Educational Trivia
Mood:  surprised
Here's a nice benefit for new teachers: I don't know if this is true for all of Japan, but it's standard procedure in Nishinomiya. When a new permanent teacher is hired so is a retired teacher on a temporary basis. The retired/master teacher is allowed up to 70 days to fill in when needed by the new teacher. This means that the new teacher has a "permanent substitute/master teacher" whenever he/she desires. If there are training sessions to attend or even if the new teacher needs some help at first - he/she can request the substitute any time for up to 70 days. We said goodbye to one of these people last month. He spent much more than the 70 days I think. What a deal!

Used Panty Trade?
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: This is NOT a joke!
I have been hearing rumors about this, but i thought that it was a joke. Today in the Japan Times here's what the Kyoto News agency reported:

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has prepared a bill to ban trade in schoolgirls' used underwear. The bill seeks to punish violators with fines of up to 500,000 yen. It would be the nation's first local government ordinance to include such provisions.
The bill, part of a revision to the ordinance on the upbringing of youth, also seeks to ban and punish scouts who solicit girls to work in the adult entertainment business.
It calls for complete ban on trade in used panties, accepting requests to sell, and introducing buyers to sellers. It also seeks to punish those who provide space for such trade, including sex shops were girls can sell directly to customers.....
Good grief.

Mugwort?
Mood:  quizzical
I'm always game to try new things so at the bakery this weekend I hardly hesitated to spend 350 yen (over 3 dollars) on four slices of green - really green - bread. It's called mugwort bread. It tastes rather "weedy" but pleasant. I researched it on the internet and found out that it's probably called black sage. Nice, but I probably won't spend that much money on it again.

More exciting is the discovery of these little tiny oranges at the supermarket. They are about an inch in diameter. They were cut up and a salesman encouraged me to pop the whole thing (rind and all) in my mouth - no hesitation again! Wow, they are delicious. I've been told that they are Chinese quince but when I looked on the internet the quince that I saw were more like apples than oranges. If anyone knows what little bitty tasty oranges are called, I'd love to hear what they are in English. Unfortunately they cost about 500 yen for 8 of them. That's about 60 cents a bite! yikes. AH, HA, THEY ARE KUMQUATS AND I NEED TO PLANT A TREE WHEN I RETURN TO THE STATES!

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.