entry way of the school. There are a bunch of small lockers for shoes since you have to wear indoor-shoes while at school. Before I came my mom bought me some really nice shoes that I was in love with. I am super picky about shoes so this was a good find for me. They were super comfy, looked nice, and were really light and easy to walk in.

My locker... was now claimed by another teacher. "Miyazaki" it read on the locker. I opened it up to find some womens sneakers. I looked around for locker with my name on it... there were none. My old locker didn't have my name on it because apparently they didn't put a name on the JETs locker because we change all the time. I found a blank locker and opened it. No shoes. I looked in a whole bunch of lockers... no shoes. My supervisor walked by, "Is everything OK?" "Yeaaaaaaah... well my locker is gone." "Hmmm." He opened my old locker and started looking for my shoes. No luck. At morning announcements they explained the situation and asked if anyone had seen the shoes. People gasped but no one had seen them. A billion teachers asked me if I had found them throughout the day. Eventually I was told that someone probably threw them away... WHAT? who throws away SHOES? Especially nice leather dress shoes!?!? My feet are bigger than most of the other teachers here so it's not like they took them. I don't want to think that someone did it on purpose but sometimes... I wonder...

In Japan, teachers change schools regularly. You work at a school for 2 - 8 years and can be switched to a new school whether you want to or not. It always happens at teh end of a school year, but it can be stressful. Teachers are informed they will change schools in earlier in the year so they can prepare to move, but they aren't allowed to tell the other teachers at their own school until the day before the school year ends. (The school year ends at the end of March and begins the first week of April... scheduled with the Cherry Blossoms... I'm telling you, the Cherry Blossoms are a BIG deal here...) If it's a teacher's first school gig, they will 99.9% of the time be switched after 2 years, after that they stay about 4 and then after that it's just kind of random. People suddnely have to say bye to collegues they worked with for 4 years and may never seem the again... it's crazy. So right around spring break a whole bunch of teachers leave and a whole bunch of teachers come in... My school lost a bunch of teachers and got new ones. When the old ones left they probably took the names off of their lockers and someone probably thought one of the old teachers had forgotten their shoes and tossed them... that's my hypothesis. No one will admit to tossing them, though.

Next came scheduling...
I wanted to know what day I started teaching again and with what teachers. I asked my some teachers and no one knew. There are two other part time ALTs at my school who I work with in English class, they didn't know either. In fact, the school hadn't contacted them once over break to tell them when they should come back to work. I did research and found that we MIGHT be having a class on wednesday (I found this out on a tuesday.) When I got to school wednesday they said "No classes for you today, but we will have classes tomorrow." "Ok great, can I have a schedule?" "We didn't make one." "Ok... well do you know which teachers I will work with." "Well... no, there's no schedule so... no." "Well what am I supposed to plan for tomorrow then?" "I don't know." "Should I even bother making a lesson plan?" "Yes, please." "What should the topic be?" "I don't know." This is pretty much how the whole day went. I informed the other ALTs that they should come to school on Thursday... because the school never contacted them.

How is it that my base school, known for it's great academics and strict study schedule for students is the most unorganized place in all of the world? Nothing makes sense here. It's like once when I was yelled at for not coming to school because no one told me that the end date of winter break had been changed.

"Today is a work day, you cannot miss work on a work day."
"Oh! I'm sorry, I thought we started back the 7th."
"We changed it to the 4th. Please never do this agian."
"I'm sorry, no one had informed me."
"Yes, I'm sorry, we forgot to inform you, but please never miss a work day again. We must take the day out of your paid vacation hours."

It's like... what? I don't understand that thought process one bit...

Done venting.... NOW.

I'm excited to go home and make some mexican eggs.