Souji

I have a confession to make. I used to hate cleaning. Wipe that baffled look off your face--it's true. As recently as 2 weeks ago, I hated all types of cleaning. Today, I find myself a changed man.

Every morning, I lumber up a hill to school. Upon arrival, one of the teachers is always ready to pop a Japanese pop CD into the school PA system. The music signals the beginning of souji, our cleaning time. Rather than hiring a janitor, many schools in Japan leave the cleaning to the teaching staff and students. In the morning, we usually clean the school grounds by weeding and raking. At first, I didn't know where to go. I'd look around to see what other people were doing and try to make myself as transparent as possible.

Morning cleaning had nothing on afternoon souji. The music would start and everybody would disappear. Sometimes I'd go the whole session without seeing another soul. I'd grab a rag and start scrubbing something.

I'm pleased to announce that I've changed. Do I hate cleaning now? Yes. But at least I know what's going on. It turns out that there's a cleaning schedule written in kanji, the elaborate writing system borrowed from Chinese. Even after this revelation, I still struggled to know where I should clean. It always seemed like people were just cleaning the same things over and over, even though they weren't dirty. Luckily, I have an advantage that helps me find new things to clean: I'm almost two meters tall. I no longer have to search for places to clean; I just clean the hall walls and windows where nobody else can reach them!

As for the outside, I found that they don't really care what you're doing as long as you look busy. Every morning, I trudge up the hill, grab a hoe, and head off to a corner to yank weeds. As I crouch down and hack at the ground, I take a few minutes to meditate about lessons, future plans, and anything else that's pressing. Okay, so I still hate cleaning. But souji time is actually pretty therapeutic now.

Don't fear the reaper

Ryan, I love you.

Our First Hike

So, we went on our first real (well, as real as it can get with Kelsey) hike here in Uoshima. We walked about halfway around the perimeter and then back. It really is beautiful out here. Here are some pictures of the hike. Click the picture to see the rest.

Uoshima Hike

Thanks, Stef!

So, I was going to blog today, but Stef already posted a lot of what I was going to say! Check out her newest post at jessenstef.spaces.live.com.

So many thoughts, so little time

The other day, I was outside, weeding the school grounds with the staff and students. Suddenly, a bee charged at me, sending me flying into the air in a hoe-swinging panic. I ran around for two minutes, flailing at the bee that followed me as though it had some sort of fear-seeking lock-on technology. I finally lured it away when another bee came at me from the other direction. After evading it, I went back to weeding. Of course, a third bee felt left out and came at me with the furor of a thousand suns, and I scrambled to safety. Cleaning time ended and we were allowed to go back inside for the morning staff meeting.

During staff meetings, the teachers take turns making announcements in a very formal manner (bows and everything). Since I don't speak much Japanese yet, I always sit quietly during the morning meeting. This time, I waited until everybody had made their announcements, and when the person conducting the meeting asked if there were any other matters to discuss, I raised my hand, stood up, and said with a straight face, "I just got chased by three bees. It was not fun. That is all." I sat back down as though nothing strange had happened. The other teachers chuckled.

At church last week, we were sitting in the back row of Sunday School singing a hymn, when I realized that the whole congregation--with the exception of Me, Stef, and the American missionary--was singing in unison. I thought of the Japanese beliefs about social harmony and not wanting to stick out, and realized how plain it can seem sometimes. While, the Japanese don't have to deal with as many insurgents, they often appear to be devoid of their own personality. Just as our alto, tenor, and bass voices added color to an otherwise drab chorus, so do we, as Americans, add a bit of color to Japan. Whenever I start to wonder why they pay me to be here, I can just look back to Sunday School.

This weekend, we had a pretty cool festival in town. I performed Highway Star for the first time, and I think I did pretty well. Sure, it's a lot of screaming. But it's much easier to have some stage presence when you're rocking out to Deep Purple than when you're singing about how you can make your baby smile.

That same night, Ryota, Tetsuya's brother, danced and sang on stage with my young students. Japanese music tends to borrow phrases of English, such as in the following, "watashi wa anata o I LOVE YOU FOR EVER BABY" or "sumimasen, wakarimasen, kono yuubinkyoku de HIT THAT GIRL YEAH!" For some reason, they always write the English in these songs in capital letters on the CDs.

One thing that makes these songs a bit funny is the fact that Japanese phonetics are not like American English phonetics. The letter "I" is pronounced like the latin "I", so words like "hit" and "his" sound like "heat" and "he's", and so on. Imagine my surprise when the emcee announced the next song to be sung and danced to by Ryota and the gang: "IT'S MY SOUL!" I know that the Japanese can seem strange sometimes, but I had no idea that they were that morbid. I couldn't help but chuckle every time the chorus came around, and Ryota told us all about how "something-something-EATS MY SOUL! YEAH!"

Gotta go teach! But first, here's some video of the festival, as well as a little video of Kelsey running in town.

Update

Tonight's the first part of the omikoshi festival in Uoshima. The mikoshi is a heavy little portable shrine on beams that people put on their shoulders and carry around all day. They wave it around wildly and sometimes even take it into the water. That part doesn't take place until tomorrow, but tonight we have a party up at the shrine. There will be chicken, yakisoba, and lots of people. Oh, and Uoshima'X's second performance. Tonight I sing Highway Star for the first time. We'll see how that goes. I'll try to get some pictures of everything.

As for the ad for Exclusive Exteriors--I'm trying to get the site onto the search engines, and that's one way to do it.

Landscaping in Sacramento

If you ever need landscaping or concrete work done and you live in the Sacramento area, check out Exclusive Exteriors. Rory Merrill does a great job and offers all sorts of services. I'm impressed by how much he loves what he does, and how clean the job site is.

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