花見... again!

I realize that it's taken me a year to get around to updating, but now that I'm writing again, I hope there's still someone around checking this thing!

To try and lure you back in, I'll tell an anecdote about my day-to-day life in Japan:
While eating dinner, I was watching one of the weekly variety shows on basic cable. In Japan, it's not uncommon for variety shows to feature a little box in the upper left-hand corner streaming the reactions of celebrities who are watching the same variety show -- somehow this is exciting/entertaining. Anyway, this particular show was hosted by two members of a popular boy band and featured about 6 high school guys, dressed in drag, walking around backstage at a famous Tokyo fashion show. These 6 guys were chosen from over 2,000 students who auditioned and were being paraded around the backstage area meeting (and shocking) all of the show's most famous models. At the end of the show, they get to walk the runway at the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show to shouts of "oh my god, they're SO cute!" from the audience. The end. This was an hour-long show from 8-9pm on a Tuesday night, only in Japan.

I've just seen the end of my third cherry blossom season here in Japan, this time seeing the best sakura in Inokashira Park. The sakura opened 6 days ahead of schedule this year, throwing Tokyo into a panic because many well planned hanami parties would be taking place a week too late. In addition to that, we had a streak of rain that took some of the fun out of trying to enjoy the blossoms, but I still managed to take some good pictures:

Other than that, not too much to report. A quick run through of the past 12 months -- traveled around the Kansai area, finally went to Nikko, matsuri-ed through the summer, finished up my 2 years as an ALT, moved to Tokyo, started a new job, have been to Hong Kong twice -- once for shopping, once through work, made my way through Hakone and Kyoto during a long weekend, stayed in Japan for my first traditional New Years experience, bought a Wii, got over the whole Wii-thing, went home to America for a week or so in March and have been enjoying the last few weeks of spring!






Hong Kong


Aquarium in Hakone





Hong Kong





I'll try and update again sometime soon. In the meantime, please leave a comment and let me know that someone out there is still reading!

花見 ~ Hanami!

'tis the season... cherry blossom season, that is.
As I mentioned last year, the blossoming of cherry blossom trees throughout Japan is one of the most exciting, symbolic, and anticipated events of the year. It also coincides well with spring vacation, so people travel all over Japan to view the sakura... then sit underneath them picnicking, taking an inordinate amount of pictures and enjoying Japan's lack of legislation against public alcohol consumption.
☆mini Japanese lesson:
Hanami （花見）takes the 2 Chinese characters for 花＝"flower" and 見＝"view," sticks them together and creates... can you guess? "flower viewing" ...did I just blow your mind?
This year I attended 2 hanami events, one in Tokyo's Sumida Park (along the Sumida River in Asakusa) and once in Gunma, taking advantage of the week-or-so delay in peak sakura viewing. Both days came and went with the threat of rain, but we stayed dry and had a great time.

Last month's graduation was a day of mixed emotions. It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to that particular group of students, but I'm also excited for them... entering high school is a major life change for them at this point and I'm looking forward to the days when they wander into the staffroom to say hello.
Today is the first day of school and the sakura are still in full bloom... which makes everyone happier than you can probably imagine... even me.
...that's all the news for now. Hope you're enjoying the spring!

random things 1-7

As I mentioned the other day, classes are officially over for the 3rd year students--their days are filled with 'studying,' entrance exams and sitting through a million meetings about high school--which leaves only three 1st and 2nd year homerooms... and amounts to almost no class for me this week. So I've decided to use that time constructively (?) and blog about random things. (don't forget that you can double click to enlarge any of the pictures)

random thing #1: school lunch
Have I blogged about the wonders of Japanese school lunch yet? I can't remember...

Anyway... despite bringing my camera with me this afternoon, I still forgot to take a picture of today's course, so the focus of this particular 'random thing' section is the how and where of school lunch.
How: school lunch is not prepared in a school kitchen (like mine always was in America)... instead, all of the city's school lunch is prepared at a central facility and delivered to each school. 4th period is over at 12:45 and the students who are in charge of carrying lunch back to their classrooms flood the delivery room to collect the various plates, breads and food containers that were delivered by the city. Although there is an extremely high potential for chaos, the carrying of food up and down 2 flights of stairs (by clumsy junior high or elementary schoolers) is actually an extremely orderly process.
Where: once the school lunch makes it to the classrooms, it is dished out into perfectly even portions (I don't know how they do this, but they always do) and everyone sits at their desk to eat. 15-20 minutes later, the students clean everything up, carry the dirty plates and empty containers back down to the delivery room and set to work cleaning the school. Seriously.


random thing #2: the "dream aquarium"
The landing between the 2nd and 3rd floors of my elementary school is decorated with an "aquarium" of marine life, mostly fish, that has been exactly the same since I arrived 18+ months ago. Upon further examination, I think that the fish are actually glued to the wall... indicating that it's a much more permanent fixture than I'd originally assumed. It's an incredibly cute idea, but some of the fish are starting to look a bit... decrepit... and I can't help but wonder how long this little installation has been in place. 2? 5 years??


random thing #3: student calligraphy
These pieces were entered in a city-wide contest sometime last fall and have been hanging in the hallway ever since. Since it's one of my favorite things at school, I thought I'd share. (^-^)


random thing #4: walking down the hall in elementary school

Everyone's seen those documentaries on the nature channel where they drop some food in the water and suddenly there are a bazillion piranhas coming out of no where, from every direction to try and get a taste... well, that's what it's like to walk into the kindergarten or down the hallway in elementary school... except, instead of piranhas there's a swarm of adorable, smiling children who just want to shout "hallo!!" and get a high-five.
(*note* these kids are actually pretty subdued because they think I'm taking a picture and know that jumping up and down like maniacs is not conducive to good picture taking)


random thing #5: my personal battle against boring English names
The five English speakers featured in our textbook series are named "Mike Davis," "Judy Brown," "Ann Green," "Lisa" and "Bill." I think this is boring, so when I make worksheets I give my characters names like "Austin" and "Madeline," with hobbies like surfing and looking for a girlfriend or talking on the phone. Luckily I work with Japanese teachers who think this is a great idea and I get to giggle when my boys answer the final exam question about their interests with "I'm most interested in girls."
(*note* I realize this isn't an earth shatteringly clever idea, but try to tell that to my students.)


random thing #6: unicycles
Things that are taught in Japanese elementary school/Cirque du Soleil training camp: team jump rope, walking on stilts, walking on parallel beams of varying heights, riding a unicycle forwards and backwards. Seriously.


random thing #7: all the singing
There is considerably more singing in Japan than I ever experienced in public school on Long Island. All school events begin with the school song and there are several events during the year where the main focus is singing (and don't forget that the students also play the piano and conduct the chorus). Last week's farewell party for the 3rd year students was no exception, so for your viewing pleasure, I've uploaded 2 videos.

Above is the rehearsal for the 1st and 2nd year students... my favorite thing about this is the ridiculously dramatic drop in height where the 2nd year boys are standing next to the 1st year boys.

This is the final performance from the 3rd year students... they're considerably better than the younger kids, not only because their voice changing has calmed down a bit, but also because they're one of the best student choruses in the city. I think this is amazing because it's not a voluntary performance, but almost all of the kids actually sing.

As far as I can tell, there are 2 major outcomes to all this singing: 1- Japan has 10 million pop stars and 2- any Japanese person, at any time, will be better at singing karaoke than every foreigner in the room.

other random February news...

...I've been a bad blogger again, but since things are pretty quiet during the end of the school year, I have some time to catch up.

Other than the HoriMara, I don't think there are any major events to report. The third semester of the Japanese school year (January to mid-March) is incredibly short, but very busy. Compulsory education ends with junior high school in Japan, so continuing with high school is considered more of a privilege than a right... which means that students need to apply to high schools and pass an entrance examination (sometimes an interview test as well). In big cities, the more competitive and prestigious schools are private, usually with ties to large universities, but in the more rural areas (where parents can't always afford to pay for private high school) the best schools are public. This can amount to a lot of pressure being put on 14-15 year old kids, to not only get into the best possible school for the sake of their own future, but also for their family's economic situation. Needless to say, the 3rd year students start to become walking zombies, with many of them sleeping less than 5 or 6 hours a night and doing nothing but study in their time outside of school. It's both exciting and heartbreaking to be around when the test results come out, as they are dealing not only with the individual pressure to get into a good high school, but also with the fact that they probably won't be going to high school with most of their friends...
To break up the monotony of test prep, we had our second ALT Day a few weeks ago and the 2nd year students prepared a 2-hour "farewell celebration" that was held last Friday afternoon.
The 1st and 2nd year students sang some songs, made some nostalgic/funny slide shows of the 3rd year students, a "which teacher's baby picture is this?" quiz and performed a funny parody of Cinderella... then the 3rd year students sang a few songs (and some students cried). It was a great afternoon, but reminded me how soon the 3rd year students will be leaving (graduation is the 13th).
Their regular classes are already over and they're starting to plan their spring vacations... sad! I'm definitely closest to the 3rd year students as a group and am so sad to see them go, even though I know I'm supposed to be excited for them and blah blah blah. I could never be a real teacher and say goodbye to a new group of students every year... it's too hard!
Finally, I went skiing again in Naeba this past weekend. It was beautiful and sunny, but far too warm for good ski conditions... the road sign reported an air temperature of 68ºF when we drove home on Sunday (up in the mountains!!). I think we're already seeing the end of the mildest winter I've ever experienced... I haven't seen it snow once all year.

Kiryu Hori Marathon

this is a bit late, but...
On Sunday, February 11th, I participated in my second community "marathon" event--and much like the school marathon, this one was definitely not 26.2 miles... more like 6.25.

The "HoriMara" has been held on the 2nd Sunday in February for the past 53 years. It's a huge community event that involves students, families and serious runners from all over Gunma Prefecture and the surrounding areas (but as far as I can tell, most of the nearly 6,000 participants are students in the city schools). The morning begins with 3 separate groups of "family" 2km participants--mostly groups of parents and small children from local nursery schools and kindergartens-- who parade through the main streets of Kiryu with unfathomable amounts of energy and enthusiasm. Around this time, the half-marathoners begin their 13 mile run through the city toward Mt. Umeda... where the halfway point is the top of the mountain (absolute insanity). Throughout the morning there are a long series of races: 3km elementary school, 4km jr. high girls, 5km jr. high boys, 5km high school girls, 5km adults, 10km high school boys and 10km adults. Needless to say, anyone not participating in the day's event (or hiding from the winter wind in the comfort of their living room) have to figure out how to drive through Kiryu when the main road running N-S through the city center is completely closed off for nearly 5 hours.

I wandered over to the starting point at Shinkawa Park about an hour before my race began and spent the morning chatting and taking pictures with the track and volleyball teams from my junior high school. Even though we'd talked about it in school, my students were amazed to see me actually show up to the race... maybe they thought I was only joking??
Around 10am I lined up with nearly 900 other people (only 46 women!!) to run the 10km... I'd never run more than about 5miles and was incredibly nervous--and ran a little bit too slowly at the start--but finished in 1hour 3minutes. When I came around the corner to run past the park to the finish line, my elementary and jr. high school students had lined up along the road and were cheering/running along the sidewalk with me for the last 2-300meters... they're so cute!

Anyone who's known me for a while knows that I've never been particularly excited about running, so entering a race like this was a bit out of character for me, but I'm so glad that I did. Taking part in these community events, seeing my students and their families, and doing something with them outside of school, is what makes me feel like I'm living in Japan rather than just working here.

It's so windy that...

...we looked out the staffroom window to see that my bike had not only been blown over, but was launched about 15 feet into the parking lot. Naturally, this was the start of a conversation about whether or not I should park my bike at an alternate angle on windy days (parallel to the bike rack, rather than perpendicular to it) and general agreement that from this point on, no one intended to park anywhere near the bike rack.

...we looked out the (other) staffroom window to see that our dirt patch of an athletic field has risen up with all the swirling fury of a desert sandstorm. The field is only about 100meters deep, but at times the dust was so dense that we couldn't see across the school grounds. There was a bit of oooh-ing and aaaah-ing as we all stood at the window, then someone had the sense to run downstairs and turn on the sprinklers... and the fun was over.

Yay for the strong winds that Gunma is famous for (along with silk, cabbage and a million other "famous" local specialties).

ski trip!

Although it's been ridiculously warm in Japan this year (almost no snow in "snow country," prefectures being forced to cancel their Snow Festivals and daily news reports about the panic over pre-mature flower blossoming), I've had no reason to complain. Spending my life on a bike or in my uninsulated apartment has given me a special appreciation for mild winters.... but the opportunity to go skiing aroused my first pangs of concern--had global warming ruined my ski season??
Thankfully, not. In fact, it was one of the best ski trips I can remember... no wind, temperatures in the 30ºs, sunny, with fresh snow. The worst part was that my hands were hot and I had to go through the trouble of taking my mittens off every time we got on the lift or I would have sweat to death... tragic stuff, right? To make my story even sadder, my ski pass was free! (and the lovely people at the rental shop let me switch to skis when it was revealed that snowboarding was simply NOT going to work out for me)
...try to resist. (^-^)

In other news, I'll be running in my city's "marathon" this weekend. Much like my junior high school's marathon, it's not a marathon at all, but rather a series of long distance runs (2, 3, 4, 5, 10 or 20km). It's a huge city-wide event and almost all of the athletic teams from elementary school through high school participate, not to mention the nursery schools and people from all of the local businesses... 5,795 participants this year! I'll be one of 46 women (there are 346 men) running the 10k on Sunday morning. As you might imagine, I'm terrified, especially since all my talk of warm weather is certain to jinx me and I'll find myself running uphill, against the wind, in the snow... wish me luck!!