Quien Sabe!
Mood:  quizzical
I've watched a work crew dig up the same strip of road SIX times now. They dig up the dirt and fill trucks with it down about 5 feet deep. Then they work on some telephone, gas, and/or cable lines for a few hours. Then they fill the whole thing in and asphalt it over. Then the next morning they dig it back up and start over. VERY, VERY WEIRD.
Hard not to criticize. Who knows, maybe there's a good reason. Mine is not to question why, but I sure am darn curious.

Cell Phone
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Welcome to the Japanese 21st Century
Sunday afternoon my friends, Didik and Troy, accompanied me to the Vodaphone store and helped walk me through the steps of getting my first cell phone. What an experience.
My first sky mail message is totally in hiragana so of course I can't read it. hah.
No transaction in Japan is ever simple. I have learned to eat first and allot at least 2 hours when trying to complete any transaction in Japan. If it takes less than 2 hours, count yourself lucky. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but this seems to hold true a lot of times. It's made it much easier on my nerves to just expect a 2-hour time frame. The cell phone experience is no exception. There are papers to fill out and, of course, Didik and i can't read the hiragana and kanji so luckily our friend and diligent Japanese student, Troy, helps us read the forms. All the phone options are a bit overwhelming and Didik and Troy are giggling every time i say an emphatic "no" to anything that will bump up my monthly charges. Thank goodness Troy is here to help because the clerk knows very, very little English. We finally get all the paperwork filled out and the clerk is checking everything over and discovers that I have written my first name first. Good grief, that isn't allowed. He tears up the form and we start all over again and i carefully write out my name with LAST NAME FIRST. Why can't i remember that? Then i'm warned that even though i've filled out all the forms for automatic withdrawal from my bank that the bank probably won't accept them. Well that turns out to be true. All the forms are sent back to me weeks later and i have to take them down to the bank and go through another discussion with the bank manager. He explains all the "mistakes" that i made in filling out the form and insists that I go back to Vodaphone and fill out their forms again! Grrrrr. Realize, please, that i am riding my bike across town for each of these transactions and that I have to do this after school. Ah, well, that's just a small challenge of this wonderful opportunity of living in Japan. My cell phone has really come in handy when trying to find friends at a train station when we are all at different exits! hah. So it's been worth it.

Valentine's Day in Japan
Mood:  amorous
Now Playing: I think not!
Valentine's Day is very different than in the states. Girls give their special guy chocolate on Feb. 14th.
Then if the guy likes the girl it is customary for him to give her a gift much bigger than hers on March 14th, White Day.
What a marketing idea. I wonder why this hasn't caught on in the states. They could sell a lot more chocolate this way!

Japanese Cooking Lesson
Mood:  on fire
Home made nabe, something like a Japanese stew of meat and/or fish. This is a very popular dish served in the winter. It's guaranteed to warm you up from the inside out. I was invited for dinner at the Osawa's with the promise of a lesson in how to make this dish that i'd heard so much about. The broth is made in a gorgeous ceramic pot that goes directly on an open flame. There are a number of different ways to make the base. Osawa-san used a soymilk product which was already wonderfully seasoned and oh, so rich. It was fascinating to watch her cut up fresh vegetables with such care and art. The carrot was first wrapped in plastic wrap and cooked in the microwave until tender and then cut with a kind of cookie cutter to make a star shape. The shitake mushrooms had wedges cut out of their tops so that they had a pretty star shape engraved in them.
Everything was artfully set in an enamel tray while the broth was cooking. We had "meatballs" made of ground chicken, enoki mushrooms, hakusari (a type of cabbage) negi which are leeks or scallions and kiku, edible chrysanthemum leaves. Also, shrimp "meatballs" and a white fish, pork and more in this dish. Noodles made out of potato starch, kuzukiri, are amazing because they don't fall apart when stewed for a long period of time. (I think I'll try them in my next pot of minestrone!) The best part is that the ceramic pot is set in the middle of the dining room table under a little cook stove that keeps the whole thing simmering during the entire meal. Everyone helps themselves and as the pot gets low, more veggies and meats/fish are added. After the main dish we had a lovely bowl of rice with some of the broth and some cooked egg stirred in. This was such a treat. Lively conversation, cultural exchange, friendships forming.
The Osawas are one of the first families I met in Nishinomiya. They have twin boys in 2nd grade, an elder boy in 3rd grade and a daughter who will be graduating from high school in one more year. It feels so good to have been welcomed into this family. They are very unique in that Mrs. Osawa did a year homestay in the U.S. when she was in highschool. Mr. and Mrs. moved to Australia and raised their young family there for a number of years. Consequently, they both speak very good English.(lucky for me!) Mr. Osawa is a professor at Kobe University and Mrs. Osawa works at a resthome. They are baseball fanatics and I originally met them by attending Hamakoshien baseball games this fall. All three boys are in baseball club and are very good team players. It is such a pleasure to get to know these folks. I hope to host them in Spokane when I return. Mr. Osawa really wants to attend the World Series in Seattle to see Ichiro play if they make it that far this year. We'll see.

Nishinomiya Cultural Festival
Mood:  special
Yesterday, Sunday, David and i were asked to represent the U.S.A at a booth for the Nishinomiya Cultural Festival. David, his wife, Connie, and i were kept busy visiting with so many visitors. So many questions..so much curiousity, so much enthusiasm about our big, gorgeous country. Of course, the most common topic of conversation was Spokane. Since we are Sister Cities, there were many folks who had visited Spokane or gone to school at WSU or Mukugawa. The National Parks calendar was popular and the most questions that i fielded about parks were about the Grand Canyon.

I felt a little homesick for one of my first loves in Spokane: the Fall Folk Festival. This festival had the feel of our first couple of festivals when we were just getting started. There were Thai dancers, taiko drummers, Laotian drums, things to buy from groups supporting crafts people in Bangladesh.... We were in a room that featured 6 different countries including Australia, Laos, and Iran. It was very enlightening to talk to people from different cultures, all in Japan for many different reasons. I believe so strongly that the way to peace in the world is to get to know each other as people and to appreciate the beauty, and diversity that we all share.

Dictionary - oh, yeah!
Mood:  happy
I'm in love with my Seiko RM 2000.
Wow, an electronic translator from Japanese to English and English to Japanese. And i can read all the entries in Romaji! It has lots of idioms so i can actually begin practicing some basic sentences. yippeee. It also has sentences translated into kana and kanji so there's some practice in reading the symbols as well. hooorrraaaayyyy.


This is another
Moral Education day. I really enjoy these days and the kids do too. Fifth and 6th period today were for the first graders. I missed the fifth period assembly in the gym. Professionals in many fields presented a little about what their talents were in a group setting. Then, during 6th period, the kids were able to choose sessions to participate in taught by these same professionals. Here's a little of what I saw: There were gardeners teaching the kids how to plant petunias with a wheelbarrow of dirt right in the classroom! Ikebana - flower arrangement was being done in a room. There were a seamstress and tailor discussing their trade in another room. We watched a man show how to set up a piece of granite for inscribing. He painstakingly chipped away on a small bar of granite inscribing the kanji for Masago chugakko. I watched two men demonstrating how to build a traditional wooden window. Another man was lecturing about the art of papering the wonderful paper sliding doors that are still used in Japan.

The most incredible by far was the cooking demonstration. We were all spellbound watching this master chef take a rather large chopping knife and peel a paper thin layer off a daikon radish. Please allow me to try to explain. The daikon was about 6 inches in diameter and he cut off about an 8 inch slice. Then he twirled that daikon around that knife edge and peeled off a perfect sheet of paper-thin radish that was about 3 feet long and 8 inches wide. The daikon is now about 4 inches in diameter and still perfectly round! How does he do that? He cut a tiny slice of butternut squash and made a butterfly, also, a teeny weensy cucumber cricket with tiny legs and antennae made from strands from a bamboo whisk. We had "zenzai" sweet adzuki beans with mochi, yum. Kids got to try their hand at making tamagoyaki, a very delicate sort of omlette dish. How incredible for students to get to spend some time interacting with professionals who truly love their careers.

It's Snowing!
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: If you don't like the weather.....
If you don't like the weather here in Japan just wait an hour. In the last two hours we have had overcast skies followed by freezing cold winds. Then we had beautiful big fluffy snowflakes and a miniature blizzard. Now we have cold and sunny! wow.

Wed. February 4
The first day of spring in Japan

Well, it may be spring but it's still pretty cold. I try not to complain much, but the cigarette smoke is really getting to me. I can't wait for warmer weather so we can open the office windows. The break room is adjacent to our office and the smoke is thick in here. It makes me feel very sick to be breathing this constantly. This was one of my major concerns when deciding to come to Japan. At my last school there were only a couple of smokers and they had a smoke eater in the break room. This time, there are about 7 smokers and - since it's too cold to open the windows - it's really smoky. I have heard that the government is going to ban smoking in the schools in another two years. This is great, but a little too late for me.
On a better note....the last day of winter was yesterday.

Tues. February 3
SETSUBUN

This is an interesting Japanese tradition regarding the end of winter. Exorcism of the old demons and assurance of future good luck involves various rituals. At home, the main event revolves around mamemake - throwing soybeans (mame) both inside and outside the house at sunset, accompanied by the chant, "Oni wa soto, fuku wa ushi" (Out with the demons, in with good luck). Afterwards, adults usually eat the number of beans equal to their age, plus one. Wow, that's a lot of beans for us old farts (oops, is that a pun?) All this apparently gives protection against evil spirits and provides the necessary good luck for the coming year. During the run-up to Setsubun, packets of these beans can be bought at many shops, usually supplied with a special demon (oni) mask. This is a great draw for kids, so a lot of diminuitive "oni" can be seen running about the streets prior to and during the festival.

Tuesday, February 3rd

Well, i thought that i'd seen everything, but yesterday was most unusual. I was riding my bicycle home last evening when i saw a woman with a very little dog in a cute little sweater. That's not so unusual. She was strapping on a little leather shoe to one if it's paws. Now, that's unusual! On closer scrutiny, i realized that there were little itty bitty shoes with buckles on each of its teensy weensy feet. Awwww.

100 Poem Card Game
Mood:  incredulous
This is a traditional Japanese card game. It is called Hyaku-nin-ishu. There are probably other names for this as well. The main idea is that there are one hundred poems written by famous classical Japanese poets. Each poem is written on a card. The meter is 5-7-5-7-7-7 I think.
This is the kids version that i watched yesterday afternoon. I've seen a similar game played on tv with only two adults at opposite ends of a tatami mat. There are 100 cards spread out on a tatami mat (25 in each of 4 rows). The kids kneel around the mat. A teacher at the front "sings" a verse from one poem. The cards in front of the kids only contain the last 7 words, letters, or something. The kids have a lot of the poems memorized and before the first few lines of the poem are sung/recited the kids have identified the last lines. The concentration is intense as they scan the cards looking for that last verse. The first person to slap the card gets it and of course the one with the most cars at the end wins.

Friday, Jan. 30th
Friday night dinner at Poppies, a Balinese restaurant
My friend, Didik, whom i met at Japanese language classes is a waiter at this restaurant. Didik-san met his Japanese girlfriend in Bali while they were both working at a hotel there. Didik really wants to learn Japanese because so many of his guests in Bali are Japanese. It is very difficult to land a job in Japan if you can't speak Japanese. There are plenty of job openings for native English speakers, but English is NOT his first language. I think that he is very lucky to get a great job at a very nice Balinese restaurant in Osaka. This is a bit difficult for him though because he lives in Kobe and has to commute quite a distance for only about 4 hours of work. Well, the experience is really good for honing his Japanese. He is sailing past me in ability. Ah, well. He's younger and my old brain seems so slow at picking this language up. He has to speak Japanese at work while i am supposed to be speaking English at my work.
Anyway. I meet David and Connie and hop on a train after work to meet Didik in front of the "Biggu Manu" again. Hey, i've done this before! Didik meets us and shows us to the subway and to my surprise we end up at the same place as last Friday - right next to the Sony tower in downtown Osaka - another easy landmark. The Balinese food is so incredible. Everything on the menu is about 350 yen. It's all small servings but we order many different items. The spring rolls, deep fried prawns, curry, and Bali Hi beer are great. Fried bananas and ice cream top off the night. Ms. Hase joined us a bit late because of after-school meetings. It is great to visit with her. She is so good about filling us in with all sorts of cultural facts and she is such a dynamic, energetic person. The only sad part was that Didik didn't get to join us. He was busy working!

Thursday, Jan. 29th
Demonstration Lesson and Dinner Party with Masago staff

Every trimester it seems that there are two "Demonstration Lessons" at each junior high. This time my first grade teacher, Ms. Hase, had the privilege of doing this. Silly me, i volunteered to help out. We normally have 6 periods every day and on "Demonstration Lesson" day classes end after 4th period. The whole student body is sent home except for the two classes who will be involved in the demonstration. We have been planning this and practicing on other classes for a week. We've fine tuned it and are ready, i think. All the teachers and administrators observe these lessons. Parents are invited and teachers from other schools come to observe. My head teacher at Hamako is coming. My supervisor at the main office will be observing me. Oh, dear, i'm a tad bit nervous and so are the students. Ms. Hase, too, has a few butterflies in her stomach, i'm sure.

All goes well after we get the students to relax and forget that there are tons of adults staring at their backs and looking in the windows. Plus there is a video camera on us to make things a little more tense. I think the lesson goes very well and we are releived when it's all over.

While we were doing our lesson, one of our science teachers was performing his "Demonstration Lesson" as well. After the lesson, there is a meeting for us all to sit down and critique the whole thing. We get lots of positive comments and some constructive criticism as well. I can't imagine this happening in the states, but oh how I think it is needed. Blow open those closed classroom doors and truly evaluate in front of the whole world how well a teacher can teach. What a novel idea!

So it's time to celebrate. I'm allowed off a bit early to go home and change. Then i cycle to a train station close to my apartment and easily find the restaurant we're meeting at. This may be a repeat but... the dinners here (with a group at least) consist of quite an assortment of dishes. We enjoy some delicious sushi and sashimi (raw octopus, salmon, shrimp...). Along with the wonderful food comes 2 hours of unlimited drinks. We pay 2,500 yen (our principal has graciously contributed some money to lower our individual bills, how nice). Beer, saki (warm and sweet), and whiskey are flowing here. I have to be careful because it's a week night for goodness sake and i'm riding my bicycle home. What fun to relax and celebrate after such a tense week. I truly enjoy the camaraderie with this friendly, open staff.

Sister Junior High
Mood:  bright
Some of this will be a repeat for those of you who have been reading my log diligently but maybe it's worth repeating some things.
My principal (kocho-sensei) told me that we had a "Sister School" in Spokane when i first began teaching at Masago. I emailed a lot of teachers at Shaw Middle School before the holidays to see if there was someone interested in communicating and establishing some kind of relationship between the two schools. I am so happy that Ms. Anderson who teaches World Languages at Shaw is very excited about having her students start a PenPal project with our third graders here. I am busily preparing a box to send to her students to give them a small sampling of sweet treats and some not-so-sweet-treats to try. I am giving you a bit of a letter that i will send to the students explaining some things about junior high here in Japan. So here it is....

"There are a couple of things that I should explain to you. School here is divided into elementary, junior high, and high school just like in the states. When you receive letters from the students they will tell you that they are in third grade. Each level starts over at first grade so chugakko (junior high) has 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders.

School here is divided into 3 trimesters and begins in April. Our 3rd graders will be graduating at the end of March. It is not automatic that they go on to high school. Many students will take a test in February to try and qualify for a private high school. This test costs about 20,000 yen. The tests in March are about 2,200 yen and these are for public high schools. The tests cover all subject areas including the Japanese and English language as well as math, science etc. If a student doesn't pass this test, his/her possibilities are limited. There are vocational schools, but they are designed to train you only for a certain type of job. None of the high schools are free. The costs vary, the most expensive being the private high schools.

Most students belong to an after school club. Some of the activities include baseball, basketball, track, kendo, etc. Some of your letters may say that a student is "retired." Third graders are required to "retire" from their clubs in the last two trimesters of their junior high school career so that they can concentrate on testing. They are not allowed to compete in any events so there is supposedly nothing to do after school but study!

About 80% of the students go to "juku" which is cram school. Some go maybe as little as once a week. Some go 3 or more times a week. This is a private school and the hours are around 7-10pm and also open on weekends.
There's so much more to tell, but this will, hopefully, explain a little of the schools here."

Hope that you enjoyed a tidbit of chugakko here.

Running in the snow
Mood:  energetic
Snowflakes on my nose and eyelashes. Big fluffy flakes floating down this morning. A puffed up white crane in the river as I jog by. What a morning!

Women's Marathon
Sakamoto, Naoko won the Osaka International Women's marathon today. This qualifies her for the Olympics. She is a graduate of Masago Chugako where I am teaching. I'm guessing there is going to be some celebrating tomorrow. She lives close by our school and comes to speak to our students once in awhile. How exciting and inspiring for our students.