Ambition

The other day, I woke up a different person. Or, the same person, but a better same person.

Lately, Stef and I have been watching a TV show called How I Met Your Mother. The show's about a group of friends in their late 20's and early 30's, and their career and social exploits in Manhattan. One of the characters, Marshall, is just like me. He's tall, he's monogamous, he loves Star Wars, he's very passionate about silly things--he's basically me. With each new episode that we watch, we learn of another aspect in which Marshall and I are exactly alike. Other than the fact that he's a lawyer who passed the bar exam, we're basically the same person.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer. My mother and uncles are attorneys, and my cousins soon will be. Even though I had little to no direction before my mission, and even though I studied both music and computer science, I still hoped to one day become a lawyer. After my mission, my direction changed. I knew that I loved learning languages. It's something I'm good at, and there's something extremely rewarding about cracking the codes that other cultures use to communicate. I got my BA in Linguistics at BYU, and moved out to Japan to study Japanese.

In the 11 months that I've been here, I've stressed about future plans, unsure whether a four-year degree in a non-techical field plus fluency in two other languages would be enough to land me a good job upon returning to the 'States. Stef has stood by my side, trying to be patient while I continue on without a concrete idea of what awaits us in a year or two.

Watching Marshall on How I Met Your Mother has awakened a desire to have a plan. When I woke up the other day, I started thinking about law school. I know I'd be capable of completing law school and passing the bar. I have the mental capacity and I can have the drive if it's what I really desire. As I researched the bar exam, I suddenly felt regret for not having studied calculous. My degree didn't require any math classes, so I didn't take any. Out of the blue, I had a strong desire to learn calculous. I want to learn it so that I can understand how the wind blows, how the planets orbit, and how the world around me works.

I want to learn more languages. I want to learn programming languages like C++, Perl, and various server-side scripting languages. I want to get in shape. I want to practice piano and write music. There's so much that I want to do that it's overwhelming. I'm not comfortable with the idea of returning home to the U.S. and working retail for the rest of my life. I decided that I need to go back to school.

I'm not yet sure exactly what I want to study. I love teaching, and I love the idea of having time and opportunities to research and learn for the rest of my life. As of now, my plan is to try to get into the linguistics Master's program at BYU, with the eventual goal of getting a doctorate in something so that I can teach at the university or community college level. This gives me a goal to work toward--something that will push me and force me to grow.

Ever since I graduated, I told myself that I didn't want to go back to school. I hated having to juggle a full-time job with school and a family, while many of the kids I was competing with academically had none of those cares. I doubt my ability to get into a Master's program with a 3.28 GPA. My biggest fear, however, has been the idea of going into debt for school. My bank job paid for my undergraduate tuition, so I left college debt-free. I hate the idea of going into debt for something that may not end up being my career. I might not work as a linguist.

Fear, however, can't be the reason I don't pursue more education. If I have a concrete plan to become a professor, there's no reason why I can't achieve it. I know that the job market is crummy right now. But I'm confident in my ability to learn and grow and make myself into an ideal candidate for teaching positions. I don't care if it's a cliche; I'm capable of anything I want to accomplish.

The problem that remains is my ambition. Part of me still wonders about law school. Part of me wonders if I should try for an MBA. I was a very valuable employee at the bank, and I think I might do well in the business world. But would that allow me to continue my education for the rest of my life?

In How I Met Your Mother, Marshall's largest dilemma is the fact that his dream job is to be an attorney fighting for the conservation of wildlife, but has to settle as a lawyer for Goliath National Bank, where his friend works. It offers a much higher salary and allows him to pay off his debt.

Yeah, I admit it's a little silly that my ambition is springing from my love of a character in a TV sitcom. Silly or not, it's nice to have some goals to work toward--even if I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do. Hopefully, that knowledge will come later.

Visiting the Doctor in Japan

Tuesday morning, I got up, got ready, and biked over to the ferry bound for Okamura, where my island schools are. I was feeling fine until I got to the island. I wasn't sure if it was due to the boat ride, but I suddenly felt queasy. I taught two junior high school classes and started eating lunch, when the teachers in the staff room noticed that I wasn't looking too hot. I didn't have much of an appetite, though it didn't help that lunch was a bunch of small fried fish, with pickled vegetables and fish-filled rice on the side.

They let me leave on the 1PM ferry without teaching my afternoon classes at the elementary school. When I got home, I rested in hopes that I just had motion sickness from the boat. It didn't go away.

Later that night, Stef started to feel sick to her stomach. I had a headache and was feeling nauseous, but Stef actually got it worse. I don't know why, but for some reason, I never throw up. Stef is a different story. She usually disappears into the bathroom and comes out feeling a lot better. I rarely have to deal with the unpleasantness of throwing up, but then I have to endure an upset stomach for a longer period.

When I woke up the next day, I felt even worse. The headache was just as strong and my stomach felt worse, so I called in sick. In Japan, you have to see a doctor when you miss any work, or else you lose vacation time. In fairness, most employers in America will make you use your vacation time or go without pay for the days that you miss. However, paid sick leave is written into my contract here, and I was genuinely sick. Since I chose not to use my vacation time, I had to see a doctor. It seemed like a good idea, since we had been traveling in Osaka, where there have been a few cases of the swine flu. Might as well make sure that my I'm not dying.

I biked over to a hospital about two minutes from our apartment, and told them that I needed to see a doctor. They gave me the standard new patient forms, and I sat down to fill them out. They were in kanji, the complex characters borrowed from Chinese that you must have specifically studied in order to understand. There was a little hiragana (Japanese phonetic alphabet) here and there, but overall, the form was daunting. As I studied the sheet, I realized that I recognized over half of the characters. Even if I didn't know how to pronounce all of them, I understood the primitive meaning of most. I filled the sheet out and turned it in, asking for help with the readings of just two of the characters.

It was a small victory for me. It's quite intimidating to face a wall of kanji standing in the way of you and something you need. In the beginning of my stay here in Japan, I might have asked for someone to translate. I don't even know if anybody could have translated. It's nice to know that it didn't even matter.

I sat and stared at the fish tank, waiting for my name to be called. A closer look at the tank revealed that it wasn't a fish tank at all, but a TV screen in a glass casing filled with water. I'd imagine that video fish are a lot easier to care for than real fish. They called everybody in the standard Japanese way, last name first. I was curious to see how they'd call me.

“Jesse-sama! Kochira, douzo (Mister Jesse, right this way)!”

Just my first name. I wonder if they thought it was my last name.

I followed the lady through some doors and she guided me into the room where the doctor was waiting. When Kelsey had pink eye and we took her to a doctor, the nurses manhandled her. They pushed her down and held her against her will. It was quite upsetting. She would have cooperated had they let us hold her. When I went to see the doctor, the nurses did the same thing to me. I walked in and explained what I was feeling to the doctor. Our whole conversation was in Japanese.

“Please lift up your shirt,” said the doctor.
“Please lift up your shirt,” repeated the nurse in a high-pitched, nasal tone.

I went to lift up my shirt, and the nurse lifted it for me and held it up.

“Please take a deep breath,” the doctor requested, stethoscope ready.
“Please take a deep breath,” parroted the nurse.

“Now, exhale,” said the doctor.
“Now, exhale,” the nurse mimicked.

“Take another deep breath.”
“Take another deep breath.”

“And… exhale.”
“Exhale.”

“Okay, now pull your shirt back down.”
“Pull your shirt back down.”

I went to pull my shirt down, but the nurse did it for me.

I told the doctor that I had been having headaches almost every morning for the last month or two, and he told me to lie down on the table. The nurse, of course, also asked me to lie down on the table. When I did, I slipped and bumped the wall, since I was much too big. I made a joke about how I'm too big and the nurse cut me off and again asked me to lie down. The doctor felt my abdomen and then asked me a question that I don't remember. I told him that I wanted to make sure that I didn't have the swine flu. He said “OK,” and asked me to follow the nurse, who asked me to follow her.

I was in the doctor's room for, at most, ninety seconds. At the nurses' station, they stabbed me in the brain through my nostrils with a long cotton swab, which they then tested for influenza while I waited in a separate waiting area. Thirty minutes later, the nurse called me back in to see the doctor, who spent thirty seconds explaining that I didn't have influenza, but that I most likely had a stomach virus. I again waited in the lobby for them to call my name. About five minutes later, they called me up to the front desk and handed me three different types of medicine, asked for my money, and showed me the door.

The nicest thing I can say about my visit to the doctor is that it was quick. They basically have an assembly line system that doesn't leave you feeling like you have any sort of relationship with your doctor. He's just there to find out what kind of medicine they're going to sell you. I didn't really get to discuss my concerns or describe my nausea. You're in, you're out, and you're lucky if you ever find out what's ailing you.

The nurse is there to make sure that you don't spend even a millisecond too long in the hospital. If they're really so concerned with making everything fast, they should stop repeating everything the doctor says. And I can lift my own shirt, thank you very much. If she could have inhaled and exhaled for me, she would have. At the same time, it makes the manhandling of Kelsey seem much less personal. They don't care if you're a toddler or a grown man. They're going to do everything for you.

I still don't know what was wrong with me. I was sick the following two days as well, and part of Saturday. I'm better now, and it's nice to know that I didn't have the swine flu. Well, it's time to get ready for school lunch. I hear we're having video fish.

Our Trip to Osaka

Warning: long

When you have a baby abroad, you have to get a report of birth abroad from the consulate or embassy in the birth country. In addition to the birth report, you need to apply for a passport and social security number. The baby and both parents all need to be present in order to do this.

Mia was born so tiny and underdeveloped that we had to wait almost four months for her to be healthy enough to leave the hospital. Since she's now strong and healthy, we got to go to Osaka to do all her paperwork. I took a couple days off and we turned it into our first mini-vacation in Japan.

We had planned on taking the Orange Ferry, a huge vessel that leaves the Toyo (a city close to Imabari) port in the evening and arrives in Osaka the next morning. The Orange Ferry offers public quarters, where a bunch of people cram into a room and sleep on the ground next to each other with a little blanket and a buckwheat pillow. Little kids often have trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places, so we decided to look at other modes of transportation, just for the heck of it. We were going to pay about 12000 yen (about $120) per adult (kids under 3 are free) for round trip ferry tickets, but when we saw the prices of the express train, we realized that there was really no reason for us not to take the train. The train takes about three hours and cost only 8000 yen ($80 or so) more (total) than the communal boat. Sure, they offer private rooms on the boat, but they're more expensive than the train. We got to sleep at home--where the girls could actually get some rest--and only travel for a few hours.

We charged the laptop and put some Disney movies on the hard drive to keep Kelsey occupied. After a two-hour ride on an express train from Imabari to Okayama, we transferred to a bullet train bound for Osaka. I thought the express trains were fast; the bullet train blows away everything not flying thousands of feet in the air. The seats were big and cozy, and there was more than enough legroom for even me.

The first day, we took care of the paperwork at the consulate, and then went to find our hotel. We stayed at an old business hotel, which offered a Japanese-style tatami room with three Japanese futons, an AC unit, a fridge, and a TV. We had our own bathroom, but no bath. The first floor of the hotel had a Japanese-style communal bath with the first few hours of the evening reserved for men and the last few hours for women. We used the hotel as a hub and took the subway to various parts of town during our trip. The hotel was close enough to the subway station that we could go back for Kelsey's nap each day. If we were picky, we could have found reasons to complain. For the price (2000 yen per person, per night), it was great.

In the afternoon of the first day, we decided to look for a Mexican restaurant that we had read about online at an outdoor mall called Dotonbori. I should have remembered my own story about the mythical restaurant. We walked around for about three and a half hours, with half of that time spent just trying to find Dotonbori. I asked for directions at the hotel, and the front desk attendant gave us a map of Osaka and highlighted Dotonbori.

We got off at the correct stop, and then got lost. This particular stop was connected to a huge underground shopping plaza. The directions we had received required that we go up to the surface level right when we got to our stop, but there were so many shops with things to look at that we wandered farther and farther away from the exit we needed to take. When we got up to the ground level, we tried to locate ourselves on the map so we could head to Dotonbori. Unfortunately, it was basically impossible to figure out where we were. Figuring we'd eventually recognize something from the map, we just started walking toward the place where we thought Dotonbori might be. After a good chunk of time walking and talking, we decided to ask somebody for directions. According to an old octopus-ball salesman with a karate-style headband, we had walked a considerable distance past Dotonbori. We needed to walk back in the direction from which we came and turn left.

We turned around and walked back the other way for a while, but still couldn't find Dotonbori. We turned left where we thought the old man had told us to, but it became clear that we weren't going to find it without asking another person for directions. I went inside the first building I saw and asked an office lady if she could point us in the right direction. She stepped outside and pointed to where we needed to go, then gushed over how cute Kelsey and Mia were. We thanked her and set out for Dotonbori, which we could finally see in the distance. We needed to keep going and then turn right, not left.

We walked over to the right place and started looking around for the Mexican restaurant, which was supposedly called Hermanos. None of the people we stopped to ask knew where this restaurant was. I was determined not to have another all-you-can-eat yakiniku experience. We were going to find this place. Up and down the street we walked, scanning the five and six story buildings' signs. It was starting to get late, we were starving, and I was starting to lose my mind.

I found an internet café and searched for the restaurant. I got an address, the name of the neighboring hotel, and a phone number, which I decided not to call. We asked the locals where the hotel was, or if they could point us in the direction of the hotel, and finally, we got a lead. Someone knew where the hotel was, but wasn't sure if there was a Mexican restaurant anywhere near. We darted (as well as a family with a kid in a stroller can dart) to the hotel, and then examined the surrounding buildings. Nothing.

Undeterred, I entered the hotel and asked the desk clerk if he knew where the Mexican restaurant was. Next came the verbal punch to the stomach—Hermanos had been gone for a while. Let's review what I wrote about the mythical "perfect restaurant":

1. The Holy Grail of Restaurants, no matter where you are, doesn't exist. Don't be stubborn. You will not find it.
2. Don't ask for directions in Japan. It doesn't matter how little Japanese people actually know about something: they'll go totally out of their way to help you, even if it actually ends up being more of a hindrance than a help.
3. Dang it, even in my nostalgic, partially-confabulated peak season, I was still a jerk.
4. You can never go wrong with okonomiyaki.

Number 1? Check. Except this time, I actually got confirmation that it doesn't exist. How could I have forgotten this lesson?

Number 2? Check. Though it was mostly our fault for not taking the first exit at the station, we were led astray by all but two of the seven or eight people we asked.

Number 3? Still a jerk. When we got confirmation that the place didn't exist, I murdered a koala started to lose my patience. I told Stef that I was willing to eat anything that wasn't okonomiyaki, since we always get that. We almost entered two or three restaurants, but Stef couldn't commit, and I just about lost it. I just wanted food. Now. Or, then, at least. Which brings us to:

Number 4: Yeah, we caved in and went to an okonomiyaki shop. As hunger vanquished my life force, I lost the will to fight the status quo and gave in to the delicious cliché that is the fried savory pancake. We ordered okonomiyaki, nigiyaki (like okonomiyaki, but with a bunch of green onions), and omusoba. The omusoba, an omelette filled with yakisoba (noodles cooked in a savory sauce), was the best thing we ate on the whole trip. Never forget rule number 4.

Sure, I hate that I didn't follow my own rules regarding the Holy Grail of Restaurants. But on the plus side, it only confirmed my previous theory. And it taught me rule number 5: always make sure the restaurant you're searching for exists (by phone, etc.), and get directions.

I learned another rule the next day, when we went to Americatown. You know how big cities have Chinatowns, Japantowns, Koreatowns and Little Italys (Italies?) in America? Here in Osaka, it's Americatown, or Amerika-mura. If you're not into drinking or buying overpriced clothing imported from America, there's not much to do in Ame-mura (the shortened Japanese version). Well, that's not entirely true. It's a great place to people watch. Some of the craziest, most outrageous clothing and hairstyles that we saw in Osaka were in Ame-mura.

Earlier that morning, we went to Kaiyukan, a huge aquarium in Osaka. The aquarium route begins after riding a huge escalator up five stories or so, and slowly winds down toward the bottom, the sloped spiral path surrounded on both sides by fish-filled tanks. At the top, there are penguins, sea lions and dolphins. At an above-water sea lion exhibit, Kelsey prostrated herself on the ground and looked through the five or six inches of glass that were under the water line, hoping to see what the sea lions were doing under the surface. As you descend to the ground level, you can actually see the same sea lions swimming around. At the same time, the fish you see come from deeper and deeper waters, becoming gradually more exotic as you work your way down. Children, however, gradually lose interest in the fish and, in the end, just want to run and yell.



Blue = Awesomeness of Fish
Red = Child's Interest

We saw some manta rays (one as large as a small automobile), a couple of whale sharks, sea turtles, sun fish, arapaimas, giant crabs, jellyfish, eels, and countless other kinds of fish. It would have been nice if we could have really enjoyed the fish, but it was still fun to watch Kelsey squeal in delight as she ran to the glass to watch the dolphins zip around their tanks.

Toward the beginning of the aquarium, I saw one of the JETs from Imabari and said hi. I was surprised to see someone that I had met (albeit briefly) so far from Imabari, so I gave a big smile and said, "Hey, how's it going?" She clearly didn't remember me, so she averted her eyes as she passed and mumbled, "Good." I told Stef that she didn't seem friendly when I had met her before, and so she obviously didn't care enough to socialize. We ran into her later, and Stef, being the awesome woman that she is, decided to strike up a conversation instead of being bitter about the snub. She hadn't recognized me at all, but when we started talking, she was really friendly. I can see why she reacted the way she did, since I probably came across as The Creepy, Crazy, Overly-Friendly Guy Who Bugs You in Aquariums. You know, that guy. Anyway, she's been in Japan for five years and is going home in a couple weeks. Her sister is visiting in Japan before she heads back home.

Later that day, back in Ame-mura, Stef and I had been checking out some shops and scoping out potential restaurants for dinner. We saw a couple that appeared to serve things that we probably couldn't find in Imabari, and decided to eat at one of them after exploring the rest of Ame-mura. As we walked past a burger joint, we saw the Imabari JET with her sister, sitting and talking. We went over and sat down to chat a bit. We told her about our fruitless search for the Mexican restaurant, and how, other than the baby paperwork, all we really wanted to do in Osaka was eat Mexican food. We had been talking for a couple minutes, when suddenly I realized that Kelsey was grunting. Stef took her inside and helped her use the potty while I talked to the JET about a possible lead on a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood. She drew us a crude map, explained how to get there. I knew that it was unlikely that we'd ever find it, so I thanked her and started thinking about where we were really going to eat.

Stef came out with Kelsey after a while, and we talked with the girls for a few more minutes. I told Stef about the restaurant, and she agreed to look for it for a few minutes—under the condition that if we didn't find it soon, we'd eat at one of the other places that we had already found. As we were wandering around, looking for the restaurant, a man named Rigby stopped and asked us if we needed help finding anything. I told him about the taco shop, and he told me that he not only knew where it was, but that he knew the owners and knew that it wouldn't be open for another 90 minutes or so. He gave us the owners' phone number and told us where to go. We had no trouble finding it.

We went to the lobby of a hotel to relax and pass the time while Stef fed Mia and Kelsey snacked on some pretzels. After a while, Kelsey got a little too restless, and we decided to go down and work our way back to the restaurant. We got there in time to meet one of the restaurant owners in the process of opening shop. We went up and sat down in what turned out to be a bar. Luckily, we got there before everybody showed up to drink. The bar served tacos, quesadillas, fajitas, and all sorts of other meals. The dimly lit bar was adorned with sombreros, ponchos, and other typical Mexican decorations, with salsa music booming in the background.

The owners didn't speak Spanish, but they sure knew how to cook Mexican food. We got some shredded chicken tacos, a shredded chicken quesadilla, some gourmet-style nachos, and a plate of eggs and chorizo with corn tortillas. We were forced to order one drink per adult (a sort of cover charge for the bar), so I got mango juice and Stef got some Jamaica drink. In all, the food cost over 5000 yen, but was worth every penny yen...ny (sorry). It was the perfect dinner for the perfect day with the fam. So, rule number 6, which I learned that day, is as follows: if you have followed rule number 1, and are okay with the idea of eating somewhere else (countering rule number 3, honoring the spirit of rule number 4), then you can implement rule number 5, provided that the person that you ask is not Japanese (rule number 2).

While it seems complicated, rule number 6 is quite simple: don't get your hopes up, make sure the place really exists, get directions from an English speaker, have a backup plan, and stay in a good mood, and you may just stumble across the Holy Grail of Restaurants.

We capped the night off with some ice cream, which we ate on the subway ride back to our hotel.

The third day, our only plans were to go to Costco and return to the hotel. We accomplished both goals. Costco was fantastic. After renewing my membership, we walked up and down the aisles, carefully making note of everything they were selling. We got two cases of Dad's Root Beer, some corn bread mix, a gigantic sack of tortilla chips, and a few other things. What we really wanted, though, was the food from the food court. Costco dogs. Pickle relish. Churros. Heaven.

Costco was packed—much more than any Costco I've ever seen in America. Stef saw some people complaining about the size of the shopping carts, which were the same size as the carts at Costco in America. They had no idea what to do with such a beast. In Japan, shopping carts are just a regular shopping basket that you put on a frame with wheels. One Costco shopping cart equals ten or twelve of the other shopping carts. This does not make it easy to navigate the store. Imagine the busiest subway station in Tokyo, with shoulder-to-shoulder foot traffic clogging the grounds. Now give each of those people their own hippopotamus-sized shopping cart and watch as nobody gets anywhere. At one point, my stomach dropped as I watched a family, only ten feet away, swoop in to grab the beef jerky samples, with me trapped in a sea of shopping carts. All I could do was slash their tires shake my fist and curse them. In my mind.

That evening, after a nice nap, we had no plans. We walked around a cool electronics district, where I bought some headphones. Well, one side of it was cool. The other side was littered with porn shops. The night before, I took Mia out for a walk, and explored a nearby restaurant district. I turned a corner and looked up, only to realize that I had stepped into the red light district. Humongous murals of naked women covered the facades of the buildings. I took my baby and promptly headed in the other direction. I can't believe the stuff that they show in public here. I guess there are places like that in most countries. I'm glad that they don't allow that in the U.S.

Back in the restaurant district, we looked for a place to eat. Employees from the myriad restaurants begged us to patronize their restaurants. When you walk through a restaurant district, you can, at any given time, have four or five different people shouting the praises of their restaurant at you. And it's not just the invasion of personal space that's annoying. Their voices are high-pitched, nasal bleats specifically designed to cripple your defenses. It's a verbal battle royale for your business.

"Please eat here, oh beloved guest! Please enjoy our delectable cornucopia of cuisine. It's really good, I promise!"

"No! Please, please, please come eat here! You'll love it! It's a veritable smorgasbord of cornucopias!"

"I won't cut myself with a samurai sword if you find it in your heart to give us the honor of enjoying your presence in our humble establishment!"

Stef and I really wanted to eat at one restaurant, but the street screamer was so annoying that we almost walked away just to spite him. I turned around to consult with Stef, and we vocalized that we were going to eat there because the food looked good, and not let the Gilbert Gottfried of Japanese restaurant employees stand in our way. I turned and walked away from the restaurant, signaling that we were heading in another direction. At the last second, I spun around and ducked inside the doors, after which the guy followed us in and shouted to the staff that they needed to prepare a table for four. It's okay. Let him think he convinced us. We were there for the food.

I saw something that looked like tacos, and I ordered it. They were curry-flavored tacos, and they weren't half bad. Stef, craving the omusoba that we ordered the first night, got some yakisoba. Kelsey had ginger for dinner (and some noodles). She eats pickled ginger plain. We have no idea how she does it, since it's such a strong flavor, and neither of us like it very much. That night, we watched Kelsey use chopsticks, successfully, for the first time. Her form needs some work, but it was still mighty impressive.



The next morning, we went to church at the Abeno Ward in Osaka. Finding the church proved to be quite the task. A few unanswered phone calls to missionaries and one useless taxi driver later, we found ourselves in the neighborhood of the church, with no idea which side of the city block it stood on. We found the church, but we had missed the Sacrament. The Abeno Ward was like a full-sized family ward in America. It was great to see so many people at church, including three sets of missionaries. Kelsey got a dolly from the nursery leader, who was excited to have someone to watch. Unfortunately, we had to leave. One family, the Kochis, gave us a ride to the station after Sacrament Meeting, saving us an hour or so in travel time. We took the trains and were home by about 4PM. Kelsey and Mia were great.

It was great to spend a few days in Osaka. We figured out how we like to do trips—it's best to plan about two things each day, and leave the rest of the time open for whatever else you want to do. You can relax or explore, and not feel like you have to run around to get a lot done. Riding the subway, while a bit expensive, is very convenient, and reminded me of our time in Matsuyama, where we rode the city trains all the time. We were also reminded how awesome it can be to be in a place with people and restaurants. Imabari's great, but there are so many more things to do in Osaka. It's nice to live in a laid-back place like Imabari, but it's important to experience city life every once in a while.

Kelsey Reads a Book to Daddy

EMEPGENCY. LANGUAGE VIOLATION

Yesterday, in my infinite wisdom (I looked outside and saw that it was raining), I wore a jacket to work to avoid the misery of being drenched in rainwater from head to toe. When I got to school after the 30-minute bike ride, the rain had only soaked me from waist to toe. From head to waist, I was drenched in sweat. So I wasn't just soaked all over—I also smelled like a seventh grade locker room after P.E. all day. Now, on to what I really want to talk about.

The Japanese language borrows heavily from western languages. Many words can be expressed not only in Japanese, but in pseudo-westernese. Part time job can be referred to as either its Japanese-ized English equivalent, paato taimu, or its German equivalent, arubaito. There's mostly likely a Japanese term for it as well, but I'm too lazy to look it up, and the western terms are more common. Other commonly used English words include basuketto booru (basketball), biiru (beer), pen (pen), and juusu (juice).

Here's a quick guide for Japanese vowel pronunciation to help you understand my romanizations:

Japanese vowels are basically just like Spanish ones.
a = ah, as in the Bostonian “go pahk the cah”
e = eh, as in “eh, you go pahk it yaself”
i = ee, as in “beets beets, sugar beets, beets sugar beets beets beets”
o = oh, as in “oh noh you (Trevor) dohn't”
u = oo, as in “Scooby Doo went scuba dooving”*

*It's actually a little more complicated than that—closer to a French u sound. But that's not really important right now.

Japanese consonants, while close in pronunciation to Spanish consonants, are similar enough to English consonants that we can use English to describe them. Each vowel (a, e, i, o, u) or combination of consonant-plus-vowel (ta, ka, pi, bu, etc) counts as one rhythmic beat, or syllable. Two consecutive vowels are each enunciated, instead of being blended into one syllable like we would in English with the ou in mouth. In paato, the vowel is held out for two syllables instead of just one. So, paato taimu is a six-syllable phrase (pa-a-to ta-i-mu) in Japanese, instead of the two syllable part time that we have in English.

The sixth graders are learning to read words made from roman characters--what we simply know as the alphabet. The teachers are all pretty good at reading English letters, even if they don't always pronounce them correctly. There are many reasons why they should learn how to read the alphabet. Internet addresses, for example, are generally written with roman characters, so it's important that they learn how to read them even if they don't plan on learning English. If they go anywhere outside their country (except probably China), they will most likely have to be able to read roman characters in order to properly understand and navigate their surroundings.

This is a reality the Japanese government understands, so they teach kids the alphabet in grade school. Their whole country is flooded with roman letters, so there are plenty of opportunities for practice. Because of the ubiquitousness of letters, they typically know how to pronounce them with crude Japanese pronunciation. In teaching correct pronunciation of English letters and written words, the problem lies in making them un-learn everything they've acquired while living in a place where most people don't know how to pronounce things correctly.

Today, the sixth graders brought papers with English words that they had seen around them, whether at home, on their clothes, or out in public. They hid the words, uncovering one letter at a time while offering three hints so that the other kids could guess the word. There were two problems with this game. First, most of the English words they chose weren't English at all, but brand names written in roman letters. Second, the kids were asked to give hints in a language using grammar and vocabulary that they hadn't yet learned. It's one thing to ask a Japanese kid to get in front of the whole class to speak a language with which they don't feel confident. It's another thing entirely to expect them to do it with words they haven't yet learned. That said, the kids did really well, in spite of the difficulties.

Some of their words were curious, while others were downright hilarious.

First, the acceptable ones:

Baby Mickey and Friends, Sesame Street, Converse: sure, they're proper names of products, but they generally have some lexical meaning outside of their brand name-ness.

Second, the non-English:

Nintendo, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba: Japanese brand names of Japanese electronics.
Marlboro, Nescafé, Nike, Adidas: American brands that have no meaning outside of being proper names.
Burcmüller, Zaturn: I have no idea what the first is, but it's most likely a German surname. The second is apparently the name of a roller coaster at the Japanese theme park, Spaceworld.

Next, the misspelled English:

Gorden Retriever, The World of Goldn Eggs, Emepgency: While it's entirely possible that some of these were merely misspelled by the kids who copied them down, it's highly likely that the source material was wrong. Japanese companies don't usually have copy editors to check their English spelling or grammar.

Last, my favorite:

Cannabis World: I kid you not. It wasn't as if the girl who wrote this one had seen it at a store—she actually owned a little kiddie pencil case bearing those words, complete with Jamaican colors, peace signs, and marijuana leaves. She had no idea what it was. How do you explain what marijuana is to kids that are better off not knowing? How in the heck am I supposed to help her come up with three hints for that? I just gave her a new word instead.

The homeroom teacher's example word for the game was the English “word” DVD. The v sound doesn't exist in Japanese, so to distinguish v from b, they say bwii (sounds like bwee) instead of vii. Dii bwii dii. I followed the incorrect pronunciation with the correct one. Here's how the dialogue went:

Teacher: Dii bwii dii!
Class: Dii bwii dii!
Me: D V D!
Class (correctly): D V D!
Teacher: One smore! (Should be once more) Dii bwii dii!
Class: Dii bwii dii!
Me: ...

I constantly have to fight incorrect pronunciation from the teachers. I feel really bad for them, because they didn't ask to be forced to teach English. They feel much more uncomfortable than I do. Sympathies aside, it would serve them well to try to model their pronunciation after the native-speaking assistant teacher. The kids haven't yet been fully corrupted, so they can often mimic my pronunciation. I like to draw simple diagrams of the mouth and speak in exaggerated tones so that the kids can see how to produce the sounds of English. Most of them pick it up considerably well. The teachers, on the other hand, just can't go against what they've had incorrectly ingrained in their brains for years.

One of the biggest problems I encounter is the prevalence of waseigo, which is the Japanese term for words that have been either altered or mixed from their English roots to take on different meanings or pronunciations. For example, a teacher once asked me something about some other person's charm points. I didn't know what to say. Did this person have a level-34 Charisma in the Dungeons and Dragons of life? I eventually figured out that charm point meant something like positive characteristics.

Other words are chopped off for convenience, like the convenience store, which is rendered in Japanese as konbini. Other include waapuro (word processor goes from waado purosessaa to waa-puro), pasokon (personal computer goes from paasonaru konpyuutaa to paso-kon), and dejikamu (digital camera changes from dejitaru kamera to deji-kamu). It's often difficult to know what people using waseigo are talking about, because we don't know what words they're changing.

Others make sense, but still sound strange, like beebii kaa, (baby car, meaning stroller or baby carriage).

Japanese people often refer to all sorts of companies as meekaa, meaning maker, while in English we might say brand or company. Sure, with cars, we sometimes we'll say make, or possibly even maker. But it's not common to do so for chewing gum companies, clothing, or video games.

This aspect of Japanese can be charming, but not so much when it's being taught to the children as correct English. It's not that words like maker and baby car aren't English words, or that there aren't people that would understand what you were trying to get across—the point is that the majority of people with whom you hope to one day communicate probably won't understand what you're saying. People are much easier to understand when they use the commonly accepted words.

For example, if you're searching for the Converse store (konbaasu) and decide to ask a Japanese person who doesn't know correct pronunciation, you might accidentally get led to a store that sells buses full of corn (koonbasu). Ice cream (aisu-kuriimu) is abbreviated to aisu, so if people ask if you want ice, they're really asking if you want ice cream. This is serious stuff here!

Some words change meaning altogether, like manshon, which came from the English mansion. You might get excited to hear that I live in a mansion, only to find out that it's really an old dilapidated apartment building with multiple stories.

If a word ends with a non-voiced consonant plus i or u, like su, shi, chi or tsu, the last vowel is typically weakened, and sometimes altogether omitted. So, words like shaatsu (shirt) and piinatsu (peanut) actually sound more like English shots and peanuts, respectively. There are many words, like juusu (juice), that get it right. The ending su gets weakened an ends up sounding like an s, so it sounds just like juice. But there are also many words that confuse. The English Note textbook that the kids use is full of examples, like the Donut Shop on the town map. In Japanese, donut is pronounced donatsu (like peanut, which became piinatsu). So, naturally, the non-native speaker preparing the graphics for the book writes Donuts Shop instead. My sister Emily likes an anime called Fruits Basket, which makes absolutely no sense in English. The plural fruits comes from the fact that fruit in Japanese is not just kudamono, but also the borrowed pseudo-English furuutsu (sounds like fruits). You don't need to pluralize fruit for us to know that more than one kind of fruit could fit in the basket. Even if the basket was for effeminate men, the same title of Fruit Basket would suffice.

I guess it was good that they were forced to look for letters and get more familiar with the alphabet. It's good that they're interested in English. I just wonder about the practical application of the words they learned. Who knows-—maybe someday, once the Earth has been evacuated due to “man-caused disasters,” and we're living in space, and the Japanese have taken over the new international government, we will thank the Japanese for their attention to detail. I can see it now:

EMEPGENCY. EMEPGENCY. GORDEN RETRIEVER HAS INVADED ZATURN. LET'S PLEASE LEAVE MANSIONS AND FRUITS BASKETS AND BOARD EMEPGENCY SHUTTLE BOUND FOR THE WORLD OF GOLDN EGGS.

Some videos

We posted a few videos of Mia and Kelsey at Stef's Blog.

No, I Don't Know What I'm Doing

Today, I met with one of my JTEs to plan the lesson for a 9th grade class that I teach once or twice per month. First, she explained the rules of today's warm-up activity, with which I was familiar. With the students all standing, the JTE and I take turns asking questions, gradually increasing the difficulty with each question. The student who answers correctly sits down and then chooses either tate or yoko, very loosely translated to column and row, respectively. With tate, those standing in front of or behind the student have to sit down. Yoko causes the people to the left and right to sit. The object of the game is to narrow the field down to one or two people, who are then forced to watch Japanese television answer a question.

After discussing the rules, we came across a slight stumbling block. Here's what happened, more or less:

Me: Is there a list from which we pick the questions?
JTE: No, just ask appropriate questions.
Me: Ok, so what have they learned so far? What's an appropriate question?
JTE: Well, they're third years, so anything that they learned in the first or second year is fair game.
Me: What did they learn in the first or second year?
JTE: The same thing that all first and second year students learn.
Me: What do first and second year students learn?
JTE: [blank stare]
…
Me: Let me clarify. Before working here, I worked at a school with only one junior high student who never came to class. I almost never got to teach him.
JTE: Wait, so you're telling me that you have no previous experience teaching junior high?
Me: Pretty much, yeah.
JTE: [blank stare]
[scene]

This type of interaction is not good for my self–esteem. I swear I'm not a moron.

When we come to Japan, we ALTs get no help, no training, no lesson manuals and no teaching materials. The people who "manage" us go to great lengths to avoid having to deal with us, to the point that their "actions" are surrounded by "scare quotes".

On one hand, it's easy to see where they're coming from--and even sympathize. Most of them don't speak or understand English outside of a smattering of phrases that they most likely learned when they, as kids, were forced to take English classes. Assuming--usually correctly--that we ALTs speak no Japanese, they just want to avoid socially awkward situations in which they are obligated help us, yet have no way of truly communicating. So, rather than helping us have some idea of what's expected of us, they leave us to figure it out alone.

On the other hand, it's their job.

For someone who was thrown into the fray without any explanations or directions, I feel like I do a pretty good job. The kids generally get excited to have me there, and I've figured out ways to make learning enjoyable. I see the kids once or twice a month, have no idea what they've learned up to that point, and have no idea what kids their age are supposed to learn. It'll take some experience reading the textbooks and teaching lessons before I automatically know which questions are appropriate for each grade.

Before class, the teacher gave me a second year textbook so that I could study the grammar patterns. I went through the textbook and familiarized myself with everything, making a list of example questions along the way. Then class started, and the teacher decided to skip the tate-yoko game. Of course.

But it's okay, because in that class I got to chuckle when the kids and teacher all pronounced earthquake as arsequake.