Buds are opening and the soft pink flowers are emerging to view sunshine and begin the elemental stages of flowerhood. Starbucks is selling cherry blossom cheese cake, which tastes like a floral cherry but the leaves are quite salty and bitter.
You wonder why it is that in
The other day I had a bento with cherry blossom sushi.
Spring is bringing changes in other areas too. The new school year will begin next week. The students are enjoying the interim 6 day holiday (contrary to our 6 week summer holiday in the
My favourite teacher is leaving. Teachers have less than a week between being told they will be going to a new school and moving house. The government provides housing for teachers if they need it. Today I will help Morimitsu move house. Luckily her husband, who is also a teacher, will be moving to Izumi as well. Izumi is a spread out city two hours north of
I just got back from helping Morimitsu clear belongings from her house. If there was ever a stereotype about Japanese living minimally, I can denounce it. I removed more boxes than seemed possible to fit into the traditional-style flat. I will miss her at school. I admire her because she is always so calm and relaxed. She is a good teacher but she never stresses about lessons or lets anything make her uptight. Even moving, she didn’t look remotely anxious or lose her light and smiley air. We once talked about her husband. She said, ‘I married him because he asked me’.
My friend Mamiko, who is an English teacher at a Junior High School, told me some teachers at her school were crying because they’re moving to tiny wee islands near
The Japanese tendency is to take what you’re given boldly and not react. You can see this when you’re in an onsen and when the women get into the water that is either burningly hot or frightfully cold, they sit in the water as though it was perfectly lukewarm, with a placid countenance until you notice their fists are fiercely clenched.
Recently the man I tutor told me that my expressions when I speak are so funny. Of course, not all can be attributed to being British (I’ll keep a few as my own), but it led to an interesting conversation about how physical communication is just so different. In fact the Japanese are not such verbal communicators as we are. If actually voicing something can be avoided, it generally is, and replaced by incredibly subtle gestures.
We take so much for granted, that a particular way of reacting is somehow a generic ‘human’ response, but actually there may be no such thing. A friend of mine went to the doctors a few days after arriving in
I’ve never had to review my own culture so much before. My American friends laugh at my use of English. Bridget says many words seem ‘old fashioned’ and not very modern. I guess it just challenges how we maybe occasionally perceive many ‘modern’ American adaptations as sounding ‘uneducated’. The constant rebuffs of different Englishes become really tiring after a while. I wish sometimes two different uses of the language could go said without someone commenting on them. I never felt I had pride of British English, but I never expected to feel so discriminated against for my ‘weird’, ‘funny’ and ‘strange’ way of speaking. It amazes me somehow that English, a language from
Language is an interesting thing in carving our perceptions of the world. In the BBC Human Planet Series (a must-watch), I saw that Mongolian wranglers have over 300 words to describe the different shades of their horses. In Japanese there aren’t different words for ‘leg’ or ‘foot’, both are ‘ashi’ 脚.
My Japanese language ability is moving along slowly. It’s happening (or not happening) in much the same way as the average Japanese learning English. By this I mean, learning how to read and write way beyond any kind of communication ability. For my next Japanese test (I’ve had 4 so far), I’m learning sentences such as:
Although you could say the price is high, it’s 100,000 yen. It’s cheap for a computer.
Nedan ga takai to ittemo 10 man-en desu yo. Pasokon no naka de wa yasui desu yo.
ねだんがたかいといっても１０まんーえんですよパソコンのなかでわやすいですよ。
But I’m still struggling with basic communication with cashiers or ticket conductors. Every now and then there’s a moment of triumph when you suddenly realize that the 3-minute conversation you just had with someone was all in Japanese, or even better a joke was passed.
A while back, Kajiya sensei leant me his kids’ Japanese books. I was learning Japanese with Anpanman, a popular cartoon character and his friends, like ichigochan (strawberry-girl).
Anpan-man is a pancake. He’s very brave and generous because when people are hungry he gives them pancakes. A few days ago Mr. Kajiya gave me a small present- it was a stuffed Anpan man!
I’ve been spending more time with my Japanese friends recently. I shared a Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day with Mamiko and Ayako, and we met again on Monday to eat at my favourite restaurant here- yes it’s Indian food, the British national favourite. Ayako is going to
Io-jima
In January I was sent on my first ‘business trip’, to
It was a touching experience. All the kids wanted to speak to me and have lessons with me. We played baseball and tag at lunchtime, cleaned the school quite animatedly and after school we went around the island collecting everyone’s recycling. I felt very included. It’s so nice how all the islanders get involved in the community. When a ferry comes in, the townspeople help unload the cargo for the local shop. I played volleyball with the teachers in the evening. They keep a quite-serious ongoing tally. Since it was my first time, I was conscious of being feeble.
I didn’t speak to Hiroko much on the first day, I guess we were both shy and there was quite a lot to do. When we finally spoke in Japanglish we found out we were the same age, and she teaches Japanese Literature whilst I studied English literature. She taught me a haiku.
On the last evening we explored the island. I saw the outdoor rock pool onsen, which had a hot and steaming natural waterfall dropping into the sea. We also went to the hill-top to view the volcano, by now a strong wind had come and mist was forming around the top. After, we went to the local indoor onsen, which was free on Wednesdays. Hiroko explained that there were no young people on the island. As we talked, there was quite a surreal feeling of absorbing and assuaging each other’s loneliness. We were sad to say goodbye.
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