Hi all! Happy Halloween!


I won't get to celebrate it this year, so party it up on my behalf! Actually, its already Nov 1st now, even though its only early Halloween evening back in the States. Weird huh? I'm in the future... *hehehe*
I'm at school today, but there's no classes and most teacher's took today off. It's the anniversary of the founding of the school, so all the students get a holiday. One of the other teachers asked me what we call this day in the U.S. and I had to explain that it would be called, 'Founder's Day', but its something we don't pay any attention to in the least, let alone get a school holiday!
Well, more later! ^_~

Erin

Well, it finally happened: one of my female students poked my boobs the other day. I’d heard from my predecessor (and other JETs) that foreigners are often poked and prodded, because their looks are so unusual. Everyone wants to touch your blonde hair or see if your skin feels the same and, occasionally, see if your boobs feel different or something weird like that. Samantha (my predecessor) was rather well-endowed and constantly had to put up with kids at elementary school visits poking her boobs and saying “Big!” I didn’t think it happened so much with the high school kids, but apparently it does! But I’ll get back to that…

The ESS (English Speaking Society) had a big cooking day Tuesday- Steve came in and made lumpia (Filipino eggrolls, or “harumaki”= “spring rolls” if your Japanese) and there was miso soup, fish, takoyaki (fried balls of octopus, which is much better than it sounds because its mostly batter and very little octopus) and Estonian-style apple cake made by our wonderful exchange student Kati. Steve and I have grown quite fond of Kati. She’s more of a friend than a student and you’d never know she was only 17.

Anyway, while cooking preparations were going on, Masada (a third year (=senior) student who wants to study English so she can go to New Zealand), just comes up and starts poking my boobs and giggling. Then she starts to squeeze me and comments that I feel ‘soft’. She tried to do it to Kati too and later I saw her friends prodding Masada’s boobs and giggling as well. I tell ya, for a country that’s so anti-contact that you don’t even hug close friends goodbye, its sooo odd! Talk about a land of contradictions! Another example of this strangely intimate contact is kancho.
Beware of kancho in elementary schools! I’ve never had it happen to me (thankfully), but it DOES happen and basically it works like this: a little boy puts his hands together almost like he’s pretending he has a gun in his hands and then seeks up behind a grown-up and tries to poke his fingers where the sun don’t shine- seriously! I keep my back to the wall during all elementary school visits!

I think the reason the girls are so free with the touching, however, is because same-sex relationships are very close. The girls hold hands a lot (I have students who do this with me too) and usually don’t spend much time with the opposite sex until college. The guys are very close as well, sitting in each other’s laps and leaning on one another in class. Homosexuality isn’t a moral issue here, its basically just ignored, so you really don’t see any of the violent homophobia that’s in the States within Japan. But there’s also a closer relationship between students and teachers than is usual in the US, which is odd. Students are allowed to wander into the teacher’s office room (except during midterms, which we just finished and I gotta say, it was nice not to have the students hovering around for a while) and the students often give little shoulder rubs to the teachers. Its mostly female students giving the massages, but they give them to both female and male teachers so… just part of all the dichotomies that make up Japan! But that’s why I love it!

Finally, Steve converted his photos of Omiwa Shrine so I can post some here (although most of you have probably seen them on his snapfish album, but oh well!)

First, let me tell you about the day we went to see the Harvest Moon-Veiwing Ceremony, because it was one crazy, up-and-down day!

Earlier that Friday, I had one good class and another class that was just *horrible*. The whole class had a bad vibe, but it was mostly a group of boys who decided that weren’t going to participate in any way- no way, no how. I tried and tried, but when it came their turn to get in front of the class to perform their little ‘Blues song’ (I mentioned this lesson in the earlier post, so check it if you don’t know what I mean), they just stood their. It wasn’t just that they were uncooperative, they had bad attitudes to boot and it really rattled me. Mean teenagers are scary! I shut the door after class and just broke down sobbing. It was terrible. I was overtired as well and it was all just too much.

Thankfully, that night at the shrine festival made up for it! All the JETs in Nara get a newsletter that lists all the fests and happenings in the prefecture and I thought this festival sounded great so I took the initiative and called the shrine myself to find out the time it started and how long it was, which I got through pretty well and left me feeling better about my language skills! (Of course, I got to plan ahead what I was going to say and that’s far easier than having to suddenly improvise in a situation.) Once I had the info I asked around and got a couple people to join Steve and me. It was outside of Sakurai, which is pretty close by, but then we had to head a bit north to Miwa, since the fest was at Omiwa Shrine.



The shrine is 1,800 years old and in the shadow of Miwa mountain.






When we arrived there it was already dark, but there was an awesome little street cat at the train station to greet us! Needless to say Miwa is very provincial. There wasn't even a machine or ticket-taker to take our tickets at the station- although Steve and I have our suspicions that the ticket-taker had actually turned into the cat and he was still manning his post!

We ended up befriending a college student named Maiyu- she had come to visit the shrine from Kyoto (2 hrs away!) and didn’t even know there was a festival! Turned out that she has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Omiwa shrine is known to help ease mental stress, etc.

The ceremony was sooo amazing! You could just feel this awesome energy all around. On the one hand, I felt like an outsider, a tourist crashing this beautiful ritual; and on the other hand I felt the wonderful energy from the shrine itself that enveloped me along with everyone else and it didn't matter whether or not I was a gaijin.



The music was very traditional, very odd and even off-key sounding.







There were two dances performed by the shrine maidens (miko), and both were amazing. The costumes were so detailed and ornate and the dances were very graceful and very specific.



Check out Steve's videos on Snapfish because I can't describe them well enough to do them justice.

They served sake and mochi (small, glutenous rice balls) afterwards. It finally felt like I was really in Japan and getting a glimpse of a side of the country I'd been longing for. I'm going to try and get to as many fests as I can, especially since so many temples and shrines seem to be closed during the regular weekdays. I also really want to return to Omiwa shrine in the daytime, because its set amidst the woods and streams and I want to be able to really get a better look at the scenery.



Its a great feeling walking under the huge torii (the wooden gate that mark all Shinto shrines and signify their sacred space) and going up the tall, winding stairs to get to the shrine, and I was sad to leave it.

But there's more places to see in the future! Hopefully Steve and I will get to Kyoto in Nov and also to a monestary down south for a few days. I still have to make the reservations, though and there's just never any time!

Here's my weekly pic from the apt. window. ^_^

The other day I caught Justin Timberlake on one of the wacky Japanese morning talk shows and it was sooo entertaining! His personality was way more subdued than usual and he had this vague uneasiness about him. You can’t blame him, they were speaking 90% Japanese and he had NO IDEA what was going on! Just by looking at him, I knew exactly how he was feeling! *lol* And because he was unsure of himself and couldn’t just fall back into his typical Hollywood personality, he just seemed way more like a normal guy.

It reminded me a little of ‘Lost in Translation’. Which, by the way, is way more accurate than I realized. Now that I’ve spent time in Japan I really think it’s a great movie. It captures perfectly how you feel when you’re suddenly thrust into Tokyo and don’t really know the people or the language and you’re disconnected from everyone.

Its not like it’s all bad, everything is very interesting and new, but there’s so much to deal with. For one, the jet lag is terrible and it throws you off your schedule so that you’re always a bit tired and off-kilter. Remember in the movie that Bill Murray and Scarlet Johanson could never sleep because of the time difference? (Well, I slept, but it was only because I was exhausted.) Also, I’m considered pretty short in the States, but in Japan I’m tall! (Believe it not!) And people who actually are tall by Western standards would definitely feel like Bill in so many of the scenes. Especially the shower- I think one of the taller JETs had to hunch over in the shower or just sit down because it was so small in the hotel in Nara.

Of course, I can especially relate to Scarlet’s character because she was separated from her husband most of the time (remember Steve arrived 3 weeks after I did), and it can be quite an emotional upheaval to be in this totally new, different environment where you have all kinds of expectations of how you should be feeling and you want so badly to share it with your spouse, but they aren’t around.

I don’t think the movie is negative, though, and I don’t feel like my time in Tokyo when I first arrived was negative, I was just emotionally raw so everything hit me harder. Its one thing to have this ‘idea’ of Japan in your head, but when you’re actually here, you’re in reality, not your romantic vision. Scarlet visits temples and you know she’s trying to see the traditional side of Japan, but she says she doesn’t ‘feel’ anything from it, which is true- you can’t expect to have this instant connection with the world around you when its so new. You can be intrigued, but I think you need a little bit of familiarity before you can feel you’re a part of something, so that even if something moves you, you may not feel like you really belong to it. Of course, there are romantic times- like the shrine festival Steve and I went to for the full moon- but the initial displacement of coming to Japan (Tokyo specifically) is just really, really well done in this film.

So, it’s not a negative portrayal of Japan, its just un-romanticized. Its reality- it is what it is. Not bad, not good, just there.
Oh, and the TV shows here REALLY are that crazy. Seriously! *lol*

The last couple weekends I’ve tired to fit a lot in. Steve and I have to size some of our pics from this past weekend (we went to a festival for the harvest moon at a Shinto shrine and then went to Nara to see that giant Buddha at Todaiji), so I’ll talk about that later when I can post the pics here.

For now, I’ll catch up on the weekend before last. One day I tired to go shopping and it turned into a very frustrating affair. A lot of people say its hard to get lost in Japan and its true that with the various mountains as land markers and insanely efficient public transportation that its much easier to get around than a lot of places in the US, but I can still get myself lost or turned around. I had a terrible time of it when I tried to go to this huge mega-mall called ‘Diamond City’. I took the more local train system (JR), which only has one train instead of the Kintetsu line (which has 5: local, semi-express, exp, sub-rapid exp., rapid exp., and limited exp.). You’d think it’d be easier, but because its smaller there’s very little English on the signs. Anyway, I got on the train going the wrong direction, finally got off and headed the correct direction, then stayed on the same train at a large stop and ended up headed BACK in the wrong direction because it was the end of the line for that particular train and I didn’t know to transfer. It was a mess, I never made it and walked home in the rain.

However, that weekend Steve and I met up with our friend Keiko and her friend Mika for lunch and that was great! Since Steve had never had ‘real’ sushi, Keiko took us to a really nice conveyer belt sushi place. It was more casual than the formal Japanese-style restaurants that you usually get the best sushi at (like the place Morii-sensei, my supervisor, took me when I first arrived), so it suited us better. (Keiko’s not very into Japanese culture anyway!) It may not sound like ‘conveyer belt’ sushi would be too appetizing, but it was a really good place! For one, it was small and you could ask for any item you wanted to be made fresh, so you didn’t have to just take what was going by on the belt. Also, the price ranged from 100 yen (= $1) to 800 yen and it was definitely worth it! I’ve since been to a typical conveyer belt sushi place where everything is 100 yen and it was sooo sad compared to this place! I was also impressed with the tea selection and the fact that there was a spout built into the counter where you could fill your teacup with hot water (but not boiling- just right). Steve surprised Keiko and Mika by trying everything and anything put before him, but I was more tentative. The salmon was fantastic, and the tuna and eggplant sushi were great too. I tried this crab sushi, but ended up handing it over to Steve. It didn’t taste bad, but it was a very strong, pungent sea flavor that was a bit much for me. (It was a grey paste made from the inside of the crab shell.) Steve finally had his first taste of eel there as well and he loved it! Eel is generally cooked for sushi and its very soft, not at all chewy like octopus or squid. And for those of you who thought sushi was all raw fish, that’s sashimi. Sushi refers more to the special rice that’s used and although raw fish is often put on top, they use many other things as well.
So the lunch was very good and we made plans to all try and go to see a sumo match and a bunraku play in the future too! Actually, Keiko has already purchased bunraku tickets for us for later this month! I’m so excited! Bunraku is a traditional puppet play. It takes 3-4 people to operate one puppet because all the movements are so complex and detailed- even the eyes and ears move! The national bunraku theater is right in Osaka, so I was determined to see a performance. No word on the sumo match yet, though!



So, after lunch we moved to a café for dessert.
Keiko started talking more about her trips to the US and how she watched ALL of Beverly Hills 90210 on Japanese TV (dubbed) and that when she visited LA she took the 90210 tour and knew the answer to every single question the guide asked! Even obscure places, she could things like, “This is where Valerie tried to kill herself and Brandon stopped her!” Yeah, Keiko’s a trip! She’s in her 30’s, unhappy in her married life and as obsessed with America as I am with Japan! She also learns a lot of slang from her American guy friends and tends to swear a lot. She’s very aggressive and outspoken for someone whose Japanese. Her friend Mika was quieter, but then she admitted that when she was in college in Tokyo she was a wild girl! She even got a tattoo (its since been removed), which is crazy rebellious in Japanese culture, since tattoos are almost exclusively synonymous with the mofia (yakuza). This is why I can’t join my local gym and why I’ll have to hide my tattoos if I want to be allowed inside a hot spring resort (onsen). So, it was very interesting to talk to these rebellious Japanese women! Keiko especially, since she would make these awesome comments while she was showing us pictures from her last trip to LA- like, “I want to be a bunny in Beverly Hills, because they get to live in this beautiful place and all they have to do his eat and screw all day!” Sorry for the vulgarity, but it was damn funny!



When we were leaving we took some pictures.
Most of them were in front of Keiko BMW (she seems to have a fondness for pics in front of cars). Then before Keiko dropped us back home, Steve gave her a little ‘thank you’ card from us both. He’d gone to the stationary store and didn’t know what to choose, so he picked the one envelope that didn’t have any writing on it… then later thought, “I wonder if the yellow and white signifies something.” Well, neither of us knew, so we just gave her the card. She looked surprised and started busting up laughing. Turns out the envelope is only used for one occasion: to present the bereaved with money at a funeral! Keiko was laughing and said, “I wondered if someone died, but my mother-in-law is still alive!”



Good thing she had a sense of humor about it!

So, that was the weekend before last. More Japanese craziness! I’ll get to this weekend soon. It was SO up and down! Friday classes were awful, but I organized a group of friends to go to a harvest moon-viewing festival in nearby Sakurai and it was amazing! Then I had to work again Sat, tired to relax Sunday and Monday, and went to Nara with Steve Tues.
But more on that later. Tired now…

Time is going by way too fast! Or maybe its just that quite a lot seems to happen in a couple weeks. Anyway, I have a lot to catch up on again! First, I’ll talk about the ‘Sports Day’ at my school. Basically it a day where the whole school gets together to do various replay races, tug of war, etc. Every student has to take part in at least one activity and I think some of them don’t really like it so much. Right now I’m doing a lesson on ‘Blues music’ for my classes and I have them get up and do a little Blues song where each group if kids pretends to be a band and says their name, where they are from and what kind of ‘Blues’ they have! (I think I mentioned this already) One group said they had the ‘Sports Day’ Blues! Pretty funny. I have to admit I didn’t get too into Sports Day. Some of the events were a bit more fun or creative, but in general I was just happy I didn’t have to participate!It started with a routine from the cheerleaders, which is really the same as poms. I gotta say, there’s not much to their routines. A lot of hopping around and looking cute- no tosses, no splits, no lifts, no tumbling, etc. So be proud America! If survival comes down to cheerleading, we’ve got the Japanese beat! *snicker*

Ugh, its raining today. I tried out the umbrella holder on my bike for the first time and it worked pretty well. We’ve been lucky in Nara prefecture, not too much rain considering it’s the middle of typhoon season and the islands southwest and north of us have had to deal with a lot of damage. There’s a typhoon around Japan nearly every week.

Steve and I started Japanese lessons. I’m slowly improving. I still can’t get the R’s right, though. They’re really not R’s- they’re more like a combination of an r, l, and d sound. We might think its funny that many people from Asia say our L’s and R’s the way they do, but it’s just as hard to get the Japanese ‘R’ correct. For one, (here comes your language lesson! *L*) your tongue is in a totally different place when you pronounce it. For an English R, you sort of suspend your tongue in the middle of your mouth and for L’s and D’s, you put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth behind the teeth, (where the roof is flat). With a Japanese R, however, you have to move your tongue back, so the tip hits the ridge where the flat part ends and the arch of your mouth begins. Try it, it’s a really rounded, soft sound. Then try doing pronouncing something like “Ryokan” (r-yo-ka-n). Not that easy.

More later! I’ll be posting all about the lunch Steve and I had with our Japanese pal Keiko and her friend Mika and also have some pics of my fav snacks in Japan and our trips to shrines over the weekend!



For now I'll leave you with another sunset from my window.

Mata ne!
Erin