Wash Your Mouth Out With Soap!

I had dinner with the English department of the high school the other night. We invited our new principal because before he became this high-ranking school official, he was an English teacher, just like the rest of us.

The evening started out a little awkward. My fellow English teachers and I never get together in a small group like that. And on Monday, we had the added pressure of sitting in a tatami room with our new boss, the big cheese.

I think there was also some strangeness because I was there, and everyone felt they had to speak English. After all, we all speak English fluently but, only four of us speaks Japanese fluently. So, people passed a few phrases back and forth in both languages, but I'd say that half of the conversation was in good, solid, understandable, English. I felt included.

And it just so happens, it was too much of a good thing.

The problems started when our new principal was licking his lips after finishing his third beer of the night. He started telling me, in English -- which let me remind you again, everyone in the room understood -- that he's worked with countless ALTs and has dealt with many of their problems. He was for a few years, a key player at the Education Center in Nagasaki prefecture. This happens to be the office which places ALTs in their current positions and fields many questions and complaints from JTEs and ALTs alike. He told me he could call the current man in charge and get him to ignore my application for a transfer. He holds that much power, he said.

I thanked him kindly for his offer and the compliment of wanting me to stay on Ojika for another year, and tried to broach a new subject. There was no moving him, however. The only new flavor he added to our conversation was of a sexual tone.

Among some of the gems of the night, he told me he had been to an onsen with a male ALT and really wanted to see his (and I quote!) "special place," but couldn't because the Englishman wore a towel the entire time. He told me about countless games of yakyuken (a game like strip poker) he'd played with a female ALT at his former school. (All the while he kept pulling his shirt out at the chest and raising his eyebrows. All the moment was missing was a cat call and a hubba-hubba.)

But, the most shocking moment of the night came when he taught me a "Japanese proverb," as he called it. He grabbed my notebook where I keep copious notes of new language I hear in day to day life and in social situations and wrote something about the ocean and a toothpick. I assumed, as almost anyone would, that he was referring to the English proverb, "needle in a haystack." It fits, right? Well, by this point, the three other Japanese English speakers in the room were horrified. They just flat out said, "Never say that. Never." I couldn't figure out what was so bad about an ocean and a toothpick. One is very useful and the other is very beautiful. Together they couldn't be of much harm, could they? Not enough, surely, to be emphatically told by my co-workers to never mutter something so vulgar.

I didn't get the gist of my boss' meaning until he started making a sexual gesture with his arms. He started pumping his left clenched fist into a hole he made under his right arm. Over and over again. By this time, I started cataloguing my brain for every possible way to move away from this conversation and fast. I still remember the clenched jaws of the other teachers in the room and grimaces. We were all watching a train wreck. The train was kocho-sensei and I was who he was running head long into.

After managing a four-hour dinner with the man, I can't say all was bad. Who knows why his tongue was so loose that night, but I heard from on of my JTEs that our principal asked if he'd said anything too embarrassing that night. My co-worker didn't have the heart to tell him all that he said, so he reminded him of the strip-poker story and left it at that.

Along with the highly sexual conversation, my new principal also told me about some rather serious situations ALTs had either been confronted with or gotten themselves into, and how he helped out. It's obvious that he cares very deeply about making foreign teachers feel comfortable in Nagasaki prefecture. He also talked about he and his wife have no children and how he's made it his side work to find people love. He said he likes to find mates for his un-married co-workers and he's tried about twenty times now. His first and only success will get married this July. That, I couldn't help but like. However I didn't like it when he told me about the second marriage he'll attend in July. His friend, a hostess at a snack bar, is getting hitched to a customer. And he felt he had to preface this with, "It's not me! It's not me!"

Outting

We went on our annual school outting on Friday. The whole school hoofed it the forty minutes to Akahama (which means red beach), played some games and had a picnic. The purpose of the outting is to welcome the new first-year students to the school, and to give all of us pasty people the first sun burn of the year. Done and done! Here are some photos of the day:

This is a game of tag. Japanese students play with an interesting twist. Students who are tagged, must start lining up at the red cone. If someone (who isn't "it") makes it to the red cone without being tagged and touches the tip, all of the students previously tagged flee. It's really quite fun, especially with teachers standing around with a cordless micraphone screaming, "RUN! RUN!" when the cone is touched.

Here are some lovely third-year students. They are the seniors of the school and are in charge of hazing the new students. Haruka and her friend offered me a part of their towel. I suppose they thought I was getting too burned. Haruka hopes to study English after high school.

Here's Chiharu and two of the cuttest kids on earth. Chiharu is walking Koma and Aika back to their parents (two teachers at the high school) after getting lollypops. Because the ilsand and the high school is so small, everyone gets to know everyone and their famlies. It's a totally rural corner of the world.

Here's Daichi, Yotaro and a boy who's name I should really know. They are all third-year students (or seniors). I inturupted their game on the beach. They were throwing rocks into the ocean and having their friends try to stand on them before the next wave came in and covered the stone.

Here are my toes in the red sand.

This is Miyuki and I. She's a second-year student and really into English. We practice English pronounciation every day after school. She brings me her textbook and we read senteces in English. She's got one of the most energetic personailites I've ever come across. I'm so happy to have met her.

DUDE!! For some reason I can't enter more photos to this entry and I'm so sad. I'll add more later. I swear.

Iced Out

I've been listening to my Best of De La Soul CD nonstop lately.

I've decided to try to work in a new phrase (I lifted from Plug1 and the boys) to my vernacular.

"I'm iced out like tea."

I don't know exactly what it means, but damn! I like it!

I'm going to try it in a few different situations and see how it goes over. You know, something like....

Vagabond: "Hey, can you spare some change?"
Me: "Sorry, dude! I'm iced out like tea!"

or

Date: "Wow. You look amazing!"
Me: "Thanks. I like to get iced out, like tea."

Rockin' Out in a Japanese Way

I had a sweet day yesterday.

It was so sweet because I was paid a very nice compliment by my JTE (Kawabe-sensei). An hour after our last class, he told me he was still "reveling in the moment" of our students' English ability and my contribution to their success. It doesn't sound so awesome, but he started by marking the date, which made me giggle.

"Today, on April 19th, 2006 at 3:10pm, I have witnessed the best class of my life."

Wowser.

It was also sweet because when I went to the elementary school for a meeting and told them that I'd only have three more lessons there before leaving Ojika, they broke into impromptu song.

"For she's a jolly good fellow; for she's a jolly good fellow; for she's a jolly good fellow which nobody can deny!"

Ok, not really, but they did rally support for a nomikai (drinking party). The 6th grade teacher was especially excited. He kept saying, "Wonderful! Wonderful! I want to drink! That will be just wonderful." Which, of course, is the attitude I would want my student's 6th grade teacher to have. (No, no! Seriously, he is an amazing teacher and is totally professional. I was a little surprised by his enthusiasm. That's all.)

Then, things got even sweeter when I went to my English conversation class and found two huge bouquets of peonies and a small gathering of columbines -- Colorado's state flower, you know. There was also a huge diamond wedding ring and an anonymous proposal of marriage.

Ok, not really. The flowers were from Mrs. Egawa. She isn't able to come to class any longer and wanted to do something nice for me and the other students. She arrived early with flowers cut from her garden and a huge sign saying in English how much she appreciated all of us. It was very thoughtful. If I were an emotional person, I would have cried. Instead we took pictures and bowed a billion times to one another.

But, keeping all of that in mind, I still went to bed feeling sorry for myself. What's THAT all about? How can I be so loved and appreciated, and still feel real lonely? I chalk it up to missing the people in my life who knew me before Japan.

Seriously?

Our new school year has started and the seniors I teach in my elective Oral Communication classes are some of my favorites. I've got a soft spot for them because I remember teaching them as freshmen and I'm sure they remember my fresh-off-the-boat awkwardness and wacky behavior from those first few months. (Not that that's changed much over the last year and a half.)

I've asked them to write me a journal entry every week and I hope that this is something that will continue when the next lucky devil arrives in this island paradise and starts teaching English. I got my first batch of journals on Thursday. I read them and wrote responses to my students and piled them in a corner on my desk. I just so happened to take a closer look at the cover of of the notebook on top. It looked innocent enough. Then I noticed the "fine print."

Bizarre, isn't it? Whenever English like this pops up, I'm always a bit taken aback. Where did it come from? How did it get on the cover of a notebook of one of my students'? There are countless examples of inappropriate (or just plain strange) English popping up in Asian countries. It's so rampant that there's actually a website devoted to these snafus. (www.engrish.com)

Here's my contribution. I took this at an Indian food joint in Fukuoka's Canal City a long time ago, but it still makes me giggle SO much. I just love the idea of choosing my own "hottie."

Light Randomness

I was sitting on a heated rug, spread out under a low, deep blood-red wood table at a temple in Migata when an evening at Cafe Netherworld I'd had six, seven or eight years ago crept into my consciousness. What was that about?

I had been gathered with the five older Ojikan women I do a craft with. We've been getting together every Tuesday night for the last year and a half to assemble these kits. We make dolls. They're called kami ningyou in Japanese and are most traditionally made for the Doll's Festival (O-hina matsuri) held in March. Here's a photo of what I'm talking about:

And this was my contribution to the display at the town's bank this year:

anyway, it was during one of these nights that I started thinking about Cafe Netherworld. ( http://anubis.ntw.net/netherworld.com/ ) In all of my life I think I'd been to the bar/coffee shop/pool hall maybe three times, but for some strange reason, I started thinking about one of those nights as I was spacing out in an onslaught of unintelligible Ojikan-flavored Japanese.

Then, I started thinking about how I was sitting in such a small, secluded corner of the world, among these women whom I couldn't really understand, but whom I felt and cared deeply for, and how that at that exact moment there were people clutching pool cues and drinking flavored coffee or hip cocktails in a dingy corner of a place linking intself to an underground heaven or some such thing. I then felt a little special to have been in both of those places at one time or another and felt special for probably being the only one in the world to ever be able to claim such a thing.

And, there are so many other corners and nooks of the great expanse of life playground that we get to make similar comparisons, and isn't that just amazing?

Heavy Randomness That's Not So Random

I'm feeling very random. I suffer from inner monologues on a daily basis and I partially blame these rants confined in my noggin for my nutty behavior and helpless randomness. These dialogs with myself start sometime during my morning grooming and stop only when I crawl under my mosquito net and into bed at night. The only way I can seem to get a break is if I absorb myself in a book (currently "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami) or grunt affirmations earnestly along with NPR podcasts (currently "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" "The African American Roundtable" and "NPR's Story of the Day.")

This morning, I was thinking about how it's imperative for us (white, upper/middle-class Americans) to invest a great deal of time, thought and commitment to creating solutions for the problems of the minority (in terms of power, not population) groups in America in order to create a solid and just place for every member of our country. It seems so obvious, right?

Sentences flash on the black slate of my brain:

When did natural disasters become entrenched in racial issues, or have they always been?

I guess I imagine (romantically and probably naively) hurricanes and their destruction at times before the Industrial Revolution to have been a time of group strife, as well as re-birth. If every one's house was torn down, then everyone probably pitched in to put all of them back up again, right? (I'm trying to convince myself as I type that they were all of equal stature and in equally useful areas.)

If the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flooded in ancient Mesopotamia, sometime around the year 5000BC and wiped out the freshly settled hunters and gatherers, the survivors would all have work together to plant another crop of corn and survive, right? But, even then, were there disenfranchised groups? Were there people who's plight seemed less important to those with power and prestige?

When did American media become a pulpit for white, upper/middle-class people, ignoring the plight of the vast majority of men and women who live within it's national borders, and hear it's radio broadcasts, read it's newspapers and watch it's "reporting" on TV? (Or, has it always been this way?)

Uh oh. I'm seeing a re-occurring theme. I have to keep asking if it's always been this way. That might tell me a thing or two. Maybe it has and I'm getting shook up to that fact.

I know this may seem elementary to you, but it came as a bit of a shock to me when I realized (again) how separate the issues are concerning different groups in America, and how those are represented (or not) in main-stream American media. It gets a bit overwhelming, however, when we think about the reasons for these "oversights" in reporting. We have to take into account who's pockets these papers and networks are in and what their priorities are. Then, we also have to take into account that individual reporters as well as their medium are looking for national or international renowned and money, money, money.

Now, I'm not saying that all media is propagating on behalf of someone or some contribution. There are countless forms of information in the world which report true and accurate accounts of some shocking and astonishing things. It's just that much of the time, these niches of the media are seen as renegade and on the fringe. Or, if they are seen as credible, only a small portion of people (in proportion to the population of the US) see or hear them. I'd really like to see a day when the overall population of the United States is presented, by the cable networks, a more proportionate coverage of stories that matter to us all.

So, when one individual's ideal is to shift the entire reporting community to look at issues facing the majority of people in the country without sensationalism that sells papers, what can one individual do? One can write her frustrations on a blog that two people read intermittently and go about her life teaching English. That, or become a correspondent for CNN or something.

Sidenote: Please go to www.thislife.org and listen to the net-cast of This American Life entitled Habeas Schmabeaus.

And Another One Bites The Dust

I had a rockin' good time last night. Three young, single, fun ladies (which are a bit of a rarity in this dinky no-horse town) came over to my house for a party. Unfortunately, the islands population of young, single, fun ladies is being reduced by one. Tomoko is moving to Hokkaido for my dream job. She's going to work at an outdoor company doing a variety of jobs. You know, things like being a raft guide or hiking guide. Hey, at least I'll have a connection in the great wilderness.

That's Tomoko in the white. She's really excited about getting out of Ojika. She's been back here for about six years since she graduated from college.

The three of us who aren't moving to Hokkaido decided last night that we'd take a trip to visit Tomoko sometime in the near future. I'm not sure that's actually going to happen, but I know that with another year in Japan looming in my future, along with a hefty portion of disposable income (I should be saving) I'll make the leap, no problem.

I will miss Tomoko and her karaoke flavor. I will miss Tomoko and her boy stories. I will miss Tomoko and her ability to ROCK.

Photos From Fukue.... With Love

I am terrified of planes and dying in an airplane crash. Last weekend I rode the smallest plane I've ever rode in my life. I did this voluntarily.

Last Saturday morning I woke at 4:00am in order to throw on some clothes, braid my hair and brush my teeth before my friend, Yayoui, came to get me in her little, blue, two-door K-car.

(It took me forever to figure out how to say her name. The 'u' is essentially silent, but I still find myself mispronouncing her handle when I'm faced with the situation of introducing her to other friends or acquaintances. I don't know why I crumble under pressure in that eccentric way.)

We were off for a weekend to Fukue, the most South/West island in the Goto Retto chain. Neither of us had been before, and we wanted to see what the last Goto frontier had to behold. (Among the more interesting sights we rolled our eyeballs over a volcano, a lighthouse, a small water fall, Ishida Castle and miles and miles of beautiful coast line.)

This is me at Onidake, the volcano. Yayoui told me that it's historically been on a three year eruption cycle. Last year it took a time out. Apparently we were there, probing it's crater, on borrowed time.

We rented a car in order to sightsee at our own pace and circle the entire island. Coming from a drop of land that takes less than an hour and a half to cruise around on a bike, we were imagining a great and long journey around Fukue -- one in which we would be forced to stop to fill up our gasping gas tank several times, and to stretch our atrophied muscles so we'd be able to walk again once we got back to Ojika.

In reality, we spent six hours with our square, white chariot and stopped for extended periods along the way. With this time, we saw everything we wanted to see. One of our longest stops was at the lighthouse. There was a twenty minute walk from the parking lot to the cliff where the tall seafarers' alert stood.

Before hiking to the lighthouse, we stopped for lunch at a cafe along the road. There, a few cars, piled down with their hungry passengers, trickled in and trickled out of the same restaurant. One man, in particular, came in and started performing calisthenics close to our table. (Obviously, he was worried about his body atrophying as well.) After about five minutes of huffs and puffs and muttering, he asked me where I was from. Because he directed his question solely to me, I answered with "Colorado State," knowing that he meant my place of birth, not where I presently hail. But, because I am very proud of my home in Ojika and I was with Yayoui, an Ojikan, I added that we from Ojika. He then, on the return from a squat-thrust, asked us where Ojika was. We were dumbfounded! How could we be on an island in the Gotos and meet someone who didn't know where Ojika was? I mean, we know Ojika's small, but that was a first. We (and when I say "we" I mean Yayoui and her beautiful Japanese) explained to him where Ojika was and we finished our lunch. Later we decided he was a tourist as well. Possibly he came over from the hustle and bustle of Nagasaki for a weekend of fishing. Or, maybe his traveling companion had a penchant for lighthouses.

It was Yayoui's strong desire to see the lighthouse. It was my strong desire to see dondonbuchi, the waterfall. We drove our little rental car along the first unpaved road I've seen in Japan (excluding in the fields, of course) and parked near a dinky sign directing us to the falls. We could hear the water running from where we parked, but there were signs sprouting up in the forrest to tell us which way to go.

It was smaller than I had expected, but the atmosphere was beautiful. Some of Japan's nature really reminds me of hiking around Colorado.

We rambled about for a few minutes, took some pictures and turned around to go back to our getaway car. Just then, a tall foreign guy came weaving through the trees, which surprised us just a tad because we weren't expecting to see anyone else, but what made this so astonishing was that I actually knew him! Dave (known to me only as Fukue Dave) and I said hello and spoke briefly about the falls and Fukue. I had only met Dave once before at a gathering on Kamigoto so our greeting could have easily been construed as a encounter between two strangers. After bidding Dave a good day I told Yayoui I knew him. She was as surprised by that as I was running into him there, at that exact time on a random Saturday afternoon. He had said that in all his years of living on Fukue, he hadn't been to dondonbuchi until that day.

Because it was raining furiously that evening, we decided to go to dinner early. We hunted down a recommended yaki niku place and stuffed our faces with Fukue beef. Because I don't eat red meat all that often in Japan, I'd forgotten just how delicious cow is -- well, some parts of cow. I couldn't stomach the tripe Yayoui was so hot and bothered about. (Oh, I'm so punny!) After three hours of grilling our own grub and guzzling down super-human sized beers, we paid our bill and took a walk back to our hotel in the rain.

Sunday morning we went to Ishida Castle, right there in the heart of Goto City, the capital of Fukue. One of the many beautiful things about Japan is it's ability to blend ancient structures in with modern day conveniences. Right outside the gate leading into the castle and the beautiful garden inside was a main thoroughfare and a convenience store. The main building of the castle was mainly rebuilt and was being used as a library. It was the garden that took my breath away.

This garden was supposed to be shaped in the form of a Japanese character which means mind, heart, or spirit, but we couldn't see it. However, all of those things were defiantly in the atmosphere.

The weather on Sunday was on the heavy side of overcast, but the light side of foggy. This of course, was worrisome as we were about a five hour trip away from Ojika on an afternoon before needing to be back for that four-letter word, work. It was especially worrisome as Yayoui had taken advantage of me in a moment of adventure-seeking and convinced me to fly a part of the way home! We weren't sure if the weather was going to let us get up in the air and because ferries had already been canceled, we weren't sure we were going to get back at all that day.

Actually, the way this whole weekend came to fruition was during a conversation Yayoui and I had during one of our pottery evenings. Up until last month, Yayoui had worked at Ojika's airport which ran an 8 person plane from the island to Nagasaki airport. (The money just wasn't there, so the town shut it down.) It was a thirty minute trip and many of my co-workers took advantage of the tiny thing when going home for a weekend. I had heard from the gregarious JHS music teacher that no matter where you sat in the plane, you could look right over the pilot's shoulder and out the cockpit window. Not something I ever what to be able to do when on an airplane.

It was earlier in the day, before molding our clay, that Yayoui had been taken up and flown around Ojika as a thank you for her hard work at the airport. (Her boyfriend also happens to be the pilot.) We were talking about the ride and I had explained to her again, shaking my head, how crazy I thought she was to get in something like that. She said that she thought it was too bad that I would never be able to ride Ojika's plane and that I missed out on an adventure. I kind of felt like I had missed out on an adventure too and told her so. She then suggested that we ride the 40-seat plane that flew out of Fukue and I agreed. I wasn't feeling so adventuresome last Sunday morning when it was threatening to rain and my palms were sweating from panic.

Here's me looking not so happy right before getting on the plane situated over my right shoulder. There's only been one other time in my life I think I've ever had to walk on the tarmac at an airport, and that was in Cote d'Ivoire. This was the first time I'd ever (I think) been on a propeller plane.

It turned out that the weather was good enough to OK our takeoff, so were were up in the air and above the clouds with only few minor bumps. One of the little boys in the last row (directly behind us) actually shouted the equivalent of "Wheeeee! This is fun!" during our little turbulence. It was a great help sitting next to Yayoui. She's so comfortable in planes that her assuredness rubbed off on me as well and I actually got to feel that high of adventure that I so desperately crave.

I've been trying desperately ever since to dig up some ill-begotten amazement of my bravery from friends. So far, no one's been all that impressed with my description of the ten-rowed plane and the fact that the flight attendant had to remain seated and strapped in for the whole flight. Apparently, every one I know has been in much more perilous situations at 10,000 feet and they could care less about my adventure. Everyone keeps telling me that my smallest plane ride ever was actually rather big.

Fukue was fun. I feel bad saying it, but often I feel I'm way more productive in my freetime in Japan than I am during work.

Sakura Update

Here are some more photos of the cherry blossoms of Japan. They're in full bloom now, and time is ticking madly away. Soon their blossoms will be carried off by wind and rain and the image of those pink snow flurries will keep us thinking we're in the midst of winter storm in April. We might even stick our tongues out and try to catch a cherry flake with our own springing buds.