Culture Festival

Junior high schools in Japan have two big festivals every year, Sports Festival and Culture Festival (sometimes “festival” is translated as “day”). My school also has an additional festival which occurred yesterday called Music Festival in which homerooms compete with each other in choral performances.

Today was Culture Festival at my school, and a variety of interesting things happened.

1. The day began with music performances by the brass band and selected music groups in the gymnasium. Yesterday at Music Festival, I happened to tell one of the teachers that her homeroom had done the best performance of that day.

As we watched today’s performances, she came up to me and said that she had told her students that I had said this, and that it made them very happy. She had told her students that “music has no country.” She said this all in fairly advanced English, which surprised me because she is still shy to carry on conversation with me even after one year.

2.

I purchased yakisoba (fried noodles with pork and cabbage) and shoyu dango (soy sauce dumpling) at 10:30 a.m. and ate them promptly after. I was the first teacher to do so in the lounge area and 7 teachers followed suit like this:

Teacher enters lounge area. Exclaims “Oh! You’re eating it already? Well…we might as well haven’t we…while it’s hot….” Other teachers chime in with “Well you know, we ought to eat it while it’s hot” in utmost seriousness. Packages are gleefully opened and devoured.

I can’t emphasize enough how much they seemed to enjoy this. Whenever it becomes socially acceptable to do something out of the norm, particularly if it involves indulging, the excitement from Japanese people is palpable.

Yesterday, when they accidentally ordered the staff lunch, chirashizushi (sashimi on a rice bowl) from two different places, resulting in twice as much food, people were laughing and twittering like idiots until the second delivery arrived.

“I wonder when it’s going to come…” Two minutes elapse. “Wow, it’s still not here yet, oh man I don’t think I can eat all of that…” Secretary announces to the staff room that the delivery man just called and the food is on its way. Teachers laugh heartily. Second order arrives. I took my ELOO that morning, so I’m the only person who eats the fish on top, reserving the rice in the fridge for my dinner that night. Nearby teachers all eat the entire second portion.

3. I attended one of two tea ceremonies performed by the sadou-bu. Matcha was delicious as always, although the glorified Twinkie-like sweet they served with it was unusual and unwelcome, in my opinion. I prefer small flower-shaped pressed sugar like I’ve usually had at tea ceremonies. (I can’t help being a snob, I’ve had it too good…)

It was very relaxing and I enjoyed watching a couple next to me take photographs of their young daughter being served the tea by students. I had fantasies of escaping to a secluded life as a maiko in Kyoto, learning the ways of traditional tea ceremony and shamisen performance. Somewhere in there was a lesson on natural dyes and shibori dying method.

I woke up and I was 24 years old in a school library in Japan. I’m turning 25 in a few days.

I’ll still be in Japan.

Project Gutenberg

I was happy to discover this website today for Project Gutenberg, an online book catalog of scans of 20,000 free public domain books, with links to 100,000 more books through similar affiliates. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it before.

I found it through links about the now defunct International Music Score Library Project, a website which strove to achieve the same goal of free and accessible cultural materials, but was shot down by proponents of post mortem copyright protection laws.

Yay! Now I can quit reading Reader’s Digest (Wiki) and read real books when I pretend to work.

Who touched me?! Was it you??

I don’t often post about my classes, but I had an interesting one just now.

This particular class has three very noisy students who try very hard to be the best class clowns ever; their efforts are loud but usually focused, so it doesn’t totally disrupt the class, it just makes a difficult atmosphere, one which I have little control over as an assistant teacher.

Today it became obvious to me that what appeared to be simple class-clowning was actually having a very negative effect on the class. A game which had been tried and tested very successfully in several other classes went pretty poorly in this one. The game involves running from the front of the room to the back to grab a fly swatter, and running to the front again to swat at “A” or “AN” written on the board. They choose one or the other based on whether the word I call out begins with a vowel sound or not.

It’s a really fun game when they run. But for some reason they didn’t feel the need to run, there was no competitive spirit in the class, and most of them just walked to the back to get the swatter and then slowly walked to the front to swat a letter. It’s pretty rare that I can’t get the kids competing with each other, it’s the hallmark of most of my activities in fact because it’s so easy, so when they won’t compete it’s a sign to me that something is very wrong.

In this case, I have a feeling that they had given up competing because they were always competing with the distraction from the noisier students. No one could root for them if they tried hard because everyone was busy looking at the three trying to get everyone’s attention. Any effort would go completely unnoticed.

Luckily the class was saved by the game I have yet to ever see fail, 7 Up. The psychology of this game couldn’t BE any more brilliant. The English is simple too so they’re not intimidated by it.

In case you never played 7 Up when you were in elementary school, seven people stand at the front and the rest of the students sit with their heads down and thumbs up. The seven students at the front then quietly pick one student each by gently pushing their thumb down. The teacher calls out “Heads Up, 7 Up,” and the students whose thumbs were touched stand up and try to guess who touched them with the question: “Was it____?”

It worked wonderfully as always, the noisy kids had to shut up and I even got smiles out of a couple of the mopey ones. Using a foreign language isn’t fun when it’s embarrassing, but it’s fun when you’re communicating something. The object of this game is to find out who touched you, using English is auxiliary.

If it is possible to infuse that idea into all foreign language classes, the job of teaching a foreign language is a lot easier.

(Addendum: My other class today was similar with a pair of noise makers. This time it was different though, they were actually very funny and class was a lot of fun. Perhaps the difference was that they didn’t make any teasing or negative comments to any students, whereas the noisy students in the first class did.)

School Lunch in NYC

This article in the New York Times online about a New York farmer trying to get locally grown carrots into nearby schools is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read in my life.

All of the food in the schools here in Japan is locally grown whenever possible. They pride themselves on it and teach the children to respect the fact that the food was grown locally and the farmers worked hard to bring it to them.

How on earth did such a simple thing become so laden with obstacles in the US?

Tragically, home-schooling continues to look more and more appealing to me whenever I consider raising more of its little citizens.

Cultural Monopoly

I’m curious if all the people in Houston who disapprove of the addition of Celcius to the evening forecast because “if you live in America, you should learn our customs and language” are aware of the fact that their fellow Texans are going over to foreign countries, like Japan, and refusing to learn the language, like Japanese, or fully adapt to the cultures of the countries they are living in.

Maybe they’d be amazed to learn that that also goes for nearly all of other the Americans living overseas. That there are people who have lived here for more than a decade, have families, work for the Japanese government, and still can’t speak a complete sentence in Japanese.

Or maybe not.

Why does the American media insist on promoting the idea that American culture is one at risk? Why is it that when something even the slightest bit “American” gets threatened, we’re up in arms? Literally or figuratively?

The American media should do more to show the truth; not that our culture and country is under threat of dying, but rather threatening the cultures of the rest of the world. Through arms or otherwise.

Is something as trivial as the use of Fahrenheit really how we define ourselves as Americans?

It’s not how the rest of the world defines us.

The Influencers

Is there an American equivalent of this word-of-mouth website? If not, there should be.

A search for “the influencers” online revealed another great site about a festival by the name of “The Influencers” featuring:

media pranksters, star remixers of ideas, saboteurs of academic categories and reality agitators of every stripe

Awesome.

Shuten Douji Festival

This weekend was another taiko drumming performance. This time we climbed up the side of Kugami mountain on the back of a truck and slowly drove back down again while we performed. It was a lot scarier than I remember it being last year.

Most memorable was banging away in the climactic section of a piece just as we reached a side of the moutain with a magestic view of the huge valley where our town lies.

We could see the entire thing; the rice fields, the houses, and nothing below us but a steep plunge down the side of the mountain. Fear and elation mottled my concentration, and it was an incredible experience.

We got down to the bottom and watched this guy portray the festival legend of the sake-drinking demon, Shuten Douji.

Then we performed again, went out drinking, and I fell asleep on a table at the bar.

All in all, a truely taiko day.

For That Which Has Not

How does this make any sense?

I have to do my homework.

He has to go to school.

They have to catch the train.
________________________________
I don’t have to do my homework.

He doesn’t have to go to school.

They don’t have to catch the train.

Why should I have to teach this crap?? Come on Anglo-Saxony, tell me!

Town Beautification

Yesterday morning I found this mysterious box on my front doorstep.

This note was in my mailbox:

[Circular Publication]

2007, October 1st

Bunsui Elementary School District “Making a Town Council” News

(Environment Beautification Committee)

–Decision to develop the “Lots of Flowers Campaign,” in aiming for the goals of the “Exciting Niigata National Policy” set for 2009–

In order to meet the goal of “A Town Made Graceful by Flowers”, we have prepared planters and tulip bulbs for each of the 3,000 households in 48 residential districts. We expect that you can have fun planting these seedlings.

Distribution was made to 1,500 households in 2006, and 1,500 households in 2007, meeting a standard set in accordance with our budget.

We entrust that each household will comply with this arrangement.

I feel strange; on one hand I think this is brilliant policy and something that I should have seen done in American neighborhoods a long time ago. I’m certain it will make a more liveable, beautiful environment.

On the other hand, I am entirely intimidated by this little box and its contents.

How the heck do you plant tulips?!

Mediation on Meditation

Tonight I attended a meeting to help translate next month’s English article in the aforementioned publication, this time written by the new girl who replaced my British friend. She knows no Japanese so I was asked to attend and bridge any language gaps.

Until this meeting, they had originally assigned the whole English article to a single Japanese volunteer who would translate it, but tonight, in very Japanese fashion, a meeting of ten people was held to translate the article cooperatively. It took each pair about thirty minutes to translate a small paragraph of text, which in turn relieved one person an hour and a half of work.

I was surprised so many people would turn out to help translate just out of interest in English. Many of them had really excellent English, and I began to feel I wasn’t really needed. However, I was able to help when a situation arose trying to translate the word “meditation.”

The new English teacher had entitled her piece “Meditation on Mt. Fuji.” One would think this title easy enough to translate, but it turns out that it cannot be translated into Japanese with the connotation she intended because the word “meditation” in Japanese refers to a very sacred practice only used by monks.

This difference in cultures alluded me so stealthily, it took me completely by surprise. Meditation, a word which can mean both deep thinking or simply reflection in its English manifestation, is one which has fairly strong roots in eastern religious practices when taken more literally. Christians can be said to meditate, but the focus is on prayer, and that they are communicating with God. In eastern meditation, one can be communicating with themselves, their surroundings, or eventually nothing at all, if I have my ideologies correct. It’s apparently not to be taken lightly.

After listening to them deliberate for a while about how to translate “meditation” to a suitable Japanese word, I agreed that the word “thoughts” was the best solution. There really was no other word to describe what she meant by “meditation” in that context.

It reminded me of earlier this week, when one of my students in English Conversation told me how he dealt with the loneliness he felt while living away from his wife and children for seven years in Vietnam.

He would sit for a long time and feel the very bottom of his loneliness, eventually bringing another part of himself up and out as if it were a third person looking over him. Then he would sit and read. He seemed embarrassed when I suggested it was some kind of meditation.