Weekend update - Saturday, September 2

Okay, this is old and has been in draft form for about a month now, but after fighting with photos for way too long, I'm going to go ahead and post as is. :-)

This was the first weekend that I didn't really have anything planned during the day either Saturday or Sunday, but sometimes the best experiences are the unexpected. After I putzed around most of Saturday morning doing random chores, Bill came up early afternoon to recommend riding our bikes around town in search of a local organic bread shop one of the teachers told us about. About 20 minutes later we had located the bread shop, bought our stock for the week and were left with a beautiful day and the remainder of the afternoon with nothing else to do, so we decided to try to take a different route home, just to see where it led us and to hopefully kill a little more time. 4 hours and what I'm supposing is at least 24 km later, the following had occured:

We had a nice ride through the countryside and ended up in one of the neighboring towns called Ogose.














On the outskirts of Ogose (before we knew that's where we were at), a man who apparently thought it was funny that two gaijin (foreigners) were bike-riding on a road that seemed in the middle of nowhere, waved at us, then stopped a bit ahead of us to chat and make sure we weren't lost. When we had affirmed that we were riding our bikes in the middle of nowhere on purpose, he told us about a triple-waterfall and onsen (hot spring) that was about a 30-minute bike ride from where we were, and he went as far as to draw a map for us (including the way back to our town, Tokigawa). Again, with nothing better to do and not knowing any better, we set off for the waterfall.

The ride was fine, but a steady, slightly uphill climb, which was an interesting experience considering I think the last time a rode a bike that extensively were my Oslo city tour and Ireland experiences back in 2000. Playing the "Rocky" theme during the ride would have probably been appropriate. We rode through lots of little villages, which I really enjoyed.

We arrived at the waterfalls where it was quite a bit cooler, which was very welcoming. We walked around quite a bit, stretched the legs, I of course had to climb on rocks and rock-hop in the pools and streams around the waterfalls just because I can't seem to help myself when presented with the opportunity. The area seemed to be relatively popular (for rural-esque location anyway), but we seemed to have arrived at the waterfalls at the end of the regular "tourist" hours, and hence had a chance to romp around freely.

On the way back from the falls, we stopped for chai tea and ice cream at a cafe we had seen on our way to the falls, called "Die Sonne." The fact that the name of the cafe was in German caught our eye and made us decide we had to go there, probably more due to the irony of the fact that the only other cafe we know well in Japan (Poponoki) is also run by someone who speaks German. After we had ordered, I asked the lady who owned the cafe, in German, if she spoke German (duh, but it was an opening, and a chance to speak something other than English in Japan, which I am starting to feel really bad about) and she mentioned that she had lived in Germany for a couple of years as a child, and had returned when she was older to study. She also spoke English pretty well, but she and I conversed a bit in German here and there, which was really nice, again, if only to not feel like such a heel for making the Japanese speak English to me all the time in their own country. The cafe owner, ironically named Mayumi (same as the owner of Poponoki), was fantastic, as were her customers, obviously regulars and good friends. Within 5 minutes of sitting down, we were invited to a Latin music festival (random) to be held at the cafe the following weekend (which we unfortunately cannot attend due to Culture Festival events happening at our junior high schools on Saturday), where the performers would be none other than two of the people who were sitting at the opposite end of the table from us.

Only about 10-15 minutes into our visit, Mayumi slid a laminated piece of calligraphy/artwork toward me and told me it was made by the other lady sitting with the Latin music performers (all of whom were Japanese, in case you were wondering), and that she wanted to give it to me as a gift. Wow...what do you say to that kind of unexpected generosity?! The calligraphy happened to be of a well-known Japanese song, so Mayumi jumped on her piano and played it for us while she and the other patrons sang along. Unfortunately we had to leave shortly after that, not knowing how long it would take us to get back to Tokigawa, wanting to be back before dark and having other plans for the evening. Before we left though, Mayumi took down our addresses and phone numbers and everyone said, "See you next time!" I don't doubt that there will be a next time. :-)

That evening, once we were back in Tokigawa, while Bill went off to a Zen meditation session at the nearby Buddhist temple (which I think is a cool thing to be able to add into a daily activity description, so I had to toss it into my narrative), I headed to Poponoki for a star-gazing gathering they were having. One of their friends (and customers) has a huge interest in astronomy and biology, so Poponoki organized an evening for this friend, named Hero, to bring his telescope and microscope to share with other Poponoki patrons who were interested. Both the telescope and microscope were, to me, unbelievable pieces of equipment for a hobby interest We had a chance to get up-close and personal with the moon for a little while before the clouds moved in. By the time the clouds had cleared, the moon had sunk behind the trees at the top of a nearby foothill, so Hero (the man with telescope) spent the rest of our clear-sky time picking out double-stars for us. During the cloudy periods, we went inside to check out specimens under the microscope, which was also really cool.

It ended up being kind of a potluck in the end as well. Mayumi (the owner of Poponoki, just in case you lost track) of course cooked and served tea, but plenty of the participants brought homemade food as well, so there was plenty of great Japanese food to taste-test. There were about 15 or so people present for the session (including Mama and Papa, whom I mentioned in one of my first blogs, so there were familiar faces), at least half of them children. It was another wonderful Poponoki experience, and to top off the evening, Bill and I were invited to Mama and Papa's house for dinner the next evening (Sunday), along with Mayumi and her husband, Mochan.

Starting School

Well, I'm not doing any better at blogging than Taj is, am I?!

Term 2 started last Friday, September 1, so the moment of truth has arrived...sort of. For those of you who don't know already, the school year in Japan starts in April, so I've arrived kind of in the middle of the school year. However, because it is so hot in Japan in the summer, the students have 4-5 weeks off from the end of July-beginning of September for summer holiday, which is why I have been in Japan for a month already but have only just started teaching.

Friday was like most first days back at school after an extended holiday- not really a normal school day. Students came to school and went to homeroom for the first 15-20 minutes for attendance and announcements. Then everyone congregated in the gymnasium for the assemby and welcome ceremony, which are what the photos below are of:

The photos of the students standing were taken while they were singing their school song. The first photos shows one of the students from the Brass Band club leading the singing. That's one thing that has been striking about school in Japan, that the students are expected to take a lot more responsibility for things than American students are. More about that in a different posting.

During the assembly and welcome ceremony, various announcements were made by the principal, vice-principal, head teacher, other teachers, students (I think some of the students that gave speeches might have been new students, but I could be totally off), and the principal brought me up on stage to be introduced AND introduce myself to the student body. The introduction was short, but I was asked to say part of it in Japanese, part in English. My coached dialogue was "Minasan (everyone), Ohaiyo goziamasu (good morning). Good morning everyone. My name is Mandy Prorok. I am from America (which is what everyone calls the U.S. here- I stopped saying I was from the United States a long time ago because I got blank looks from most people, but when I said 'America,' received instant recognition). I will be the Assistant English Teacher at Tamagawa Junior High School during Term 2 and I look forward to working with you. Hajememashte (nice to meet you)." I thought I would be more nervous, but I had gotten to know all the teachers and staff during the week and a half prior to the start of school, and they have all been brilliantly welcoming, and I had both joined the junior high school volleyball practice a couple of times before school started (including attending a weekend tournament with the team the weekend prior to the start of school) and had been introduced to the students in a summer math class, so there were a number of familiar faces in the audience.

After the assembly, there was an emergency/fire (and earthquake...) drill. The students did some cleaning (more on this later), then went back to homeroom and read reports that they did over the summer. Then they all headed home by noon. The teachers of course stuck around until the end of the normal work day.

Yesterday (Monday, September 4) was the first full day of classes. There were three English classes yesterday during which I had my first "teaching" experience. From the first day of acceptance into the JET Program, I'd been told to prepare a 'self-introduction' for the first meeting of each class I'd be helping teach, which essentially meant that I'd be given the full 50 minutes of classtime to introduce myself to the students- show photos, maps, etc. When the time came, however, my situation was a little different. All of the English classes had been given vocabulary that they were to study over the summer from Term 1, and first thing in the first meeting for all the classes, was a vocabulary quiz for anywhere between 15-30 minutes. So,...with the abbreviated time, I explained a few things a wanted the students to know, and had them make name cards to keep on their desks during the first few weeks of school while I get to know their names. Of course I made them write their names in "romaji," roman letters, but with the kanji above the romaji so I could hopefully try to learn their kanji symbols as well, since all their regular nametags are in kanji. And that was about it.

I think I might have mentioned that I had three classes yesterday (if not, I just did- ha ha). In Japan, they don't label grades 1-12, they label them 1-however many grades are in completed at that particular school. So, in elementary school, there are grades 1-5 (I think). In Junior High School, there are grades 1-3 and High School, grades 1-3 (I think- I don't remember right now because I won't deal at all with high schools). So, in Japan, instead of a student saying that they are in 7th grade, as we are used to in the States, they would say that they are in Grade 2 in Junior High School (Chugako). One of my classes yesterday was a grade 2 class, and two classes were grade 1 (each grade is divided into two as well, so there is class 1-1, class 1-2, class 2-1, class 2-2, 3-1, 3-2). I have to say that I think the grade 1 students were a bit more...animated and seemed more receptive, even though I'm sure they didn't understand a word I said (the Japanese English Teacher translated everything I said for the students anyway). But they really got into making the name cards, adding decoration and all! The grade 2 students all paid attention and were well-behaived, they just didn't really seem to know what to do with me. I can imagine it is because they are at that inbetween stage of language learning where they are not completely beginners now, but are still not far enough along in their lessons to fully understand "all English, all the time," but might feel that they should, so are feeling a bit awkward about their skills.

Anyway, part of my explanations yesterday included introducing a "mailbox" that I will leave on my desk throughout the term. Students are invited to write letters to me about themselves, with questions about me, America, English, etc. They are rewarded for writing letters by receiving extra points. I received 4-5 letters today already! I am supposed to respond to the letters, so if this frequency keeps up (there are 172 students at my junior high school and all of them take English class), I'm going to be a busy letter writer!

Today (Tuesday, September 5) was a slightly odd day. I was supposed to have three classes today, two grade 3 classes and one grade 1 class. After the morning teachers' meeting, one of the English teachers told me that afternoon classes had been cancelled pretty much all week so students could prepare for the Culture Festival coming up this Saturday. So, I only had 1 class today, the morning grade 3 class, but they had a 30 minute test, so all I had to do was get them to do the name cards, and the rest of the day I worked on projects in the teachers' room. Tomorrow I have one new class I have not met yet and 1 or 2 repeat classes. Thursday I go to the Tamagawa Elementary School (I will go to one of the three elementary schools in town almost every Thursday).

So far, so good regarding school! As I said, the teachers have all been fantastic, even though I can't speak Japanese and some of them speak little to no English. One of them even ordered knee pads for me for volleyball and had them delivered to the school three days later (more on volleyball in another post)! And the students have been great so far as well. Of course some of them were a bit shy about speaking to me the first few times they saw me around school, but it seems to me that all of them are willing to at least use greetings with me if I greet them first. Some students are getting a bit more brave, but there are still a lot of nervous giggles after saying "hello" or "good morning" to me in English. But they've been great so far, so I'm really excited about the rest of the term.