February 2005
Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2005 — The first snowstorm of the season
I’d been warned there’d be snow today and sure enough, when I woke up, there was a layer of powder on the ground. It wasn’t very thick, though, and so the day continued on as usual. I biked to school to find the kerosene heater in the teacher’s room — the only source of heat in the school — on at full blast. While I appreciated the warmth in the frigid school, the inescapable kerosene fumes gave me a headache.
I had four classes that day and wore my coat to each one, my hands firmly shoved in my pockets to keep them from going numb. The children huddled in their desks, some girls shivering in their P.E. attire of shorts. I seriously don’t know why this is considered acceptable.
The snow had stopped when I woke in the morning but picked up again during the day. While in the middle of lessons, the students and I looked up to find the world had turned white. The snow was coming down hard and being whipped around by a hard wind. It was the closest thing to a blizzard I’d ever seen. It was really cool to watch, even if the students had a sadistic tendency to open the windows to let the cold and snow into the hallways.
Now that I’ve started swimming at the Tokushima Youth Center, I find myself motivated to go not only to stay healthy and lower my cholesterol, but also because it means taking a hot shower in the locker room afterward. No shivering necessary. It’s absolute heaven. My bathroom is a freezer box. My apartment, of course, didn’t escape the frigid temperatures. When I turned on my heater that night to warm up my bedroom before going to sleep, I saw my apartment had hit a new all-time low temperature: 1 degree Celsius, or 34 degrees Fahrenheit.
Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005 — Absolutely, positively no regrets
There are things I can be indecisive about. There are things I feel ambivalent toward. Whether to stay a third year on JET is not one of them.
Today was the day I handed in my decision to my supervisor on whether I would re-contract. Would I stay or would I go?
Folks, I am going.
Does that surprise you? It does me, at times. After all, I’d come with grand dreams of staying the maximum three years allowed. (For the hard-core super-JETs, I hear you can stay on special five-year allotments. I am not one of those JETs.) What changed between then and now? In a nutshell, I learned what I wanted and what I was willing to put up with. I learned my limits, and that’s a valuable lesson to learn. I have no regrets. That is, after all, what I came to Japan to do: learn more about the world, and myself.
Having done so, I decided it’s time to retrieve my hat and look elsewhere to hang it when my contract runs out this summer. I count myself lucky because during the two re-contracting periods I’ve faced, I’ve signed the papers with a smile on my face. No doubts, no hesitation. Only the confident, liberating feeling that I was making the right decision. I know JETs who agonized for months on whether they should re-contract. For me, the decision felt it made itself each time.
It was this past summer when I began to entertain the idea of only staying two years instead of three. Between maddening workplace drama, my Guam trip and my family visit, the possibility quietly crept up on me. When I finally saw it, it was like having LASIK surgery: For the first time, I saw clearly.
Whereas my initial goal of staying three years felt rather vague and without purpose, the prospect of two years suddenly sharpened my motivations. In two years, I’d have learned a decent amount of Japanese and Japanese culture, made inroads in my local community and schools, traveled a fair bit and still be able to look presentable on a résumé. I would not have been out of the game as questionably long three years. Everything crystallized. Two years just felt … comfortable. More importantly, it felt right. And has continued to feel right in the months that since followed. So I went with my gut and told my supervisor, “No, I will not be coming back for a third year.”
This place changes you, if you let it. For good and for bad, I think. I was tired of second-guessing the Japanese bureaucracy that had hired me. I was happy with the Japanese friends I had made. I was losing patience with Japanese customs that I felt were unnecessary, inefficient or illogical. I was grateful for having the chance to learn about this country and its culture. But I had also learned the degree to which my tolerance extended. I worried that I had become jaded and cynical. But really, I think I simply came to my own conclusions about Japan having been exposed to it for enough time.
I do not worship at the altar of Japan. And if you don’t, it’s really not worth staying around a third year, I think. I have a deeper understanding of its ways than when I came, and I’m happy I do. Its ideas on respect, on group-mindedness, on education. But this place isn’t for me. This country has so much beauty and deep-running insight to offer. But it also has a lot of silent craziness and customs that I will never easily slide into, not if I stayed 100 years, not if those very customs tried to beat me into submission. So I am going, happy with my two years and looking forward to what will come afterward.
That night, I went to calligraphy lesson. After I was finished and was packing up my stuff to put into my bike, a woman materialized from the dark ally by my teacher’s house. Kind of creepy. She started talking to me in Japanese. She asked if I was Chinese. Then she whipped out a book on Jehovah’s Witnesses, asking if I needed it. I said no. She politely bid me a good evening and walked on. It’s been months since I was hit up by a church-goer! It almost felt like being in West Texas again. Except this time, I was in Japan. And the person was a Jehovah’s Witness instead of a Baptist or Church of Christ follower.
Friday, Feb. 4, 2005 — Teachers facing their fears
As usual, I prepared a list of open-ended, what I hoped were fun questions for my monthly advanced adult English conversation class. They included inquiries such as, “What’s the biggest issue facing education in Japan today?” and “What’s the most challenging thing about your job?” The teachers who come to the class tend to balk and personal questions (“Where in the world would you like to go?” “What one thing would you change about yourself?”), so I thought maybe gearing them toward their job would help. Basically, I just needed an area from which they could get a lot of material.
In hindsight, I realized my questions were a bit too difficult for their level of English. The issue question in particular was a toughie. One teacher misunderstood one question and couldn’t find the words to express herself in answering the other. I could see her getting visibly frustrated and felt bad. I tried to help her but had no idea where she was going with her thoughts.
Finally, I switched to a different question: “What’s your greatest fear?” to make the mood more lighthearted, I volunteered my answer first: “I’m afraid of scary movies! Because I live alone! I don’t want to watch something terrifying and then go home to an empty house.” I cited “Juon,” or “The Grudge,” as an example. That’s even worse because it takes place in a Japanese home. I LIVE in a Japanese home!
Anyway, I knew from past experiences that superlatives tend to throw Japanese people off. “What’s your favorite movie?” “What food do you like most?” Geez, even, “What’s your favorite COLOR?” is met by perplexed silence as my students consider their options. As if they’ve NEVER, in their LIFE, chosen a COLOR that they liked. As if their life DEPENDED on their ANSWER! I missed the spontaneity of my home culture (which, admittedly, has gone in the other direction, with its excesses of B.S.) , one in which people know that really, ANY answer is better than NONE AT ALL.
Given that, I immediately softened the question to, “What are you afraid of? It can be anything … ! You don’t have to be MOST afraid of it, it just has to be something that scares you. Anyone … ? Anyone …?”
There was an uncomfortable silence — there is ALWAYS an uncomfortable silence after all my questions — as the teachers eyed their colleagues, deferring to everyone else in the room.
“Come ON teachers,” I urged. “You hate it when your students do this … ! Let’s not be like them … !”
It was like trying to divest a politician of his pulpit, or a Japanese schoolgirl of her cell phone. How they cling to their sense of security, with teeth bared and fingernails dug deep! But eventually, hesitantly, their thoughts came out. Half of them had replies that didn’t even answer the question, but I was willing to settle for just about anything.
I am comforted by the fact that the teachers who come to the class always tell me at the end of the house how interesting they’ve found the session. At the least, I know they find it challenging. Sometimes the paranoid part of me wonders if the teachers’ praise is just out of politeness. I try not to let those voices get too loud.
Saturday, Feb. 5, 2005 — Saying goodbye to Satoshi
Amy, a Tokushima City JET, surprised me this morning by knocking on my door around noon. I was still in my pajamas, as I reserve Saturday mornings for calling my family. Amy, who lives about 25 minutes away from me by bike, had majored in art in her home country of New Zealand and had wanted to find a space to make her studio. She found it in the form of an open room with peeling walls on the second floor of my apartment building.
I’d offered to help her move in, which was why I found her on my doorstep that morning. I had all this stuff just sitting in my apartment that could be of use for her. I gave her two space heaters and lent her some bedding and dishware. I was happy to see them put to use.
That evening, I had dinner with Amy, Jenna and Sally at Vivash, a café right by Sally’s home that we frequent. Last time I’d gotten the salmon cream-cheese bagel, so I decided to get something different this time. I went for the tuna, tomato, lettuce foccacia. It was absolutely scrumptious and quite filling. The foccacia was so soft. Of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and ate the fries, plus ordered a banana chocolate torte. I just couldn’t stop myself!
For the end of my evening, I made an appearance at Mabuhay, a tiny bar better known simply as “Ingrid’s,” after the owner. My Japanese teacher, Satoshi, had finally gotten his visa to go to Japan and was having his sayonara party. I say I made an appearance because I’d never been to Ingrid’s and because it’s rare for me to go to bars. More than a few eyes widened when I walked in. Apparently two of my fellow JETs had even argued whether I’d show up. Thanks, guys.
Ingrid’s was the size of my living room, or at least felt like it. When space in the bar ran out, you just moved behind the counter. I stayed in a corner chatting with Satoshi and friends, yelling above the din of karaoke. At one point, I found myself in the distinctly surreal position of being sandwiched between two Japanese guys, Satoshi and this other who was reputed among female Jets of being somewhat of a “gaijin collector.” So I wanted to talk to one guy simultaneously wanting to run away from the other.
Once the bar grew too crowded, I decided it was time to go. I hugged Satoshi goodbye and wished him luck in Australia. I’ll miss him. He’d been a good friend and Japanese teacher.
Sunday, Feb. 6, 2005 — Oyster party
Let me tell you, in a country that prides itself on having one of the most punctual train systems in the world, there is nothing so disconcerting as a train that is not on time. I mean, I wake up to the 6:33 a.m. train and leave for school alongside the 7:46 a.m. train. If I’ve heard the 11:21 p.m. train go by, the last train of the night, I know I’ve stayed up later than usual.
I grudgingly woke up early this morning so I’d make it in time to the Tokushima International Youth Exchange Association oyster party. TIYEA is the group with which I’d done paper-making in the fall of last year. They had an annual oyster party — that is a barbeque that took place at an oyster farmer’s home — for its members and participants of its events. We were to meet at 10:30 a.m., so I’d planned on catching the 9:49 a.m. train into town.
I walked out to the train station just after 9:45 a.m. to find two of my students also waiting. I greeted the two girls and took a seat at one of the benches to wait. 9:49 a.m. came and went. No train. This was very troubling.
I decided to give it a couple more minutes before I ran to catch the bus instead. Eight minutes later, still no train. What had the world come to?? Were the trains not running? No, I’d heard some come earlier that morning. Was it a holiday? No, it was a Sunday and the trains ALWAYS run, unless there was a typhoon. The clear sky was a piercing blue. Was my watch wrong? No, the station’s clock confirmed it.
Just around the corner, I could hear my students consulting each other. “Can you say it in English?” “No, I don’t know how to in English, can you?” “What should we do?” Finally, they came out and just asked me in Japanese when the train was supposed to come. Which is funny, considering they would know better than me. I pointed out the train schedule said 9:49 a.m. Growing more antsy by the minute because of the absent train, I told them I’d use the bus instead. I walked the few blocks to the bus stop. A few minutes later, the students, too, appeared. By then, the train was a good 15 to 20 minutes late. Unheard of!
The bus eventually came (I would later spot the errant train headed toward Tokushima Station, a whopping FORTY minutes late!) and I got to the TIYEA meeting place in time. We caravanned to Naruto, the second-largest city in Tokushima-ken. We stopped first at a supermarket to stock up on snacks and drinks. When we got to the oyster farmer’s neighborhood, no one could remember where he lived, so they had to ask for directions. This involved lots of backing up and U-turning on narrow, one-lane roads made narrower by the fact if we’d gone off the road, we would have ended in someone’s house or a field of crops.
When we finally arrived, the oyster farmer — a jovial, middle-aged man — was setting up fires for the barbeque. Already there was a giant box of oysters ready and seaweed in the back. Apparently, he also harvested seaweed.
The food started to roll out: kilos and kilos of marbled beef, pork, onions, peppers, mushrooms, bread, sweet potatoes, unsweetened mochi, takoyaki and, of course, oysters. The seaweed was for soup. I was there for hours, and I ate for hours. All for the unbelievable price of only 500 yen per person! They barbequed the oysters but, afraid of food poisoning, I waited until they began frying them in batter. Sooo delicious. The sweet potatoes, wrapped in foil and left to heat in the hot charcoal, were my favorite. They were yummy to eat AND kept my hands warm!
I got to talk with a lot of different people, and not just the handful of other JETs who’d come. One of the Japanese college students had spend a summer in New Jersey, so I quizzed him about the experience. I asked him what had surprised him most about the U.S. and he said he hadn’t expected restroom stall doors not to go all the way to the floor the way they do in Japan. He didn’t like using public restrooms for that reason: People could see him, if only his legs.
“I was ashamed, very ashamed,” he said, only half-jokingly.
I had a great chat with a trio of older men who had heavy things to say about war, culture, English education and Japan’s relationship to other countries. This all took place in stunted English and Japanese, with them occasionally good-naturedly commandeering one of the younger people to translate. The men were really kind about my Japanese, too.
As usual, I got a frequently asked about my background. I’ve just come to accept that wherever I go, this is something people will want to know early on out of curiosity. It doesn’t matter if I’m in the States, Japan or Vietnam. People will ask. At one point, I was chatting by the fire with Claire, one of the two CIRs present, and then left for a bit to get more food. When I came back, Claire motioned to a young Chinese woman who had commented about me after I’d left: “Her English is SO GOOD!” Hahahaha! Let’s hope! I cleared that up. I guess it kind of got on Claire’s nerves that people kept asking where I REALLY was from, and when I told someone I was from America and they persisted, she said, “Isn’t ‘America’ enough?” I was like, “Wow, Claire’s getting irritated FOR me!” ;-)
When 5 p.m. rolled around, all of us were pretty cold. I don’t know how I managed to stay warm outdoors for an entire afternoon, but I did. We divvied up the leftovers. I got some sweet potatoes and a loaf of bread. I went home more full to bursting.
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2005 — Dejection, followed by joy
I stared expectantly at the three people sitting before me: The head of the school district department that’d hired me, my supervisor and an interpreter. It was time for my evaluation. My first. I hadn’t gotten one — or at least given access to it — last year. I’m told Japanese teachers get evaluated regularly but are never told how they’ve been judged. It’s merely a piece of paper that goes into their file, to be perused for promotions or dismissals. This system is one that often gets complaints from JETs: no feedback. So I guess my school district was trying to make a change. Still, given my past experiences, I wasn’t holding my breath.
They slid a paper filled with kanji in front of me. Then the interpreter got started translating what it meant. Both my junior high schools gave me letter grades in different areas, as did the school district. The grades were as I’d expected; I’m not a stellar ALT, nor am I a useless one. I lie somewhere in between. I was surprised, however, to see I’d gotten lower grades at my near school, where I have a closer relationship with the teachers, than I did my far school. I wasn’t told who exactly at my schools had graded me, only that the English teachers had been consulted for the letter grades and additional comments.
The interpreter blew through the column headings for each set of grades, and then the comments. I wasn’t really retaining anything. In my mind, I was already planning on sitting down and deciphering the kanji at my own pace so I could really see what areas needed improvement. As it was, I couldn’t understand anything on the evaluation sheet. When the interpreter was done, the department head told me that overall I was fine but I needed to be “more outgoing.” I moved to take the evaluation and put it away but it was pulled back away from me.
No, I wasn’t going to get to keep it.
You’d think they’d have a copy available. But no, I didn’t get one. It just made no sense to me that they would run through this crucial information so quickly and expect us to simply remember and, more, be MOTIVATED to improve. You didn’t get to keep a copy of evaluation, you got a quick verbal description, a “be more outgoing,” and that was it.
I wasn’t impressed.
My irritation was soothed by the fact I was scheduled to go see a classical musical concert afterward. It was my first one in Tokushima: a pianist, cellist and violinist performing at Bunri University. A fellow ALT had gotten some free tickets and invited me and some others. The concert was lovely, and helped calm me. I even saw a teacher and vice principal from one of my schools there. And then the violinist did an encore! It was only my SECOND classical encore I’d seen! Very exciting.
Afterward, I went with my friends to an okonomiyaki place for a late dinner. Yum, cabbage pancakes with unsweetened mochi! It tastes better than it sounds. Trust me.
Thursday-Sunday, Feb. 10-14, 2005 — Sapporo’s Snow Festival
At last, the day had come for me to go to Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island, to see its famous snow festival, the Yuki Matsuri. It is known throughout the country for this annual curiosity of snow and ice sculptures.
With five other friends from Tokushima-ken, I went to Itami, Osaka’s domestic airport. It was my first time to that airport. There, we met other JETs from around the Kansai and Shikoku region also headed to the city of Sapporo for the Hokkaido AJET-organized trip.
To get to our final destination for the night — our hotel in Sapporo — we had to take a plane to Sapporo’s airport, a train ride to Sapporo Station and then a subway ride. Don’t you just love not having a car? As we rounded the corner and headed toward the exit of our subway station, we were met by a gale of wind. It was our arctic welcome. I was wearing my snowboarding coat and three layers beneath, plus a scarf, hat and thick gloves. The cold immediately burrowed through everything. I ventured the single block to our hotel and was amazed by how high the snow had been piled on the streets. There was no where for snow-plows to put the snow, so they simply piled them into small mountains on the sidewalk. Some of the drifts were easily seven feet tall. So this is what it was like, living in northern city …
I’d gone potluck for roommates and was assigned an Irish girl from Ibaraki-ken, an hour away from Tokyo by train. I dropped my stuff in my room and went looking for a restaurant with two first-year Tokushima-ken JETs, Julie and Joanna. We found a restaurant with the word “bistro” in its name that served nothing “bistro” like, only Japanese food.
The next day, I went snowboarding. This entailed a subway ride to Sapporo Station, a one-and-a-half hour express train ride (which is supposed to be fast but was actually quite slow, I guess because of the snow) and a short bus ride to the ski resort, Niseko. Julie came too. It was her first time skiing. She’s from Hawaii. After I made sure she had found a group of fellow first-timers with which to ski and wasn’t going to accidentally careen down black diamonds, I set about improving my own feeble snowboarding skills. I took quite a few tumbles. There were a couple of times I heard ominous crunching noises in my neck as I flipped over repeatedly. Not a good sign. But by the end, I was tentatively going down intermediate slopes, which made me immensely proud, even though I only stayed up half the time.
The constant activity kept me warm but even so, there were times I could have done with one of my students’ heat packs. At the top of the mountain, there was a giant thermometer that read –14 degrees C, or 7 degrees F. I tried to take a picture but it was so cold, my camera wouldn’t work.
I would have liked an onsen afterward — that’s the only way to end a hard day of skiing or snowboarding — but instead had to settle with a hot shower at the hotel. I wasn’t very hungry and so had chocolate cake for dinner.
For my last full day in Sapporo, I went out with Joanna and Julie to explore the snow festival. There were sculptures at three locations scattered throughout the city. But after wandering through the first one, I realized I wasn’t feeling so great. The cold and snowboarding had taken a toll, and I was sick and seriously sore, especially (no surprise) in my neck and shoulders.
I went back to the hotel for a long nap before rousing that evening to check out the main exhibition in downtown Sapporo. The snow sculptures were insane: several stories high and so well-packed they looked like they were made of plaster. There were a lot of smaller, man-sized sculptures of popular characters, from Hello Kitty and Totoro to Yong-sama, the nickname of Bae Yong Jun, a Korean heartthrob who stars in the immensely popular Korean soap opera, “Winter Sonata.” His attraction continues to perplex me as he’s rather effeminate-looking and very vanilla.
Finally, it was time to go back to Tokushima. I was glad to have come, but glad to be going back. I would never have survived, being assigned to Hokkaido. I’ll post pictures when I get my laptop back!
Sunday, Feb. 20, 2005 — International fashion show
Another international fashion show! I was particularly excited about this one because I was getting to wear my new ao dai I’d had made in Vietnam. Well, it was more than a year old (time flies, doesn’t it?), but I’d not yet had the chance to wear it in public yet.
And what do I do? I rip it. How ignominious.
This exhibition of traditional clothes from around this world was a little more low-key than the one I’d done in fall of 2003. It took place at the Tokushima Youth Center, where I go swimming. It was one of the many events scheduled for the youth center’s festival. The show featured many of the same people and costumes (on loan from TOPIA — the group that had organized the first international show I’d done). Today’s show was put together by the Tokushima International Youth Exchange Association, the same folks with which I’d done paper-making and oyster barbequing.
A small room was blocked off on the third floor for the changing room. It didn’t’ take me long to change. But the thing is, I’m not used to wearing dresses, let alone traditional Vietnamese dresses. With those you have to watch out for the long pants and the long hem of the dress. Double jeopardy! It didn’t help that I was wearing strappy black sandals with as much of a heel as I’ll ever wear.
I’d gotten a lot of compliments about the color of my ao dai, though. I am pretty proud of my color choice, I have to admit: a two-tone dark green that turned to a rich brown in a certain slant of light. My pants were made from the same fabric, only flipped inside out, so you saw predominantly the rich brown.
I was crouched down, going through some stuff in my bag. Unfortunately, I was also standing on the front panel of my dress. I didn’t realize that until I stood and heard and ominous riiiiiiiip sound. I stumbled, regained my balanced and stood. A quick check revealed nothing too bad, one of the hooks on my dress was just a little loose. No obvious damage. Or so I thought.
I went out to the main hall and chatted with some people. But the ripping sound continued to haunt me. I went back to the dressing room to investigate and to my utter horror, found a gaping hole at the waist of my dress. I was so upset with myself for damaging my dress so early on. But there was nothing to be done about it, at least at that time. I closed the hole with a safety pin and sighingly went about my business.
Aside from that — plus an incident later in the day in which I fell down some slick stairs and broke my umbrella — things went okay. My special needs students even came to one of the two shows we put on that day! It was nice to see them come and support me. I thought the youth center festival was an ideal sort of event for them, since there were lot of games and booths for them to check out, and of course everything was in Japanese.
Lunch was spent in the dressing room chatting in broken Japanese with a nice young Japanese woman. Out in the main hall, in between the fashion show’s two runs, were various international games and presentations about foreign countries. I sat with the Japanese lady listening to the presentations, done by foreigners from their respective countries who lived in Tokushima. A lot of them had audience-participation quizzes. I ended up winning a prize for my correct answers in a quiz (in Japanese!) about Malaysia. Go me!
While we were listening, a foreign man approached us and started speaking to my companion in English. He asked if she was Thai because she’d worn the Thai costume. The Japanese lady, who didn’t speak English, looked ill at ease. I told the man she wasn’t Thai, she was Japanese, hoping he’d take the hint. I think he was trying to be clever but instead came across as creepy and just made her feel uncomfortable by ambushing her in English.
It was nice to be able to chat with some of my fellow fashion show participants. At one point, it felt quite surreal: I was speaking to a Bangladeshi woman in Japanese!
Sally came to see the second show and afterwards, we met up with Chanda and two first-year JETs, Amy and Randy. I don’t know the first-years so well this year because I’ve done less JET socializing this year. We went to a café that served a superb cheesecake, one that chased the day’s ills away.
Because cheesecake makes EVERYTHING better.
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005 — I wouldn’t recognize snow if I saw it
The freezing rain started midway through the school day and showed no signs up letting up. I’d forgotten to bring my rain gear to school with me, since it’d only been cloudy that morning. Bummer. Luckily, I’d stashed a 100-yen rain jacket in my desks at both schools just for occasions like these. That still meant arriving home with my hands numb and my pants soaked. And I wonder why I get sick so often.
I dried off and changed quickly. I had my weekly ALT meeting at the city office. I scrambled to catch the bus and, umbrella up, walked to the few minutes from Tokushima Station to the school district office. I remember thinking the rain looked kinda … heavy. When the meeting was over, I walked back to the station, entranced by the rather odd way the “rain” was coming down.
It wasn’t until I was on the train, when I saw entire fields blanketed by a crusty layer of white, that I actually realized it was snowing. Pretty soon, the rain had turned completely to snow flurries. Peering down at the slushy streets below from my apartment, I took that as an excuse to not have to make the trek to calligraphy lessons. I mean, if ever there was a good excuse, I would think unsafe riding conditions would be one of them!
Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 — No adult supervision
The two teachers who run the special needs class Kokufu didn’t show up for lunch today because they were supervising the third-year students in the class on a field trip. That left five students and me all on our own.
Luckily, the head teacher runs this class like a well-oiled machine. Even in her absence, these kids knew what to do. Things went so smoothly, from the dispersal of the food to the customary, “Itadakimasu!” I helped pass out plates and chatted with the students during lunch, relieved to find they felt comfortable and at ease, rather than awkward.
Just as we finished lunch, another teacher walked in. She was really shocked to see the students and me together. It just so happened I was at the head of the classroom at the time, writing a note to the head teacher at her desk, so it looked like I was leading the class, I guess. The teacher just kinda stood there. Then she looked at the students and asked in Japanese, “Do you talk to her in English or Japanese?” One girl cheerfully replied, “A little of both.”
Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005 — Sushi
I didn’t have any plans for today, aside from staying in and taking it easy. It wa a chilly, but beautifully sunny day, so I decided to take advantage of the light and do some cooking and baking. I like cooking in the winter because it keeps me warm, moving around my apartment and the results are tasty!
I made a big batch of pancakes. Then I baked some banana bread, with some ripening bananas from the school lunch that had just been sitting in my fridge.
Then, sushi! I was particularly proud of the sushi, since that’d meant hunting down the special sushi vinegar for the rice as well as the dried seaweed that you roll it in. I got random things to throw inside the sushi rolls: avocado, tuna, crab, lettuce, cucumber — not all to be eaten at the same time, of course.
Sushi is surprisingly easy to make! You just cook a couple cups of rice, ladle some tablespoons of vinegar over it while it’s hot, mix them together and let cool. Then you spread the rice onto some seaweed paper, throw in what you like, roll and enjoy. Of course, finding the correct kind of rice and seaweed paper will be more difficult in the U.S., I’d imagine.
Monday, Feb. 28, 2005 — The nerve
We are warned by more senior JETs to expect some rather probing questions from our students when we first come to Japan. I’ve been hear for more than a year and a half and my students still have the capacity to shock me what they’re willing to ask me sometimes.
I’m at the elementary school today and ate lunch with a sixth grade class. During cleaning time afterwards, one of the girls came up to me and point-black asked me my cup size. Just in case I didn’t understand what she was asking (which I did), she threw in a corresponding gesture, too. Her friend saw the expression on my face and looked a little embarrassed by her companion’s behavior, and scolded her in front of me.