Imperial Succession

While I'm on a roll with outdated blog topics, I thought I'd hit this one too. My brother asked me (back in October- sorry bro) what the importance was of the birth of a boy into the Japanese imperial family last fall. I haven’t actually done much bonafide research on the subject, but here’s what I gathered from a broken conversation I had with a teacher the day after it happened, combined with what I imagine a TV show on the subject was about that I “watched” (which was, of course, all in Japanese, so naturally I didn’t understand a word of it, so this entry could be quite entertaining – don’t use it as a source of stone-cold fact).

It seems that the current Emperor’s sons were the last boys to be born to anyone in the imperial family, including the Emperor’s brothers and their children, prior to the baby born in October 2006. So, besides the Emperor’s 2 sons and the Emperor’s brothers (who have to be between 45-75 years old, because the Emperor is up there in years himself), there was no third generation of males to take the throne. Traditionally (no surprise), Japan is a patriarchal society (there is evidence things are shifting towards more gender equality, but that’s still a long ways off, and another topic completely, so back to the subject at hand….), so the Emperor’s throne is passed down through the males in the imperial family. Up until fall, however, the Emperor only had grand-daughters, about which there was a lot of hoopla. Japan was getting nervous about making sure the Imperial line would not end with the Emperor’s sons should there be no males born into the succeeding generation, so the government had started to kick around the idea of changing the “males only” clause for Imperial succession. But then, low and behold, a son was born, and there was much rejoicing in the kingdom. Someone said that after the birth, the government said they wouldn’t kill the issue of changing the succession law, but I’m fairly confident that’s probably just lip-service. So, sorry to the two daughters of the elder son of the Emperor. There’s a new kid in town, and even though he’s the 3rd born of that generation and is the offspring of the younger of the Emperor’s two sons, he’s got a Y-chromosome, so he’s got the trump.

It sounds like I have an opinion on the matter, but I don’t really. I was just trying to make this entry entertaining to read. I think the Japanese Imperial family is like the English Royal family in that they are just there for tradition’s sake anymore but don’t really do much relative to running the country, so they might as well add their own touch of drama to life in Japan. I’m probably completely wrong about their role in the country and sound like a complete idiot right now, so I’m going to go look that up so I can sound edumacated next time I decide to sound-board on the Imperials.

Pretend you're reading this on April 9th

(Disclaimer: And you think I'm bad about blogging. It's not the writing, it's the posting that's the issue! Okay, that's a lie. I'm bad at both. :-) )

The new school year is underway. Today was the welcome ceremony for the new 1st grade students (= 6th grade in U.S. terminology). Experiencing the change-over between school years here has been, well, an experience.

First, there’s the fact that new school years start in April. That’s a bit of an oddity to wrap my head around, especially seeing as how I arrived in Japan in August while the students were on the longest break they have during the school year (5 weeks from the end of July to the beginning of September), and started teaching in September, all of which corresponds pretty much perfectly with the U.S. school year that I’m used to.

The break between school years in Japan is only 2 weeks, which seems too short. I feel like I was just on Easter holiday or some much-needed mid-year break, not jumping from one school year to the next. I can’t even imagine how the Japanese teachers feel during this time. For those teachers who stay at the same school for consecutive years, in those two in-between weeks, they are having to wrap-up from one school year, prep for the next school year, possibly deal with a change in duties (say going from teaching 1st grade Science to teaching 3rd grade Science, being put on a new committee, being made the Head Teacher for a particular grade or subject, dealing with changes in coaching for one of the school clubs…everything I’m sure you teachers out there have to deal with in your respective countries), etc.

However…..Japan has an interesting system (that is not limited to the teaching profession) of allowing teachers to stay at one school for a max of only 7 years, but from what I understand, that is relatively rare. On average, it seems that any given teacher has to mandatorily move schools every 2-5 years. I was just recently told that there is an influx of younger teachers being incorporated into the school systems, although, it has been my experience that a lot of those younger teachers start teaching on a substitute or temporary basis until they are able to pass the teacher exam (which is said to be very difficult). As with most things, I’m making assumptions on this, but it is my understanding that teachers who have not yet passed the teacher exam can only stay at one school for one year. So,…younger teachers move around quite frequently.

At first I thought teachers could be sent anywhere in Japan when they were slated to change schools, which was just an outrageous concept to me on many levels. But I’ve come to realize that changes in teaching assignments are generally limited to a particular region so a teacher and their family aren’t uprooted every time a teacher changes schools (and usually towns). Their new school assignments generally aren’t outside of a reasonable commuting radius.

Can you imagine though closing out your tenure at one school, moving to a new school, trying to get comfortable with your new surroundings and co-workers, prepping your lesson plans and falling into whatever other roles the school/town demand of you, all in the span of only two weeks? It’s a whirlwind. And I was only sitting on the sidelines watching!

Earthquake!

Because people ask me periodically whether or not I felt whatever the last earthquake was that was reported to have happened in Japan, I wanted to finally get to say that, yes, I JUST FELT AN EARTHQUAKE! Not the first one, but actually it's only the 3rd I've felt. This one was honestly just about 2 minutes ago, while I was sitting in my kitchen eating dinner and looking at Dan and Natalie's wedding photos (coincidence?!).

Geisha-wannabe

For those of you who want to check out my stint as a "Shoubu-girl" this past weekend at my town's Iris (hanashoubu) Festival (matsuri), check out my town's mayor's website at: http://www.geocities.jp/sontyounoheya/page024.html#花菖蒲まつり or if that doesn't work: http://www.town.tokigawa.lg.jp/mayor/index.htm then click on the yellow button that says "Sadao Sekiguchi's website." If you go through the latter website, the gigantic picture of the guy you'll see there is the town mayor. He's also the one I'm flanking with three other girls in one of the photos on photo page of his website. The girl in the white yukata (summer kimono) standing next to me in that picture is my neighbor/friend, Futaba. Also see if you can spot me in the crowd in the very first photo on the photo page. :-)

If you're so inclined, while you're on the mayor's website's photo page, if you scroll down far enough, you'll see photos from the sports festivals that were held at both of the junior high schools in my town on June 2. You'll know you're looking at the right pictures when you see gigantic painted banners hanging from a school building, stage or large free-standing wooden structure. Also obvious with the junior high school-age-looking students wearing red, white or blue head-bands. :-) Yes, I was there -well, one of the festivals anyway, but I'm not in any of the photos. But worthwhile anyway to have a peek to see how awesome all my students are in my town (shameless plug)!