Sushi-less

BLANKs (things that seem to have inexplicably never made it to Japan)

Random Events (things that made me go "WHAT?")

Fusses (self-explanatory)


Wednesday 21 April 2010

Japanese People Are Lovely

I have just been speaking to a friend on Skype and it's official...I have been away from England for too long, and I am now scared of going back. Everybody in Japan is so nice all the time, I can't bear to think of going back to being suspicious and angry and having to listen to loud people talking and playing music on the train.

The last few weeks have provided many many examples of Japanese kindness, and, as I can't be arsed to structure this post in any way whatsoever, I am just going to bullet point them:

* Possibly the shyest lady in the world, the librarian from my junior high school, took me to and home from the enkai last week (YES I am totally in the loop!) and has asked me to go for drinks at her house with her and her husband.
* My new landlords (husband and wife) have just come round to help me fix my TV, but couldn't (as my TV is too old to connect to this new flat's digital whatever) so they have just GIVEN me a TV that they 'weren't using' (which has 2011 written on it, so it is not only new, it is from the FUTURE) in an unfurnished flat for free and brought me chocolates and biscuits too! HOW NICE IS THAT??
* When I moved three people from the town hall wouldn't let me pay for a van or anything, they all used the town hall's van things and spent essentially a whole day helping me take things from one apartment to the next...one of them paid for lunch too and just wouldn't let me pay even to say thankyou (I gave them some sweets instead in a pretty little bag which is definitely the Japanese way to thank people).
* The home economics teacher from my school who is lovely and who I speak to sometimes (I go to the cooking club sometimes) went to Kyoto and bought me a fan there! I don't know her that well so there was absolutely no need, and I totally bum fans, so that made me so happy.
* I have started up a new scheme at school where every week I choose a conversational English keyword, the sort that isn't in their rubbish textbooks (so far: week 1-long time no see, week 2-easy peasy) and if the students come and say five of them to me over a term, they can have a prize, and it has gone down so well! Everyone has been so supportive (the teachers I mean) and loads of kids are taking part even though they don't really know what the prizes are...that would NEVER happen in England. They are even allowing me to announce the keyword once a week on the school speaker thing ( you know like the ones you wee on American TV shows like Saved By The Bell) even though it's blatently not important enough for that. Eveyrone has been so nice happy to support me with it, I'm over the moon! (Oooo, that could be week 3's keyword).
* When we turned up at the football, 3 of us had tickets and one of us didn't, and the ticket and no ticket entrance was different. Instead of just sending my mate off with a point and a grunt as I imagine they would in England, this little old man in a fluorescent yellow jacket walked my friend all the way round the stadium to the other entrace, helped her buy the ticket and walked her all the way back to find us. Later on, we were trying to quickly pour some beer out of the cans we'd bought in the shop outside into our paper cups and this man came over...in England it would be to confiscate them, shout at you, possibly kick you out, in Japan...it was to offer us the can recycling bag, and just kept telling us to take our time pouring, he would wait next to us until we'd finished.

This list could go on forever.

I heart Japan.

Hanami and Footie

Sorry for the delay guys! I have been without internet for a couple of weeks or so. Time for an update on my last two weekends of fun, which have involved two things...one very Japanese...hanami, which is "flower viewing" and one very British...going to see the footie, but it was oh so very Japan-style.

The flowers that you "view" at a hanami party are called "sakura" or "cherry blossoms". They are Japan's national flower and their blooming is awaited with great anticipation (and much Japanese fuss) all year round. The joy and beauty of sakura and the hanami parties were sung at me on a more or less daily basis right from the onset of winter, as they would signify the start of spring and were just "so beautiful" etc. To start with, I was very excited, but, after a while (as I got to know more about Japan and it's fussing ways) I began to suspect that cherry blossoms were in fact just going to be exactly the same as the annoying pink blossoms that we get in the UK that are pretty for about 20 minutes until they got washed away by some drip drip drop little April huge fuck-off storms and become a horrible mush that sticks to your shoes. However, this time, Japan had a right to fuss. They were truly beautiful. The last of them are just fading now, which is such a shame, but there are so many trees that blossom all at the same time, which just floods the country in white, creating many a Kodak moment. A hanami party basically consists of sitting under the sakura trees somewhere and having a picnic and drinking yourself silly...so I was all up for a bit of that. I enjoyed myself very much, and it is nice to say that, after 4 months of feeling quite a lot like an icecube, that spring has FINALLY sprung! (except for the brief interlude of SNOW last Friday that I have still not forgiven Japan for yet.).

Last weekend, I did something very British...I went to watch a game of football (or soccer as I have disgustingly now started calling it, just to make myself understood by Japanese people). Me and some other English teachers went to see our local team play (and lose 3-1) in a home game in the second league here. The atmosphere was actually incredible. Forget your drunken racist wankers making slurs at every other fan/player/ref etc. (ok, so I'm a West Ham fan) and replace it with a very family atmosphere and thanking the players when they do well (or even when they don't), not criticising/abusing them. The guy in front of us kept shouting "Thank you goalkeeper" in English for some reason, even though our goalkeeper was truly awful. In the UK, I would be sure that that was sarcasm, but in Japan, I am equally sure that it wasn't. The chanting literally lasted from before the start until the very end, without barely a pause for breath (or even to actually watch the game), which suits me, cos 90 minutes is a long time right? Haha. The chants were ridiculously organised and joyous, with leaders announcing which one would be next and everyone joining in word-for-word. Me and my friends were maybe not so good at working out when to start and stop and how many claps to do etc, but it was great fun. I the Japanese crowd are wicked at the World Cup. In true Japanese stlye, I finished the day by buying a "strap" for my phone, which is a little string thing with the mascot on to hang on your mobile and jingle jangle wherever you go...no Japanese experience is complete without something cute and annoying like that.

Wednesday 7 April 2010

The Japanese Enkai 宴会

As I mentioned in my previous post, I finally, somehow, wangled an invite to not ONE but TWO of my school's end of year "enkais" , after 8 months of being totally left off of the invitation list. An enkai ressembles an office party in the UK to a certain extent I suppose, in that there is a meal and lots of alcohol and everyone attends, but in Japan there is (as always) a much greater sense of ceremony I think. There were many speeches, and everyone was wearing suits etc. In fact, it's possibly the smartest I've ever seen my teachers dress, that includes the all-important, over-rehearsed graduation ceremonies. The meal at both the enkais was incredible...sushi and sashimi (which is quite an expensive treat in Japan and not eaten by everyone, every day, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as my pre-coming-coming-to-Japan dreams painted it), various other dishes, mostly seafood, mostly delish, both had a slightly questionable hot salty egg mousse thing which stank to high heavens and tasted just as bad, but all in all, let's say that having been to these two enkais, two days on the trot, I didn't need to eat again for at least another week and I can't believe this nation, that can make and enjoy such incredible food, puts up with SCHOOL LUNCH every other day!! I was also slightly bewildered to see that this huge delicious, expensive banquet received a similarly enthusiastic cry of "delicious" as the school lunch does every day, but nothing more. Did they really think that is was just as oishii (delicious) as school lunch?? I know which one I'd rather...

The only thing in more abundance than the food is the drink. Mostly beer only, with a little bit of Japanese sake going around. All the teachers pay a fixed fee for the meal and all-you-can-drink alcohol. Japanese people get drunk very quickly, which was very amusing for me. It didn't take me much longer though, as I was a bit nervous about the prospect of a whole night in Japanese, where I knew everybody would be watching me and fussing over me as the first ALT (and therefore foreigner) to be invited in this arsecrack town for years. Another reason for getting drunk so quickly, from my point of view at least, is the Japanese custom that you never pour your own drink, but you pour others and wait for them to pour yours. It's kind of a way to start a conversation with someone...you pick up a big bottle of beer from the middle of the table and offer it to the person you want to talk to. My glass was a fairly popular choice, even if it was already full to the brim. By observing others during my time here, I've noticed that most people who are offered drink when their glass is full, still don't say no, but just take a huge swig and let the other person refill it....I followed suit. I had no idea how much I had drunk, and that can be a recipe for disaster. Still, I wasn't as drunk as my Japanese couterparts, so all's well that ends well I suppose.

Each enkai seems to have a group of people who are the enkai organisers, the "kanji" 監事. They choose the restaurant and officially invite people etc. Even though one of my English teachers, who speaks very good English was a kanji for one of the events, he still didn't ask me, but luckily one of the other ones did (very brave of him too). At both of mine, the kanji also went round making sure they spoke to everyone over the course of the evening, which gave me some really interesting conversations with some lovely teachers I'd never spoken to before, and some incredibly awkward ones with teachers who had clearly been dreading coming to me all night. All in all, it was great fun and AMAZING for gossip, which is always a good thing.

After both of them, we went to karaoke...the same karaoke on both nights which was rather embarrassing and gave the staff a bit of foreigner shock/deja vu I think. When I arrived on the Friday with the primary school staff, two of my other three primary schools were also at the SAME karoke place...this shows how lively the next city to the arsecrack (the arsecheek if you will) is. All enkai fun happened in the arsecheek, as there is officially no fun to be had whatsoever in my town, the arsecrack. I think arsecrack fun might even be illegal, if you'll pardon the pun. Anyway, karaoke was all Japanese songs, so I used the time to get more goss and to drink myself silly, as opposed to listening or joining in. I was forced to sing twice at both parties in English, which mainly got the response of "wow, your English is so good", which I think is typical Japanese politeness for "wow, I will compliment you on being able to speak your native language, as a distraction from the fact that your singing sounds like a cat being suffocated by a school-lunch choco-bread." Oddly enough, but unsuprising in Japan, is that in the second enkai, they chose an ABBA song for me AND a Beatles song for me, and I didn;t know either of them!! I thought I knew every song by both of those artists...but not the ones that hit it big in Japan. I was honest with the Beatles one, which came first (they could not believe it...possibly the biggest gossip of the night) but for the ABBA one I just couldn't cope with seeing their shock again and so I just sang along and hoped that they would admire how well I could pronounce the words again!

All in all, the enkais were wicked! It was a great way to get to know my colleagues outside of class and with a bit of help in the form of beer. PLease keep your fingers crossed for me that I am now in the loop and that I will be asked again!!

Saturday 27 March 2010

Good Luck Always Comes in...SEVENS!!??

Basically guys, I am so happy at the moment. This is why these two new posts have taken so long, because, the problem with a blog I am finding is, that when I have a life to write about, I have no time to write about it. When I do have time to write, it is probably because I have not life and hence have nothing to say....hmmmm the trials, tribulations and issues of being a blogger. Anyway, the reason I am so happy are seven-fold (or more really but seven that I can be arsed to write about, so here it goes...)

1. I had a wicked weekend last weekend. It was long weekend (apolgies of the overuse of the word "weekend" there. I went to a famous town called Nikko, which isn't that far from me but I hadn't previously got round to going. It is beautiful with lots of temples and nature to be seen etc. Then I went to Tokyo for a proper party weekend. I made some new friends and got to know some other friend better. I got to practice loads of Japanese etc. It was very Japanese partying...I did karaoke, purikura (which are these wicked photo booths where everything is cartoony and colourful in the background and you can add patterns and writing afterwards...google it), went to two izakayas, which is like a Japanese pub restaurant, erm.... and just spent the whole time with Japanese people to be honest. Saturday night was a leaving do for a Japanese mate, who is actually going to live in London ironically. It was in a really cool modern bar, owned by Fiat the car people, for some reason. On Sunday, one of my new Japanese friends was DJing at this bar called Hell's Bar, which had crazy decor and stuff. It was a wicked atmosphere and great music...I had a great time. Previously to that we sort of started a mini-party in the convenience store down the road, to save money on drinks. It had a little table and we asked the guy if we could drink our drinks there, and wound up staying there for hours and popping back in during the night (hence a huge hangover). Anyway....can you even imagine being allowed to drink in a Spa or something for a few hours in the UK? It must be illegal, and people just aren't nice enough to let you do things like that....I heart Japan.

2. Everything is changing at work for the better. One of my main English teachers is changing next year (as of 1st April) and I've found out that the new one is YOUNG! WOOO! Maybe he will actually understand the importance of English and maybe he will have covered in his training what he/she is supposed to use me for, instead of just ignorning me/making me read from the textbook. I will talkk about my frustration with English education in Japan another time, but let's just say, that my relationship with my juniou high school teachers really couldn't get much worse...so a new, young one will be a refreshing change...he/she has only just graduated from uni so they should at least bring an open mind with them.

3. Another change at work is that I am getting a new supervisor. My supervisor is sort of my boss I suppose and just co-ordinates everything and sorts all things out like my schedules and my taxes and stuff. I really really like my current one, so it's not that I needed her to change. But she can speak no English, which can be a challenge, when talking about taxes etc. especially, and the new one can speak really good English. and I already know her! She's one of my mates from the town hall. And with all due respect to Yamada-san, my current one, who is incredibly Japanese, in a shy, indirect, don't want to cause any fuss type way, the new one is kind of open-minded and a bit ballsy for a Japanese woman, so will probably more pro-active than 10 Yamada-san's put together.

4. I am moving appartment! Mine is horrible, dirty and expensive. No details yet, but the new one should be newer, cleaner and cheaper, if a little smaller, but bothered. I am OVER THE FUCKING MOON, if you'll pardon my French.

5. There are things called enkais here, which are work parties basically, but they are kind of more important somehow...I can't really explain it. Anyway, I am not exaggerating when I say that I do not know one other JET who doesn't get invited to their schools enkais (I'm sure there are a few somewhere), and in fact, nearly every single one I have spoken to had their own welcome enkai in their honour when they arrived. I had....nothing. I have been invited to....zero. I hope this is not to do with me, but to do with previous JETs here being a bit shit or rejecting them and them giving up, and also that I am in so many schools, nobody really feels that I am important enough or something....I have no idea why but it's actually bothered me a lot because I would love to get to know my colleagues outside of work, with some social lubricant in the form of beer etc. Anyway, all this has changed...I was invited to the West primary school's (ironically my least favourite school haha) end of academic year enkai! Woo!! I will report back with how it went later.

6. Almost unbelievably...literally, Japan is random but this takes the biscuit, I was also invited to my juniour high school's end of academic year enkai at the last minute!! I am SO SO SO thrilled...it's about fucking time though.

7. I have ALSO been invited out by some people at the town hall, which many other JETs are regularly, especially the ones at lots of schools, but I never have been. My current supervisor apolgised that it had never happened before and we are going out together at the end of April. How all of these things have happened at once I have NO idea, but I am asking no questions. I am so so happy! Woo!

Primary School Graduation Ceremony

Graduation season has finally come to a close in Japan, after a month of rehearsing and possibly 5 months of fussing. Hence, this will be my last post about graduation ceremonies I promise!!

I had a choice of which primary school to go to, as they all have their ceremonies at the same time. I chose the East school as those 6th graders (12 year olds) are my favourites. It was a lovely ceremony, which I was expecting as I'd already seen it 18 times or so in rehearsal. What was amazing though, was that for all the time they had spent practising, the teachers still didn't know where they were supposed to be sitting and they still didn't leave enough space in between the front set of chairs and various paper flower decorations (a favourite in Japan it seems) for the girl in the wheelchair to get through. Also, considering how regulated so much of it was (the speed and direction of walking, plus exactly where and when to turn, the timing of the bowing, the importance of everyone standing up in complete unison before they started singing, army stylee) there were still some truly shoddy bits that apparently didn't seem to matter. For instance, all the other kids from the other years didn't have to wear their school uniform so were dressed more for a visit to the park than a formal ceremony and the graduating kids seemed to just have to wear anything smart, so some were wearing their primary school uniforms, some were in their junior high school uniforms for next year, some of the boys were in suits and some girls were sort of in party dresses with jackets. I was just thinking of England, and I'm sure everybody wearing the same uniform smartly would be much important than at what point everybody stood up, because you can get every single one of the 400 kids to stand up in the exact same milisecond and bow for the exact same amount of time, but if they are all wearing Kappa t-shirts and Barbie trainers they are still gonna look like a bit of a rabble you know? Obviously, different things are valued here. An especially touching part came after the ceremony (although the important people had already left, presumable to do something very important like scoff their buns down), when all of the kids walked round the school with their parents in a big line, and all of the kids and teachers lined the corridors and clapped for them and high-fived them and stuff (high five may have been me only, but that's cos I'm cool Mark-sensei).

My actual role in the ceremony was simply to amuse the kids as I entered by looking confused as to which seat I should sit in (I chose that role for myself) and just to watch and bow at the exact same time as all the other teachers (whether that was achieved or not I am not sure). Before it started, I also had to stand at the entrance and welcome the parents, and somehow work out who wasn't simply a parent but an important person, like from the police (he was easy he was wearing a uniform) or people from the board of education or whatever, as I had to give parents a pamphlet, but I had to give the "important" people (using that term VERY loosely indeed) not only a leaflet but also these two little commemorative buns for some reason. I don't ask question, I just obey, but I felt so stupid trying to guess who was bun-worthy and who wasn't. Everybody also looked very shocked to be greeted by a foreigner, so that caused quite a large amount of fuss. I was really happy that they'd given me a job to do though, all be it a bun-related one. There was a bit of a slipper emergency that I was sort of involved in too. You can't wear your outdoor shoes indoors in Japan...not just in houses, in schools too, and even many restaurants. The regular teachers have their own indoor shoes at school, as I have so many schools, for most of mine I have to wear the visitor slippers which are little plastic-y flipflop things, in a deligtful shade of neon turquoise, which cover about half of my big fat foreign foot...it's a very hobbly experience. Anyway, as we had so many visitors on the same day, which is unusual, there was a bit of a visitor slipper shortage...something else I would have thought might have been considered at some point during all of these rehearsals but wasn't. Anyway, as it turns out, there wasn't a shortage, it was just another fuss over nothing, which was really the theme of the day. And I enjoyed watching all the important people, carrying their buns, dressed up to the razz in suits but also sporting turquoise flip flop slippers, flipping around the school.

Other fusses of the day included a 5-minute discussion (no exaggeration) over which colour and type of pen should be used to tick off the important people's names as they arrived. Also, I have came to realise (although there had already been many signs which I might write about in another post), that Japan is a TRULY hypochondriac nation. In all of the rehearsals even, at least one kid was taken out sick....I mean....WHAT...how likely is someone to get so sick they ahve to leave in an hour-long rehearsal?? So you can imagine that in the pressure of standing up at the right time in a pair of Barbie trainers at the real ceremony proved too much for many of the little ones and the school nurse was running around like a headless chicken with people "sick". What exactly the illness was remains unclear, but I am guessing it may well be an overdose of rehearsal.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Year 3 Secondary School 卒業式 (graduation ceremony) and the 'Meeting of Thanks'

Leaving school fever is still rife in Japan. Last Friday I went to the 卒業式 'graduation ceremony' for the 3rd graders at the juniour high school. They are about 15 years old, and they are my oldest students, so the ones I can speak to the easiest in English (they have been studying it for quite a few years) and I won't teach them again as of now. It was actually a really touching ceremony (only because I hadn't had to go to any of the umpteen rehearsals...I'm sure that would have watered it down a lot). I managed to refrain from crying, which is more than I can say for many of the parents, some of the teachers, one of the women giving a speech and most of the students, most notably the super cool, super hard, super masculine baseball captain who was SOBBING his big fat face off and wiping it with a cloth for about an hour. I love him though so it was really sweet. There were a lot of speeches, a lot of singing and an awful lot of bowing. But I think the ceremony of it all is quite nice really...I wouldn't want to participate for fear of doing something wrong and causing a different type of tear, but watching safely from my seat, with only a few group bows to take part in was fine. Because it's a small town with a community feel, EVERYBODY comes to this ceremony...the mayor, all the education people from the town hall, the head of the police, the head of the fire brigade, all of the primary school head teachers, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker and co. It's all very dramatic.

On a personal note, I unfortunately didn't get to say goodbye to many of my students, even though I would have liked to. They sort of had about 40 minutes of free time in the very organised and regimented day to say their goodbyes to all of their teachers and I didn't feel it was really my place to get in the way of them and their parents thanking their actual teachers and sports club leaders (they all spend a lot of time (I mean A LOT) a their after-school clubs here). And of course they all had to thank the candlestick maker. Still, I got to say farewell and wish good luck to a few of them and waved at many more...I'm sure they all noticed that I was there anyway, which hopefully made them happy. I also received letters from two students, thanking me for teaching them and saying that they like English a lot more since I've been teaching them, that it's been fun and interesting etc and that they see the importance of English and will study it hard at their next school...which is pretty much the whole point of my job so that made me ridiculously happy.

Another leaving event of the week was the 'Meeting of Thanks' which I was invited to last week at one of my primary schools (see previous post). It was actually amazing...I was so chuffed to be invited. All of the leavers (and it's a small school, so when I say all, I mean 16) put on a comedy show, a dance, a magic show and cooked some (fairly rank to be honest, but the thought was nice, and it was better than school lunch) rice and other snacks. All the teachers and some other people who I didn't know (possibly acquaintances of the candlestick maker) sat around and ate and watched the show. They sat me with the boy who had written the invitation so that we could speak in English and you could tell how happy he was (he's my new favourite...I'm very fickle) Then we played dodgeball together, which I unfortunately haven't miraculously developed a skill for since the last time I played at the age of about 11, as I had hoped. I literally managed to lose 8 months-worth of built up respect and coolness in a 10-minute game of dodgeball...sayonara.

Thursday 11 March 2010

Some Other Things What Did Happen This Weekend

So, except for clubbing ever so politely and sleeping on a padded floor surrounded by comics, this weekend held many more exciting adventures. I went SHOPPING for the first time in ages, with some money my Mum and Dad gave me for my birthday...bought a cardy in Uniqlo (it really comes from Japan) and a super cool spring jacket from Comme Ca (I can't remember if we have them in the UK?), which I love so much (just need the weather to wear it now though). I love Japanese fashion (for guys only, for girls it is rank)...I just wish I was Japanese so that I could pull more of it off. The lady in Comme Ca was so so so hyper excited and lovely too...she told me I had pretty eyes and said I was amazing at Japanese and that the jacket would suit me so well and that I was so lucky to get it because it's been so popular and that my fashion was really cool...I think she was step off climbing over the counter and raping me to be honest.

I also went out for Turkish food in Shinjuku, Tokyo with a friend on Saturday evening, which made a nice change. Hummus and lamb!! So un-Japanese it was amazing. It's a nice restaurant, overlooking one of the main street in Shinjuku, so great for watching the world go by...slightly annoying Turkish Eurovision-entry style music playing and the constant threat that belly dancing could begin at any second, as advertised by its website were the downsides though.

On Sunday, having got home first thing and collapsing into a heap on my futon (or movable padded floor as I may now call it) for several hours, I went to a classical concert with this nice old man who lives in the next city. It was a really good concert...it's the third one we've been to and the first one I've managed to stay awake for the whole way through so that must say something for it right? European classical music seems to be really popular in Japan. He brought his niece along, who is my age and seemed really cool and we might hang out in Tokyo together soon, so that's nice too. Then we all went for an Indian (I know you must be thinking, it seems like you have eaten about 15 meals in this weekend Mark, and you would be very much CORRECT in thinking that).

I spent pretty much the remainder of the weekend lost in Shinjuku...that place is a NIGHTMARE. I swear, the station itself is so big it must have its own time zone...if you take the wrong exit (of which there are about 100, so the chances are you will), you somehow wind up in a TOTALLY different place to where you wanted to be, signs are few and far between, often only in Japanese and various colours, as if to trick you...things have confusing names like the "East Exit" and the "East Central Exit" or the "Lumine Department Store" and the "Lumine 2 Department Store" so that you think you are where you are supposed to be when, in fact, you are still nowhere near it. The streets of Shinjuku are confusing enough, but the station makes it even worse...I must have spent at least 10 hours in that station in total since I've been in Japan and I am still finding bits I didn't know existed...I was also 45 MINUTES late for meeting my friend on Saturday, even though we met in the same place we always do, because I just couldn't find it!! From now on, I do solemnly swear, never to select anywhere in or near Shinjuku as a meeting place ever again. End of.

Clubbing in Tokyo and Staying in a Manga Cafe

This weekend was a mega party weekend, in which I went clubbing on both Friday and Saturday night, staying at a manga cafe in between...a manga cafe sandwich if you will. A manga cafe doesn't really do what it says on the tin at all...there is manga, and there is coffee, but it's sort of like an internet cafe, but each computer has its own booth with a closing door (yeah...high tech I know, a door that closes) that you can sleep in, there is a shower room and then you can help yourself to as much free manga and as many free drinks (HOTTO and COLDO if you don't mind) as you like for the time that you're there. I paid 1,500 yen, about a tenner, for 6 hours, which with the free internet, drinks, and shower, is almost cheaper to buy than not to buy by my reckoning. The drawback is that you have to sleep on a sort of padded floor, instead of on a bed, but I've been thinking that in the cheaper hostels here, you only get a futon, and I sleep on a futon in my flat, so what is a futon if it's not just a moving padded floor right? I know you might be thinking that in Europe you can find hostels for that money and have the luxury of sleeping in a bed, but believe me, in Japan, you can't. This was right in the heart of Shinjuku, one of the main areas in central Tokyo too, and where I'd been clubbing AND you don't have to book them in advance, you can just roll in. Basically, I bum manga cafes and I think my friends here are starting to think that I'm working for their marketing department, the amount I bang on about them!

One other disadvantage is that they smell of smoke and you feel like SUCH a dirty stop-out the next day when you are leaving, looking like a train has just hit you, trying to wring kinks out of parts of your body you never knew you had, and some (relatively) normal people are arriving to use it for it's actually for, which is to read manga. But then, they are getting up at the crack of dawn (or maybe more like midday :D) to come and read manga in a smelly manga cafe, so let's face it, nobody is in much of a position to judge if they are in a manga cafe.

Anyway, on to the actual nights out. I went out in Shinjuku on Friday and Roppongi on Saturday (we saw SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO wooo!) and I had a great time on both nights...I've made some new friends, both Japanese and foreign, so it was a bit of a success all round really. Clubbing in Japan is so strange. The etiquette of clubbing in Japan is just amazing...it's so polite, it's unreal. Nobody is bumping into you all the time, you have space to dance, the queue is orderly and quiet, the bouncers are nice, there's no litter/broken bottles/sick all over the place inside...it's wicked! But I will probably be desperate for a dirrrrty night out when I get back to London, cos maybe the fun in a Japanese night club is just a tad too controlled, but still, at least you're not scared to bump in to someone in case they punch you and you don't arrive home (or at the manga cafe) with sick on your shoe!

Tuesday 9 March 2010

A quick bite from the Japanese school lunch menu

The Japanese God of school lunch has really been out to get me recently…everything at primary school tends to be sweet which is so annoying….last week one of my meals consisted of sweet chilli chicken (emphasis on the sweet) which looking at it, I thought had been deep fried to within an inch of its life, to the point where I couldn’t tell what was skin and what was meat, but realised upon digging my chopstick into it that it was actually because I couldn’t see any meat from the outside because it’s meat to skin ratio was about 10:90 (guess which one is which). We then had this sweet vinegary peanutty salad, corn soup (which literally tastes like custard with carrots floating in it…it’s so popular here…I get it at least once a fortnight), the compulsory full-fat cartoon cow milk and chocolate bread. Chocolate bread is not cake, it’s not bread with chocolate spread, or bread with chocolate chips…it is a normal bread roll, with the normal texture of bread, just with a vague taste of chocolate and brown food colouring. This is also not the dessert, but the main meal, to be eaten with the sweet fried chicken skin presumably…ERRRR. I noticed that the least sweet thing on my plastic plates was the dessert…grapefuit!

The Big Graduation Ceremony....from Primary School??

In the UK, we only really have a big graduation ceremony of fuss when we graduate university. I have heard that in the USA, there is one for high school, but in Japan there is one for when kids leave primary school!! More worrying still...I have heard that even some NURSERY schools have graduation ceremonies!!

At primary school, everybody sings the school song and the kids apparently walk under some banners with paper flowers on them, and I imagine there are an awful lot of speeches and a hell of a lot of bowing! The academic year ends in March here, so the year 6 leaving events are all cropping up....they are numerous, fussy (any excuse) and slightly ridiculous as they will all be going to the same school next year anyway. It's all very emotional though it seems....at the "West" school, where the sixth graders are a NIGHTMARE half the time, and never listen or talk to me, they all ran up and asked me (well, I say "asked"...the didn't speak, the just shoved) to sign their English textbooks for them like some kind of celebrity! Ironically, I will be teaching them next year anyway at their next school, so they have plenty more time to ignore me yet! The East school's year 6 have finished their English lessons too, but I love them (and they love me a little bit I think), so while I'm still going to the school to finish off the lessons with some other classes for this academic year, the teacher has asked me to go to their PE lessons! I was "refereeing" volleyball the other day...the teacher says "Do you know the rules?" I said "No" ( I mean, I know the ball goes over the net, but it ends there.). He said "It's a game up to eleven points", I nod, look over at the net, waiting for the next rule and then turned around to find him gone, refereeing another game...so I knew that they had to get to eleven points, but just how that happened I had no idea....suffice to say that lead to a lot confusion and a LOT of points being decided by rock, paper, scissors (that is used ALL the time here)...it really descended into more of a rock, paper, scissors contest with a couple of hits of the ball sparsed in between.

Anyway, back to the year 6's leaving....my favourite thing so far happened today...the year 6 of the South school are having some sort of extra event on top of their graduation ceremony and this boy came into the staff room today, all nervous, and gave me an invitation to it, that he'd written in English and read it out to me and I swear he was shaking he was so worried...I am gonna type it for you here cos it's just too cute to miss....

"Hello Mr. Mark. I open the meeting of thanks in a gymunasium at 3.00 of March 15. In the meeting of thanks, I play a game and do laughter live broadcasting and a dance show or dinig together. Because I make it happy, please come by all means. From the class six years pine evening capital."

I can't even believe they managed to put that together...some of it sort of makes sense, right? I'm not sure what it is, and I certainly don't know what a pine evening capital is, but I shall let you know.


In other primary school news, I have been having a wicked couple of weeks, where all of my lessons have been going so well (touch wood) and I've been bonding with more of the kids. One of my special needs boys, who never ever speaks (he only really says yes or no in Japanese, let alone English...not because he can't speak, but he's just socially handicapped or whatever you call it) came up to me at the end of a lesson the other day and said "thank you" and then came running down the corridor to me the other day going "sign sign sign!!" waving a bit of paper (he's also year 6, so I won't be seeing him for TWO WEEKS until he starts the next school, so obviously he needs a signature to look at in the meantime). Anyway, he grins and waves every time he sees me now, and his name is Tiger, so it's one of the few I can actually remember, which is nice. I also bonded with this slightly weird year 6 girl in the East school (didn't realise she was weird until I did volleyball with them...I suppose volleyball just brings it out in some people, I dunno lol). She was crying and I patted her head and bought her with a sticker (they love a good sticker here...I told her it was from the UK, but it was actually from the pound shop down the road lol)...so anyway she loves me now too...she'll probably forget by the next time I go, but still...

So, to summarise this message...everybody loves me, but then you didn't need to read this to know that did you? End of.

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Bless Little Kids...

Teaching at primary school is the most tiring thing in the world...especially as the foreigner, who has to accept being touched, groped, jumped on and sniffed as extra duties, but I LOVE IT! They are just soooo sweet. I have brought some British money with me to Japan from home and I was showing it to Year 1 on Monday (about 6 years old) and they were so excited! It was incredible! About six of them came to see me in the staff room after the lesson to look at it more closely and I got out some Yen for them to compare the weight (because Pounds are really heavy I've realised!) and they couldn't understand why I had Yen in my wallet...so I said, well, for my shopping here, I can't use pounds....and it turns out that most of them had thought that I lived in the UK! That's a mighty commute....like leaving for work about 24 hours before I've arrived home from the previous day mighty! We were also playing a shopping game in a Year 3 class last week, which involved doing "rock, scissors, paper" to determine whether you were allowed to buy something (Hence, saying "this one please") or whether you had to say "No, thank you", so that they could learn two responses. Rock, scissors and paper is used by Japanese children (and I include all of mine in that...up to 15 years old!!) to decide almost everything. Anyway, a kid asked the teacher if people in England really have to do rock, paper, scissors with the shop assistant before they can buy anything!! Haha!! You just can't buy comments like that! I love it!!

Sunday 28 February 2010

The Tokyo Marathon and Tokyo's Alice in Wonderland Cafe

So, Tuesday is my birthday and living in the arse crack of Japan doesn't present a whole lot of opportunity for birthday celebration...especially not mid-week so today I met up with six friends and spent the day in Tokyo, a very fun time had by all. It was great!

We went to watch the Tokyo Marathon (unfortunately it was pissing it down with rain...not that I should complain cos any much further East and we would have been likely to have been hit by a tsunami, so rain I can cope with, and cope with well, being British). The main rain issue was that the umbrella's made actually seeing anything of the marathon a rather tactical affair. We wound up ducking and diving all day by Asakusa (a bit touristy area by a large shrine in Tokyo) and it was really fun.. There were people dressed up as all sorts of things just like in the London marathon...we had Japanese characters like Anpanman, Duraimon and Pikachu, plus a Spiderman, people in suits, and even a man dressed as a Swan Lake style ballerina who stopped to give us a five-minute ballet rendition in the middle of the course!! It was also really funny to see so many people stopping mid-race to take photos...how Japanese!! We were right by a stage two which had some traditional Japanese music and dancing...including these poor old women wearing next to nothing in the freezing cold, who were doing the most pain-stakingly boring dance to the most pain-stakingly repetitive song for about 45 minutes....I bet they were just dying for the tsunami to hit Tokyo to put them out of their misery!!

After we had finished watching the marathon (which is very tiring....much worse than running I'm sure) we stopped for cake (as we often do when we have nothing else to do) and then made our way over to the posh part of Tokyo, Ginza, to go a themed Alice in Wonderland Cafe Restaurant!! It had a wicked atmosphere, all the waitresses are dressed as Alice and they have Alice music playing and all the dishes are laid out to look like faces and animals of things that are in the books and the film. It was all very random and very Japanese...but then that's just how I like things really! A great time had by all I think!

Friday 26 February 2010

Japanese Food...or not

Japanese food can sometimes be delicious...sushi, sashimi, udon, soba, ramen, okonomiyaki (is like a mix of all sorts of things with eggs and milk I think and sort of fried), yakitori (grilled chicken kebabs), shabu shabu (which apart from anything is fun to say) and nabe (both hotpot stewy type things) to name but a few. HOWEVER, Japanese school lunch is something that I would not really class as food at all, but rather random high-calorie gloop slopped on plastic plates, usually cold, and usually not remotely complementing the other gloop it is sat next to. And I am eating this school lunch (kyuushoku, きゅうしょく, 給食) EVERY DAY! You're not supposed to leave any...everyone eats it...all students and teachers, with no choice of dish, everyone gets what they're given and everyone gets the same. Sharing it out every day is a prime time for fuss and takes such a long time (hence the coldness of the meal) that the smell has been lingering in the air for half an hour before you can actually eat it. It's actually quite incomprehensible from a British perspective at least that there would be no choice whatsoever and that the teachers would all eat the same as the kids (I'm talking about a lunch designed for 5 year olds being eaten by the 60-odd-year-old head teacher!!). It is a very respected tradition though...at my junior high school, we had a whole week's worth of special (seemed the same to me though) lunches to celebrate its birthday (?) and one of my schools has a song dedicated to it every day (played during the school lunch sharing and distribution fuss, which really deserves its own place in the school timetable).

Today was a prime example of an odd and not particularly appetising lunch...dessert was fromage frais, Danone too (they really pushed the boat out there), so that was ok, the soup was an udon soup which I like, but it was very very salty. The salad was covered, dripping and drowning in a very vinegary dressing (possibly vinegar) and had some very questionable meat in it, which I think was probably innards of some description, but I'll never know because I can't read the menu. Then there was the obligatory carton of (full-fat) milk which I must drink every day! I know that in England drinking milk on its own, let alone full-fat, let alone with a straw, let alone out of a carton with a smiley cartoon cow on it, let alone to wash down a hot meal with in the middle of the day, would be only something kids up to the age of 6 would do, but here ALL the kids and teachers do it every day. Then was the creme de la creme...かまぼこ....kamaboko....a steamed white fish-paste and (very yellow) cheese sausage! I wish I had taken a picture...I can't find one online at the moment. It was this horrible white stick, with the texture of rubber, the smell of fish and taste of horrible cheap cheese...not three things that should go together! They couldn't believe I didn't like it! I couldn't believe I wasn't sick in my cold salty soup!!

Thursday 25 February 2010

Today's Year 6

Bless my year 6's in the East school (I have four primary schools...north, south, east and....itakura, even though they are all in Itakura and the one named "Itakura" is indeed in the west, but calling it west would just make it all too logical). Anyway, the year 6's, so last year of primary school (which makes them 12 here) had to do a self-introduction speech in English with the simple sorts of phrases they've learnt so far (name, age, likes, dislikes). They are my favourite year 6 classes (there are two classes in that school) and they did really well...they're not that used to standing up in front of the class and speaking in Japanese, let alone in English, so I was pretty proud that they could all do it. Also threw up some very amusing English...I managed to stop myself from sniggering at the time but I have to share it with someone, so with virtual people I don't feel so guilty....

"I like sing singing singys"...not she doesn't have a stutter, she just thought that you needed that many "sings" in a sentence...I suppose you can never have too many "singys" though.

"I want to be a hairdresser because books are interesting"...can't fault the English I suppose.

"I am October 21"...riiiiiiiiiight.

"I want to be an orange"...somehow what this boy meant to say was "forensic scientist", easy mistake to make I suppose!

I know I shouldn't laugh...and I didn't actually! Did you? I hope you feel guilty if you did!

Monday 22 February 2010

Welcome to my blog

Hello!

I didn't really know what a blog was until I saw Julie and Julia a couple of weeks and I still don't know exactly what you're supposed to do with one...so this "blog" may be very short, but I'm giving it a go.

I am a 22-year-old (that's right...I have no excuse for not knowing what a blog is) Londoner who got a job teaching English to children in Japan last year. So, I came bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready for my life full of two of my favourite things...sushi and karaoke, cos everyone knows that that's what Japan is all about right?

Well, apparently there must have been some administrative issues as I seem to have accidentally been sent to the arse-crack of Japan. A small town called Ita-where?, famous for cucumbers (woo), which has a surplus of old people and rice fields and a distinct lack of both karaoke and sushi. I have been here for 7 months so far and I have somehow grown to love it and have just signed up to stay for another year (until August 2011), but basically, my life is pretty funny and being in the arsecrack of Japan, I have very few people to share the madness of it with, as everyone here is Japanese and thinks that I am clearly the mad one, not them. Of course, I know better.

So, this blog is mainly a means of self-therapy, aiming to prevent me from going mad or worse...turning Japanese (no masturbation pun intended). If you'd have asked me 7 months ago (or even 2 weeks ago to be honest) whether writing a blog was normal or not, I would have said definitely not, it's a sign of madness to sit and write random crap about your life on your own and then post it to some general (virtual) public with no idea who is reading it or what they are thinking. I can't imagine who would read this, but desperate times apparently call for desperate measures! So, if you are....a) don't be offended by anything I have just said about bloggers and b) Enjoy! Please laugh along at my misfortune and ring the loony bin on my behalf if I start sounding too Japanese...I have nothing to gauge my normality by anymore!!