Get That Corn Outta My Face!

This just happened:

Me, in the staff room, having received some candy corn from a friend a few days earlier: Remember how we talked about candy corn the other day? Well, I got some and thought maybe you’d like to try it.

Fellow teacher with whom I had the previous discussion about not being able to help people for fear of discrimination against the poor: Put that away, a student may see it! (walks away from me quickly)

I’m not only baffled, but I’m extremely upset that I even entertained the idea of being nice to a fellow teacher.

...

Now that I’ve cooled a bit and had some good conversation with friendly Japanese people, I’ll back off a little, since I surely do enjoy living here most of the time. But I still disagree with said teacher’s response to me, which is becoming a pattern (she’s also the one who told me it’s bad to say “die” in class). It’s the fifth or sixth time she’s scolded me, and she’s a 24 year-old first-year teacher. None of the other teachers have ever responded to me like she has.

As a side note, the other day, I avoided another embarrassing situation. I was making a sheet to explain the rules for adding ’s’ to the end of third-person singular verbs, one of which was “to box”. I couldn’t remember if “to box” in Japanese required a specific article, so I looked it up on an online dictionary. Box (like a cardboard one) in Japanese is sometimes “bokkusu”, so when I saw the kkusu at the end of the definition, I hastily copied and pasted it to my chart.

I continued to work on my sheet, when I realized, “Hey, wait–they literally say ‘bokushingu o suru’, which means ‘do boxing’.” I checked back at my chart and realized that I had pasted the meaning from some slang translation of “to box”, “sekkusu suru” (“do sex”).

Crisis narrowly averted.

2 Years Later

A Post For My Rich Readers

So, I spent the last few days in a conference about effective team teaching with a few hundred people, including one of my Japanese coworkers and her mother, who moderated for my group and gave me a ride to the conference. My coworker’s seventh graders are struggling to remember the vast majority of the course content, and their grades are about as low as one could imagine.

On the ride home, we had an interesting conversation. Having some experience with programming and web design, I offered to build a web site which the students could use to study outside of class, hopefully helping them to improve their test scores, making life easier for the teacher in the process without any effort on her part.

She wasn’t sure if it would be OK for me to do that. I clarified that I didn’t plan on using any class time for my project, and that it would consist solely of me giving the kids a web address which they could access in their free time, outside of school. Entirely optional. Nobody’s forced to do anything–those who want it would have another resource outside of paper handouts that their teacher gives them based on an outdated textbook.

She said that she was afraid that students would somehow write in rude comments that others could see, to which I replied that it would be read-only, consisting of flash cards, audio and video. There would be no message board or any way for students to input messages.

Dead silence.

The three of us had previously chatted about differences in Japanese and western (specifically American) methods of communication, including how foreigners struggle to understand what Japanese people are really thinking (since what they actually say is often vastly different, and the listener is left to read between the lines). I tried, as best I could, to understand where they were coming from, but it was really tough. I was willing to use my own free time to provide a solution for the struggling children, one which cost the school no time or money, and which was completely optional. I told them that, from my western perspective, it was really hard for me to understand why anybody would ever oppose something that was so apparently harmless yet possibly beneficial.

Her mother chimed in. Students in our town, she said, are not all rich. Many of them do not have a computer. Not all of those who do have computers have internet access at home. By offering a learning resource that is accessed online, she said, we would be giving preferential treatment to those who had money, further widening the gap between them and the students whose families had little money.

I was blown away. First off, anybody can access the internet for free at libraries and local community centers. Furthermore, what is more important–the feelings of a few students or the students’ progress? At worst, nobody learns anything from the web site and everybody’s grades are the same as they were before. Realistically, some of the students would improve at least a little bit due to focused, technology-based learning resources, while those who don’t access it get the same poor grades. Are feelings so important that we can’t even say, “Hey–check out this website in your free time,” after class is over?

Baffled, I did my best to describe my feelings on the matter, wondering how on earth these kids would ever learn if more effective teaching methods were being passed over because they didn’t want to offend the poor kids. I phrased things as tactfully as I could, but received no response for the next few minutes.

Having just come from a seminar in which workshops were dedicated to dealing with breakdowns in communication due to culture differences between Japanese and foreign teachers (which I felt was a bit pointless as I got along just fine with my coworkers), I couldn’t help but feel the irony of my situation.

I changed the subject soon after, but not before my coworker told me that there was almost no technology involved in teaching the children at that school. There are no computers, no projectors, no televisions, and no other electronic devices in the classroom, outside of a CD player. Nothing but a dusty old chalkboard and some desks. Each class used to have a TV, but my school opted to remove them after some people in Tokyo got killed by falling TVs in the last big Japanese earthquake. Learning consists of worksheets and workbooks, with no interactive multimedia to speak of. This is not by design, as the Ministry of Education understands the place for technology in the classroom and, as such, sent every school at least one 60-inch smart board TV/computer–which was subsequently locked in a room to collect dust. Strangely, each staff room also received a huge flat screen TV which has only ever been used to watch baseball.

This is my last year teaching in Japan. We’ve decided to move back to the US at the end of July. There are many things that I will miss about Japan–the people, the food, the architecture, the clean and beautiful surroundings, the language–but I will not miss Japanese bureaucracy and the insistence upon sometimes outdated traditions. I won’t miss the lack of clothes dryers because people like hanging their clothes. I won’t miss having to wash dishes by hand. I’ll certainly not miss the awkward silence caused by my inability to read others’ minds because they’re unwilling to communicate what they actually feel.

In other words, I’m excited to be going back to America. I know we Americans are a bit rough around the edges, but I like that about us.

Please Shoot Me if I Ever Use "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" as a Blog Post Title

Until I cut my curly hair recently, all the kids would ask me if I had permed it (since it’s unfathomable for a Japanese that such hair could be natural). The question actually bothered me, since I’m not the type of person to get my hair professionally treated. It turns out that the kids not only aren’t able to fathom hair that isn’t straight and black, but also aren’t allowed to have anything else. If your hair is wavy, curly, or not-black (or extremely dark brown) by nature, you have to receive a permission slip from a doctor showing that it’s natural.

I’ve heard stories of a Japanese girl in the area who was so embarrassed of her naturally wavy brown hair that she routinely died it black and got a straight perm so that she wouldn’t have to get a note from the doctor explaining that it was OK for her to be different.

So, now that my hair’s all gone, the kids have decided to ask me “why” my eyes are blue. How the heck do you answer that question?

The Guy's a Frikking Genius

Yesterday, our stalwart laptop stopped booting. No images–nothing. Just a series of beeps when we tried to start it up. Turns out the beeps mean that the graphics card is bad–which, on a laptop, means that the whole freaking motherboard needs to be replaced.

So, after researching motherboards and the cost for parts (I’m confident enough to switch it myself), I decided that I’d rather buy a new computer. I was searching around about my computer model and found that the graphics “card” in it was defective, but that I’m too late to get in on the class action.

In my search, I found videos of people fixing the problem themselves with heat guns, so I went to the local hardware store to look for a heat gun. I asked a store clerk if they had any “hiito gan” and she gave me a blank stare. I explained what it was used for, and she told me that the must not have any, likely assuming that I had no idea what I was talking about. So, as she was presenting me glue guns and soldering irons, I saw a heat gun–with the exact words “hiito gan” in katakana right on the box–but it was 8000 yen. No thank you–a new motherboard wouldn’t cost much more than that.

Up above the heat gun was a little blow torch about twice the size of a cigarette lighter for about ten bucks. I bought it, dismantled my computer, and used a blow torch to “reflow” the GPU, whatever the heck that means.

I cleaned everything up, pieced it all back together, and somehow, I have a working laptop again. Don’t ask me how long this fix will last–it could be a day, 3 months, 5 years. But dern am I proud of myself for fixing a busted laptop with nothing more than a ten dollar torch.

Disneyland!

We got up the next morning and got ready, then went upstairs to check out our complimentary breakfast. It was a buffet with yogurt, juice, milk, fruit, hard boiled eggs, freshly baked breads, croissants and danishes. They also had salad, which Japanese people really like to eat in the morning. Having filled up our tanks with a good, hearty breakfast, we stepped outside into the overcast but extremely pleasant weather, and hopped on a bus to Disneyland. Because of the typhoon the day before, the temperature was a good ten-to-fifteen degrees lower for us.

Fifty's was a ten minute bus ride from Disneyland, costing us a paltry 300 yen each. Kelsey, who had been talking about Disneyland every day for the previous two weeks, was excited to see Mickey Mouse, and Minnie Mouse, and Donald Duck, and Chip & Dale, and Cinderella, and ... Yeah, I'll spare you the whole list.

Stef's research showed that this was the best time of the year to go, since kids were back in school. When we got to the park, there were thousands upon thousands of people lined up, waiting to either buy tickets or enter the park. Disney apparently realized that holding a promotion during this dead time would be a boon for ticket sales. At least I hope that was the case, as I'd hate to see what the park looks like during the Summer break.

With Halloween approaching, Disney redecorated the whole park with Halloween decorations. The non-human Disney character statues around the park all had jack-o-lanterns for heads, and they even changed the Haunted Mansion ride by installing millions of dollars worth of Nightmare Before Christmas animatronic robots.

Because of the Halloween theme, thousands of people came dressed in Disney character costumes. Japan is peculiar in that dressing up as cartoon characters is not out of the ordinary for twenty-somethings. It was tough at first to tell who was hired cast and who was visiting the park for Halloween. Eventually, we realized that paid cast is actually white. Even Princess Jasmine was a blonde girl with a fake tan and a black wig.

About 90% of the people there were in their early twenties, and I'd say that the vast majority of the people there were couples. There were very few elementary or junior high school aged children, if any. The Japanese take their schooling very seriously. The ratio of adults to kids was really quite shocking to me.

Because of the disparity between kids and adults, I was surprised to find that there were lines--often hour-long waits--just to take a picture with the characters. Grown adults waited to take pictures when they could have been going on rides. The waiting times for Mickey and Minnie were definitely the worst. I'm pretty sure that people here see the whole "take-a-picture-with-Mickey" thing as an essential tradition, much like viewing the cherry blossoms every year, or eating gooey multi-colored rice balls on a stick while looking in the moon during September (or is it October?). What else would explain lines of twenty to seventy year-old ladies waiting over an hour to take a picture with Mickey Mouse? Characters had to run between locations, aided by bodyguard-like park employees that did their apologizing for them.

Figuring that DisneySea, which we planned to visit the following day, would have characters in costume, we avoided waiting in line for pictures at Disneyland. We were there for the rides and the play areas. Stef spent some time a few days earlier researching which rides each of the girls could go on. She used her notes to mark up a park map and we set out to enjoy the park.

Our first stop was Toontown, where Kelsey and Mia got to run around and look at some of the characters' houses. They also had a few rides, including a Chip & Dale themed roller coaster called Gadget's Go Coaster, which was Kelsey's first ever ride at Disneyland. She was a little apprehensive at first, but after going on the first ride, she didn't want to stop. We worked our way around the park in the morning, going on the rides with short wait times.

The Peter Pan ride had a bit of a line (25 minutes), but I figured it would be worth it for Kelsey. As we approached the front of the line, the line stopped moving. They informed us that the ride was closed for "system adjustments", and to make it up, they gave us four fast passes (one for each of us) good for any ride in the whole park. Our crafty use of these passes made it the smoothest day we possibly could have had.

When you insert your ticket into a fast pass machine, it spits out a fast pass, which lets you use the fast pass line, which basically puts you near the front of the queue with only a few minutes to wait. You can only get one pass every two or three hours, and you have to come back to the ride after a couple hours to be able to use the fast pass line.

Because of the fast passes that I was given, I only had to get two regular fast passes the whole day. Here's how we did it. When you have to watch a kid that's too young (or too scared) to ride something while someone else in your party goes on the ride, you can get a babysitter ticket. This ticket is even better than a fast pass, because you enter through the exit and are escorted to the very front of the line, with no wait at all.

Stef used a single fast pass to get on Splash Mountain with Kelsey, and I had an employee write me a babysitter ticket while I was waiting for Stef. When she came back, I jumped straight to the front of the line and went on the ride alone while she watched the kids (Kelsey didn't want to go on Splash Mountain again). Amazed at the awesomeness of this plan, we did it for Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion. I thought that Stef didn't want to go on the Haunted Mansion, so I didn't request a babysitter ticket. I waited in a normal line for the spinning rocket pods in Tomorrowland while Stef used our last special fast pass to take Mia on the Haunted Mansion ride. It was basically the perfect set up.

The food at the park was great--churros, real pizza, American-size hamburgers; they had pretty much everything we wanted. While we were eating dinner, a Russian family with kids sitting near us drew Kelsey's attention. She ran around with the two young Russian kids while I finished my burger. I went back to find a bathroom, and when I got back, Stef told me that the Russian boy had just dropped his pants and peed against the Tomorrowland cafe wall outside. The mom did nothing to stop him. Hilarious.

At night, Stef decided we should watch the light parade. I'm not a big fan of parades, but I was tired and figured that the girls would probably love it, so I acquiesced. I'm really glad I went. Kelsey loved every float that went by, and kept shouting the names of the characters and waving at them. I'd have a ton of fun if I went to Disneyland by myself, but being able to enjoy it with my kids was really something special.

Kelsey loved the rides, even if some of them were a little dark and scary. While Japanese kids were crying, she was begging for more rides. Mia was either happy or asleep all day. We went home very tired that night, but with the great weather, great food, awesome kids, and short waiting times, it was pretty much a perfect day at Disneyland.

Making our Way to Tokyo

The night before we left for Tokyo, Stef went to play volleyball. When she came back, she could hardly move--she had somehow tweaked her back. Having been through my fair share of back problems, I knew exactly how difficult it must have been, and began to worry that it might ruin her trip. She took some Advil and went to bed, hoping that it'd feel better the next morning.

She woke up stiff and sore. Our plan had been to ride bikes to the train station to save money, toting our kids and as little luggage as possible. That was no longer an option, so we took a taxi to the station and hopped on our train to Matsuyama. The early morning trains get packed with people commuting to work, so there weren't any clusters of seats where we could all sit together. We found two seats, but we like to have two rows of two, since we can flip the front seats around and have four seats all facing each other. A man was kind enough to offer his seat to us, which I gladly accepted. We turned out seats around and rode comfortably to Matsuyama en route to the airport.

We got to the airport about 90 minutes before we had to, so there was some time to burn. Stef took the girls for a walk while I took care of the bags. Kelsey sat in the box that they use to gauge whether or not your carry-on item will fit in the overhead compartment, and Stef took a picture. Mia likes to copy Kelsey, so when we met up and went to the security checkpoint, she climbed into the carry-on-checker box up there.

The Matsuyama airport has a really good bakery/café upstairs, so we stopped and grabbed a bunch of pastries to tide us over until lunch.

The Japan Airlines flight we took had rows of two seats on the outer edges, with rows of three seats down the middle. When choosing seats on the JAL website, I picked the two left-side seats of the middle row, and the far right seat of the adjacent two-seat row. I figured that I could keep the girls with me while Stef sat across the aisle.

That never happened. There were a bunch of empty seats on the plane, so the flight attendants told us to sit together in a row. I initially insisted that our seating arrangement was fine, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. Once we were comfortably in our seats, another lady who worked for JAL came in to confirm that nobody was sitting in the seat that we had just been given. Apparently, the person who was planning to ride in the third seat of the middle row wasn't going to be able to make the flight. We sat and watched as the flight attendants awkwardly battled with the lady in charge of confirming the seating. Some people take their jobs way too seriously. I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure that a simple change in seating isn't going to cause an implosion or anything.

Our plane was delayed by about ten minutes due to a possible typhoon in Tokyo. When we landed, the horizontal rain was battering everything, and the strong, shifting winds rippled the surface of the steadily accumulating puddles outside.

Our train trip from the airport to Maihama was supposed to only take about an hour, but we ended up spending about two. At the train station in front of the airport, I bought a ticket that supposedly led directly to Kasairinkaikouen station, the station nearest our hotel. The Google Maps directions that I had printed and brought with me said that we had to transfer twice, but the train tickets I bought were a couple hundred yen less expensive than the ones on my directions and seemed more direct, so I thought I might have printed out a less-than-optimal route.

When we were approaching the station where I thought we had to transfer, I asked some people around me if that was the correct station. There's often not a lot of time to transfer on trains in Japan. The doors open for about 30 seconds while people file out and hurry in, then the whistle blows, the doors slam shut, and the train speeds off toward its next stop. The first girl I asked shrugged her shoulders and didn't utter a single word in response, while the men across the aisle were much more willing to help.

One of them told me that I had to wait until our train reached its final destination, then transfer to a line that supposedly would take me right to our stop. Just as the doors closed and the train pulled away from what I thought was the correct station, the man corrected himself, having consulted the internet on his phone. We were supposed to get off where I thought we did.

We got off at the next stop and switched to a train going back the other way, and got off at the correct stop. Luckily, up to this point, all the stations had roofs above us to keep us mostly dry in the typhoon. We went to switch to the Rinkai line, which led to Maihama, but we couldn't figure out how to go through without giving up our tickets, which would have forced us to buy new tickets. Unfortunately for us, there was nobody to help us at the turnstile--no workers were on duty.

Seeing us fumbling and bumbling around, a kind man walked over to an intercom and paged a station attendant, who instead of coming, paged me on a closer intercom. I explained that I had purchased a ticket all the way to my destination, but wasn't expecting to have to relinquish my ticket at a turnstile. He told me that in order to hit the Rinkai line, we had to leave the station, go outside, and cross the street. Keeping our ticket was not an option. He sent someone to help us, who gave us a refund for the difference between our ticket and the one that would've taken us to that station.

You see, there was a way to make it all the way on one single ticket, but it would've involved using a different line owned by Japan Railroads. We had taken the monorail. Trains are confusing in Japan--there are JR trains, non-JR trains, the monorail, city trains, local trains, special express trains, the metro, and the subway. And all seem to go through similar stations and connect to each other. I've lived in Japan for two years, and I still have no idea how the train system works. Just when I think I've got the hang of it, I'm being paged by faceless attendants and getting refunds for buying the wrong tickets.

We walked through the wicket and towards the exit, only to realize that there was no elevator--only a ludicrously long flight of stairs going down to the ground level--and that there was no roof to cover us once we got outside. Stef's back was hurting, so she couldn't carry much down. I carried Mia (in her stroller) halfway down the stairs, resting her and my 2000 pound backpack on a big step. Stef had Kelsey walk down the stairs while I made multiple trips up and down the stairs for all our luggage. Stef took down as much as her back would let her.

Finally at the bottom of the stairs, our next challenge awaited: repack the bags so that the kids, the laptop, and the clothes will stay dry with just three umbrellas and two strollers. Kelsey walked alongside us, holding her own umbrella, while I carried the heavy backpack on my back, another backpack (with the laptop and other stuff) backwards on my chest, and a stroller full of luggage (or Mia--I can't really remember which of us took the stroller of stuff and which took the stroller full of Mia). Stef pushed another stroller. She and I each had an umbrella to try to cover all the stuff as we had to cross two streets with strollers, walking kids, and luggage, all in a typhoon.

While our clothes were pretty wet, we managed to keep the luggage mostly dry. We lugged all our stuff to the platform and caught a train for Kasairinkaikouen station. It's entirely possible that we got on the wrong train there, too. It happened a few times over the course of the trip, but never really cost us more than 15-20 minutes. We eventually got to our station, and we toted our stuff out the exit into a raging typhoon.

We readied the umbrellas and made a mad dash for the covered bus stop, which was halfway between the station exit and the taxi line, which is where we were headed. The wind jerked Kelsey's umbrella out of her hand and blew it across the parking lot. After briefly comforting Kelsey, I dropped all my stuff on the bus stop bench and made a run for the umbrella. The twenty-or-so seconds that it took to retrieve the umbrella were enough to soak most of my clothes.

By this time, I was getting pretty irritable, so while Stef was trying to plan the best way for us to stay dry while we darted for the taxi, I said, "Screw it," grabbed my stuff, and ran willy-nilly into the typhoon. A shouted for the taxi driver to open his trunk, threw my wet baggage in, then went back to help get everything else to the taxi. Perhaps we could have done it a bit smarter, but the "covers" of those bus stops are pretty useless when the rain is coming at you sideways.

The taxi driver took us to our hotel without any shenanigans, and it winded up costing no more than the minimum 710 yen fare. We entered the hotel, drenched and drained from the travel, and ready to relax a bit. Check-in time at the hotel started at 3PM, which just so happened to be when we arrived. We checked in, pulled Kelsey and Mia away from the kids' books that the hotel puts out in the fifties diner-style lobby, rejoiced at the sight of Dr. Pepper in the hotel vending machine, and checked out our room. We had a big bed for the two of us, and a twin bed that we pushed perpendicularly up against our own for the girls to share.

Stef and the girls changed clothes, but I took mine and blew them damp with a blow dryer. I figured I wasn't done getting wet for the day.

We hadn't planned on going to Disneyland that day, so the typhoon, the missing of train stops, and the aimless wandering were more annoying than demoralizing. With the rain being so strong, however, we worried that Thursday and Friday, the days we were planning on visiting the Disney parks, would be ruined as well.

The rain started to let up just before 5PM, so we grabbed two umbrellas and headed across the street to Royal Host, a chain restaurant which I had never seen before. I set my umbrella in the umbrella bin by the front door (which many stores and restaurants require, so as to not drip all over the floor inside). I told Stef, who had entered with her umbrella in hand, to put it in the umbrella bin, since "that's how they do things in Japan." For a brief moment, I felt proud that I was adapting to the Japanese way without really having to think about it.

We sat down and ate a surprisingly tasty meal. As we ate, I noticed that the rain had picked up again outside. We paid for meal and went to the exit to grab our umbrellas. Mine was gone--someone had stolen it. Honestly--what kind of person steals somebody else's umbrella in the middle of a typhoon? I understand that you don't want to get wet, but if there's one time that you should feel the most regret for stealing someone's umbrella, it's during a typhoon. Oh well, he can keep it. He'll need it in HELL!!! Wait.. that doesn't.. uh..

People often say that Japan is basically a crime-free country. While I agree that I usually feel safe at night, and don't worry about getting murdered, the Japanese are not perfect. People will steal a bike if they need to get somewhere. They'll steal an umbrella if they don't want to get wet. And, they'll do plenty of other faceless crimes that don't necessarily cause bodily injury, but are sufficiently irritating for the victim. I've known people to have their bikes stolen, only to find them returned to the same parking lot later.

Anyway, I went to report the theft to the restaurant managed, who first shrugged her shoulders, but eventually offered me her own umbrella. In no way did I want to force someone else to go without one, and I didn't actually expect them to do anything about it. I just wanted them to know where we were staying in case the culprit decided to return it. At the end of what was a very awkward conversation, I shrugged my shoulders and apologized as Stef decided to take the girls with the remaining one umbrella (which, incidentally, would have been two remaining umbrellas if I just followed Stef and didn't do things the way everybody else does them in Japan).

So, I had to brave the rain without an umbrella. All the way across the street. I'm pretty sure I didn't get any wetter walking through the rain (which had let up a lot) than I did sitting next to spill-prone Kelsey at the restaurant. It ended up being mostly a non-issue, except that I now have to buy another umbrella. That night, we didn't really go out (other than Stef making a quick conbini run for ice cream). We stayed inside the hotel, sipping Dr. Pepper and watching TV shows on the laptop--a nice, relaxing end to a turbulent day.

Planning a Trip to Tokyo Disneyland

Ever since we came to Japan, we've fantasized about visiting Tokyo Disneyland. We don't do a lot of traveling out here, partly because Japanese hotels insists on charging by the head instead of the room. With two kids (who are often considered adults in the eyes of the greedy innkeepers), travel costs spiral out of control pretty quickly. In order to save a bit of money, Stef and I decided we'd save our Disneyland trip for the weeks before we leave Japan for good.

However, when Stef did the research and crunched the numbers, she found that the busiest (and, consequently, the most expensive) time of the year at Disneyland is actually from July to August, when kids are out of school--and when I would be going home. The first part of September, according to Stef's online research, was actually the least busy time of the year; kids are back in school, so the attendance drops drastically. It's basically the same in America. So, we decided that we might as well check and see how much it would cost to plan a trip out to Tokyo in early September.

We found a good time to go, which just so happened to be the first possible day that we could book cheap airline tickets. Since I don't have a credit card in Japan, I had to run around like a headless chicken to get the reservations made (and make sure that I was getting the best possible price), and then make a mad dash to the convenience store (they call it a "conbini" in Japan) before midnight to make a payment on a confusing computer kiosk, all because that night just happened to be the last possible night that I could book the flight for the time frame we had set (you have to book at least 30 days in advance).

To make matters more stressful, I had to make sure right then that I could get decent hotel reservations for the same time frame, since it would be pretty pointless to pay out the nose for a place to stay for the sole purpose of saving money on a plane ticket. Hotels in Tokyo are not cheap. Any place near the park is absurdly overpriced. In my frantic rush to find a place for less than $650 (or at least the equivalent if the dollar were 1:100 yen like it used to be) for three nights, I even fooled myself into thinking that I might be overlooking great package deals from the resort hotels.

I saw the price per night at one of the official Disney hotels, and was surprised to see that they charged by the room rather than per person. Still, the $500 per night charge seemed outrageous. Then, I saw that there were rooms at another official Disney hotel for only $150 per night, and they charged by the room, too! When I got to the checkout page that asked for my payment, I realized that I had made a critical mistake--I didn't see the extra zero at the end of the total.

That's right--it wasn't $150 per night, but $1500 dollars. And the other, already outrageously overpriced room was actually $5000 a night. Five. Thousand. Dollars. This was not some luxurious penthouse suite, but a normal room at the official resort hotel. Who the heck has that kind of money?

I called Sayuri and asked if she could help me find a deal, and she gave me the name of the area in which I should be searching. I eventually discovered the website of a little place called Family Resort Fifty's for Maihama, which seemed close to the park, and only cost about $120 a night with breakfast included. I got the booking ready, and just as I was about to click the button to make the reservation, I remembered hearing that sometimes you can get better deals for hotels through other companies. I did a search for Fifty's on a few of the Japanese travel sites, and was pleased to find that I could get the same exact room for $89 each night. I booked the room at Fifty's for three nights for a total of $267--much less than the $600-$700 that all the other places were asking.

Having booked the room, I then ran to the conbini about an hour before the midnight deadline to pay for the plane tickets. We were going to Disneyland in a month!

I Passed the JLPT (N2)!

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

I am so going to Disneyland* to celebrate. In three days.

*Tokyo

Going to Get the Fam (Part--Ah, Screw It)

Having arrived at the port, I waited in line to get off the ferry, when over the PA, a voice announced, "The somethingsomething exit is for people with cars. The rest should wait in the other line." I wasn't sure which line was which--so I just followed a bunch of people that left the line in which I was standing to go to another exit. I'm sure there were signs indicating which line was for car-less passengers like myself, but I was too tired and anxious to see my family to care.

Taking the escalator down to the main exit floor, I walked out a door into a parking lot, realizing that I had taken the wrong exit. I walked across to the side where the pedestrian exit was, and was instantly first in line to get off the boat. I almost felt guilty for skipping to the front of the line--for a split second. Leaving the boat, I set off for the train to Nanba station, where I'd be taking care of some banking.

My first goal was to search for Shinsei Bank, where I do my foreign wire transactions. There are no Shinsei Bank branches in all of Ehime, and the closest one requires a $100 round-trip train ticket just so that I can send money home. We had been waiting for a trip to Osaka to send some savings to our American account, and this trip fit the bill.

Wandering the desolate streets of Osaka at 7AM on a weekday is a surreal experience; there's not a whole lot to do in a city (and country) that opens at 10AM. I resolved to find the bank--which was sure to open a few hours later--and then go get some breakfast.

Each subway and train station has multiple exits, and it's often hard to know exactly where you are, especially when you're only armed with a printed google map that only provides landmark names and an address. Even more frustrating is the fact that streets in Japan go under, over, and through intersections, and don't necessarily head north-to-south or east-to-west. Having lived in Utah, where each city has street numbers based on how far away from the city center, I find the Japanese streets a bit more difficult to navigate. In Provo, for example, you know that the mountains are always on the east. Knowing that, if the mountains are on your right, you're facing north. If you're at 300 E 200 N and need to get to 450 E 400 N, you know that you need to go two blocks to the north and 1.5 blocks to the east. It's a simple system that I'm sure many towns and cities use.

Here's the google maps page for a section of South Provo, where I used to live:



This is the google maps page for the Osaka neighborhood that I haplessly tried to navigate:



I could tell by the position of the sun in the sky where north was, I just had no idea where I was on my unmarked map. All I knew was that there was a McDonald's right by an AM/PM convenience store, and that a street curved around somewhere near there. I showed the address to a AM/PM store attendant, and he timidly pointed me in the direction of another AM/PM (it turns out that there are about 8 AM/PMs within 2 city blocks), which might have someone on hand who would know better.

Unable to find the convenience store, I ducked my head into the chintzy Hotel Cordon Bleu, hoping that the hotel staff might have some knowledge of the surrounding area. There was no front desk to speak of (or if there was, it was curtained off), so I got some information from a cleaning lady, who pointed me in the direction of a McDonald's.

When I found the McDonald's, I saw an AM/PM right up the street, so I finally located my place on the map. I followed the curved road until I saw Shinsei Bank. The bank was connected to a Starbucks, sharing an exit. On the facade, a sign displayed the bank's operating hours--I had about an hour-and-a-half until the 9AM opening time.

I walked back to the McDonald's, hungry and in need of my cough/asthma medication, and itching to burn some time. Upon entering the store, I passed a large black man, who I think was African American (based on his attire). I tried to flash a smile (after which I planned to nod my head so as to say, "'Sup", but he kept his head down and avoided eye contact. I can't say I blame him. If he is an English-speaker, he's probably almost as sick of talking to English-speakers as I am. Sometimes you just want people to leave you alone. Back home in America, people don't come up to you and talk to you just because you might speak English. It gets tiring to have to always stand out and play the part of foreigner--even with people that share the role.

One of the best things about McDonald's in Japan (yes, there are actually good things about McDonald's here) is that some of the locations serve American breakfast sandwiches like the Sausage McMuffin with Egg. I ordered one of those and a cup of water, and sat down to pass some time and take my meds. When I got to my seat, I noticed that my water cup was basically a dixie cup filled to the brim with ice, with about a half an ounce of liquid water in the cup. I ate my sandwich, swallowed my pills with the little bit of water, and took my water thimble to the counter to ask for a refill so I could sit down and have something to drink while I pre-blogged on paper to pass the time.

The kid running the register responded that while there was no excuse for their rudeness--it was, in fact, impossible for me to get a refill on water. Aside from the absurd logic of impossibility (just say you won't refill my water, all right?), the unwillingness to provide such a basic service triggered the Irate Customer Switch in my brain, which I believe (based on extensive scientific research) is located within Broca's Area.

From Wikipedia:

Lelong was another patient of Paul Pierre Broca. He also exhibited reduced productive speech. He could only say five words, 'yes,' 'no,' 'three,' 'always,' and 'lelo' (a mispronunciation of his own name). At autopsy, a lesion was also found in the same region of lateral frontal lobe as in Leborgne. These two cases led Paul Pierre Broca to believe that speech was localized to this particular area.

My Irate Customer Switch functions somewhat differently than it does in other people. Others may get angry and demand to speak to a manager. I, on the other hand, lose the ability to speak in coherent sentences. All I could muster was a flustered, "Seriously?" in Japanese.

Disgusted, I shook my head and separated my trash into the burnable and non-burnable trash cans, jettisoning the ice in my cup into the special liquid disposal bin. In retrospect, I should have put my ice in the burnables. Try burning wet garbage, suckers!

But I was more patient than that. At first. I mean, I didn't swear or anything. Seriously, though--how much does an ounce of water cost? A penny? If you round up? Never in my life have I been denied a refill on water--not at any restaurant, ever. I've been to cheap fast food places that charge ten cents for the cup, but I always get unlimited water.

On my way out the door, I stopped to ask a managerial-looking employee why his store didn't offer refills on water. He replied squeamishly that it was a store-by-store decision. I responded that I had never been to a store that didn't refill my water. His response: if they offered refills on water, people wouldn't buy a soda.

What I wanted to say:

"What about people that don't want soda? Or can't drink soda? It's in your best interest as a business to build loyalty by putting your customers first, especially with something as simple and inexpensive as water, which nearly every restaurant on the planet offers for free. By trying to force me to buy a soda, you've lost any future business from me. Not only will I not buy a drink, I will hereafter fulfill my periodic cravings for sausage, eggs, and english muffins through some other, less miserly establishment. Your insatiable desire to squeeze every last yen out of my wallet will actually deprive you of the filthy lucre which you so treasure."

What I actually said:

"Well... in all other McDonald's restaurants, it's free. You know, the customer... I mean... What the customer wants... It would be good for business... Ah, screw it. I'm never comin' here again."

What is it about being frustrated that makes me unable to speak properly? And it's not just the language barrier.

Here's an English scenario that might have actually happened to me on my recent trip to America:

Having arrived at a store at 8:55, knowing they close at 9, I pull on the door, but it won't open.

Shop clerk: Sorry dude, we close at 9.
Me: But the clock right behind you says it's 8:55. Look.
Shop clerk: The registers are closed. Sorry dude.
Me: But that... The registers... It's not like... Ah, screw it. I'm never comin' here again.

It's not like I'm fuming--so angry that veins bulge out of my neck and forehead. I think I have some kind of anti-super power where I absorb the stupidity of a situation and it temporarily invades Broca's Area in my brain. No complete sentences. Just clipped words and bits of ideas that might make sense to me, but likely come across as garbled nonsense. Just thinking about such ridiculousness hurts my brain.

Post. bank. later. family. see.

And Yet Another New Holiday!

Happy Take-Your-Daughter-to-the-Hospital-for-Immunizations-So-You-Can-Hit-Your-Head-Really-Hard-on-the-Corner-of-a-Hanging-Metal-TV-Stand-and-Knock-Yourself-to-the-Ground-and-Draw-Blood-and-Leave-a-Mound-on-Your-Noggin Day, everyone!

Happy Take-Your-Daughter-to-Work-So-She-Can-Pee-Her-Pants-and-You-Get-to-Go-Home-Early Day!

So, yeah. That happened today.

Orange Ferry -- Going to Get the Fam (Part 1)

After over three weeks of being away from my family, I made the trek to Osaka to pick them up. I rode the Orange Ferry, a small cruise ship that travels from Toyo port (about a half-our from our apartment in Imabari) to southern Osaka.

At about 10PM, I grabbed my ticket, boarded the boat, and rode the escalator(!!) up to the main floor, which looked like the inside of a hotel. They had two lounge rooms, including one for smokers, with chairs and tables set up in pairs facing a giant wide screen TV. There was a full scale restaurant, as well as a coffee shop and snack kiosk. Each floor had hallways filled with rooms on both sides, just like a hotel.

The rooms range from wide open rooms where the floor is split up into thirty spots for futons, to luxurious private rooms with big beds. I originally chose to sleep in the room with thirty other people, until I realized that I could upgrade to an 8 person bunk bed-style room for only ten dollars more. When I got to my room, someone was in my bed. Each bed has curtains that shut to both block out the light from outside and keep in any light from the overhead reading light in each nook. I knocked on the bed wall and asked if perhaps he wasn't mistaken, and he responded that he hadn't really made sure. Looking at his ticket, he realized that he had entered the wrong room. His stuff was strewn all over, so I offered to just switch rooms with him.

I put my backpack on the bed and took my shoes off, seeing slippers at the foot of each bed. In Japan, people never wear shoes inside their own house, so any walking around inside (though not on tatami) is done while wearing slippers. It's the same in any public place where shoes aren't allowed. Everybody wore their complimentary slippers. Everybody. I slipped my feet in, the back 5 inches of each foot hanging off the back end, and waddled my way to the kiosk to get a drink.

I popped my head into the men's shower area, which unsurprisingly featured a whole lot of Japanese male nudity, without any sort of barrier to keep passersby from catching a glimpse while the door was open. Not in the mood to hang out with a bunch of naked boys, I went back to my room to try to sleep.

The boat departed at about 10:30, but I didn't even realize we had left the port until it was after 11:30. I slid the curtain shut, took my evening meds, and fell asleep right away.

At 5AM, I woke up, having drunk a bit too much water the night before. I tried to go back to bad after a quick trip to the restroom, but right as I started to doze off, the wake-up chime and announcement sounded:

"Thanks for riding the Orange Ferry. We'll be docking in about 45 minutes. Feel free to buy our repulsive, outrageously overpriced breakfast buffet, or just wait until we get to Osaka so you can search aimlessly for a McDonald's that will leave you with lots of blogging material. Have a pleasant day."

I slept pretty well on the Orange Ferry. I'd definitely be willing to do it again, though next time I think I'll go straight to my cubicle bed and fall asleep before the boat even leaves the port.

Dude. I'm Sick of Hospitals.

I’ve been to multiple hospitals over the past week (four or so), and today I found out that the underlying cause of all my problems might actually be asthma, which I’ve never been diagnosed with but always wondered if I had. When I have my anxiety attacks, it’s usually time for bed, and luckily, it’s day time in America. So I can call or Skype my family and take my mind off everything.

I have a friend out here who has invited me over to learn his hobby (of which I’ve made plenty of fun in my day)–Magic: The Gathering. I’ve actually had a good time socializing and learning something that does plenty to distract me and exercise my brain.

I’m excited to feel better. I’ve never really had to take medications (other than stuff to kill parasites and dengue fever during my time in Guatemala), so it’s a bit weird. And I admit, it felt weird to visit the “crazy person hospital”. There was probably a more appropriate place for me to visit than what seemed to be the place where Hugo Reyes lived in LOST.

Napa and San Francisco Bay Area Construction

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Come Back Already, Stef

So, yeah. Panic attacks are very, very real. And they’re very unpleasant.

It’s nice to know that you aren’t having a heart attack, though. Gives you some control over the situation.

Thank goodness for friends–especially ones who have already experienced your trials.

Craaaaazy Weight Loss

So, three months ago I weighed 232 pounds. Now I weigh 214.

18 pounds in three months.

I went to see the doctor about a persistent cough (4+ weeks), and chest x-rays showed no problems. Afterward, the doctor alternated between the words “sutoresu” and “arerugi” (stress and allergy), repeating them in a slow, booming voice seemingly meant for someone with severe brain damage and/or hearing loss.

She didn’t offer any other words until I showed clear discomfort with the way she was speaking to me. I had already established in many previous visits (as well as the current one) that I speak and understand Japanese. I think I’m done with that hospital.

The Seaweed is Always Greener

Trying to have a positive outlook about Stef and the girls staying in America three weeks after I would return, I constantly talked about all the things I'd be able to accomplish with so much free time. I'd finally have time to study Japanese as much as I want. I'd actually get to play some video games, compose some music, hang out with Japanese friends and improve my slang, and probably lose some weight in the absence of Stef's wonderful cooking.

Five days into my solitary life in Japan, it's nowhere near as wonderful as I'd hoped. There's so much time, but so little to do. If I were a junior high school student, my Saturday of nothing-but-PlayStation and not even leaving the house would be a dream. Having tasted the sweet companionship of marriage and fatherhood, my free time feels more like detention.

Surely, I'm losing weight. I can't be bothered to cook or eat--it's just too much of a hassle when everything you eat tastes like cardboard. My already waning appetite withers to the point that I'm forcing myself to swallow an overripe banana for lunch at 2:45 PM, just so I don't go into a starvation-induced coma. I don't even dare attempt to compose music on my computer, given my minimal brain function. When I tried to make a full dinner of salad, spaghetti, and garlic bread, I had to settle for the latter two upon finding the greens I had bought just two days earlier covered in mold.

Oh, but there are no dirty dishes to act as the bane of your existence, you might say. Okay, so you might have a point there. But I'd much rather have a never-ending sink of filthy dishes from meals with my family.

What about all that talk about hanging out with Japanese friends? Hasn't happened yet--and I suppose that it might help if I actually had friends who were Japanese. I've still got two weeks to make something happen. Perhaps I'll play basketball on Thursday (it's currently Tuesday night and as I type, my friends are actually playing basketball). Thursdays are always easier than Tuesdays, since the Tuesday practices take place at Sakurai junior high school, a 30-minute bike ride. The 10-minute cruise from Minami junior high on Thursdays is much easier after three-man-weaving and crab-walking my life force into oblivion.

Perhaps one of the biggest causes of my current malaise is the fact that I just returned from America, where I can read everything, understand everything, and buy just about anything. I still have a valid drivers license in California, and being able to drive anywhere whenever I wanted was much more convenient than bicycle-only Japan.

I had a blast in California with Ryan, Stef, and all the Alkemas and Stouts. Ryan, Stef, Rich, Brittney and Bryce, Ashley, Andy, Sa and Zack, Matt and Anna, and Nate all accompanied me to an Oakland A's game. We sat in the third deck directly behind home plate, which despite being so far from the players actually provided a rather satisfying view of the game. Included in each ticket was 6 dollars' worth of food vouchers for the third-deck concession stand, which was essentially enough for a hot dog and half of a drink. I stuffed myself with a pulled pork sandwich, a drink, and an enormous paper tray of nachos, smothered with that deliciously nasty, artery-clogging processed nacho cheese.

The game itself was ultimately little more than a tease, given that the A's would give up a run or two in the top-half of an inning, then tie it up in the bottom-half, only to fall to the Angels in ten innings, never having led the game. The next game--which was the game I most wanted to attend--the A's won 15-2.

Regardless of the outcome of our game, we had a lot of fun. Few things in life are more enjoyable to me than acting like a fool at a sporting event with all my friends and family. Stef will attest to this.

I love America. I love grass. I love sprinklers. I love front yards, back yards, driveways, garages, couches, and carpet. Ah, carpet. Stef and I joked about making carpet and grass angels. Such a love for plush carpet and grass may seem strange, but try living in a country with next to no grass (sports are often played on dirt and astroturf in Japan) and tatami flooring, and you'll soon see what you're missing. Mia fell face-first off the couch in Napa, and she bounced off the carpet and walked away without shedding a single tear. No such thing would ever happen on tatami.

I love being able to go the grocery store and find so many dozens of aisles full of things that don't taste like fish. Hey--I love fish; sushi is wonderful. But I sometimes wonder how necessary it is to make all of your non-fish food taste like fish. Some of that stuff--seaweed (nori), in particular--has grown on me. Heck, Kelsey absolutely devours the stuff, along with pickled ginger and salmon roe. But the food in America is glorious. Pizza--scratch that--good pizza. Mexican food. In-N-Out. Snacks that don't taste like fish. There's so much food to love.

Mia seems to be thriving in America. She's so much more trusting, more bubbly, less needy. It's exciting to think about when the kids will both have more English-speaking friends to play with. Kelsey's doing pretty well too, but she's got a bit of adjusting to do. She's not used to having kids to play with--especially not kids who speak the same language. There are a lot of things to look forward to when we eventually return.

Don't get me wrong--there are still a lot of things that I love about Japan. It's just a lot harder to appreciate them when you're living alone. Once Stef and the girls are back out here, I'll get back into a routine, and I'll be just as content as ever. We've got just one more year here, after which we will gladly move back to America to continue the next chapter of life.

Before going back to the States to visit, I really had no desire to do so. While I love seeing family, I just wanted to do my time in Japan and return when it was all over. I've felt a lot of anxiety about finding a job after Japan, and have generally feared going back to such economic uncertainty.

My visit laid most of those fears to rest. I'm sure I'll still stress about finding a job, but I am much less afraid of going back. There's just so much to love. I'm sure we'll miss a lot about Japan when we eventually leave--the food, the people, the language (okay, so that one's just me), etc.--but I know we'll find ways to occasionally fulfill those needs. I'm sure we can find seaweed in America.

Hope and a Side of Fries

I went to a burger shop today which had a window ad for a new burger "loaded with your hopes and dreams." With a serious expression, I pointed to the overhead menu and asked the girl at the register if the burgers truly contained my dreams and hopes. The register girl froze, unable to muster an answer, and the fortyish year-old lady managing the store behind her nervously cocked her head to the side and confirmed that my dreams and hopes were, indeed, included with the purchase of said hamburger.

I flashed a smile and both women laughed uncomfortably. After finishing my burger, I told the girl on my way out the door that my hopes and dreams were much tastier than I ever could have imagined. “Hai” was her only response.

In other weird Japan news, a group of seventh grade girls pulled me aside after class today to tell me how nice I smell.

Why Eigo Noto Sucks: or Why ALTs Feel Worthless

So, I’m consigned to the fact that my students aren’t going to learn English. I’m lucky if I see them more than once a month, which wouldn’t be a problem if they were getting adequate instruction on days I’m not there. I’m starting to question the effectiveness of teaching once a month to elementary school kids (ha!).
 
Like I said in my previous post today, Eigo Noto could be a very helpful resource for schools, since most of them aren’t going to be able to have a full-time ALT. Unfortunately, the lessons are so inefficiently organized that it’s almost a waste of time and resources. On top of that, a slew of questionable production decisions make it so that what they do learn is often tainted.
 
There are no grammar explanations*, and the teachers certainly don’t understand the grammar. But then they’re expected to perform with correct grammar in front of the whole class. For example, in the ninth and final section of the fifth grade book, the kids learn a couple phrases that are important to know at restaurants: “What would you like?” and “I’d like ~”. The problem is that there were already three to four weeks of lessons for the same material earlier in the year, except we taught them that waiter will ask, “What do you want?”, to which you respond, “I want ~”. Which, of course, they have long-since forgotten (not a huge loss, since you usually wouldn’t say those specific words at a restaurant—think “I’ll have ~” or “I’d like ~”). So, we have two lessons in the same text book that take up four weeks each, devoted to the same exact thing, just with slightly different wording.
 
*In the interest of full disclosure, I originally typed “There’s no grammar explanations”, which both I and Microsoft Word’s grammar checker know to be grammatically incorrect. I hung my head in shame before going back to my angry rant about bad grammar.
 
Since we also focused a few lessons on "What do you like?", the kids generally just revert back to that, since there's no contrast of current and previous vocab or grammar points.

There’s no sound in Japanese that matches the wo of would**, so Japanese people say, “oohdoh,” instead. The homeroom teachers have spoken English incorrectly their whole lives, so they don’t know that there’s anything to correct. The kids also don’t know that the ‘d in I’d is a shortened version of would, so instead, they’re forced to just parrot the two phrases. To make matters worse, most ALTs can’t speak Japanese well enough to give a detailed explanation of a grammar principle, so it never gets taught.

*It’s the same with woman, which is generally pronounced ooh-mahn in Japan, which could be a cool man-horse hybrid (horse = uma in Japanese)



I take time out of the lesson to correct overall pronunciation, and to draw diagrams that help people understand how to produce sounds correctly or remember a grammar concept. If necessary, I’ll give an explanation in Japanese. I’d like to think that it helps, since they always seem to come around—but I’m sure they forget it the moment I walk out the door. After all, they won’t see me for another month.
 
Like I said, the teachers were often taught incorrectly, so the ignorance spreads like wildfire. Here’s an actual exchange in which my friend Crescenda took part:
 
Crescenda: How do you say 猫(cat) in English?
Student: uh…kyaht-tah?
Homeroom teacher: No, it’s kyaht-to!
[Crescenda commits hara-kiri]
 
The other day, one of the teachers reprimanded a student for referring to the fictional teacher in the lesson as Yamamoto-sensei. Sensei in English is teacher, so of course, we say Yamamoto-teacher in English, right? WRONG. I’m okay with them calling me Jesshe-sensei (they can’t say see—it comes out like she). I am not okay with them calling me Jesse-teacher. That’s just ridiculous.
 
Some teachers understand that we don’t call teachers teacher—that we use Mr. Yamamoto instead of Yamamoto-teacher. But then they extend the Mr. to all males, as an extension of the –san honorific suffix. I’m Mr. Jesse, Babe Ruth becomes Mr. Babe Ruth, Michael Jackson becomes Mr(s). Michael Jackson, some kid name Junpei in class becomes Mr. Junpei, Daniel-san from The Karate Kid becomes Mr. Daniel, Mister Rogers becomes Mr. Mister Rogers, and so on.
 
Like I said, there are no grammar explanations in Eigo Noto. Indefinite articles (a in a car and an in an apple) and definite articles (the car, this cat, that skid mark, etc) are very hard for Japanese learners of English. There’s basically no equivalent in Japanese. There’s also usually no plural marker***, like s in cats. So, when a Japanese kid says, “I like dog”, it makes perfect sense to him, but elicits a giggle from the ALT, who is usually sure that the kid doesn’t actually eat dog.

***Sure, there’s –tachi and –ra, but they’re not always used and definitely not as essential.
 
On top of all of that, the words that the kids are “learning” are words that are already used in Japan and have been katakana-ized into the Japanese language. For example, these are common, everyday words in Japan:
 
• Hamburger = Hahmbahgah
• Hot dog = Hotto doggu
• Salad = Sarada
• Orange juice = Orenji juusu
• Fried Chicken = Furai chikin
 
In other words, the kids spent eight weeks of the year “studying” words that they already knew.
 
Anyway, here’s our restaurant demonstration for the kids:
 
Me: Hello.
Homeroom Teacher: Hello. Watt oodoh you rike?
Me: I’d like a hamburger, a hot dog, and salad.
HRT: OK. Hahmbahgah, hotto doggu, ando sarada. He-yah you ah.
Me: Thank you.
HRT: You-ah weh-ru-kahm.
 
Power to these HRTs, who are being forced to teach a language they secretly (or not so secretly) hate. They keep on keepin’ on, even though the Ministry of Education is out to get them. They get their pay cut while every school employs an ALT and buys $10,000 touch screen TVs for their English class, yet they keep on teachin'.
 
My goal is not so much to make fun of the HRT’s pronunciation as much as to point out that it’s important that they get an actual native speaker in the room that can help coach the kids on pronunciation. The kids are usually really quick to pick up proper pronunciation, while the adults are so set in their incorrect ways that they’ll likely never change (though they could if they wanted to).
 
So, it follows that any recordings of spoken English that are going to be used to teach kids correct pronunciation should be spoken by native speakers, right? This is where Eigo Noto really drops the ball.



It's obvious that whoever's announcing the food is not a native English speaker. With the nasalization and over-stressed Rs, I'd guess that he's probably Japanese. It's a pretty standard mistake for a Japanese person that's trying to sound American. All the comedians on TV talk that way, so the kids do it, too. They all end up sounding like bad caricatures of Wario.

I'm sure that the voice "artist" speaks English well. Just not like a native. And kids need to hear a native, or else they'll go around saying FRY chicken, yogart, and homburrgurr, sending the whole world in a downward spiral toward its eventual cataclysmic doom.

You want to teach kids that there are different accents in South Africa, Australia, America, and England? Getting a South African, Australian, American, or English person to record some dialogue would seem helpful, right? Here’s what we actually get:



Yes, that’s right. Richard Brant’n and Chongi are the same person. He’s from Korea AND Australlia. And he likes boisboll, among other sporrrts. Seriously. How hard would it be to get an actual Australian to do an Australian accent?

And I get the whole "there are different accents" angle. But an American faking an Australian accent is bad. These are things I shouldn't have to bear:

• An American faking a Korean-English accent
• An American faking a French-English accent
• An American faking an Italian-English accent

Why is it necessary for kids to learn how other countries incorrectly pronounce English? Do I study Japanese by listening to how Chinese people speak it?****

****No.

Eigo noto's got a lot a good in it, but they need to fix this stuff if they want it to be effective. They can start with new voice actors:



So let me get this straight--I'm supposed to know how a Frenchman, a Japanese man, a Korean, and a dog speak English? Oh, and I'm pretty sure that Chongert is also the dog.

Eigo Noto and the Role of ALTs

A lot of people come to Japan expecting their assistant language teacher position to require a lot of work and responsibility, only to find themselves sitting in the staff room for hours each day. On the other hand, a ton of ALTs have no teaching aspirations and get frustrated when their schools have the gall to expect them to do anything. I'm somewhere between the two examples, in that I came to Japan expecting a lot of work, but am actually okay with it when they don't give me anything to do. After all, my main goal in coming to Japan is to learn Japanese, and the fewer classes I have to teach, the more time I can dedicate to studying.

A popular saying among JET Program participants is "every situation is different." I've witnessed its truth. When I was on Uoshima, I taught between zero and three lessons per day, though one class was probably the daily average. Most weeks, I'd teach about 8 lessons, three or four of which were prepared by my teaching partner. The remaining classes required my own lesson planning and teaching. Given that there was only one person per class, I wasn't able to recycle much of my lesson material. While it was nice to have complete freedom in the lesson planning stage, it consumed a lot of my time and caused a lot of stress.

Here in Imabari, I teach at five different schools, three of which have class sizes between 25 and 40. At four of my five schools (including both of my junior high schools), lessons are generally prepared by the English teachers, and I just show up and participate in the lesson.

The Ministry of Education has developed Eigo Noto (English Notebook), a two-volume set of English textbooks that kids all over Japan are expected to study during fifth and sixth grade. The books come with an audio CD an interactive CD-rom companion that can be played on a laptop hooked to a projector as a teaching help. It also comes with a teacher's manual that has lesson plans written in Japanese, so that the Japanese homeroom teachers that are forced to teach English with an ALT won't have to stress about preparing a lesson. They merely need to refer to the guide, which breaks everything down into lessons.

Of course, it doesn't always work that way. There are plenty of occasions at the elementary school where Eigo Noto lessons supposedly prepared by the teacher are new to both me and the teacher with whom I'm team-teaching. During those awkward times, I do my best to take control of the lesson and relieve some of the pressure on the other teacher. Even though things aren't perfect, they usually work out just fine in the end, even if there's a little discomfort. Just having a lesson plan to follow, even if it's lackluster, is still a good start.

Two of my three elementary schools use Eigo Noto, and one of them is expected to, but consistently leaves me hanging. At that school, it's basically all up to me, and that puts a lot of wear on my body. I usually have to teach four large classes each time I go (which is less than many other ALTs, so I guess I can't complain). The problem with that school is that the teachers don't know how to use Eigo Noto. When I teach fifth and sixth grade there, the teachers are expected to have prepared a lesson beforehand, yet they generally come to me and ask if I've prepared anything. I'm perfectly happy with preparing lessons—I just need to know in advance. The preferred method, however, would be for them to be involved with the lesson planning from Eigo Noto, so that we could both have an idea of what the heck is going on in our lessons.

Anyway, all this is just a long way of saying that Eigo Noto, which I have previously poked fun at, is useful. It's a very convenient way to help Japanese teachers who can't speak much English to prepare English lessons for use with an ALT.

Given the dearth of qualified English teachers in Japan, the Ministry of Education has to settle for the next best thing: a standardized text and ALTs. Given the high cost of hiring and transporting ALTs, they're forced to split us up between a bunch of schools. Not all ALTs, mind you, teach at a lot of schools, but most do. Because of differing ALT usage, it makes sense that the Ministry of Education wants Japanese home room teachers to have enough materials to teach without an ALT, while still making the lessons ALT and native speaker-friendly. I fully support this model, since there's likely no better solution.

Now that I've given this disclaimer, I'd like to talk about some of the shortcomings of Eigo Noto. If you want to teach kids effectively, it's important that you correct mistakes in the text and other teaching materials. I'll break it down as a separate post, so that people who don't care about why I'm criticizing the book don't have to read this post to get to the good stuff.

I Think I'm Turning Japanese

Out here, kids go to school from 7 until 4, and then often go to a “juku” cram school to study for school entrance exams. Today, I asked one of my schools about possibly leaving a few minutes early once or twice a month so that I could go to a special cram school for Japanese study. The juku classes fall on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I only teach at that school about four or five times a month. I figured that since I’m always studying Japanese at school between 3 and 4 PM, it’d be nice if I could use some of the down time to study with an actual teacher. Besides, it’s not like they even know I’m there between 3 and 4--I never, ever teach after 3.

So, I mentioned to the principal that some other ALTs in town have gotten permission to leave school a little early for juku classes, hoping that he’d see the light and let me go. I was afraid to ask, since this school has always been extremely strict about me being there, even if nobody talks to me or I have no classes scheduled. The principal told me that he couldn’t answer me right then, but that he’d get back to me. A few minutes ago, he pulled me into his office with another teacher to bear the bad news that, unfortunately, it would be too much of an inconvenience to let me go a little bit early once a month.

I said that I understood and that I didn’t want to inconvenience the school in any way. I apologized for making them take the time to figure things out and thanked them for their kind understanding. I acted like a good Japanese employee should act and walked away, defeated.

In the end, I’m not upset that they aren’t letting me go. It’s their right to make me stay as long as my contract requires. A part of me wants to be upset and rant about how pointless something is or about how much I’ve been wronged, but I really don’t have the energy. Sometimes it’s easier to just accept defeat. How very Japanese of me.

That said, the American in me still wants to speak out against the drawn-out process. It would have been much easier for everyone if they just said no from the beginning, rather than making it seem like such an ordeal. While I understand well the whole “duty to your employer” angle, I still wish we could have skipped the formalities and just talked to each other without all the social distance and subservient bowing. Perhaps I’m not turning Japanese after all.

Happy New Y..end of January!

A month without blog updates? Perish the thought!

But seriously--I can't believe I haven't blogged in 2010. It's time to change that, even if it's a lackluster effort.

I don't feel so bad about not updating my blog. It's not that I've grown apathetic--I've just become so obsessed with studying Japanese that all my non-teaching time at work (between 2 and 4 hours per day) is devoted to grammar and kanji study.

First, let me announced that we've decided to stay for a third year. Since Mia's going to need a heart procedure in the next year or so, we wanted to make sure that we were covered by insurance. It's hard to believe that we've re-contracted, especially considering how a couple months ago there was an almost zero-percent chance we'd stay. Stef has had some experiences out here that have made life a bit easier on her. That's not to say that it's easy to be away from family, but it's definitely more palatable. I'll let her tell everybody about those experiences in her blog. I'm extremely excited to stay, and have redoubled my efforts with the language in hopes of really solidifying my skills.

Stef was speaking with a lady who said that she doubted if I'd be able to achieve fluency in Japanese in 3 years. She hasn't really heard me speak, so I can't blame her for saying that. And truthfully, while I would say that I already do "speak Japanese", I haven't yet achieved what I would call fluency. But I see no reason why I won't be totally fluent after another 18 months in Japan. I'll surely have passed level 2 of the JLPT, if not level 1.

Many people consider themselves fluent in Japanese if they can hold natural conversations. But they may not be able to carry on a functional conversation in polite Japanese. I can already speak polite Japanese and am well on my way to speaking decent slang. Also, I want to be able to read 2000+ kanji without straining. Many conversationally fluent people are lost if they have to read something written in kanji. I'm more than halfway to my goal of 2000 kanji, and find my reading comprehension improving exponentially.

My dreams are flooded with Japanese. I wake up in the middle of each night and have grammar coursing through my brain. I repeat the phrases and grammar over and over in hopes that I'll remember to write them down or study them in depth the next day. I usually remember.

I recently visited a website that talks about turning every aspect of your life into some Japanese experience. People who frequent this site and buy into the theory spend hours each day watching anime and reading Japanese comics. I don't have time for this, especially since I have a family to tend to. Furthermore, I really don't care about anime or comics. Instead, I spend hours a day at school trying to have conversations with my coworkers, eavesdropping on all their conversations with others.

I try to read every symbol I see, and I'm constantly engaging my brain, asking myself how I'd say something in Japanese. Stef will often catch me muttering, only to realize that I'm speaking to myself in Japanese. On my bike rides to and from work, I drill difficult grammar structures and words that are hard to say. It's scary enough that a gigantic foreigner is riding around on a girl's bike with a basket. The fact that I'm talking in circles to myself makes me that much more frightening.

I've also been teaching the young men at church. The lessons are stressful to prepare, but extremely rewarding. I find myself consulting my dictionary less and less as I read through the teacher's manual. Compared to when I first started teaching, my Japanese is leaps and bounds ahead.

Dad's coming out to visit us for a few weeks. I'm very excited. We're thinking of visiting Osaka and Kyoto, along with some places that are closer to Imabari. He's coming in the beginning of March and staying until the beginning of April. I'm excited to have him come.

Then, in May, Mom and Rory are coming to stay with us for a couple weeks. We don't have many plans yet, other than fishing out by Uoshima with Azuma-san. We still need to see if that's a possibility. If not, I'm sure we could find some way to set up a fishing trip.

As a side note, I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog, and buying a domain name to go along with it. The reasoning behind this is that everybody already knows that Axel is better than Skate, and so nobody will ever go to a site that apparently doesn't contain any new information. I'll keep you posted.