The year of the Bunny

I returned from trippin’ back to England for the Christmas holiday with renewed refreshment. I was impressed with what I saw with new eyes. Everything felt familiar, like this was home, however temporary.

Students have finally started speaking to me after taking 6 months to ease into the idea. Usually in the form of asking really personal questions intermixed with many giggles and exchanged feverishly girly looks.

They said it never snows in Kagoshima鹿児島市but in January I was treated with flurries of beautiful swirling snow. It’s probably been one of the first winters I’ve enjoyed. There’s so much sunshine in the day and crisp air and even Japanese snow is more delicate.

Japanese people are often incredibly considerate. They always act with other people and society in mind. In Seika, the pool I go to, members mop the floor and hoover hair in the changing rooms.

Being here has made me realize the individualism with which we live our lives in the West. I’d never been made to think about it much before.

Sometimes the social responsibility can be very limiting on personal freedoms. For example, teachers in Japan are moved to a different school whenever the government deems it the right time, usually every 3 to 7 years. This means, especially in Kagoshima prefecture, where there are many islands, teachers could leave their families for long periods of time. Their own interests or their family’s interests come after that of the larger community.

Work, work, work and no play

My supervisor has two small children. She really enjoyed her last school because it was close to home. It was a more relaxed environment as it was a less academic school. The teachers had time for coffee breaks and chitchat and she had time for her family. Now she gets up at 5am and has an hour and a half commute and won’t be home until 7 or 8pm. As our school is ranked the third best school in the prefecture there is a lot of pressure on the teachers to increase the students’ performance. The teachers don’t take a break for lunch. She also now works Saturdays.

One Monday recently she looked so happy. She said she’d had the best Sunday ever. She took her children to the park and they were so happy. But she didn’t do any work- she leaned in to whisper it- so only had one hour’s sleep in order to catch up!

Once I thought it was strange that many people did army-raid style holidays where they leap across the world for a 3-day holiday and then home again. But now I know it’s because hardly anybody can take longer holidays. People feel like they will be letting down their work colleagues if they take leave. Most Japanese people will never take the number of vacation days allotted to them in the year.

Jan, Ken, Pon!

The best way of making decisions in a group, since no one can forcefully offer an opinion or persuade anybody else, or push for their own wants, society gets around this problem by mass Janken. Janken is the Japanese word for Rock Paper Scissors. People of all ages can do a mass rock paper scissors so fast that you barely even know it happened until everyone suddenly does the decision that was made without even appearing to have said much.

仕事

Shigoto: Work

I wasn't able to put a poster on the poster board at work to advertise my English club. I asked the head of English. I don’t think he really understood me even though I was grading my language and speaking very slowly. Then my supervisor came along, I asked her. The two of them gabbled away across me in Japanese. Then there was a lot of pausing and sighing and then the meeting dissolved without either party saying anything. This means: no poster.

One of the first year teachers, a young guy, about 26 years old, came to my desk and asked me to check over exam papers. We’re supposed to team-teach together. I haven’t done so since my self-introduction class in August. I suggested team teaching. He was startled, looked incredibly awkward and then ran away.

I actually had two lessons last week with one of the only two teachers I team teach with. After, she had a free period, so I took the opportunity to raise the subject with her. I explained that I would like to have more classes and that I was happy to be involved in any way I could. I said that I knew teachers had to carefully follow the text book and I was happy to make activities to fit the grammar point or reading. She pinned it down to a couple of things. One, that teachers often felt too busy to plan classes with an ALT. Another, that they weren’t used to working with an ALT who had teaching experience and implied they were probably intimidated.

My only relief from boredom is to escape at my 45 minute lunch period. Yesterday, I ventured out at lunchtime as usual, I always like to be outside whenever possible, and didn’t want to be deterred by the rain. In the park I took refuge in an old samurai house, open for public view.

Being away allows you to explore foreign cultures, understand that our way of perceiving the world isn’t absolute. Things that are obvious to you aren’t obvious to other people and vice versa.

I will never forget the story told by another ALT about a vending machine at his work. There were two bottles of green tea: a large one and a small one. They cost the same price. Continuously he would see teachers buying the smaller bottle. This fact aggravated him. One day the larger bottle went on sale, it was now half price. The ALT was beside himself when he saw teachers continue to buy the smaller bottle. He asked one of his female colleagues, ‘why do you buy the small bottle when the larger one is half the price?’ She answered, ‘I don’t want to drink that much green tea. The small size is more convenient for me’. This was almost too much for his bigger is better philosophy.

Onsen

The tradition of onsen is a big part of Japanese life. It’s one of the things I enjoy most about being here. The frequent volcanic activity means that there are public baths everywhere with natural hot water and different baths ranging from almost freezing to boiling. They are in fancy hotels, or built out of rock in the open air by the sea, or in traditional wooden huts.

Japanese people tend to take a lot more time washing than we do. Bathing is a long process, at least half an hour to 40 minutes. Surrounding the public bath are many shower heads and people sit on these little stools. The hair is netly piled on top of the head, wrapped in a towel. A small towel is use to scrub the body. After they are clean they get into the water.

I always found it impressive how still people are. They know how to relax. Women barely move their heads whilst soaking in the vitamin rich water.

I sometimes wish we bathed like this in England. But when I imagine it, there would be a million signs, ‘Don’t splash in the pool’, ‘Don’t eat in the pool’, ‘Please wash before entering the pool’, ‘Please cover your hair before entering the pool’. Plus we're much too shy of communal nakedness.

Recently a volcano in Kirishima erupted. Luckily the wind was blowing the other way. No one was badly injured. It was snowing and we went to the Kirishima onsen. But the water was incredibly hot. As we bathed outside, snow started to fall and landed on the steaming water. I learnt there’s a price to pay for over-enjoying onsen. As I got out of the bath for water, I fainted.

Skiing in Nozawa Onsen

I’d wanted to ski in Japan ever since going to the Fuji Rock Festival in the Nagano Mountains in summer 2007. My friend and fellow ALT, Marilyn had an ALT friend from college living in Nagano. A few weeks ago we flew to Tokyo and took a bus to Nagano. It was exciting to see another JET’s experience which differed enormously from our own. He lived in a village in the mountains. His house was surrounded by feet of snow.

It seems a mystery why Japanese homes don’t have central heating. It was -8 in Sam’s house and I slept in two jumpers and my coat with the hood up.

On the Friday we went to his local ski resort. It was fun to be back on the slopes again. Sam had a season pass to this local resort with three rickety chairlifts. We spent the day getting to grips with it again, and as Marilyn had never actually skied before, most of the day was spend digging her out of snowy holes.

The next day we woke up early and drove north. Next we went on foot. A beautiful path led us through the forest to an onsen (hot spring) in the snow where monkeys famously bathe in the hot water.

There were also two snow festivals in Nagano. One was relatively small, revealing the strong community spirit of Japan. Some hunters offered us kuma (bear meat)! Another had snow sculptures, including one of the shinkansen (fast train) as the town celebrated its coming arrival to their area. The final festival was the igloo festival. I don’t think I’d actually seen an igloo before. Some families had rented an igloo and were eating nabe (hot pot).

There was even an igloo shrine.

In the evening we visited the Olympic Ice-skating rink, where for this weekend only, there was free skating.

The final day of the trip was the best day. We went to one of the biggest Olympic ski resorts, Nozawa Onsen.

Sam’s friend, Patrick, who was learning to snowboard came too. In the morning Sam and I attempted the red runs at the top, which were very moguly. Thankfully, because of the snowfall, there was a lot of powder. The afternoon sunlight was gorgeous. Marilyn gave up- too in pain to continue. The boys played in the snow park and the bus tours of people went home early and by 3pm I had the whole mountain to myself. The day ended with an onsen, hot water biting at our freezing bodies, snow falling as we talked Japanese to an old lady.

Trips and Adventurings

The Last of Summer

After the first month here, I still hadn’t used a tram, train or bus. There’s something incredibly peaceful about this city. Everybody rides a bicycle and cars seem to glide along the roads. But when I hang my washing out sometimes it gets covered in volcano ash. It's important to choose the timing carefully. The volcano erupted so frequently in August, covering the city in showers of ash, that it was hardly worth cleaning anything between outbreaks. As there's no lava, it's not dangerous, but only seems to be a problem for contact lens wearers.

Longing to find the beach, I cycled towards the port one sunny afternoon and out of the city along the coastal road. The beach itself was disappointing. There were men with jet skis, few swimmers, and in the water lurked miniature jelly fish. I basked in the mellowing sunlight, looking across the bay at the mountain. Flying fish leapt out of the water every few minutes. And there, on the fourth largest island of Japan with the flying fish and the volcano, it was the most alone I’ve ever been.

I changed my location on Couchsurfing (www.couchsurfing.com) to Kagoshima and ticked the box which identified myself as willing to host. Soon came an influx of couch requests. My first visitor was a Belgian girl who stayed two nights. She came back from Sakurajima with sunburnt cheeks, smiling from a day of hiking and bought me pastries in Bakery Dankun for breakfast. A boy from Belfast left me Irish chocolates and a bottle of London Pride.

No Rain, No Rainbow: Yakushima and the Adventure with Hippies

The Japanese are very rain savvy- each possessing an umbrella (which they remember to carry on them). Being British, umbrella consciousness only sways around the 50 % mark. And when I met my new couch surfers, Fleassey and Jack after work, I was drenched from the downpour.

Fleassey and Jack were travelling around the world without using aeroplanes (and without money). They had made it to Kagoshima from England hitchhiking and using the Trans Siberian railway. They carried a curious amount of stuff with them- a guitar, a bongo, a flute; Fleassey had a large tin full of heavy home-made silver jewellery to sell, a clown costume with a red nose, oil pastels and some paints. However, neither one had a towel or raincoat.

It looked like the rain would never stop. It was a three day weekend and we had planned to go to Yakushima Island. It poured and poured. My JET friend, Sandy, called to say she didn’t think she could go because she didn’t have a rain coat. Nonetheless, the Yakushima spirit was strong and at 5:30am, on the main road, we all piled in a taxi for the ferry port. Fleassey suddenly realized she’d left her purse in my house, and in very broken Japanese I managed to convey this to the taxi driver and direct him to my house. Just shouting the words and hardly believing they possessed meaning until the taxi turned left, then right and arrived outside my house.

I pondered how the combination of Jack and Fleassey, who were planning to free-camp in the forest, and Sandy, who had straightened her hair and fully make-upped, would turn out. But actually neither party was uncompromising, and we all had a jolly time. The ferry ride was four hours, which meant a nap on the carpet. We hitched to the onsen (hot spring), following the main road which encircles the island. In the car, with first a large family, and then an old man, it was the most I’d attempted to try and speak Japanese so far.

It was a natural onsen made of rock by the sea. They say Japan is a country of contradictions. It certainly seemed contradictory how people conservatively clothe every bare patch of their bodies in normal public life but when it comes to relaxing at the weekends they happily bathe nude in public. It was a mixed naked onsen in full view of onlookers. Fleassey stripped off to reveal hairy legs and Sandy hovered tentatively at the side. A blue sea snake came into the onsen, but it was dead. As the sun began to set the tide came in and filled the fresh sulphur water with cold salty water. All the people vacated the pool and it became submerged in water.

We were next picked up from the side of the road by a guy in his 20s, named Sohe. He knew some English. Jack asked Sohe where he recommended us to free-camp... he answered, "ummm, my house". Sohe stopped at the side of the road at a viewpoint and we watched the sun set over the sea. Sohe and Jack played their drums and Fleassey played the flute.

Later we arrived on the edge of the forest in the dark. Sandy’s arachnophobia kicked in. We walked down the path, through the trees passed the creepy crawlies and entered the cabin. With a fire lit and a hot rice meal, we played music around the camp fire. There was little communication except for drumming. Fleassey’s performance poetry, “I am a white woman” silenced everyone. Sandy went to sleep with a massive tea cozy mosquito net over her.

Yakushima Island inspired Hayao Miyazaki’s film Princess Mononoke. It’s a magical forest with delicate details like dew drops on moss that sparkles and glistening spiders webs.The next day we went to Kigen sugi- a cedar tree that is 3000 years old. New life grows on the old bark and tree pockets enclose hidden creatures. People envisage in Japan, huge cities, skyrise buildings and neon lights, but missing from this view is the spirituality of shrines and lush green forestry. The culture is reflected in its nature- delicacy, spirituality, gentleness.

See Fleassey's character Googley Swan in action:

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=_7rpCG_XvWQ&feature=related
Googley Swan comes out to surprise people all over the world.

On the second night, Sohe’s friend came and played the didgeridoo and gave us shochu. Kyushu is famous for shochu- alcohol made from sweet potato. We bathed at midnight in another outside onsen. Sandy and I returned the next day to the mainland to work leaving jack and Fleassey in the hands of Sohe who invited them to go rice harvesting.

Road Trippin'

A week or two later, when Jack and Fleassey were still away on Yakushima, I received an email from Andrew Boaden, an old friend from Maidstone. As it turned out, he would be in Kagoshima in two days. He brought a friend with him, Alex. Alex used to be on the JET programme but now he’d returned to see the parts of Japan he’d missed. Alex is a journalist and was recently detained by security in North Korea. We rented a car, with my JET friend Kat, for a weekend road trip to Kumamoto castle, Tackachiho, where there’s a shrine, and went on the river boats in the rain. We drove back the coastal route, through Miyazaki, and I got to dance on the beach even though it was stormy and the red crabs were out.

Halloween

Fleassey returned from Yakushima after three weeks there and on October 31st we made Halloween costumes. Feassey dressed up Googley Swan http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=1ykg-YVUEhc&feature=related (for more on Googley Swan visit http://www.ukhippy.com/stuff/showthread.php?50086-Googley-Swan-s-new-videos) My American friend Sherri put on a real American style Halloween extravaganza with a Bbq and a haunted house when you walked through the entrance. Her husband dressed up as Sponge Bob Square Pants and we played Trick or Treat with the kids in the garden. After that we went to the Recife party. Recife is a bar owned by an Englishman called Richard and has a Mexican Chef. On Fridays you can order fish and chips. They also put on events. In September Richard hosted a Salsa night, the DJ was from Cali in Colombia, and for Halloween he rented much larger premises for ‘the party of the year’. More recently there was Nouveaux Beaujolais evening for wine tasting. When Fleassey left, she bequeathed unto me her oil pastels and clown costume.

The times are A-changing

Autumn came upon us more rapidly than expected. There was a week lapse between switching off my air-conditioning and wanting to put the heater on. I miss the sweltering soggy heat and the hot nights walking through the streets.

Early November I was supposed to go to a miniature island called Ioejima to teach English at a village school. In fact the whole island is only one third of a village spread over three islands and there are only 24 children living there. Peacocks and volcanoes also inhabit the island. In the morning I discovered the ferry had been cancelled and had to go into work instead. The trip should hopefully take place in January.

Beautiful November! A charm of living in Japan for a year is seeing the seasons through- (Kyoto in spring). A trip along the Onami trail in Kirishima (An area of countryside just north of Kagoshima), around an inactive volcano lake, was spectacular. I learnt the politism, ‘Otsukaresama desu’, which walkers say when they pass each other.

Becoming a Crepe

Sherri, introduced me to an artist a while back, who’s joyfully eccentric and egocentric. He was beginning the process of preparing for a performance art production / jubilantly narcissistic self-expression. Sherry was helping with the stage props and costumes and I was told I could be a crepe. November 13th came and I had three French couch surfers come to stay. They are linguistics PhD students and live in Toulouse. They came to Japan for a conference and to travel. I went to rehearse in the afternoon, and later, as I stepped onto the stage I could see them at the back with a camera. The kids in the audience were excited by the fun and colourful stage and dancing. The song repeated “kimochi” (feel good sensation). Afterwards the artist asked someone how you say ‘Arigato gozaimasu’ in English and then thanked me.

People say you should always take opportunities because they lead to unexpected things. This is true because I met Jo. She carried a keyboard to the rehearsal. She asked me if I wanted to go to her gig at ‘Cave’ on Sunday. Jo and I can’t communicate but it turns out she is an incredible jazz pianist. The gig was cool; the after party, in a hidden nearby café, led the way into Kagoshima’s alternative arts scene.

November also meant Mid-Year seminars. All the JETs from Kagoshima prefecture met at a hotel in the city for two days of JET conferences. As always, it was formal and there was an opening and closing ceremony and keynote speeches.

The lady in the convenience store was the first to tell me about Price William’s engagement. One of my colleagues asked me about the crockery with their faces on it. I will bring some from London as omiyage (post-trip gift) for the staffroom.

Sumo

I sat next to Erez on the plane to Japan early in August. Erez normally lives in England but he grew up in Israel. His mother is Pilipino, his father is South African and they lived for ten years in Japan. He now lives in Yamaguchi 山口. Yama means mountain and guchi means mouth (kanji becomes fun when you start to pick it up because it’s often pictorial). Erez discovered that a famous sumo tournament would be taking place in Fukuoka at the end of November and a group of JETs were organizing tickets. On the facebook wall of the event I discovered that Megan Prosser, who went to my primary and secondary school, in the year above, was here on the JET Programme, living in Oita!

On Friday November 26th, I took a bus to Fukuoka and met Erez and Hiro at the station. Hiro was to facilitate our first couchsurfing stay in Japan. He led us to a busy shack on the side of a backstreet to eat the famous Fukuoka ramen (ramen noodle soup). We then went to an izakaya (traditional Japanese bar) where everything cost only 250 yen (less than two pounds) and you order electronically.

We caught the last bus to Hiro’s house and laid futons on the floor of his room. Erez taught us a card game. It was very complicated and had a lot of rules. It took some time to grasp with the language barrier. Sometimes I complain at school that the kids aren’t really taught to use their imaginations. However, when it comes to logic their minds are sharp as anything. Hiro was very skillful and cunning. I was curious also because he played very competitively. Winning was all. It reminded me of when Matt (the American guy who lives below me) and I had been invited to a tea party with our Landlady. She taught us a card game and then eagerly made sure she won every time.

Actually, staying with a Japanese person turned out to be a very good idea. He was the only Japanese person I’d met with whom I could have a rapid conversation with in English. It is also very rare for Japanese people to open their homes to people. Hiro told us how he’d been couchsurfing in South Korea and then asked his parents if he could host people here. He explained that Japanese people don’t like others to see inside their homes. They don’t want them to know the means by which they live or how messy it is. His parents didn’t understand Hiro’s interest in foreigners. Racist feeling is not uncommon amongst the older generation.

Before the tournament, sumo was a cultural historic sport only seen on TV, which had always seemed vaguely comical. First off, because players are very, very obese and secondly because of the single piece of cloth that is worn around the nether region that resembles a giant blue nappy. Live, however, the story was very different. In two skillfull wacks a muscular wrestler of gigantic fatty proportions could be thrown from the platform and tumble down the side. Young Japanese people don’t want to become sumo wrestlers any more, and the elder generation of Japanese supporters are dismayed by the fact that a Mongolian has won something like 60 times in a row and may beat the all-time record. Recently Sumo wrestlers have caused controversey by their association with gambling and drug dealing.

After the tournament (which the Mongolian won), we met other JETs who live in Oita and Hiro and his friends and went to a Japanese izakaya and played a drinking game called 'nonde nonde' (drink drink). We also went clubbing. The vibe of this much larger city, is very different from Kagoshima and the young poeple seemed much more open to foreigners and less shy. We saw Hiro’s Grandma in the morning on the way out but she just bowed her head and scurried into the other room.

Christmas closing in

The last weekend of term we had a Christmas party at a JET’s house in the inaka (countryside) in Kirishima with 30 JETs and local Japanese. It was called, ‘A Merry Kirishimasu’. It was a Scottish girl hosting, and her house had five large rooms. There was a table spread with a mixture of Japanese onigiri (rice balls), cake roll, eggnog and gummy bears. We Hopped over tatami and moved through sliding doors, a local band played, before it turned into a massive slumber party and the whole floor was taken up by futons and people sipping hot sake and umeshu.

Bon Enkai

This is the end of year/ Christmas work party, with all the teachers in a posh hotel and $50 taken from your sallary. When you arrive you pick a number from a bowl and that indicates your seat number. When I found my seat it was on a large table with middle aged gentlemen I’d never met before who didn’t speak a word of English. I sat down and we all sat in silence. The female teachers came over to check on me- but it’s not the Japanese way to change the order of anything. So I didn’t expect them to swap seats and sit with me.

The PE teachers did a dance. We played bingo. I won some fancy cookies. It’s common knowledge that in Japan a little bit of alcohol goes a long way. The men relaxed. Their inhibitions weakened. They poured my drinks. We shared our pigeon English/Japanese. Some teachers had made a funny powerpoint presentation of the teachers. When my picture came up someone rushed over with a microphone. In the picture I was holding a Japanese dictionary (Jiisho). They told me I was the first person to take it out the library. They asked me to tell them what I wanted it for. In Japanese. (Err!!??). I said the only thing I knew how to say, “Kono hon wa totemo omoshiroi desu. Nihongo o benkyoshimasu. Nihonjin to hanashitai” (“This book is very interesting. I study Japanese. I want to communicate with Japanese people”).

The unwirtten code of Japan is that anybody is allowed to do whatever they like as long as they are drunk. Work parties are time for colleagues to reveal what they really think about work and for friendly groping; but by the next day everything is strictly forgotten and carries on as if things were never done or said.

Revelations that I encountered were relatively tame in comparison to stories I've heard from other poeple. My supervisor told me that she speaks better English when she’s drunk and leaked that the male teachers think an ALT (JET Assistant Language Teacher) is only there to make the students have fun (not for serious stuff). Therefore there’s not much time for using the native speaker it as it’s an academic school.

Christmas was everywhere. The department stores played the same classic tracks over and over. The park was covered in lights. Christmas is typically celebrated by couples, who book in advance a table in KFC.