little things to be thankful for...

I lead an "English conversation circle" that meets in a small, agricultural town just outside my city. The members are mostly middle-aged or older, with the exception of a pig farmer who is about the same ages as me. Almost all of them have a farm, or make their living doing a traditional Japanese craft (such as embroidery or paper-making), and every time we meet I am showered with gifts of produce. Off the top of my head, I have received: roasted corn, eggplant, apples, pears, plums, peaches, mikan (clementines), peanuts, daikon (the giant white radish in the picture), cabbage, potatoes and butter (lots of dairy farmers). 95% of the stuff they bring to share with the group comes straight from their farms, usually harvested that day. It's developed to the point where they worry that I don't know how to properly prepare whatever food they're giving me, so many of the women write down a recipe for me in English before class... then the men tell me how to make an even easier dish. They're so sweet!

Speaking of sweet--I now visit elementary school at least once a week and am getting to know my students much better than I could last year. This has lead to increased participation in tag, kickball, dodgeball and jump rope during recess, as well as a variety of nicknames along the lines of "kucchan" or "kurichan." The suffix "chan" is an expression of familiarity and endearment, often used for small children or between close friends. At some point it becomes used much more frequently for girls than boys, but some of my teenage boys still get chan-ed by their oldest and closest friends. (in Japanese pronunciation, my name ends up sounding like "kurisu" (Kris) or the semi-dreadful "kurisutiine," which most people mis-hear as "Kristy" and that makes me crazy, so I've started introducing myself as Kris)
I taught 3rd grade on Tuesday and we studied "family"--so when I introduced Thanksgiving to them at the end of class and asked them to draw a picture to complete the sentence "I am thankful for ____," I assumed they'd take the hint and draw their family. Some of them did include their families, but the stars of this exercise were friends, video game consoles, sports, ice cream and other sweets... I even encountered more than one rendering of poop. Then, immediately after my last elementary school class, I rushed back to teach third year (9th grade) elective English. Every class begins with 10-15 minutes of writing in an English journal, so we briefly discussed Thanksgiving and I gave the same thankfulness prompt (hoping to get more responses about family than about poop from this group). They wrote the sweetest entries about their parents, teachers and friends, and I had a breakthrough moment where I realized how much their English has improved since I met them over a year ago. Then I had another realization about how quickly time has passed and that they're going to graduate and leave next March... I'll be so sad!
(though the elementary school students still win the cute prize, as one of them included me in the things they are thankful for.. check me out in the lower-right corner of the first worksheet)

We also recently celebrated fall at the Harvest Festival at a nearby winery, which draws thousands of people each year to drink wine and picnic on the steep vineyard terrace. Most of the ALTs in my area decided to attend the Saturday festivities, when the weather was absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, it turned cold and rainy for the next two days, literally drowning out Kiryu's fall Ebisuko festival... which was a big disappointment. We went anyway though, and nearly froze to death trying to visit the shrine and enjoy some festival food.

I'm heading to Hiroshima this weekend and the forecast calls for rain. Take a moment, wherever you are, and do your best anti-rain dance for me!

Happy Thanksgiving!