Bless Your Little Heart

I've been following a discussion over at Locohama about gaijin clashing over microagression and racism. I read the article and watched the discussion, and it sounded to me like all of them were right. Which is confusing since they are making opposing statements.

I'm foreign in Japan. A few of my readers (hi Mom hi Dad!) have made the trip to also check out being foreign in Japan. And although I haven't considered this permanent, have not dreamed of spending the rest of my life on the island, I will admit there are moments it has come up in my mind, especially of late as I prepare to leave. Japan is so beautiful, and so friendly. Sometimes I look at the mountains and rivers and I don't know how to let them go. Same with the students. I think it takes a long time to get into a place, and even longer where Japan is concerned. They don't move fast in the 'accepting outsiders' department, but I really do feel like most of my co-workers, kempo folk, and students have some notion of who I am after working with me for as long as they have.

It may even be an illusion, but I feel like most of the kids in the JHS even see me as a person now, not just a diversion (although that too), and not just a foreign face. We're at a point now where all the JHSers were in elementary school when I arrived, so they've seen me push, pull, demand, relent, and instruct. They've seen me at my best, and in some cases at much worse, on sick days, running short on patience, and with a surfeit of good humor. Even though I try to keep it all professional, of course personality and personal place-in-the-moment leaks through. Some days I don't feel like going out to play at recess. Sometimes I bitch at the kids for not doing a good job at souji. Some days I just make faces at them in the classroom when I see them cutting up. Because I know them and their games, and even when I don't strictly approve, I am glad to see them play.

But like I said, these are the people I see every week, or every day. These are the teachers I've been bathing with, drunk with, and a couple of times bathing drunk with. These are the people I've learned to respect and even admire, to like and in some cases even trust. And that's kind of a two-way street, and that takes a long time. I'm actually pretty shy, terrified of mistake-making, and introverted, so I sort of get the whole Japanese slowness to warm up to outsiders.

When I meet strangers, it turns into the same old thing. As observed by many, Japan is a friendly place. Especially in the countryside, people are extra nice and helpful. This extends to a desire to feed you (which often turns into the quiz game Will You Eat It?), or show you some aspect of Japanese culture that you have probably never seen before. Because a tourist would not have. There is this friendliness that also pushes the assumption of your ignorance. Have you ever tasted this?

I've discussed this with many people before, about the manner and mien of some JETs we meet in the world. Some of them happen to have a greater than average amount of knowledge in Japanese language, culture, or other general stuff. As you know, I'm all about learning. There are people who I could just listen to all day long because they know so much interesting stuff. I like people who know more or different stuff than me -- they are the people I have something to learn from, and I want to do that because I'm a junkie, hooked young.

But it's all about the presentation. There is a different between the kind of person I could listen to all day, and the kind of person I want to punch in the face after ten minutes of talking with them. That difference is embedded entirely in my reaction to how they present the stuff they know (or believe) that I don't know. Whether or not I believe there is an assumption on their part that they are instructing me on something I know nothing about. It's especially funny when someone like this lectures me on an area where I do have some stowed knowledge or expertise; I tend to just let them go on, partly because for all I know, they do know more than I do about that topic, even if was my major.

But we have a general use term for the people who posture themselves as in a position to school you, rather than share, who assume your ignorance or inexperience or confusion or difficulty: we tend to react to them as douchey. It's a fine line, and I believe that most of those who fall on the side of douchiness are not at heart total jerks, but they are merely insecure, they have something to prove, that is that they know stuff, more stuff than you, and they have to exert their superiority. They don't even think of it as you NOT knowing stuff, they think only of the stuff they KNOW.

Like I said, it's a fine line, and one that I consciously avoid myself, lest I slip into that douchey know-it-all role too. There's the added bonus that I know there is always more to learn, and that you can learn it in the most unexpected ways or places from the most unexpected sources, it's true.

Anything can sound patronizing in the right situation. I'll admit that even as I was hitting the end of that Oita bike ride, the cheerful shouts of encouragement from fellow bikers and supporters began to hit nerves. "You can do it! Keep going! You're almost there!" Probably because I was by then into an irrational state where I could not maintain much emotional balance. Of course I can do it. I mean, everyone else has already. Almost there? But not there yet. Of course I'm going to keep going, what do I look like, a quitter?!

Well-intentioned gestures can be interpreted as anything.

You hear all the time about how Japan is "so homogeneous." What that means is, Japanese is a big solid concept. A kid asked me the other day, Emily, do you like Japanese? And I answered yes, before realizing I had no idea what he had really asked me. I hear the question as Japanese language, because that's what the word means all by itself to me (and I like language, so of course I like Japanese language too.. it's fun!). Japanese people would be "the Japanese," and any other thing would have the noun following the adjective "Japanese". Japanese food, Japanese music, Japanese art, Japanese whatever. The kid probably just meant "Do you like Japan?" but was a first-year and so it came out wrong.

The point being, though, that Japanese means all those things. It's a nation, but it's also a culture, complete with all the set of traditions and foods and language; it's also a race, and for most people, they all mean the same thing. A scion of Japanese people is heir to all that entails. We are us, this is ours, our legacy, which passes to you.

In the US, for example, America is a nation. But races and cultural legacies are something else. You can be a child of German and African descent, practicing Hinduism against your parents' wishes if you want. We fracture on all kinds of lines in America, beliefs and traditions and religions. We belong to groups that fall under the umbrella of being American. Because America is just damn big, and it's populated by people from all over the place, and it would be ludicrous to expect that Americans could have anything in common with all Americans other than their national affiliation to the country they live in. This is why anyone can look American to me. And if you aren't American, there is a process by which you can become one (I will admit up front that I have no idea how this process works for whom).

I'm aware that there is a process by which you can become a Japanese national, and that it's really difficult. But there is no process by which you can become Japanese. And this is why people are surprised to see you, a foreigner, participating in their cultural stuff. You may spend a very long time learning and taking in Japanese ways and customs and abilities. You may speak better Japanese than your fellow townsfolk. But a stranger meeting you for the first time has no idea that you aren't a tourist on a two-week vacation.

And the tendency so far is to assume that you probably are. There are questions you get used to answering. That "where you're from" isn't necessarily where you live now, it's where you were before Japan and more specifically, your racial descent. That "how long you are staying" is how many weeks, not years. It's not an overt aggressive speech act. They aren't trying to drive you out of the country; they're glad you are here to see their wonderful culture. Take lots of pictures and tell your friends about it when you get home.

Why would you stay? You aren't Japanese, after all. And bless your heart, that isn't your fault, now is it? You just happened to be born not one of them, and that's just how the ball bounces.

Okay so there is a presumed superiority inherent in that sensibility.

It's not your violent, hateful brand of racism, but it's still othering. You don't have to hate on someone to make them feel small. Sometimes being nice will do it. You aren't to be blamed for your not being Japanese, so who could hate you for it?

I'm not quite comfortable calling this aggression, although I also think it would be irresponsible to pretend that the compliments on your Japanese language or chopstick wielding ability aren't galling and some days totally wearing. It's gotten to the point that I don't even want to have the conversation with foreigners about it anymore. Yeah yeah, so someone told you your Japanese was good after you only said "Good morning" and you stumbled on the syllables, and you wanna bitch about it? I don't want to hear it anymore, you wear me out as much as they do.

But we do have to acknowledge the double edge of that sword. If you're so quick to compliment, your compliments become meaningless. The only real compliments I've gotten on my Japanese language are the times someone mistook me for Japanese when they weren't looking at me (by phone, or looking down at a clipboard as I walked by and spoke). They're only trying to be friendly and make conversation with these things, but occasionally the ignorance is astonishing.

America must be a scary place, what with everyone carrying guns all the time, and all that. But, on the other hand, girls in America are really tough and all know martial arts so they are probably okay. You get questions like "What do Americans/Westerners/foreigners think of such-and-such?" And you have to field that shit. And all you can do is say, "Well I don't know, Margo. But as for me..." and give your own opinion, stressing that it's just yours, not America's official position. And hope that over time they meet enough foreigners to being to see the pattern that there is no set pattern.

I've occasionally heard summations of an American way of doing things that were startlingly on target. I don't even remember what it was about (probably sports day), just that I explained how we did a thing compared and contrasted to how we were doing it at my school. One of the teachers laughed and said, isn't that just so American. To be so concerned with the final outcome, the bottom line, efficiency. And when I thought about that later, I thought, aren't most of my frustrations with the office mostly a matter of inefficiency and time-wasting? Maybe she had a point.

Still and all. It's a bit of a fix. Japan is incredibly welcoming and friendly, but it's a place where you will never been seen as one of them (unless perhaps you look like them). People who stay permanently or long-term have to find a way to fight that, or rise above it, or bottle it up until it causes their internal organs to explode. It takes a lot of energy to buoy up that kind of thing some days, and it can really wear you down. Maybe the answer is just to have a good support network, to get to know the people you like, to participate and to be involved. Yeah you won't reach everyone, but you'll slowly make a deeper impression on the people who have to deal with your shit and who get to be impressed by your poise and bravery on a weekly basis.

I say maybe, because that would be my go-to answer, and if it didn't work I'd have to try something else.

There is no quick way to make "the Japanese" see you as anything other than "not Japanese." Because for every co-worker you vehemently school, there are a hundred people who have never met you who might see you tomorrow and stare. But one day, maybe some of those hundred will all have a friend of a friend who is Japanese-not-Japanese, a person of non-Japanese descent who nonetheless is perceived 'Japanese' in behavior and language ability and cultural understanding.

But that's all missing the point. The point is to be a person, not "Japanese" or "not-Japanese." There's nothing more frustrating than standing in the void and shouting, I'm a person! I matter and have feelings! Some would rather not shout. Some would.

There are people in Japan who know that I'm a person. There are many more who don't and never will.

Merry Me a Little

Love me just enough.

When I found this, I thought I was hitting the Engrish jackpot, all the Starbucks workers wearin' their red t-shirts, all of them emblazoned with "let's merry" in capital letters.

But, it turns out, it's just an international campaign.

Oh well!

I write things...

Sometimes I write them and they go up on other websites.

Here's a fun story about how 6th graders are better at phonics than my JHS students!

http://www.hyogoajet.net/hyogotimes/2011/10/26/english-sensei-spirit-how-my-6th-graders-learned-to-spell/

Some More Acdemics

I've spent the last hour or so trying to figure out what a TEFL certification actually means, who has the right to give them, and whether or not it's just a racket designed to take from me the most precious thing I have (not my okane, silly, my time!).

And maybe it's just the way today feels, but after looking at all those websites and definitions and acronyms and prices and topic lists, all I want to do is take a nap. I'm not sure how this bodes. This didn't come about randomly; few things ever do.

The JET program has rearranged the budget a little, it appears. We aren't going to get any more calendars or handheld planners from them. But. They are offering partial sponsorship to 100 lucky applicants who want to get TEFL certified online. Well heck. I'll apply, at least. Another certification can't hurt my future prospects, anyway, can it?

Unless it is as mind-numbing as it in some ways promises to be, of course. I have this fear when it comes to going back to school to get certification to teach in the US once this is over - what before JET would have bored me to tears might at this time bore me to violence - I might throw things. The problem is, there will be a lot of good and valuable information which I really do need buried in there along with lots of stuff I already know because I had to pick it up on the fly as I rocketed through grammar games by the seat of my pants.

But I mean, if we come back to it, I really do want to be better. I guess it's more a question of time, since JET would pay for most of it.

But if anyone out there has any unbiased information on just what the hell TEFL is, and how it fits in with my recurrent vision of being a multi-focused teacher (I think, rather, of Mr. Webb, who taught physics, and ESL, and sat in on political studies, and lent me linguistics articles)... I mean, before I left, the Kaplan people in Kansas suggested that upon my return, I could be the EFL teacher.

Which begs the question: do I really need this piece of paper? Maybe not. Will it hurt to have it? Only the hours I spend in front of my computer (100 of them, unless I get a by for reading fast).. will it help? Maybe. I can't help but think about how these things happen, the things we pick up along the way, and how they change our futures. I only took Latin because it was the alternative, you know? It changed me, and it didn't. I was always going to be like this, maybe.

Well. First things first. Apply for grant. Then find the time. (I hear you saying, hey, what about August, what're you doing at work then anyway? But that is for another entry.)

Oh the time. Only one and a half more work days til I leave for Tokyo Orientation.

"Yaritai!" said the short ones

I just got done with the small elementary class of 1^st  ("sheep") and 2^nd (horses) graders (epithets based solely on their Chinese zodiac animals). They are consistently one of my best groups, and I am not even sure why. They’re like, thirsty for knowledge.. when they connect the dots to make a picture in the numbers game, they want to know the English name of the animal they’ve outlined so they can write it on the paper at the top (I just realized that this is a big deal when I saw that the 3^rd grade has only just begun to learn romaji, writing with roman letters). They want to study.. they play the study games hard, and really do remember a lot.

I mean, maybe it’s that I tried to teach the older kids more stuff, and thus they learned each thing less well, but the youngest group here has numbers nailed to the wall more than anyone. They could count to a hundred before the 4^th grade… well, the 4^th grade is up around like 50 as of today. They see the fly swatters sticking out of my bag and insist that they wanna do that!

The fly swatters are for board karuta. Basically, first the kids have to get the ABCs on the board in order (at which this group is A-number-one champ, of course). This is generally done with a lot of shouting, because everyone will be holding one or two letters. So the kids will get ready, and I say “go!” and start the timer (usually I only time older kids.. but once again…).. they all scream “A!” like their lives hang in the balance, then start yelling the name of whatever kid is holding A, in case he/she doesn’t know already. This progresses through the alphabet in one minute and 44 seconds. (Today I had them match the lowercase letters too. This took 1 minute and 42 seconds.)

Once the letters are on the board, we can play with the fly swatters. Initially, I had taught them a bunch of words, one for each letter. Like APPLE and BAG and CAT, etc. Today we had gone over animals, weird ones too, so I kicked it off with “starfish!” The hope was that eventually they would associate the sound with the letter, rather than just that one word.. so I used the associated words for board karuta for a while, then occasionally would throw in other words that started with those letters. 

They cleared the whole board today; I was calling words I don’t think even their teachers have ever heard. I couldn’t think of anything for A but “anteater” at the time. V was “vixen.” But I think they’ve learned the sound idea. Hell yes, first and second graders.

The thing that impresses me most, and also probably works so well, is the way they fling themselves so wholeheartedly at everything I present. I don’t even really have to try that hard to entertain them. Anything will be fun. And anything will be absorbed, too. They’re like a little army of 14 sponges.

I mean, I’m fully aware that they’re not all the same. The “YARITAI!” engine is driven by a few key second graders, and there are some who are still blanking totally on English Ball (we throw a ball around and they say one English word before passing it to someone else), and I do hear a few mooouuu wakaran!s from time to time. But the energy and sheer knowledge of the class is staggering, especially for a group I hardly thought too much of while trying to plan.

What I mean by that is, I designed 5^th and 6^th grade lessons to be efficient and as effective as possible. To learn what I wanted them to learn, or what the curriculum had in store. But I planned downward, and by the time I got to the youngest of them, I was like “well I’m already bringing numbers cards, maybe we can play some kind of number game…” and sometimes I went so far in numb-minded I’ve-been-planning-under-duress to simply write “Number game, 15 minutes” and leave the details for future EmLem to handle.

Lucky for me, everything with this class is a pretty big hit. Though, they’re the only ones who’ve run me to the end of a plan (repeatedly) and had me blinking at the clock on which was left 15 more minutes of classtime. I’ve wised up a bit.. I now just keep a bagful of tricks, and if all else fails, there’s always ABC board.

Life is Study

As the lovable Kintaro, hero of Golden Boy once said, "Life is study."

And I often spend working holidays catching up on my studies. I've tried to stay on some kind of schedule, and to some degree I have kept up with things.. the problem is mostly that I'm doing too many different things and trying to maintain them all (alongside all that lesson plannin' and other stuff I do at my desk).

SmartFM has proved to be an excellent tool for studying Japanese vocabulary (and the countries of the world), and I try to do lessons regularly. The lessons go quickly and are kind of fun.

My kanji benkyo-ing has been going slowly. You might remember a time when I said I wanted to "nail down" the 508 I "knew" before moving on to the next lesson. Well, the process of nailing down those kanji, begun in the summer, has reached its.. um.. halfway point today.

And it's not that I've been slacking. My methods are just very.. methodical. I get confused by all this "kunyomi" and "onyomi" stuff, especially when there is more than one of either of them for a character, so I figured the best thing to do would be just learn some words for each kanji. Then I would get exposed to more vocabulary, and see how the kanji fit into the meanings of their respective words.

But writing a handful of words for each character is ridiculously time-consuming. It's working, I'm remembering, if not all the words, at least I'll be able to feel like I've seen that before... when I encounter them, and possibly even produce the correct sounds in reading the words.. but I'll get the meaning, and that's what is important.

I've been doing the kanji review quizzes regularly (the screen shows a word in English and I write the kanji on my scrap paper, then hit spacebar to show the correct kanji. If it's right, I type Y, if wrong, I type N. The N ones have to be redone and then they go into the box to be reviewed soonest and most often. Kanji work their way out further and further into the 2-times reviewed box and beyond depending on the number of times I give them a Y response. Every time, a handful of them make their way back into the first box because I've forgotten them since the last review.

As of now, though, the boxes are like this:
One review: 12
Two reviews: 25
Three reviews: 9
Four Reviews: 33
Five Reviews: 95
Six Reviews: 325
Seven + Reviews: 9

After a set amount of time, each kanji expires and comes up for review. On any given day, I can have just a couple, or 40-something. If I wait too long, a lot will have expired and I'll have to plow through a hundred or so. If I get a kanji right, it goes to the next box, and wrong goes back to the first. The first boxes expire at a faster rate, and I assume further boxes just get exponentially longer times.

But yeah. I'm at 254 "nailed down" and still sitting at 508 in process.

I'm also not too far behind in my grammar studies. I've persisted in scraping what understanding I can from the free books we get from the government as JET participants. Last year I failed to finish the 6th and final book, but they sent me a certificate anyway. ^_^ This year I'm doing the blue (advanced) set, and I'm on book 2, week 4, day 3, which is where I would need to be, exactly, if I weren't about to run off traveling and leave the books sitting on the table for two weeks.

I'm not allowed to do more than two days of CLAIRbook in any one day because it causes my eyes to glaze over and for me to pass out at my desk. I'm not kidding. I drooled on my kanji notebook once. I don't retain more than two lessons at a time, and even those I like to space out these days (so I'll do one of those, then some kanji or smartfm).

So this is part of why I do not have free time at work like other JETs might. I'm just not equipped for that.

I have also developed some kind of inability to study at home. I can write letters at home, and watch pirated American TV, and I can clean the house and do laundry and even cook a little, and I can write at home, and I can leave the house for my other extracurricular stuff, and I can socialize at home. But I find it very difficult to actually do "homework" there.

Tomorrow I'm expecting me to do some, though, so we'll see how that goes!

KobeConference

It’s one of those days where I feel like I have a real job because I dressed all professionally. I took new pantyhose (I like never wear hose) out of their box, put them on under my skirt, and they lasted like a whole 48 minutes without getting a run..!

I just finished my assignment for Kobe conference. And it’s actually pretty damn good, all things considered. All things being, total apathy toward KobeConference assignments (since last year we spent approximately twelve minutes discussing the reports of eight people), a pile of other stuff to do (situation normal), and the directions for the assignment being (and now I’m quoting, because this shit is hilarious) “every participant is requested to prepare one lesson plan that was effective in having students experience a lot of language activities.” The next page details how to format your report (lesson plan? report? essay?) in terms of font, margins, number of words per line and lines per page (no shit). It also provides the title of your.. one page: "”How to Make Team-Teaching Class More Effective in Having Students Experience A Lot of Language Activities.”

I feel like.. if I wanted to poke fun at my mid-year conference’s effectiveness, I could not have done any better. Bless its little heart.

Kobe Conference, actually, is much more about meeting all the Hyogo JETs, having dinner in Kobe, happy hour with said Hyogo JETs, and being strategically placed near movie theatres on Friday when Harry Potter hits the ground in Japan (armed, of course, with our old graduation robes and homemade AWESOMENESS wands! …Just me?).

Apparently it is also about proximity to the Kobe-Sanda shopping outlets for the weekend.

I mean.. I should be exasperated that I’m going to a conference when I should be teaching elementary school (because I’ll do a lot more good in elementary than I will in Kobe, maybe), but I like playing business sometimes.

I disregarded the instructions for the assignment and made it a modified chart-form like I always see lesson plans laid out, and much like I lay them out for myself every other day when I create them for elementary school anyway. Maybe my radical methods will stand out. My lesson plan isn’t half bad either. I think “a lot of language activities” means all four areas (speaking, listening, reading, writing), so I just pulled/modded a day’s lessons we did with the first year class a few months ago that seemed to cover most of them.

Come on language teachers. Let’s not do more. Let’s do less, and do it better. Kids don’t need to learn a thousand more words. They need to learn how to actually use the thousand they are already expected to know.

You Look American

I overheard a comment the other night that gave me a bit of pause.

You see, Little Brother JET (the replacement of Big Brother JET), who is very gung-ho, polite, and friendly, does not look anything like his predecessor either. Big Brother got his nickname partly because he has red hair (like me!) and so I figured we could pass, especially in Japan, as siblings.

But Little Brother JET is half Laotian by descent. He doesn’t look Asian to me, not exactly. I remember thinking the same of other half-this or half-that people I’d met before. She doesn’t look Japanese. She just looks American, to me. A dark-haired, brown-eyed sort.

But when we were doing our meet-and-greet with some group or another, and he mentioned his hereditary background, someone said, “Oh, that explains it. I thought you didn’t look American!”

What, then, does an American look like? I wondered.

Because after living here a year, I can almost see the difference between who looks Chinese, who looks Japanese, and who looks Korean.. kind of, almost. And I like to think I can spot British and Dutch and Italian. But when it comes to American, all bets are off. I assume that looking like an American looks like anything and everything, because it very often does.

I know a bunch of Americans. In the same way that, as a little kid, you just kind of assume everyone’s life experience is pretty much the same as yours, I tend to assume that people are American until I have reason to believe otherwise (an accent, a statement in a self-introduction). I’ve more than once mistaken dudes I have seen around the cities in Japan as being black Americans when they are actually from Africa. Not African Americans, dude, just African.

And the dark-eyed, dark-haired half Asians? Look just as American to me as African Americans, and dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian-descended Americans, and yeah, the pale-as-death Irish-rooted Americans too. It’s not that I maybe couldn’t have picked out the Asian in someone’s features, it’s that I never thought to look for it. My own heritage is half Dutch, the other half a mix of British, Irish, and some Native American too (plus some other stuff I can’t remember). The sheer variety of all that is sometimes a little bit mind-boggling for some of our Japanese students, because Japan tends to be pretty Japanese.

Some people get married outside of the nationality/culture/Japanese race; it’s not like it’s taboo or unheard of. But a lot more don’t. Because it’s who’s around. For a lot of Japanese, where you’re from and your nationality and your racial heritage is all connected to being Japanese.

Being American, though, is a whole different system. Virtually everyone there traces back to somewhere else before, at least partly.

What does it mean to look American? Is it a complexion? An eye shape or color? Is it a stance or swagger or haircut? Is it a fashion statement? Do I bear the stamp unconsciously, just because I was born of ‘mixed’ heritage in the state of Georgia, because I went to school in Tennessee, all the while pledging allegiance to the flag and memorizing things like “Give me liberty or give me death!”?

Whatever the reason, I am assumed on first glance to be foreign. I often feel like people ask me where I came from just out of politeness, although I suppose it’s possible that they can’t tell by my accent I’m not Australian, New Zealander, or European.

The other afternoon, Little Brother and I were up at Haga Castle. The caretaker there, an old man speaking only Kansai-ben chatted with us at length. I was proud of myself for following almost everything he said. He speaking pace was slow enough to allow this, and it made me kinda smug. I figured Little Brother was probably following it too, although he said later that it got difficult in places. Little Brother is good at Japanese (prrrobably better than me), but Kansai-ben is still kind of a trip for the newly-arrived; however versed one may be in classroom-taught proper Japanese, get yourself into the middle of nowhere (like, for example, Haga) and up on top of a mountain, and the local people aren’t going to talk that way. Anyway, after a few minutes of going on about the castle and the area and his job being to shut the gate when we left, he commented that kanojo wa nihongo zenzen wakar’en, na?

Hey guy! I do so understand Japanese! The conversation turned there and we realized that he’d not only recognized the half-Asian-ness of Little Brother, but he’d figured it was half Japanese, and assumed that was why he spoke Japanese and that this was what qualified him to be an English teacher in Japan. He missed the part where I was a teacher too; I guess he thought I was a visiting friend. I wasn’t offended, just kind of surprised. Like I said, Little Brother looks (sounds, acts?) really American to me. If anything, I kind of feel like my more reserved demeanor and conservative nature are more “Japanese” than his outgoing directness..!

littler fish

I always used to say that the easiest thing to learn is something you have already learned before.

Academically, I still think that’s pretty true. I almost feel like this is a companion entry to the one immediately previous because it also has to do with taking a long time on something. Only this time, in a progress-oriented way.

I decided that it takes me six years to get comfortable with a language. Six years, no shit. I guess it would be different if I were studying something intensively and focused on nothing else.. maybe the time would shorten up, then; but I’m not sure I could study Only One Thing for, you know, like two or three years, and still retain my sanity.

So when it comes to language, I have to move in stages. There are certain things I look at on the first go round, learn them only insofar as I have to (memorize for the quiz), and then just consign them to the currently-out-of-reach mental box. It’s not that I’ll never have what it takes to master those concepts, it’s just that I don’t have the time/energy/motivation/knowledge background right now to even want to deal with them.

Kanji’s like that. I had much bigger fish to fry than literacy for a long time. Honorifics and humble speech are like that, too. I joke about the ridiculous complexity of the Japanese writing system (which I am beginning to enjoy, go figure). You may also have heard me complain about how there are actually like twelve levels of formality for speech. Well, it’s not so. There are totally more than that.

But twelve is really all I probably need*, seeing as how I most likely won’t be having an audience with an emperor anytime soon. If I do, I’ll just have to hope that he, like everyone else that deals with me in this country, will be understanding that using those freaking levels is hard, and not as high on my priority list as learning how to just ask a train station worker a question with more words and less miming.

Thing is? If I think about it and formulate the question in my mind before approaching a station worker, as long as I’m not in any hurry, I can do that now. So I look down at my little chart of honorific and humble verb forms, and I kind of sigh, because.. shit. I guess it’s time. Twelve, though, really? Jeez. Not that it’s any easier for a nonnative English speaker to navigate the hemming and hawing we do instead to set a tone and show respect or lack thereof. I think in Japanese, you can ask a favor of your superior fairly directly if you use the right words.. you know, can I receive the favor of you allowing the rudeness of my requesting to get a ride to the work drinking party? Whereas in English I feel like you kind of more just.. make statements like I really want to go to the work party, but I don’t really know where it is, or how to get there. Can you tell me how to get there? Can I get there by walking? Oh you’re right, that is kind of far. Is it out of your way? Oh you would? Thank you so much!

I’m not turning Japanese. I always frickin’ have been.

 

* Obviously, you don’t really really need them. But it’s nice to know they exist when you go into a store or restaurant and the servicepeople, who have to be saying things like “How can I help you?” or “What would you like?” are using words that you cannot conceptualize, despite your basic vocab skillz. It’s kind of like the way a waitress will never say “What do you want?” which is simple/straightforward both grammar and vocab-wise, but instead “What can I get for y’all?” or “What would you like?” .. and would is all kinds of trouble as a modal verb and all this BS, when you really think about it.

But seriously, the service in Japan is mostly just insane(ly good), and it will only confuse them if you try to tip them. Go to a cafe in Japan once in your life just to hear someone say what must actually be “We are honored that you have graced us with your presence, I beg that you allow me to serve you,” and then not expect extra cash for it.

good morning

“Good morning!” I blink. It must be a teacher because… Most students don’t stand in the doorway of the copy-workroom to talk to me. But it’s one of my third-year girls, one of the ones I like the best because she, for example, is willing to stand in the doorway of the copy-workroom to talk to me. There are two best friends with almost the same name, but this is the prettier of the two, so I remember her name as the one that sounds weirder in English.

“Good morning!” I smile.

“Your skirt is very.. good!” she says. “Very cute!” there are “o”s lingering on the ends of her words. skaato, guudo, kyuuto. I don’t mind, although maybe I should.. it might be my job to mind.

“Thank you!” I say and smile again. I really like this skirt. Something about it makes everyone think I made it myself. I guess it looks kind of homemade. It’s just prairie enough that it wears easy, washes easy, but it’s long enough to wear to work. It’s not very businesslike, but it’s fine for a Friday. Or any day. Who really cares what I wear. Except for the 3rd year girls, of course, and that one teacher who is nice enough to compliment me on new haircuts and anytime I try something adventurous with an accessory.

As she walks away I glance in the mirror above the workroom sink. “God I look like a crazy person,” I note, trying to smooth down the left side of my hair. Normally the left side will lay flat and it’s the right I have to worry about. But I guess the humidity will play havoc no matter what I try. I give up, slice up my phonics worksheets to their proper size, hole-punch them so I don’t have to collect them (but I probably will), and march my brown tennis-shoe self right out of that workroom.

A few good ideas

Part of the reason I keep this blog is to disseminate information and ideas. When I arrived in Japan, my predecessor had left me so many materials and copies of her lesson plans, I had to do what was natural to me to continue a big paper (or digital) trail of what works (and what doesn’t) at work. I can still remember what it was like to sit down at my new desk and wonder, omg now what?!

Anyway, here are a couple things I discovered or reused recently:

Musical chairs – If you need to be able to single out a student to practice conversation with you, this actually could work well. It takes a lot of help from the homeroom teacher, but what I ended up doing in my 5th grade classes was make a long row of chairs back to back, the chairs numbering one less than the number of kids in the class. They move around the circle to the sound of American music until it stops. When it does, they sit down. It’s always funny because there is this scramble produced by the fact that a bunch of kids are so focused on making sure they have their butt near a chair that they leave open seats between themselves and the people ahead of them. Which other students who at first think, aw crap, I am the odd one out, suddenly spot and make a dash for.

Anyway, once everyone has a seat (or not), the seatless kid has to come and demonstrate the target conversation with me. Then they all have to practice the type of conversation demonstrated with the person whose chair is back-to-back with theirs. Seatless kid is free to gleefully spectate this part.

Concentration – The simple beauty of this game is that you can play with the whole class, and everyone has to pay attention the whole time. Too often when I am trying to do small group or individual stuff, those not in the spotlight see it as a great opportunity to slack off/talk to their friends/etc. But in concentration games (we recently did matching lower and uppercase letters) you can have one group at a time choosing a letter from those magneted to the board, and those who disregard others’ turns do so at their peril. I generally play in groups, although even there kids can sometimes get all overcome by shame and indecision.

 

Aaaand apparently, my “letter project” is about to get some press.. Mikan-sensei just asked me for copies of a few of the letters so he can include them in some kind of report he is giving. I’m totally flattered. I only wish we had gotten replies put together before American schools dismissed for summer! Alas.

Dangerous/Awkward

Do you ever have moments you just hope your mother never hears about?

Did you also have a blog wherein you were obliged to write about your adventures, even the ones that you fear will make people back home groan in terror and throw their arms in the air crying out, she will never survive, this one! ..?

So one day back in like February or something I was waiting at the bus stop. It was super early in the day, and I had been dismissed early to go to a meeting at the BOE, but the only bus that would get me there on time was the bus that would get me to my house like an hour early. Oh well! So I was waiting for that bus.

My bus stop is right by a little store that has a little parking lot. Sometimes, cars drive into the parking lot and stop, as that is what parking lots are for. So it wasn’t strange to me when a little white truck pulled into the parking lot. What was strange was when the little old man driving the truck got out and started speaking English to me.

“Excuse me, where are you going?”

I blinked at him. Where was I.. what? Oh right, I was at the bus stop. I told him I was headed to Yamasaki, which was true. He offered me a ride. The thing about Japanese English is, when someone offers you a perfectly innocent ride (like, for example, when my English teachers would offer me a ride home, or to some school event), the words they usually use are “Please get in my car.” I can’t explain to them why this is a sketchy phrase, but it just is.

So this little old man I have never seen before is in the backcountry of nearly nowhere Japan speaking fine English at me asking me to please get into his car? What would YOU do? Well of course you know by my preface what I did… I hopped right in.

As the car pulled onto the road I wondered if I had lost my senses completely. But I do have senses, and I do use them, occasionally. When he asked where he should take me, I said the name of the store across from my apartment complex. No need to tell this guy where I lived, right? I told him I needed them to change something in my cell phone settings. Then I sat with my phone in my lap, ready to dial BigBrotherJET if things got weird.

We chatted, sort of (I had become inexplicably tense about the decision to ride in a stranger’s car, though he gave no indication of intending harm), along the way, and he found out I was headed to a BOE meeting.. and offered to drop me off there. But the meeting wasn’t for like another hour, as I’d said, and I told him I’d rather just make my own way down there.

It really confuses people when I try to tell them I have a car. They don’t get why I would be riding the bus all the time. Yeah, good damn question (sometimes, anyway). I got a new bus card today.. three months of rides to and from work for like 62,000 yen. That’s a lot of gas money, as CatJET pointed out. But I digress.

Somehow along the way he convinced me that I should see the little school he runs, where he teaches math, his son English, and his wife Japanese. This must have been after I found out he knew one of my adult English students, because once that suspicion was confirmed, I was able to relax a lot more. Anyway, I consented to have him take me to this juku (cram-school). So I went and poked around and borrowed a book and went home for only a few minutes before I had to run to the BOE.

Crisis averted, but social obligations hoisted. Because he had this starry-eyed dream of me coming to their juku regularly, allowing his son to practice English, and in return I could study kanji with his wife. I told him I had Tuesday free. Which is true. But it is also the ONLY free day I have and I just cannot take on another class. He called a few times in the intervening months but I was always too busy. I felt bad, but what could one do. Finally, he and his son came up to Ichi for BigBro’s and my class.. but it happened to be the night Brother had advanced students and I taught beginner. They invited me to get some coffee afterward but I was like, man, it’s 9:45, are you crazy? I gotta get home and go to bed!

I finished the book I borrowed that same day though, and meant to call him the next day to

But I could tell that all he wanted was for me just to hang out with them, and so I assured him that I did want to do that, some Tuesday, just not every Tuesday.

So, today, I went. We ate ramen, his son was super shy, and his wife taught me a little kanji afterward. It was pretty hilarious because the dude himself had to run off to teach his math class before I was done eating (um, I am slow).. and once I WAS done it was clear that we were all there basically to indulge his dream of having us all be there, and we had no idea what to do next. His wife and son were like.. what do we do next? Do you want to learn kanji? And I was like.. uh, I guess..

His son is really good at English, though, and was pulling out crazy words I never expect second-languagers, especially JHS/HS formal ed only (then just self-taught) to know. He had a pretty good ear and accent, too. I could tell he was shy about speaking English to me because I’m a native, and I always used to HATE speaking Japanese to native strangers.. also I got the impression that his dad was a bit too delighted to have a cute female foreigner to visit his roughly-my-age son to speak English.

So it was magically awkward, but at least it’s a warm night and the ramen was really good, and I ate chicken cartilage for the first time and it wasn’t half bad. Seriously you can eat anything if you fry the hell out of it.

Listen With Your Heart

Recently, I re-took in Disney’s jewel of intercultural eye-opening experiences, Pocahontas. And I’ve been thinking a bit about “cultural sensitivity.” What exactly is that, and what does it mean?

And I’d like to preface this with the (ironic?) disclaimer that these are just my own opinions and don’t represent the opinions of any group whatsoever. They’re just how I personally deal with the world and are not meant to imply that you should deal with the world in like fashion.

So I live in a country that is really far away from where I grew up. I mean that mostly just geographically. But culturally, too, this place is different. There are customs that just crop up, some of which I really like and can get behind, and some of which I feel make no sense at all.

Part of my job is to be a cultural representative of the US. I think it might even be in my contract. “Try to show Japan a good side of America.” right? God, I hate generalizations.

I had a mission once, before I even arrived probably. It might have won me the job, when my gung-ho spirit at the interview told them I wanted to be polite, be good in Japan, so that people would see that Americans can be polite, as well as whatever else they are seen as being.

But, um, I’m an American; I’m not America. I’m polite, it turns out, because that’s just how I roll. Because I’ve caught more flies with honey. Because trying to be charming always got me what I wanted. Not because it’s American, and not because it’s Japanese. I observe and imitate because I want to fit in. I enthusiastically join unfamiliar customs because I like to learn and try new things. And, because often enough, I really like the customs I am learning.

I’m not really doing it for them.

And to me, that’s a significant distinction. It’s important to me to feel like my actions and responses are fairly organic, that they are genuine because they arise out of a true desire to be or do something, not just to prove some point or provoke a certain response.

I’m not entirely comfortable with the assertion that the burden is always on me, who come from power and privilege, to make an extra effort to understand and adapt.

On the one hand, it’s a total no-brainer. Yeah I better adapt if I don’t want to starve or be restricted to the tiny world of foreigners and their imported food.

But to me, it’s not a burden. It’s an opportunity. I didn’t come here to not see a whole new country and experience a whole different thing.

Mostly, I have an issue with the classification of me being the privileged one. Okay, first let me assure you I actually am quite privileged. I was born into a wonderful family, I just ‘happened’ to live in a great public school district, I have the fortune of knowing a lot of great friends and having a lot of great opportunities available to me. I got to go to Vandy on the blessing of my dedication and brainpower. I got to go to Japan. I’m super-mega-rich, even if not in the fiscal sense. I’m cosmically spoiled.

And also, I was born into an English-speaking family; English just so happens to be in high demand right now. I know these things. I know that by accident of birth, I am sitting so pretty.

But I don’t think it’s being American than makes that so. I think that helps. But Americans live at and below the poverty line too. And some of my students are from families rolling in dough. Some kids in America don’t get attention from their families, don’t get nurtured. Are they privileged? I guess in some ways. But not in others.

I guess I just find it arrogant to insist that being from a powerful country makes me a powerful/privileged person. There are lots of kinds of power, influence, and value, and you can never assess the standing of a group without seeing it through your own personal (and cultural) bias. So to insist that Americans ought to be more culturally sensitive because they are the powerful ones actually relies on (and for me, underlines) the arrogant view that America is somehow superior.

Culturally speaking, no one is.

Romaji: Juu-nin to-iro
Literally: Ten people, ten colours
Meaning: Everyone has their own tastes; "Different strokes for different folks"

I expect something from myself, in Japan. I don’t owe it to anyone else and I end up just feeling resentment if anyone tries to tell me I do. I expect something from myself in Japan because I am addicted to learning, because I want people to like me, because I know there is much to see and hear and find and in order to do that you have to listen as you go. You can’t be so full of yourself and your own ideas that you overlook all the cool things around you. Or, I mean, you can, but I don’t want to.

In the end, some of the stuff I encounter I will incorporate into my life during my stay. Other things I will keep all my life. And some I will never understand (it’s possible that they really just don’t make sense..!). And that? Is okay.

I think it’s more respectful to be just a little bit demanding. I expect something of myself in Japan, but I expect something of the people I meet, too. I expect that kid in the second row to make a good faith effort to try to learn from me. Which is why I get frustrated when he doesn’t. I expect my co-workers to forgive me when I commit a faux pas at enaki, whether because of my ignorance or just because I am so freaking clumsy. I expect them to be sensitive to the fact that I am learning and want to learn.

Expecting something, demanding something, well that’s the opposite of being patronizing, isn’t it? It may come across as backward to some, but from me, expectation is a sign of deep respect. If I expect something from you, I demonstrate (not just state) my belief in your capacity to provide it.

So I think that JETs are in Japan partly so they can give, and partly so they can need something from the people around them. People are just people. Some stuff is just human. Other stuff is particular, personal. Cultural stuff is just whatever falls in between.

And just to return to Pocahontas for a second, I at first wanted to take major issue with the language thing. In one scene that chick “listens with her heart” and is able to understand what Smith is asking her. So she says “My name is Pocahontas.” And I know it’s just a movie, and they needed to skip over the whole problem of language, but there is no way.

Still, you do gotta listen with your heart.. you gotta want it. No amount of trying to prove anything will substitute.

Spring Breeaaaaaaak!

Today is the second official day of spring break, and I have to admit to loving it. Although being in the office while there are no classes is bound to get old eventually, I personally am too good at inventing things for myself to do to be much bothered by it yet. I still want to (1) finish sewing that bag, (2) do a line of each of the first 15 kanji, (3) plan the first lesson of the school year for 5th and 6th graders, and (4) gather the necessary Japanese vocab I’ll want at tonight’s enkai. I’m also embroiled in (5) details of getting a Japanese driver’s license (although at the moment I have misplaced my Georgia license…?), (6) finding out what I should do about taxes, then there is always my blogroll (7) on which I am eternally behind, and of course writing here (8) about Kyoto and Tokyo and goodness knows what else. Beyond that of course there are letters and e-mails (9, 10), the state of my inbox (11), and researching Okinawa (12!).

I’ve been attentive to my Japanese studies since the break started, which just makes me feel like I’m very very in college. It wasn’t so long ago I was juggling reading dense volumes, pdf articles, translating Latin poetry, and completing thematically easy but linguistically difficult Japanese homework assignments. Here I am at my desk (which happens to be in an office instead of in my dorm room.. but it makes little difference except that there is a a tea dispenser in the office), bent over my own scribbled imitations of unfamiliar characters which represent words and ideas in some language not my native. Then it was Greek (well and Japanese, too), now it’s kanji.

I’m amazed in retrospect at the rapid rate at which we were learning kanji back at Vandy. We had quizzes fairly often and lots of new kanji per quiz. I remember drilling that crap into the ground; I retained a bit of it and I like to think it makes learning it easier the second time around. People here have asked me occasionally “how many kanji do you know?” because you learn them to levels, sort of. These people just wanted a ballpark of how much kanji I’d crammed into my poor collegiate brain over the years (a hundred? two thousand?), but I never could answer them with anything less vague than “Not enough..”

So far my kanji function has been mostly this:
1. I see a word in kanji.
2. I don’t quite know how to pronounce it, but I know the meaning of one of the characters in the set.
3. Of the other characters in the word, one looks vaguely familiar, like I must have learned it before, but I can’t remember anything about it.
4. One of the characters is completely foreign.
5. Result: I can’t read the word.

I kind of like this post on it, actually.. this is how I feel. And I decided at some point in the recent past that, gosh darnit, I so can learn thousands of kanji, because all that will take is hours and hours of me making random imaginative connections and writing them a billion times, followed by continued use of them in daily reading or writing activities. Or, to return us to the point of this digression, all that will take is me resuming my college state of mind.

Which I find is not so far from me after all.

There is a method I’m going to take on called the Heisig method, which asserts that learning kanji is pretty easy (though time-consuming) if you go about it the right way. And I am all about working steadily through a process to which the endgame is promised proficiency. Basically, before now I didn’t know how to begin, and now I do. I am also going to simultaneously be using the Clair kanji book because it’s here, and it’s another good review of the kanji I allegedly should know from my schoolin’ days. So basically, this might not be as easy to juggle once school starts again, but for now I am feeling pretty psyched.

I wasn’t the only one studying kanji today, as well. Two teachers brought their daughters to the office and they were adorably set up at desks with their own kanji practice booklets.

It's so cute because they each look a lot like the mothers who brought them in today. Other awesome things about this photo include the mug I like to use, "WE ARE PENGUIN" when it is available. And Mikan-sensei is featured, left, with Ou-sensei at right.

Anyway, with that I better get on one of my 12 items of business…

Skit Results

A while back, the second-years performed their skits. I took videos of all of class 2’s skits, but when I had the kids vote, one skit swept all three awards (Easiest to Understand, Most Fun, and Overall Best Skit).. I don’t mean it just won all three, I mean no one else’s came close in any of the categories.

Yesterday, I gave them their Emi$ cash prizes. For your viewing pleasure, here is “Peach Tarou Gaiden.”

I am aware that there is no way this will be as entertaining for you as it was for me, so don’t feel obligated to watch it on my behalf.

First Year Genki Spirit

I’ve been accused fairly recently of still having “that first-year genki spirit.” Well, accused is a fairly strong word and it makes it sound like being genki is a bad thing. Genki just means energetic and lively, high-spirited, and stuff like that. We have a lot of fun with the fact that in one of my classes, there is a kid named Genki, who also happens to be a genki kid. I’m glad he is; it would really suck to have to make jokes about the fact that he isn’t genki despite his name.

Anyway, the first year genki spirit is apparently the stage of JET life in which you still feel like your job makes some kind of difference, where you feel like all your efforts are not in fact wasted.

But to me, the more time I spend here, the more I feel like it’s important for them to import native speakers to help teach English. Mikan-sensei once straight up told me (when I said, “I’d like to do a little phonics work for like five or ten minutes each class,”) that Japanese teachers of English don’t know how to teach phonics. And with good reason.. they grow up with a language that does not differentiate between L and R, and not between TH and S, either, and to some extent, Z and J, and it doesn’t have the “er” sound and.. all kinds of other things.

I noticed it so profoundly the other day in my 4th grade class. The teacher there used to intimidate the hell out of me. He always participates and tries to help, which is great, honestly, homeroom teacher participation is essential, but they aren’t trained as English teachers, and he’s the product of a system that says a child whose name is pronounced Shota is Romanized Sôta.

There are a couple of different systems of Romaji, but I naturally like best the one I was first taught, which basically is, each Japanese character can be sounded out in English letters. There is no “si”.. the reason so many kids call the letter “C” by the name “shee” is because in the syllables, which for k go “ka, ki, ku, ke, ko,” for s go “sa, shi, su, se, so.”

When I first got my letter of JET placement and it said “Sisou” I remember saying, “Holy shit, Mom, I think they’re sending me to China.”

The other thing that happened in that class was a continuation of the epic struggle to get kids to differentiate verbally between “Tuesday” and “Thursday.” It turns out, Thursday is the hardest word in the world, because it combines that weird-ass TH combination in conjunction with the elusive “ER” sound no one is used to pronouncing. Dammit, Thor. The kids see a day that starts with T and has a U somewhere in the middle and spit out “Tuesday” every time.

Katakana-ized, it comes out saazday, which is at least recognizably different from chuusday (which is how we English speakers tend to pronounce “Tuesday”), but I hate falling back on the katakana, because the whole point of me being here and being adept at English phonemes is to teach them how it really sounds, not how it approximately sounds.

Still, I ask myself, if a sympathetic listener heard them say it, would they understand the word? That’s what I have to come back to.

It also took on striking hues when I asked my students at all levels to spell words like mat, sad, Sam, sat, etc. I said MAT and they said macch(i)? and I said MAT and they said matto? and I said MAT! and they said matsu?!

(head shake) …Mat.

Even my third-years (9th grade level) were doing this. Because you know that ka, ki, ku, ke, ko? For “t” it’s even worse: ta, chi, tsu, te, to.

They don’t understand the alphabet as its own unique thing, although they can sing the song and put the letters in order and they can draw the graphemes. But I know that understanding takes time. They only see the alphabet in relation to Romaji. Earlier on, my third graders (as in, 9 years old) hadn’t started learning Romaji yet. So the teacher explained that they couldn’t yet write their names in English letters.

Which makes the third grade and younger my richest unspoiled-by-romaji-learnin’ group.

The trouble is, secrets like there is a whole new world of sounds with this foreign alphabet are slow to dawn on people, or at least they were on me. Ancient Greek was a little like that. But even Greek is pretty close to my home alphabet. It’s hard to imagine that some language system uses sounds yours doesn’t. That there is more out there than you know or use or would ever need if you just stuck to your one language. It’s hard especially for a kid to see outside the structure of their world.

I know that takes a long time to sink in. So I don’t expect to make a difference in English learning overnight, or in one month, or in one year, even. Give me a couple of years, and some kids who really want to know something, and magic will be made.

Technically Incorrect

The other night at Monday evening Japanese class, our wonderful teacher was checking the pronunciation of both me and this other girl in the class who I think is more advanced than me in terms of vocabulary and grammar knowledge (and certainly in reading, being from China). She would have us read a sentence or two, or a dialog together out of the book.

For the most part, I'm pretty proud of my pronunciation. The first real compliment I got on my Japanese was on the way I pronounce the words I do know, and in the mornings when I yell out my greeting, Kyotosensei (the English speaking VP) always looks up to see if it's me. I can only credit an acute sense of mimicry and years under the tutelage of my native Japanese Vanderbilt faculty.

Anyway, back to this Monday night. The other girl read a sentence, then I read it, and to my ear it sounded just right. Our teacher had me read it again and then she said, "The way you say this part is technically incorrect. You say it like you're from Kansai."

Hot damn! I've picked up some intonation patterns from the local dialect. Which may be technically incorrect, but to me, basically it's awesome. Furthermore, when she said the sentence both ways (once in Kansai, once in Standard), I could not tell the difference. Which is a fairly rare occurrence for me (see: mimicry).

I want to be as adept at Kansai as I become at Standard, and I'm really glad that I still have teachers who will teach me Standard even as I live here and pick up the local speech patterns. I want to speak Kansai because I live in Kansai. I really do think it's a character mark, and I like the thought of my experience being built into my speech.

I've heard my main JTE (Mikan-sensei) switch between the two depending on the person with whom he's talking, or even the subject matter he's talking about. As a language teacher, he's a master of Standard, but he's also clearly a child of Kansai, and sometimes I hear him relating to students or joking with them using the more laid-back dialect. I desire this power.

In Kyoto, we stayed at a Guest House whose manager spoke flawless English with an Australian accent (having lived there for several years). It was really awesome. Nami-san, who was our hall coordinator at Vandy for several years, was really fun to talk to once I got here on the ground in Japan. She's from Kyoto, and that's part of Kansai, so she actually speaks Kansai-ben on a regular basis. But at Vandy, she always spoke Standard! "I had to; that was my job!" she told me.

Although I grew up in the south of the US, I don't have a noticeable accent. But I can produce one pretty easily, either on command, or because I'm spending time with someone who does have one (ie, The Other Georgian).

I really think that the reason my principal thought I couldn't speak Japanese when I first got here is because he has a super-awesome Kansai speech pattern and I stared at him like.. wha? Upon my first meeting. Really, it sounds like a whole other language. Check this out to hear the same exchange played out in Standard and in Kansai.

On the bus the other day, I heard a woman talking to the bus driver and realized from her accent that she is foreign, probably Chinese or something like that. I was excited to be able to pick up information like that just from listening. It means my Japanese ear is getting better. I also understand a lot more of the morning meetings now.. I can grasp the main topic (if I pay attention.. because honestly people talking to each other and not me in a language that isn't really mine is a great opportunity to zone out) if not the finer points. And when the school nurse wanted to send for the VP to translate her medical explanation of Jermaine, I insisted that it wasn't necessary. (How can you argue with "Keep!" ?)

So there is progress. There's something about being completely surrounded by a language at almost all times that makes it nearly impossible not to learn a thing, or maybe two.

Can you read this kanji?

As part of our "able to" lesson ("Can you ___?" "I can ____.") the textbook has examples of stuff to ask your classmates. Can you ski? Can you swim? I have a workpage from a different book (Planet Eigo) that is covered with such question helpers. One of them is "Can you... read this kanji?" with some ridiculously difficult/useless kanji. It has to be a difficult one, because it if were one of the kanji everyone knows, there would be no point in asking if you could read it.

Given my fairly prevalent illiteracy, it is generally safe to assume that in the case of a textbook presenting a kanji some students won't be able to read, I will also not be able to read it.

But.

This was the kanji.

檸檬

Yeah. Get a load of that. And you know what? When I looked at it, my jaw dropped. Because. I can read this kanji.

Hahahaha. Because it's the kanji for lemon. Most of the time, they just write レモン on things. As, of course, do I when I write my name. But this one time, one of my Salamander students gave me a cool placard with my name in kanji. I always thought it was weird to imagine that we 'ferners' could have our names done in kanji, but I realized that my name lends itself rather easily. "Lemon" is both the meaning and pronunciation of that kanji (as far as I know..) So when I made an example for the 3rd years (on Monday) of how to make a name poem, I used my "kanji name" as well as my English spelling (it was a name acrostic, which had sometimes hilarious results).

Which means I can read this kanji.

Bounenkai impending: let's forget!

An enkai is basically just a work drinking party. I've been excited about the prospect of going to one ever since I arrived, because I'd love to see what the other teachers are like outside of school. Basically everyone else has had two or at least one enkai since I arrived in August (one after Sports Day, the other after Culture Festival), but my school has either had none or hasn't invited me along. I joked to my fellow JETs that I was simply being secretly excluded, and while that was an actual theory of mine for a day or so, I don't think it's the case. We had this typhoon back in August, like three days after I arrived, and that was the reason Sports Day enkai didn't happen (I asked Mikan-sensei). By Culture Festival, I'd given up.

But a few weeks ago, I heard the teacher who sits next to me on the phone. I heard the word enkai, and a number of people, and December 11th. I heard a price. And I filed away that little bit of information by promptly sharing it on gchat with a fellow JET. If they didn't invite me to this one, I would certainly know about it!

I talked to my fellow ALTs about it, and they speculated that it was maybe the "Bonenkai" or 'the big one' which happens at the end of the year (as in, even if they skipped the Sports Day and CultureFest enkais, they would still definitely have Bonenkai).

Then on Monday as I was frantically downloading Christmas songs and trying to get a CD burned for elementary classes, one earbud in my ear, the other dangling into my lap, totally not paying attention to anything going on around me, the teacher next to me (who is actually pretty cool.. he's an older-ish guy, a math teacher, and an artist) was having a conversation with some of the others in our desk cluster.. he said "[Ah, Emily-sensei too]!" and I looked up like "Wah?"

They try to speak English to me. I forget this every time. But it still seems sort of sweet when random teachers with whom I've had very little interaction go out of their normal habits to say "Good morning," or "Have a good weekend."

So he said, "[December eleventh!] Big year end festival party!" and I just blinked and said "Bonenkai?" and everyone laughed and I was invited.

Now to me, who is a disciple of Latin and Latinate language, "bon" means 'good' quite literally. Not that I actually believed the Japanese have a party called "good party" every December, but it was hard for me to divorce the image of the year-end party from Christmas parties and the word "good." I found out while I was on the Dino-Weekend trip from another JET that Bonenkai literally comes out to "Forget-the-year-gathering." I laughed when I learned this, since it's a drinking party, and forgetting is fairly likely.

But the more I thought about it, the more I really liked that idea. First of all, I like when parties have themes; it gives me something to focus on. If it's a birthday, I can focus on a person, and other times and places, I can focus on an idea. Also, what better way to prepare to welcome a new year than to have a party dedicated to forgetting all the "unfortunate events" of the last? Because all that shit is gone now. The good too, when you get down to it... so whether this year was good or not, you still don't get to keep it. I personally can always do with a little more letting-go. And I can really get behind a culture wherein this concept is a yearly phenomenon.

Tonight is bounenaki, and I've toted some PJs and a toothbrush to work with me. I really don't know what to expect. I don't even know if I need to pay, or if the coffee-and-other-stuff-fund I've been paying into all semester takes care of it. It would be far easier to enumerate the things I do know rather than those I don't, so:
1. It will be in Haga, just northwest of where I work (which is just north of where I live).
2. It will be a spend-the-night, though there will be the option of going back early, I think.
3. There will be beer.
4. Everyone else will be Japanese.

I've been excited about enkai for so long, but now I'm kind of meh with it hanging right over me. It's a rainy, chilly day, and I am a bit tired. I had four classes today, but didn't actually do anything almost at all in any of them. Some days, it feels easy to try speaking Japanese, and some days it's a lot of work. Some days, you feel really "on." Some days, you don't. And today is a better curl-up-with-Harry-Potter-5 day than a let's-getting-drunk-with-non-English-speaking-coworkers day. I may be asked to make a speech. I was going to prepare something.. crap. My back is a bit sore still from kendo. Despite my hesitation to get naked with coworkers, I'll do it in a second if there's a hot spring where we're going.

Maybe my speech can be something silly like, "I had a great speech but.. I forgot."

Holy Sh*t!

This comes in three installments. And it got better every time.

Part I:
One day in early October, I was helping out with an English lesson since, you know, that's my job. I've kind of gotten used to the fact that there is information all around me that I cannot really read. When I see English, though, I tend to gravitate in on it because I'm actually much more used to being surrounded by information I CAN read but do not actually care about (advertisements, etc.).

So when I happened to notice English at the back of the room, I read it very quickly. And when I read it, I almost giggled right out loud. And after that, I kept looking back at it and trying not to giggle. Because it was just so... well, look at it:

You might want to click on this picture for the full effect.

I later examined the words at the top of the board, and saw that they were "something for this month" .. later actually translated to "A murmur of this month." This made it even more fun, since I kind of felt that way about October, too. But it just cracked me up that a kid wrote this, and put it up. I assumed it was one of our brash and outspoken guys, and wondered where he might have learned it.

I also began to imagine it as myself, amidst a sea of kanji and other Japanese writing... me, not alone, but standing out, in English.. crying out this phrase, in surprise, and horror, and delight. It seemed a good image for how I sometimes feel in Japan.

Part II:
I was eating lunch in this classroom, and it was a totally different experience from eating lunch with any other grade level, ever. The third-years actually talk to me, and are not afraid to struggle through English to attempt a chat. After asking them their names and a bit of gossip about who had a girlfriend (it's apparently a big secret if you do.. we're all part of the Ichinan family, though!), I just had to ask.

"Who.." (giggle) "Who put that up, over there, on the board?"

They all looked at it, and then pointed to one boy in particular, whom I honestly had not suspected. He, it turns out, is the son of one of my adult students in the conversation class. This made me laugh even more, because it meant that maybe, he didn't learn it at school.. maybe he learned it from his parent, who learned it from Big Brother or from Predecessor. I tried to imagine them teaching a lesson, or accidentally dropping that phrase so often it became part of someone's vernacular. I then tried to imagine that particular student whose son it was picking up that phrase in her daily life. No. Way.

So, I was going through all this in my head, and then one of the student leaders (I was basically at a desk cluster full of them) turned back to me and said "Holy shitto? Holy shitto. What means, in Japanese?" I was overcome. I also had my mouth full of food. I also can't translate that.. there really is no Japanese direct equivalent. I just shook my head and said I didn't know, but that it wasn't something you wanted to say to someone's parents.

Which is totally vague, and just left them confused. This particular student frowned (not in an upset way, just in a I-will-discover-the-truth kind of way) and left the room. I know that he probably went next door to ask Awesome-Sensei what it was in Japanese. He returned with no answer. I tried to imagine how that conversation had just gone. No way. No. Way!

Part III:
The student whose son it is doesn't come to class all that often, but she was at my birthday dinner. I had a beer or two, and then there I was telling her that her son put something on the board that made me laugh and laugh. She assured me that he is crazy, her son, and asked what he put up. I didn't want to tell her, but I had to have known she would ask, so I told her (and the rest of the table).

The adult students had pretty much the same reaction "Can you translate that for us?" .. Big Brother cracked up when one lady (our leader, actually) was like "(Tell me holy.) I know shit!" So I spelled holy for them to look up in their dictionaries, but then I had to explain that this phrase is different than the sum of its parts. We tried to field a suitable equivalent, but there aren't really a lot of curse words in Japanese.

But I was still curious as to where he'd learned it, and his mother then mentioned "Oh, he heard it on this video game," and I instantly asked, "Was it Grand Theft Auto?"

And yes, dear readers, it was indeed GTA, and she was amazed that I had guessed so quickly.

Grand Theft Auto, in case you've never played, is a game full or violence and maybe even a little sex, and you get more points the worse person you are, basically. You steal cars and run from the police and run over/shoot down as many people as you can in the process.

Or, the few times I've played, that's how I played. I tried to procure this game once, because I was having a bad day, or a bad week, and I turned to my then-roommate and said, "I need a video game like GTA. I really want to beat up some hookers right now." But GTA 3 was not backwards compatible for my Xbox360, so you can imagine how I felt after I was already frustrated enough to want to beat up virtual hookers, at putting the game in to discover it would not work.

Anyway, in this moment, on my birthday, it made the entire saga that much more wonderful, to know that he had learned these words from a video game.

The end!