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.

Spring Break Experiences

So spring break came and went, as expected. It came quickly and quietly and ended before I wanted it to.

Instead of giving you a breakdown of everywhere I went I'll just give you some highlights of the trip...

My friend Marty came and visited. It was a big move on his part because it's a pricey trip, but early spring is a good time to visit for a number of reasons 1) Airplane tickets aren't usually too expensive (I think his were around 800 bucks round trip compared to $1000-$1400 other times I've come...) and also if you plan right, the sakura (Cherry blossom trees) will be in bloom which is basically the soul of Japan. Everything kind of relates back to the cherry blossoms.

Our first stop on the trip was Miyajima, a small island off the coast of Hiroshima. It was a really long day of train riding and boats to get there so we were tired when we arrived. We walked around the island a bit and then crashed at our Japanese style hotel, a ryokan. Ryokan's are a good Japanese experience. They can be pricey but are worth the cash. The room is a tatami mat room, you sleep on futons. During the day there are little pillows to sit on, while you are out the house keeper comes in and lays out your futons for sleeping. Really good Japanese dinners are included and there is often a Japanese style "Onsen" bath. We were given a welcome cup of tea and some snacks. They explained to us how the whole place worked. Then the lady said "Do you want to take a bath in our outdoor onsen?" "Sure," I thought. I've done the Onsen public bath thing before, the outdoor baths are surrounded by high fences so no one can see... it doesn't seem so weird for me to get naked at one even with my friend around. May be a little bit weird... but when there are like 30 other naked guys there you really don't care. Marty seemed like he could handle it. "Yes, we'd like to go to it." "Go to the bath at 8:30, please." the woman explained.

We went for a walk around the island, came back and had our crazy multicourse Japanese style meal. We had sashimi, oysters (Miyajima is famous them), miso soup, grilled fish, a pot of boiled veggies and egg, a little steamed egg custard soup thing... it was good news.

Then came time for the bath. Luckily we'd had some beers to loosen us up. Turns out... the bath was a private bath... not a public onsen. Like... JUST for Marty and I. No other people. I wasn't sure if I should explain that to Marty or not ahead of time. It's embarrassing to be like "We're too afraid to get naked in front of each other so we're gonna bail on our bath time." We couldn't just give up! I decided I should explain the situation to Marty, though... after all, it'd be weird if I told him there'd be other people and then I was like "Surprise... it's just YOU. and ME." He marched forward with the bath, though. We entered the changing room which was a teeny tiny room that had barely enough space for us to stand. There was a constant danger of bumping into the other's naked body. Especially since we weren't looking at the other person.

I took the "Act confident, get those clothes off and get in the water" attitude. If I didn't make it seem weird, it wouldn't get weird. Right? Kind of. I don't think I committed 100% to that attitude. The result was awkward dialogue like...

"Alright, I'm naked."
"Ok... well I am too."
"..oh.. well don't look at me!"
"I'm NOT. don't look at ME!"
"I'm DEFINITELY not. I swear."
"I'm too shy for this."
"Oh shut up and just take a shower and get in the bath."
"I'm READY just open the door and go out there!"
"I will in ONE SECOND!"
"Mike, GO!"
"Marty, I'm NAKED! ONE! SECOND!"

and things like
"Don't look at my butt."
"Why would I look at your butt?"
"I don't know, just... I'm shy."
"Oh shut up. Take a bath."

The bath was on a balcony that looked out at the ocean and the famous shrine on Miyajima. When we were submerged in the water it was not weird at all. There was nothing to see. It looked no different than if we were at the beach. I knew Marty was naked under the water, but I couldn't see anything. The problem was that in order to get a good look of the shrine you had to stand up to see it. I wanted to see it, heck, I'm not often naked and outside on a bath THAT often... so we both took turns standing and "not looking."

The whole experience was less awkard than I thought. I probably made it seem stranger than it was. We laughed our way through most of it...


As far as the rest of the trip, it went well. Of course when two people travel together you have little bumps along the way. I'd get tired and crabby, Marty would get tired and crabby... we got through it pretty darn well though, I think... Marty may disagree.

We went to...

1) Miyajima/Hiroshima
2) Osaka (Aquarium, Dotonbori, Umeda)
3) Kyoto (Kiyomizudera, Sanjusangendo, Nijo Castle, Gion, Arashiyama Bamboo forest, Arashiyama monkey park and some other places)
4)Tokyo (All over...)

We did get to catch the sakura blossoms in bloom. Hiroshima, Osaka, and Kyoto were about half way opened up but Tokyo was in almost 100% full bloom when we arrived. We did some night flower viewing in Asakusa and it was beautiful... I can't wait for the blossoms in Niigata. We have one of the top 3 flower viewing parks in all of Japan! HOORAAY!

Spring Break

While I finish typing my spring break trip entry I thought I'd share my newest video creation! Hopefully there will be more to come...


CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE PAGE

Naked. Shoving. Festival.

I don't even know HOW to start this story...

I went to school last wednesday and there was a large plastic bag sitting on my desk. The contents of the bag were...

White shorts that slightly resembled boxers

Strange white shorts that I can only explain as being like a vest-version of shorts. They went on and they didn't really connect in the front, you just tied them and hoped they stayed shut.

A long white sheet that was about 8 feet long and maybe 3 feet wide.

White sock/shoes. They looked like socks except the bottom had thick rubber like a shoe. It was split so the big toe would go in its own section while the rest of the toes would huddle together in theirs own section. (They call these tabi in Japanese)

Last was a piece of cloth to tie around my head.


These contents could mean only ONE thing...

NAKED. SHOVING. FESTIVAL.

Halfway through the day a teacher came with a map of where to go after school.
"
First go to this building," He circled a spot on the map in red pen.
"Then we will get warm before we change clothes, and we will have something to eat."
He drew a line in red pen. "We will walk here after we have changed clothes. We will rub wax on each other."

Then he stopped and looked at me and said, "This part will get dangerous...maybe."

He scribbled a spot in red. "Here, some men will start to push against us. They will not win, though. In groups of 4 we will push past. When you get past these men you must run. Many people will shout 'RUN! RUN! RUN!' so please, run this way." He drew a line to a dead end. "WATER." he said. "Cold water." he gave me a look, the look meant "cold. water." then he said "When you enter the water you must clap and then say some words."

"What words?"
"Magic words."
"Can you tell them to me?" I knew it was Abracadabra.
"No, because I don't even know them, they are magic."
"Does anyone know them?"
"Yes, someone, I don't know, they are magic, just yell loud and people will think you are saying them.. they sound like this..."
he yelled something that well... sounded like magic words....then he drew a line back to where we broke through the groups in teams of 4 but right before he reached them, he cut down a little side area "Now run here and shove everyone you can. You want to get inside the temple, but maybe you won't. Many people will push against you and only 1 person may go in at a time. Most people will not enter."

"Have you ever entered?"

"Seven times." And he slapped down his pen with pride.

"Wow! How many times have you done it??"

"Seven." He closed his eyes to express even greater pride in letting know that he as made it every time he participated.

"How long do I shove for?" I asked.

"As long as you like, maybe for one hour? If you want to leave you can walk out, but only exit on the south side or else everyone will shove you back into the group and you were have to keep shoving."

At this point, I knew that I had something special waiting for me that evening.

The teacher handed me a sheet of paper that had the events written out in Japanese. It said...

4:00 "Warming the body"

7:00 Candle ceremony

and it continued down with all sorts of things

"Wait, this says I should warm my body at 4, but I will still be at school." I said.

"That's ok, you can go at 5:30, only serious people go at 4:00."

"Do you just go in a bath? or what?"

"No, warming your body is to drink lots of alcohol. Lost and lots of alcohol." He gave me a smile and left.

So after school I went home, changed into some more comfortable clothes. I wasn't sure if I would be wearing my underwear under all these garb. I had on long underwear and decided that if I were supposed to have underwear on (it's called the NAKED man festival, after all, this wasn't the strangest thing to be wondering.) that I should have on white underwear so it didn't show through my white fesitval clothes. I switched out out of my long underwear, threw on some more comfortable clothes and headed out.

I got to the building where I would be "warming my body" at 5:30 and was welcomed by warm applause from some of the "serious" teachers who went at 4. 7 were already there and 18 teachers had signed up in total. "MIKE! MIKE! BEER? OR JAPANESE... SPIRITS!?!?!? SPIRITS!!! HAHHAHA!" they love speaking English when they get "warm."
I had some beer. They were shoveling down festival food which is usually pretty greasy, I didn't want to over do it. The last thing you want is a stomach ache after you've been bringe drinking and are being shoved from all sides... puking is one thing... but the other end... in all white? No thank you. I stuck to the dry foods, crackers, chips, peanuts... ya know, typical bar food. Although I had a little takoyaki (octopus dough-balls).

At 7:00 it was announced that we would now change out clothes. Everyone in the room stood up, at this point everyone was beet red and wobbled about. Someone had to help you wrap yourself with the long cloth. You held one end down and just spin really fast. "THIS IS THE FUNNEST PART!" someone yelled. "THIS!?! is the funnest part?!" I thought, great... there is still 2 more hours of wax, ice water, and shoving ahead of me and apparently the funniest part was over in 30 seconds. We were given these sandals that we tied to our feet, they were made of straw.

We lined up and everyone started yelling "SANYO! SANYO! SANYO! SANYO!"
Sanyo is a Japanese electronics company... but I don't think they were referring to that...

They gave me a final cup of "holy Sake" someone yelled "HOLY JAPANESE SPIRITS! AHAHAHAHHAAH!!" then we went outside where some giant candles awaited. Our team leader lifted the candle and hot wax poured off of it. Everyone stuck their hands into the candle and started rubbing hot wax all over everyone. On peoples backs, chest, arms, cheeks, legs. Any exposed skin. I guess this is part of the "warming." Many strangers came up to me and put hot wax all over my nipples. Probably 20 or 30 people rubbed wax on my nipples by the end of it... That's how popular I am. I don't think the sexual escapades of most porn stars even include that. I can't even lie... it felt good too. Not in a weird sexual way... but you know when someone blows a candle out and you put wax on your finger? That's fun and its warm. Well it was cold out! AND I'd been drinking heavily for an hour and a half and now I was being covered in warm wax, don't act like you aren't curious what its like.

We started marching and within moments of marching, the shoving began. We linked arms in groups of 4 and marched forward. We got to the temple gates and the shoving grew even strongers. I could see the opposing line-up ahead. All I had to do was make it past them... then I could jump in cold cold cold water and scream some magic words... talk about incentive.

I got closer and closer. By the time you were up to the front your group of 4 had been broken and you were just shoving as hard as you can while at the same time you were being shoved so hard that you weren't supporting your own weight anymore. It hurt a little to be pushed this hard, but the most painful part was everyone stepping on my feet. The straw sandals werent holding up so well, it was cold and icey on the ground from the snow and the straw was starting to break. I started to shove harder and harder. I saw a group of 3 people break through and they needed a fourth in order to ender the pool. I stuck my arm out and yelled "SANYO!!!!!!! SANYO!!!!!!" I still wasn't sure what it meant, but everyone else was yelling it. One of the people in the group, a fellow teacher at my school, grabbed my arm. A small tug of war ensued and eventually I was lifted out of the shoving group, over the top of the opposers and into the "RUN!" area. "RUUUUUUUUUN!!!" they yelled and we bolted to the cold water. We jumped in and I clapped and said "ABRACADABRA!!!!" in a really loud slurred voice because it kiiiiiinda sounded like I was supposed to say, plus no one was paying attention to what I was saying anyway, we were all too cold, too covered in wax, and too drunk.

"GO! GO! GO!" we ran back and before me was a pit of men. A laaaaaarge pit of men. Shoving get into this small small shrine. I pushed to get into the center so I could make it past a group of "temple guards" who were pushing back. In order to get in you basically had to be stepped on and have you face smushed and probably hair pulled. On a normal day you can go into this temple clothed, sober, and free of any pushing... so like before I had so much incentive to do it this time. Even the guys who made it into the small opening in the wall of temple guards got pushed out and they had to try again. I made it front and center but a huge wave of warm male wax covered flesh knocked me out of the middle back to the side. I pushed for about an hour, maybe forty five minutes. I could see Hilary watching from the sides, her mouth gaped open and she waved and photographed me. Every so often they temple guards would yell "YOU WILL LOSE YOU WILL LOSE!" and we'd respond "YOU WILL LOSE YOU WILL LOSE!" and we'd do this for a while then the guards would unleash a handful of mochi cakes (little pounded rice cakes) they were about the side of a double-stuffed oreo. Catching these are good luck, but really hard to do when you're drunk and being shoved. I knew I wasn't getting into the shrine but I HAD to at least get a mochi. ...and I got TWO. TAKE THAT TEMPLE GUARDS! I GOT TWO MOCHI CAKES! I was also determined to not be the first person from my school to give up pushing and I succeeded, 8 other teachers quick before me. I ran out the enterance where a camera man stopped me and interviewed me for the local news. "WHERE ARE YOU FROM?! HOW DID IT FEEL? WHAT DID YOU DO?" he asked me a bunch of questions...

then my naked man experience was over for the most part. I got dressed, though I had to wear my cold wet tighty-whiteys the rest of the night. I walked home and grabbed some festival food on the way back. Okonomiyaki, Okinawan Donuts, and some anko filled cakes. The dinner of a Naked Shoving Festival Champion.

The next morning I had a large slightly swolled bruise on my left knee, its a week later and it is still there and it still hurts. My feet were a bit bruised but mostly just hurt a lot. All in all it was a successful event!

A brief history on the event, this dates back about 1200 years, YEP, I'm a apart of this historical event now. I believe it has to do with the coming of spring, if you make it into the temple you can wish for health in the new year and for a healthy crop at your farm. Niigata Prefecture and Urasa, specially, has lots of farms so getting a good crop was a big deal. No one could answer where the naked part or the shoving part comes in. My guess is the shoving comes from everyone trying to do it... the naked thing... I'm not sure. The festival is called "Hadaka Oshiai Matsuri" which is commonly translated as "Naked Pushing Festival" but Japanese even use the word "Hadaka" when someone isn't wearing a short so I think that we get the image of someone totally nude so maybe a word like "Bare Pushing Festival" is better. or "Bareback Pushing Festival" though that sounds a little more like some kind of American festival in the south, maybe.

Enjoy some photos and a video... all courtesy of Hilary.













Here's the video, in all fairness, it doesn't look like I'm getting too shoved. This was was right before I quit shoving and left... I'd made my way to center at the beginning but the large wave of naked men shoved me away to the outside. Once you are out, there's no getting back in the center...

Strippin Down...

It's official.

I'm strippin down and shovin some dudes.

I turned in my application for the "Naked Man Shoving Festival" on March 3rd.
Though I won't be fully nude I will be most of the way there. Wearing nothing but a loin cloth-esque thing (though, no wedgie like the sumos, my tush will be covered, I think.) and some special shoes. I will likely drink a lot of sake (it's the tradition) and then get hot wax poured on me from a giant giant candle... (this is starting to sound different than it really is...) and then I'll jump into a freezing bath of water through hole cut in some ice where I will proceed to pray in Japanese and then I'll join the massive shoving orgy of men trying to get into the temple.

This tradition goes back about a thousand years and I will surely leave a piece of Michael Malarkey history this year.

Funny thing is, the event costs about 50 bucks to join... what does this money go to? A uniform... for the NAKED man shoving festival... they always get ya with SOMETHING.

-Mike

The 6 Stages of Multiple Choice Grading

There are stages your brain and body go through when grading papers. I have 320 listening tests to grade, luckily it's multiple choice. I've graded all sorts of things from essays, letters to the new ALT (me), to listening tests and debates, but they all have different physical and mental stages you go through while grading... here are the stages for multiple choice...


1) The Burst
You begin with a massive stack of papers. "Wow, that's a lot!" you tell yourself except you aren't really that intimidated by it, you almost see it as a challenge. It will take 5 or 6 to memorize the answer key, maybe more or less depending on how many questions there are. You memorize it in chunks though. The first half is CCCA the second half is BAAA the last two are AB. It's not so hard and your brain grades them in a burst. You can make a big dent in the grading in this part. I did 120 in 40 minutes. There is a kind of sadistic love you have for getting a paper that has many wrong answers. "HAHAHAHAH! SO MANY X'S MUAH HAHAHAHAHAH!" someone gets 20/20 and you think "WELL, WELL, WELL, LOOK AT MS. SMARTY PANTS HERE! SOME of these are true or false and you must have just lucked out on the 50% chance of getting it right... looks like you lucked out in this class..."

2)The Donkey and the Carrot
Stage 2 begins now but won't end until your pile of papers are graded. This stage is you mentally put a stick over your head with whatever "carrot" you can think of hanging from the end. Usually it starts with pretty realistic rewards like, "I have a piece of candy in my backpack."

3) Early Hypnosis
The process starts to become slightly hypnotic. You will grade a few tests and not really remember grading them, however you are aware that you are starting to become hypnotized. You no longer looking at specific answers, rather the shapes on the page. You can recognize if that someone circled three Cs in a row followed by one A. The first half of the page makes a kind of backwards L shape, the seco half makes a kind of F shape, the last two make a diagnal line. You are aware that you're brain is starting to do this though and you will make some mistakes. Though you will catch these mistakes you wonder if you have missed any. When you look at the stack of 180 already-graded papers next to you, you decide that you probably didn't miss any and continue to grade. Sometimes you'll write 16/20 when you meant to write 18/20. So many students get 20/20, 16/20, or 18/20 that when someone gets 10/20 it's confusing and you must break your rhythm and hypnosis in order to fully count how many are right and how many are wrong. "One...two...three...four...five wrong. One... two... three...four...five right. ...that definitely is 10 out of twenty points..." This is the stage where you start to get angry at anyone who doesn't get 20/20 "WHAT? you got number 4 wrong?? REALLY? The MOST APPROPRIATE ANSWER is A... definitely NOT B!" You will quickly reenter your early-hypnotic shape-recognizing stage though. At this stage too, your carrot has started to change shape... a piece of candy in your backpack is no longer worth the next 200 papers, but your lunch is. You can't eat lunch until all papers are finished.

4) Full hypnosis
Now you don't even know you're grading papers. You don't even know you're awake. You aren't sure where you are but you aren't really worried about that. You hands are circling problems and writing the total points but you don't even know how it's happening. You aren't aware you are hypnotized. The Lunch you are using as your "carrot" no longer is valuable. You do, however, have to pee... really bad. This is your new "carrot." No bathroom breaks until you finish all of them... you are getting more desperate.

5) The Break into Black Hole Thinking
When you have 20 left, you suddenly realize that you are nearing the end. The hypnosis breaks and you enter "Black Hole Thinking" mode. If you were to watch someone or something enter a black hole, the light that it emits would appear to be going slower and slower each moment never reaching the center of the black hole. This is essentially what happens to the tests. You can see everything in slow motion. You continue to get through the tests at a rapid pace, however your brain has changed its way of seeing them... each test feels twice as long in actual length and each test feels like it takes twice as long to grade... As for the carrot, you are now intentionally torturing yourself a little bit in order to give your "carrot" more value. Your pee has hidden retreated back into a place that makes it so you aren't a balloon about to burst .... but if you sit in a certain way your back hurts, suddenly it makes you have to pee more AND your legs fall asleep. This is a very valuable position. You want to move, especially since with your legs asleep you can't really tell if you are actually peeing on yourself or not...

6) Finished
Give me my candy, my lunch, my bathroom break, and let the blood back into my lower half... Now what? I still have 7 more hours left of work.... I wish I had gone slower on those tests... I don't even remember grading them...

You check the answer key one last time "CCCA BAAAAB"... did you grade that way the whole time? Yes, of course you did... wait... did you? "Hmmm... I may have made a mistake...Naaaaaaah...wait..." You look at the 2 foot pile of tests on your desk, not a chance in hell you're cracking that pile back open for a second guess.

Rocks, Papers, and Scissors

How old were you the last time you played "rock, paper, scissors" to make a decision? What's the largest group you've played it in. I think most people will say something like "10 years old and only with two people."

I think Japanese people will say something different as this country is a well oiled Rock-paper-scissors Machine, or as they call it "Janken" or "Jan-ken-pon." This game is used at schools by kids all the way up to adults to decide any number of things. I've seen students play it in groups of 10 people at a time.

It took me quite some time to figure out how they do it with more than two people, though it isn't so complicated. They basically just keep throwing hands on beat until each person is only displaying two of the three options. Then the losers of those are out. Then the winners battle each other. They can do this at unbelievable speeds. Though, it does mean that if you ask people to choose and order that it qill require at least one game of this.

A few days ago in my class we had group presentations. There were 4 groups with 4 people each. Students would make a presentation about a dream city which they invented and had to persuade myself and the Japanese teacher to move there. Each student had to speak in the presentation.

After the students had completed their sheet of notes for the presentation. They each played rock-paper-scissors to decide what order they'd speak. The winner got to say the least, the loser had to say the most.

When presentations had to start, "Who wants to go first?" I'd say. No one has ever responded to this ever, I don't know why I even ask it. No one even says "I want to go last." The students just stare directly at their desks praying I don't call on them to go. "I'll choose the order if you don't" is my usual tactic. Today I decided to go a different way. "Ok, you must choose the order." This resulted in what might be greatest succession of rock paper scissors ever.

First in their groups the students played rock paper scissors to decide who would play rock paper scissors. Then they played rock paper scissors to decide the order of which group would go first or last.

Just to clarify, this meant that in each group students had to play rock paper scissors until one person was remaining as the "loser" who would represent the team in the next game of rock paper scissors. Then the four students who represented the teams stood up and played each other to choose the order. First three students put down rocks and one student put down paper. That student's team go to go last. Then the three remaining had to play again. They played and one person was out, their team would go third. The last two played to battle for which would go first and which would go second. This seems like a lot of work for deciding the order of a presentation that they would have to give eventually anyway...

Sugoroku

We played a game called "Sugoroku" in class. There is a game board that is a map of the world. There is a travel path drawn across various countries. Students roll a dice and move across this travel path. Where ever they stop there is a number with a corresponding question about that country or city (for instance America has 3 stops: New York, Texas and California.)

The questions range from pretty simple "What do you want to buy in France?" to medium hard "What languages do they speak in Singapore" to more difficult ones like "What is the capital of Indonesia."

It's no secret that Americans are infamous for being uneducated about the world and it's countries but I was comforted to find that my students, who are high school first years (same as US high school sophomores) knew a lot less than what I think American high school seniors know.

I don't say this to offend and make fun. America is a country full of many different kinds of people and there are plenty of immigrants. Even as far as restaurants go, we have a bit of everything.

Japan is so homogenous that they aren't exposed to the same things we are. Over all, Japanese students are clearly better at academics than American students which may or may not mean much, depending on what you are really looking for.

I played this game for two class days with 320 students and some of the results were pretty surprising...

"Name two cities in Italy." First, nearly all the students said "Rome" and then had to think. Then a lightbulb would flick on over their head and they'd say "Paris!" After consulting a map they'd find that Paris was in France and they player would have to move one space back...

"Name a food from India." Maybe I am biased because I like Indian food, but every student said "Curry." Which is expected, Curry is very popular here (though Japanese curry barely resembles Indian curry.) So I'd ask the students "Can you name another food? Something other than curry?" Most of the time students didn't know anything. Some students would say "Naan" which kind of counts, but I feel like that's like saying "tortilla" is Mexican food... it's a part of it, but it's not really a food you eat on its own.

Only one student knew the capital of Indonesia. This isn't too surprising. I don't think many people know this one, though I had falsely assumed that Japanese people would know more about Asia than Americans since they're a part of it.

Most students couldn't name two places in China. The most common first answer was "Peking" and when I suggested "Hong Kong" most of them said "That isn't a part of China, that's a country."

I was slightly baffled by some of these responses.

The longer I spend here the more interesting I find the school systems. Especially since I work at 3 schools that are on completely different levels.

One has golden angel students that will do any lesson plan I cook up, whether it's fun or not.

One is more average, large classes, fun students, but if the lesson plan isn't good they get rowdy. It's a bit of a struggle to get them to use English, but it's not impossible. You just have to approach it the right way. (This is the school that played Sugoroku)The students range from being quite friendly and talkative to introverted and silent to the "I hate the ALT...or at least I pretend to" attitude. I enjoy this school because if I were a high school student in Minami Uonuma Japan, I'd certainly be here.

The last school is the lowest level as far as English goes. The students have little to no interest in English and are at a very basic level. The amount of effort put into actually participating in the lessons changes from class to class but it ranges from excitedly calling out random answers in broken English to sitting with their backs turned to me playing games on their cellphones. The fun classes are REALLY fun and the bad classes are pretty bad but I do enjoy it there.

Aaaaaaanyway, I better get back to my desk. Today I have 8 hours and 30 minutes of no class. It's high school entrance exam day #1 in Niigata which means the students aren't even in the building, just the middle school students who want to go here. I've read a lot of "Kafka On The Shore" by Haruki Murakami today. It's very long and I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, but am enjoying it so far... and I think another 70 or 80 pages await me before the day is over... so I will retire to my desk.

Repeat After Me...

After my classes yesterday, one of the 2nd year teachers came to me asking about onomatopoeia for animal sounds. This is always an interesting exercise. He had a list of animals and understood which animals said what but he wasn't sure of the context of the sound. What did it "neigh" sound like when I said it? So I gladly went through the list and did some animated versions of the classics like, "Bow-wow" "Quack" "Moo" and so on. He asked if I could go to his 2nd year classes to do the same thing I'd just done.

So this morning I joined this teacher's class. I went toward the end of the period and the students weren't expecting me. I walked in and immediately everyone went "oooooooooo!" in unison. As if I'd just performed a jump over the Grand Canyon on a unicycle while blind folded with my hands tied behind my back... "Mike, what animal makes the sound 'ribbit ribbit' the teacher asked." "A frog." Immediately the students gasped and erupted into applause. Why? They had just gone over some of the animal sounds and didn't actually believe frogs said "ribbit ribbit." So we went over some basic sounds... like "Bam" "Crunch" "Pow" "Kaboom." They would all say "oooooh!" or giggle after each one.

Then we moved onto the animal sounds. First a Japanese student would have to tell me the animal sound in Japanese then I'd say it in English. After the first one, a pig sound, I said "Oink oink oink." The students giggled. Then the teacher said "Please, repeat after Mike." It became silent. "OINK OINK OINK!" I said in a gunty pig voice. "oink. oink. oink." the students whispered in shy monotone whispers. "OINK! OINK! OINK!" I said again prompting them to throw a little grease on their version. They started to warm up. We went through dog, cat, crow, rooster (cock-a-doodle-doo will always get laughs...), sheep, horse, cow... it was good times.

Then on the back of their sheet was a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin hocks a loogy. The sounds were written out like this...

"NNNGKGKK" for snorting some snot into his through.
"HOCCCHHH" for coughing it up into his mouth then
"PATOOOEY" when he spits it sound.

It was hard to do this without making an actual loogy in my mouth but I did it.

The snorting was hilarious and of course, a the students repeated after me...
If you want to see something funny, I highly recommend getting a class full of straight cut Japanese high school students academically repeating the sound of someone hocking a loogy without smiles on their faces... it's hilarious.

So what are the sounds for Japanese animals?

Cow -Moo moo (Pronounced Moe-moe)
Horse - Hihiin (Pronounced Hee-heeeen)
Pig - Buu buu (Pronounced Boo boo)
Mouse - Chuu chuu
Cat - Nyaa nyaa
Rooster -Koke kokko
Frog - Gero Gero or Kero kero
Dog - Wan wan
Crow - Kaa kaa
Sheep - mee mee (Pronounced Meh-meh)

Japanese sounds get even more interesting because Japanese have expressions for sounds for that don't actually make sounds really...

They have onomatopoeias that are often used as verbs for feelings like happiness, sadness, different kinds of smiling...
The feeling if something soft, hard, clothing that's too big. There hundreds if not thousands of these sounds...

Buka buka (booka booka) is the sound if clothing that's a bit too big. Like if you wore shoes that are too big or pants that don't fit.
Fua fua (foo-ah foo-ah) is the sound for something that's really soft and fluffy like a really soft pillow or fluffy angel food cake or something
Niko niko (neeko neeko) is a happy smile
Niya niya (Neeya neeya) is the term for a grin, a kind of evil-ish smirk I think.
Peko peko is the term for when you're hungy

there are so many of these, I hear new ones all the time and I think they're a really interesting way to express feelings or textures or whatever it is you're trying to convey...

Great Insight To How Confusing It Is To Drive Here...

The thing that always gets me when I drive somewhere in Japan is that I get lost at least once. Even with a printed map and list of directions from Google Maps I get lost one time. Why? Because there are rarely street signs... as you'll see why in the video. There's an intersection near my apartment and the intersection has a name, but the streets down. Luckily I'm near highways and those are closer to America's where they have numbers so most directions I get start out find. "Get on Route 17 and drive north..." watch and enjoy this fun little video...

-Mike

Say Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Some People just don't ever really feel comfortable around me...

I'm still convinced I have a "monster" quality here. There are about 5 teachers at my base school that still refuse to ackownledge my existence. Some just ignore me, for instance when I come in and deliver my vibrant "OHAYOU GOZAIMASU!" good morning-call. Heads throughout the entire room turn and respond with "OHAIYOU GOZAIMASU MAIKERU!" (Good Morning Michael.) There are always 3 or 4 heads that don't move and it's not like they're too busy to. They perk up when a Japanese person comes in. Also, the other teachers are always busy working on something and stop for a good morning. These are the same teachers that when I say "Konnichiwa" to in the halls they continue on as if no one said anything.

It doesn't really bother me anymore, at first I always thought "what's that dudes problem?" No one is really outright rude though, just a bit cold.


Then came the Enkai, the teachers party, this past friday. First let me explain one short happening about the start of the enkai...

The first Enkai I went to I was on time/early and most of the teachers didn't show up until 20 minutes after the start time. So one of the next ones I went to I was like "Ok, not so strict..." It started at 6 and I started walking to get there around 5:50 and it takes about 10 minutes to walk there. At 5:55 I get a phone call saying "Where ARE you?" from one of the teachers I was like "I'm close... I'll be there soon." "Ok. we are WAITING for you, Michael." I ran. I got to the restaurant and inside the door at 5:58, no big deal and everyone gave me these painfully cold stares saying "I WANTED TO DRINK MY BEER BUT I HAD TO WAIT FOR YOU!!!!!!!!" The vice principle was really not happy. I was less than 5 minutes late to morning announcements once and he chewed me out pretty good.

Now, the vice principle makes fun of me for "always being late." If I have to take a work related trip he always says "Make sure you are on time because hahaha you ahahaha are always hahaha late hahahaha.... *serious staaaaaaaaaaaaaare*" All because I was less than 5 seconds late once and because I was one minute early to an enaki... ugh...

Anyway, back to this enkai. I got to the place at 5:48 this time. It started at 6. At 6... no one was there. I thought, maybe it starts at 7... or 6:30 so I texted my supervisor but got no response. At 6:20 the first people showed up. "Mike! Mike! Mike! How long have you been here for?" "Since about 5:50." "oooh you should NEVER show up on time to an enkai! We're Japanese, we're ALWAYS late to parties." This was the biggest fib I've ever heard in my life. If there's one word to describe Japanese culture it's punctual. Every train is ontime every party starts and ends at the right times. Speeches never go on longer than planned. People get chewed out for being 5 seconds late. There's no possible way for me to believe that Japanese are "ALWAYS late to parties." I don't think the punctual thing is bad, don't get me wrong, it's fantastic most of the time, the trains are amazing. The only time it's not good is when you're racing a clock to be ontime since you don't get much sympathy.

So I sit down with the two guys. The table we're at is really long with little cusions on the ground next to it. As people filed in no one sat next to me, in fact, only one person was sitting on the same side of the table as me, there were about 15 seats on that side of the table too...

Finally the nurse and a 3rd year English teacher showed up and the English teacher, who I often work with said "How come no one is sitting on this side?" Then they went to sit down and the nurse said to the English teacher, "Why don't you sit next to him, I don't speak any English." Now, this often happens with strangers and it's no problem but the nurse knows for sure that I speak Japanese. I've spoken it to her a number of times at school and she completely ignores it. Once she wanted me to fill out a health slip and I had already filled the whole thing out in Japanese and she got an English teacher to come and explain it to me "Address" "Name" "Birthdate" and so on I kept explaining in Japanese that I'd already filled it out and understood the whole thing...the English teacher was really confused too since I'd already finished filling it out. I'm by no means fluent but I can definitely get by very comfortably in everyday conversation. So, back to the enaki, a handful of teachers turned and said "But Mike's really good at Japanese, we only speak Japanese to him at the enkais." And she turned to the teacher and said "Yes, I just don't feel comfortable sitting next to him... He won't understand my Japanese and I probably won't understand his Japanese." People looked pretty surprised since she said this right in front of me. If it had been the early nineties, this moment would have been fresh for a "Say Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" rising to a falsetto during the "Whaaaaaaaaaat" part. The English teacher sat down two seats away from me so that the nurse had no choice but to sit next to me. She turned her back and didn't face me the entire time. Eventually she got up and left and sat at the other end of the table. It felt similar to a situation where if someone tried to prevent me from understanding something by spelling it out, except that I'm 23. If my mom was telling my dad, "Tomorrow we're going to the D-E-N-T-I-S-T." I'd be like "First, I'm not AFRAID of the dentist, even though I threw up there once. AND I know how to spell dentist, are you crazy?"

I was offended but at the same time, now I know that I don't really have to be particularly kind to her anymore. Not outright mean, her behavior doesn't call for attention from me, but I don't feel any desire to be warm and friendly to her. Like, right now she's awkwardly pacing around behind me waiting for me to finish writing this. She likes to go on Yahoo Auctions and look at random things during work and right now. I used to get off the computer when she did this and say "Please, please, I'm finished."... but... I think I'll just keep writing...and surfing the internet. Maybe I'll sign onto Yahoo Auctions and look at random things to buy.

BIG AMERICA!!!!!

Japan is full of many themed-special-limited-time-only-never-to-be-done-again-promotional products. Right now's theme of McDonalds is... America's burgers. As the promotion is titled "BIG AMERICA!!" There are four burgers that will be offered throughout the year.

First, the Texas Burger (Top left of the photo)This is a hamburger with cheese, special sauce of mustard and relish, a middle-bun, fried onions, bbq sauce, and bacon. How's that sound? It could be good except I don't know about mustard and bbq being combined... eeew.

NEXT! Is the New York Burger (top right). This is more of a straight ahead burger. As you can see it has a different bun... other than that it's just a burger, monterey jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and a kind of grainy dijon mustard. I'm not completely sure what aspect of these reflects New York. It's basically a cheese burger with bacon on it... the bacon isn't the "New York" part of it because all the burgers contain bacon. The mustard? That's the same mustard that is on the Texas Burger... sans relish. The cheese... but is New York KNOWN for it's cheese? I gotta say that goes to Wisconsin... So, the bun, I guess that's it. Nothing like that true "New York Bun."

The third installment of the series will be the California Burger (bottom left). This burger has a meat patty, lettuce, tomato, spicy cheese, bacon, and a special red wine sauce. Yup a red wine sauce. That's the "California" part of this burger. The whole wine country aspect of California has been played up here lately. They reshot the movie "Sideways" with an all Japanese cast. It takes place in California still, but it's just Japanese people in it instead of American. It actually looked quite good and it seemed like a tasteful choice of a remake as opposed to our Japanese horror remake franchises. "Ring" was a good remake... that's about it...

The final installment of the Big America promotion will be from the most famous US State (in Japan), the Hawaii Burger. Think Hawaii, what do you picture? Palm Trees? Pineapple? Other tropical fruits? Fish? Volcanos? Well none of those are incorporated anyway into this burger. This burger has a distinctive feature of an egg. It's American cheese, a burger, lettuce, tomato, bacon, "special gravy," and an egg. I'm no McDonalds expert but last time I was here they were promoting the "Tamago Mac" which was a hamburger with an egg on it... this seems like the same thing with a new name.

Oh the joys. So the way this works is, for 3 months of the year each burger is available. They only make a certain amount each day so if you want to try it you pretty much gotta get there at lunch or they'll all be gone.

I'm tempted to try each one to see... but I'm not really THAT tempted.

*UPDATE* I just played a world-themed quiz came called "Sugoroku" in class. Students had to answer questions about countries and places in the world in English. One question was "Please name a Mexican food."

Everyone said "Tacos" so I said "Name one Mexican food OTHER than tacos." There was complete silence until one boys hand shot up and he said "あっ！テキサスバーガー！" Which means "AH! The Texas Burger!"