Kobu Gardening 101
Mood:  a-ok
Satsumaimo, sweet potato and tomato and watermelon planting time. more later.

Fireflies in Japan
Mood:  amorous
How romantic to feast our eyes on flickering fireflies flitting in the night with friends. hee, hee.

One of my former English students, Yoshie, and her family have invited me on another outing. This time to view fireflies. I have invited a few other girlfriends and we take off on foot from Yoshie's apartment. Yoshie's husband and Miki, their daughter, my friends Miwa and Tomoko also are here and my new Kobu friend, Yamada-sensei join us. We first stop at a garden plot that is tenderly cared for by a man who is 16 years old (60 years ago!). Now that's a great attitude! He has bags waiting for us and we get to dig potatoes to carry home as well as sweet red onions and some herbs from his garden. He shows us some logs(i think that they are oak but not sure) where he has introduced shitake mushroom spores. If i get a chance i will go back in the fall to see how they grow on this wood.

Our hike takes us through twilight lit city streets up and up to a private University. We take a shortcut through the campus and as the sun is setting and the shadows are falling we see our first glimmering fireflies. They perch gently on leaves and branches and it's easy to reach out and catch them. They are more like beetles than flies and are black with dark orange heads. As we walk along a gurgling little stream we begin to see a few more. They are not numerous. Yoshie's friend says that he remembers reading a book under a tree by the light of these bugs before the big earthquake. Up farther along the trail we come to a cement wall. There is a waste water treatment pond behind this wall. During the earthquake this wall broke and water roared down on the houses below killing eight people. On our way down he shows us a plot where cosmos and marigolds and other colorful flowers are planted in memory of those lost in the earthquake. If you'd like to read more about the great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake please scroll back to my January journal.

The only way to describe the sight of fireflies, which are rather foreign to me, is to say that I kept thinking of Disneyland and Tinker Bell - just magical!

Maiden Voyage
Mood:  celebratory
My new Bike Friday took me for a 20 mile spin today. It was a rough and rocky road getting this thing going but we're sailing now.
Please jump ahead to June 11th for the full Bike Friday fiasco.

Japanese Trivia
Mood:  surprised
I've heard that it is a Japanese tradition to put a small bowl of salt outside of a drinking establishment. This tradition originated in China when customers left their oxen-drawn carriages outside the bar and the oxen waited contentedly while licking on salt licks placed in front of the bar.

Kobu Teacher's Volleyball
Mood:  bright
This afternoon one of the P.E. teachers casually asked me if i'd like to play volleyball this evening. I thought he meant play with the kids. That was a bit too intimidating to me (actually, i thought they might seriously injure me, or that i'd injure myself! Hah). I politely declined, but said that i'd love to see them play. He indicated that it was a competition between another Jr. High and ours. This should be really fun so i pedaled on home and had some dinner and pedaled on back. Much to my surprise it was actually a game between Kobu senseis and Kamikoshien senseis. What a thrill. These teachers after teaching all day long played so hard. Of course our team won both games. We have some very athletic and a few really TALL teachers at our school. We had two teachers who could really slam it over a net that i couldn't reach the top of even if i jumped with all my might. It amazes me how much communication that i miss even when we are trying our hardest. Now i know that this competition will continue through the next few months. Kobu's team won the All- City tournament last year, so i think that i will have to be a part of the cheering section from now on. Go Team Go. Fight Team Fight. Ganbate!

Kobu Judo
Mood:  surprised
Wow, this is the first judo practice that i've ever watched. I decided to wander into the gym this afternoon to watch the kids "play" judo. Actually, it looked more like "work" to me. The warm-up exercises started out easy enough. I did a few stretches and bends with them at first, but then the tumbling began. No way was i going to do somersaults and rolls. Pretty soon they were walking across the mats on their hands and shimmying across the floor dragging themselves by their feet and wrists. Oh, my gosh,i'm getting tired just writing about it. I never tire of watching these kids excel in their athleticism. Many may not take their English studies too seriously, but they sure make up for their lack of enthusiasm in the gym. These kids are strong, agile and confident. What a contrast to our "couch potato" clan back home. I realize that we have fine young athletes in the states, but here it's the norm rather than the exception. There are lots of kids walking around with taped ankles, wrists and arms. There are even casts and crutches in school almost all the time. These kids take risks and push themselves. I think that kids in the U.S. would be much happier if we weren't trying to protect them from themselves all the time. Actually, i think even the adults would be happier if we stretched ourselves a little bit and didn't worry so much about being "safe" all the time. Ah, well.

It's getting hot!
Mood:  smelly
Well, tomorrow is June 1st and the temperature is definitely rising. It was over 85 degrees in my apartment last evening. Today the humidity must be up in the 80's. It's cloudy and windy and it's been looking and feeling like rain all weekend. We've heard that once it starts raining in June it doesn't stop raining for a month. I am hoping that this is an exaggeration but i'm sure that this isn't going to be my favorite month weatherwise, especially after having experienced such a marvelous spring. Ah well. Take the bitter with the better and make lemonade if ya can.

Aids for the Blind
Mood:  surprised
I just found out that there are little dots in Japanese paper bills so that blind people can feel the differnce between a 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 yen note. Amazing

By the way, there are rough strips in the middle of many sidewalks so that a visually impaired person can follow them and stay in the middle of the walkway. There are vertical strips to indicate entering an intersection. Many of the crossing lights have audible sounds when it is safe for pedestrians to cross. These strips are a bit difficult to navigate on a bicycle but a small price to pay for the mobility it affords a person with a visual impairment.

Schools battle bad behavior of first-graders.
Mood:  sad
Here are some excerpts from an article in the English version of the Daily Yomiuri newspaper this week: "Primary school teachers frequently find it hard to manage first-grade classes as children ... walk around classrooms and talk during class time.....A major factor contributing to the disintegration of acceptable behavior in the classroom is the declining ability of the family and the community to raise children properly." Oh, my gosh, does this sound familiar, U.S. teachers? "The term soichi puroburemu (first-grade students' problems) was coined to refer to the situation as most of the students who cause trouble are those who cannot adapt to their new surroundings.....An increasing number of primary schools nationwide are implementing various measures to deal with the behavioral problems of students in the lower grades. One such method is limiting the number of students in classes to ensure a manageable group of children. The method can be approved in exceptional cases under the compulsory education standard law, but it states that a class should have 40 children." Oh, my gosh. "Another method is a cooperative exchange between kindergarten and primary schools of teachers to facilitate a child's transition from one school to another." It seems sad to me to see that Japan is beginning to experience a problem that has been growing larger and larger in the states. I can't help but think that it may have something to do with TV, music, computers, and advertisements, which are carbon copies of what our kids and WE in the states are being bombarded with. Turner broadcasting and all the corporations including Pepsi, McDonald's, MTV and...are here preaching their form of consumer-ism. The kids are getting used to shorter and shorter sound bites. They are the short-attention span kids who have been raised on fast food and TV. What are we doing to our kids? Ok, i know it's only my opinion. I'll stop preaching now and go have some tea and read a good book.

Spaghetti Party
Mood:  celebratory
This took some planning. I made numerous trips in advance to grocery stores to transport #10 tins of tomatoes and 10 loaves of French bread and paper plates, veggies and more all on my trusty bicycle. What fun tho. We had ALT's and some of our favorite English teachers from Nishinomiya here. My favorite family brought their twin sons and one of my favorite junior high girls came all by herself. We had hiking friends and Japanese language class friends and many other acquaintances. Everyone seemed to enjoy the friendly, informal atmosphere. I had to answer lots of questions before hand because some Japanese are not used to informal, potluck type parties. The party began a little before 5:30pm and the last folks left around 11:30pm. I didn't really count, but I think there must have been 20-30 people here. What a surprise to be sharing my apartment with not only Japanese friends but also friends from Bali, Bangladesh, Australia and Iran. I wish I had taken a picture of the shoes. They filled the entryway and spilled out into the hall. It looked like a used shoe sale! Sunday was mostly spent cleaning, but there was a nice warm glow about the place after sharing it with such friendly, happy, enthusiastic folks.