Hangoro

Funniest thing that happened today:

My office co-workers, one of whom is a longtime veteran teacher, taught me how to say 'I'm going to beat you to death.' After going through it a couple of times together, one of the BOE bosses looks over and says something, which I can only imagine was along the lines of 'what kind of crap japanese are you teaching this kid?!?!' Made me laugh.

Week 3

It’s been an interesting week. Last Tuesday I went to Kanazawa for a two-day prefectural orientation at the Jyosei Center. It was essentially designed to give us info on life and work specific to Ishikawa. I found it on the whole a lot more helpful and pertinent than the orientation at Tokyo, plus when combined with night outings it was a pretty fun time.

Upon returning to Daishoji, Anna and I were taken on a tour of the Kaga area by a local ESS teacher and some elementary school 6th grade girls. They drove us around and brought us to various museums and temples, doing their best to provide explanations for everything in English. Even though the kids were deathly afraid of using English or even engaging us in conversation, they were good sports and seemed to enjoy themselves after a while. They go to Sakumi Elementary, a school that I’ll be visiting two or three times a month, and overall it was cool to finally meet some of my future students. They seemed a lot older than I would have expected elementary-age kids to be, and did a decent job of showing me their too-cool-for-school attitudes, but we’ll just see about that. Can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m definitely looking forward to school!

Let’s see…on Saturday the Kanazawa JETs took the train down to Daishoji and got a taste of our neck of the woods. We showed them around a bit and then headed off to Kaga Onsen, where we met Issei. You see, our buddy Issei was throwing a huge BBQ party, so I’d inadvertently invited a bunch of foreigners (8 in total). Thus, showing up at his BBQ with what must have looked like a UN delegation was more than enough to shock the pants off of some of the Japanese guests. But after a couple of drinks and some yakitori everyone loosened up, so despite difficulties in communication, everyone to my knowledge had an awesome time.

On Sunday I went with my friends Ai-Chih and Akiko to Kanazawa and saw some of the traditional samurai housing district, just south of the city center. It was comprised of narrow, winding streets with high walls and small, old-looking residences. For lunch we went to a world famous cross-cultural restaurant that boasts some of the most popular food in the world: McDonalds. The guy serving us was all smiles and we even had a chat in English about all the places he’d been in Canada and how long I’d been studying Japanese. Could you imagine that taking place in Canada or the U.S.??? In the afternoon, we went to the Geisha district, which used to have lots of traditional entertainers, plus a gold leaf museum and various tea houses.

On Monday my supervisor took me on a driving tour of the nine schools I’ll be visiting. We entered them, and amid shocked gasps at how young I was, I had a chance to meet various staff members at my schools. It hit me by the end of the day just how many schools I’ll be going to. Nine!!!! Just learning the names of my school supervisors and relevant English-teaching faculty will be difficult—students’ names, impossible. But all in all, it was good to actually go to the schools and see where they are, that they physically exist. It makes it a bit more real…

Oh, I also got a mobile phone through the company Softbank. Calls and messages are free between members from 1am to 9pm, so it’s a pretty sweet deal (although the phone itself cost an arm and a leg). It does a whole lot of cool stuff, including TV, but I have pretty crappy reception in my area. I did manage to catch some Olympics though, pulling out of the station in Kanazawa, but sadly, nothing at home. But--I was able to call my momz from my cell phone for free!

Kanazawa

Bright and early (10-ish) Saturday morning, Anna, Daniel, and I woke up and were driven, very gratefully, to Kanazawa City by Issei, who has a sweet ride and a wild driving style, making a drive through the country and small towns all the more exciting. We made a brief pit stop at one of Ishikawa’s two Starbucks and then headed to Kanazawa station, where we had arranged to meet with some of our other JET friends living in the city.

Despite being little more than a week, it really seemed as though we hadn’t all seen each other in months. Everyone was settled in to their surroundings and enjoying themselves. I already feel like such a hick, which was compounded by gaping ridiculously at tall buildings and feeling a touch of panic around crowds. More than anything, though, I’m resigned to the fact that getting your bearings when there’s more than one large street is pretty much impossible.

Since it takes forever to upload pics on here, I've posted them on facebook. Let me know if you need the link.

Anyway, our first stop was Kenroku-en Garden, considered to be one of Japan's top 3 gardens. It was pretty breathtaking, but unfortunately our breath was spent panting cuzza the heat. I couldn't believe how hot it was. After leaving we sort of skirted Kanazawa Castle and met up with some other people for lunch. After lunch, Issei, Daniel, Anna, Richard and I went to The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, which among other things featured an exhibit by Ron Mueck, who does amazingly realistic human sculptures, but in an almost creepy way. No, I take that back. Some of the works were definitely creepy. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, so if you get a chance look this guy up. The museum also had a pretty cool simulated pool. The edge of the pool and the pool itself were actually separated by a sheet of glass which had water on it, so it fully looked like a pool, but you'd have visitors around the pool and also 'in' the pool looking up. Definitely had some fun with that.

After that we went to Mister Donut, and then down one of Kanazawa's main roads, which happened to have a huge festival. There were a lot of people dancing, singing, selling stuff, giving out free fans (yes!) and drinking beer. I'm not completely sure, but I think the festival revolved around a newspaper (?) but I could be wrong. Exciting stuff nonetheless! We headed off to the train station, shopped a bit, and then had delicious okonomiyaki for dinner. I'm gonna try and make it at home sometime--actually seems pretty simple. After dinner, we went to a tiny bar where one of Issei's friends works and had a couple of drinks, but ended up leaving not long after calling one bartender a samurai and the other an assassin. All said, a pretty fun day.

Life at the BOE

Today is Friday, the last day of the work week—a day eagerly anticipated by CEOs and school children alike. Here at the Kaga City Board of Education, Friday seems to have been five days in the making. The famed Japanese work ethic is punctuated surprisingly often by idle fanning, lengthy smoking breaks, listless paper shuffling, gazing out the window while not-so-secretly leaning over the air conditioning, and of course office colleagues jumping up to answer even the most mundane questions from we clueless newcomers (including a lengthy introduction to properly straining tea and the cumbersome complexities of the fax machine). Let no one tell you, however, that this is limited to the locals. If this looooong week has taught me anything, I need a firm plan if I hope to survive this many weeks of nothing.

In my Board of Education little is taking place right now. It’s the middle of summer holidays, and the workload for most people is very limited. However, due to a communal effort to maintain a functional atmosphere, the staff are continuing to put in full days, week in and week out. The same applies to me. Nevertheless, there is a noticeable distinction between my job and theirs. As an Assistant Language Teacher here in Kaga, my job description entails visiting various local elementary school and junior high schools on a daily basis, teaching kids between the ages of 6 and 15 the merits of English and multiculturalism in general. This presents a bit of a problem in the summer, when classes are out for several weeks, and I am left with little to do at the office for eight hours a day until September.

Granted, there are lots of things I could be doing, but at the end of the day, after carefully pacing my review of teaching materials (don’t want to be left with absolutely nothing to do that’s actually work-related) and studying Japanese for an hour or two, there are still a lotta hours to kill, and I’m fairly sure the rest of the staff feels the same way.

Today Anna and I had a welcome reprieve from trying to look busy when a local French ALT took us out to the local International Exchange Association for morning tea, where we met a couple of locals and shared random treats. Alexandre, the Frenchman, and his fluent French-speaking wife,Yasue, were hospitable to the point that Anna and I have volunteered to take part in a community cooking event in which we are expected to cook a dish from our respective home countries with the help of local members of the community in an effort to further cross-cultural communication. Food aside, it’s designed to make us foreigners look more approachable and also give us a chance to meet people who may currently be too frightened of us to greet us on the street. Remember, the town of Daishoji is very, very small. That said, the meal I end up preparing will probably account for a significant portion of my public identity, so I feel as though investing some thought into it wouldn’t hurt. A year from now I don’t want to be walking down the street getting “Look!! It’s Salmonella Mike! Damn him and the poison Canadians call food!!” spat at me from left and right. So if anyone can think of some simple recipes that might be fun to share, and that vaguely represent either Canada, Switzerland or New Zealand, and that aren’t just maple syrup, chocolate (however delicious) or lamb, please let me know.

Haha this just happened: the lady who works across the desk from me just offered me and the other folks around some Godiva chocolates. I gratefully received it with a “oh cool, Godiva chocolate”. I was, however, immediately corrected on my pronunciation of the word ‘Godiva’, which I had pronounced in the American way (guh-die-vuh). The correct pronunciation for this American chocolate brand name, it turns out, is ‘Godiva’ (goh-dee-ba).

The things you learn.


Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to the city of Kanazawa, north of where I am now, with Anna, Daniel and a Japanese guy from Kaga named Issei. It’s the biggest city in our prefecture, so we’re going there to do some sightseeing, maybe some shopping, but most of all to get out of the country and into a city for half a second. Then on Sunday Anna’s going to break in her new set of wheels and take us to the beach, which, if we’re to believe maps of the area, is apparently quite close to where we live. She’s the only one with experience driving on the left side of the road, hence a higher chance of survival. Speaking of which, apparently they have deadly jellyfish that start popping up around this time of year....woohoo seaside!

JAPAN...the beginning

Going into my second week here in Japan and I have to say it’s been hella busy so far!

There was a hiccup at the onset of the trip, actually, when my luggage didn’t arrive in Ottawa from Chicago, which I’d flown in from on the 25th of July. I was flying with United, so it didn’t come as a huge surprise or anything, but it wasn’t opportune. So the following morning I spent a nervous couple of hours tracking down my bags at the airport, but thankfully I got them back after threatening to show up to business seminars sporting shorts and a mickey mouse t-shirt, and managed to do a quick clothes change in the loo before checking in. I would like to add a quick bit of praise for Air Canada: one of my suitcases was overweight by a couple of kgs, but the lady who was processing fees took one look at my stress-ridden, on-the-verge-of-tears visage, and decided against her better instincts to generously wave the $100 charge. For that, I am eternally grateful. Who says all North American flights suck? Well, me…but not that day!

Anyway, after flying the 14 hours from Toronto to Tokyo, the Ottawa and Montreal JETs at last arrived in Narita Airport to the welcome greeting of several thousand yellow-clad JET staff and volunteers who made our journey to the buses and luggage depot truly idiot-proof. We weren’t allowed to bring all of our luggage with us to the hotel, so we sent our larger bags directly to our contracting organizations—in my case the Kaga City Board of Education.

An hour later, we arrived at the Keio Plaza Hotel in downtown Shinjuku—Tokyo is massive! I don’t think I’ve ever been in such an enormous, freakishly clean city, nor one with such a confusing maze of winding highways and criss-crossed streets. Besides that, I found that even the suburbs of Tokyo boasted skyscrapers, despite being over an hour away from the actual city center. I was lucky to see the sky in some spots. We ended up arriving a couple of hours later than expected, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to meet up with some of the friends that I had promised to see. However, by some miracle and a few urgent phone calls, an hour later I was happily enjoying dinner at an izakaya (Japanese-style restaurant/bar) with Takashi, a friend from Osaka who did an exchange at Queen’s this past year and with whom I went to Mexico; Akiko, who was at Queen’s the year before and is now a math teacher in the Tokyo area; Daisuke, a buddy from my exchange at Kyushu University who also came to visit in Kingston; Tim, a friend I know through Josh and Geoff from Vancouver who was also at Queen’s; and Maki, who was one of my host sisters in Fukuoka two years back and who’s now finishing up school in Tokyo.

The following days were packed with orientation events, which equated to us getting up at 7am and cheerfully returning to bed at god knows when. The three day orientation was littered with comedic speeches, lengthy seminars, sub-par breakfasts and lunches (although the first breakfast featured McDonalds-style French fries, undoubtedly for those Americans in the group who regularly begin their days with a greasy bang), and workshops that featured mostly common-sense knowledge. At night there were generally receptions or nights out with people from our same prefecture. On the eve of our departure to our new hometowns, the Canadian embassy hosted an event at which we Canadian JETs received lotsa fun books and materials about Canada to brag about and share with our Japanese friends and colleagues--things that the locals here will be dying to know, like how the Canadian mining industry served as the backbone of Canadian industrial development. Overall, however, we were well received and I definitely had the chance to meet a lot of cool people during orientation, including yanks (the far majority), other canucks, brits, scots, irish, kiwis, aussies, and even a few south Africans. If they spoke English, or some distant variant, they were present.

The next morning was pretty exciting. Everyone was nervous at the thought of finally heading off to their respective towns and cities and meeting their supervisors and co-workers. Anna, my buddy at the Kaga City BOE and I were somewhat comforted by the fact that we at least had each other to rely on if it did indeed come as a shock. We were joined by Daniel, an American from Arkansas who is also newly posted to the same town, bringing our soaring immigration tally to three.

After a brief flight to Komatsu Airport (which is about 25 minutes from our town by car), Anna and I were met by our supervisor and Anna’s predecessor, Amy. They took us to our new town of Daishoji, in the greater Kaga City area, where we were immediately marched into the board of education office and introduced to the staff. The senior staff all gave us their business cards with their names and positions, which we of course could neither read nor remember, but it didn’t matter, because before we knew it we were whisked away to the Mayor’s office, but he was out, so I suppose we’ll meet him at some point in the future. The rest of the work day was spent tending to administrative things, like applying for our foreign registration cards, which will allow us to set up internet and phone lines, apply for re-entry permits and health cards, etc. In the meantime, however, we can do none of these things, so work is where I catch up on the outside world.

That night we had a formal party at an izakaya, honouring both our arrival and the departure of our two predecessors, Keith and Amy. I have to say, having Keith and Amy around for the first couple of days after we arrived was incomparably helpful. I understand it’s generally quite rare to meet your predecessor, so getting the ins-and-outs of our workplace, apartments, staff, schools and whatnot was so incredibly helpful. Anyways, after a couple of nights in a local hotel, I moved into my new apartment, which is located about 3-4 minutes away from work on foot. Directly in front is a massive temple, and to the left is a snack bar and a place where mostly elderly people come to take karaoke lessons. I find this interesting considering the fact that karaoke is sort of meant to invoke an amateur connotation to begin with, so it comes as somewhat of a surprise to see people (well, hear more than see) this sort of outside practice taking place. I look forward to hearing the vocal progression of the ‘students’ next door. Slightly further around the corner lives my landlord, who seems very personable and has had no hesitations talking to me. In the other direction, approximately two minutes from my apartment, is a conveniently located grocery store, sporting everything from products I don’t recognize to full isles of yet more things I can’t read.

The apartment itself is quite large and relatively traditional. Save for a small strip of kitchen linoleum and the bathroom tiles, the floor is virtually entirely composed of tatami mats. I have a main living room area, a ‘study’, as well as a bedroom. All said, it’s large enough to house a couple or small family and I think a combination of good luck and relatively rural placement account for this. While the size is great, it’s nothing like back home. Central heating and air conditioning is completely nonexistent in my area and I think in most places in Japan. Instead, one room will have a local air conditioning unit that works by remote control and puffs out cool air. The key to not passing out from heat exhaustion in this brutal western Japanese summer is to stay holed up in this one room as much as possible, with the machine blasting its heavenly breath and several fans pointed straight at you. The reality, though, is that with the exception of this room, the majority of the apartment ends up being hotter inside than out, which means you’re gonna sweat. As a result, at night I move my futon out into the living room and sleep where the temperature’s more bearable. In summer, instead of smothering yourself in a duvet or some other sort of cover, people use towels in the place of blankets. Clothes while indoors are generally discouraged—at least in my case.

Apart from generally just settling in, I’ve been trying to get familiar with my environment and figure out what’s what—Slowly and not at all surely, I think I’m starting to get it. The other day I took the train to the neighbouring town of Kaga Onsen and bought myself a little ironing board and made an afternoon of ironing my shirts. Sounds fun, right? It was, in fact, surprisingly enjoyable. I guess, while initially disconcerting, it’s probably a sign that I’m acclimatizing to my environment more quickly than expected. I’ll probably pencil in cow tipping tomorrow and chewing blades of grass while playing the banjo on Thursday. For now, I’m going to take my lunch break, go home, and heat up some curry. Or maybe throw in ice cubes.