I'm in Cambodia.
There are plenty of monks cut in perfect orange saffron robes, sheltering under dusty brollies.
Chippie is fun to travel with- he has enterprise written all over him. Last night we drank fresh cold draft beer like I hadn't yet here, in the Hotel Royal, masquerading as young rich things when it wasn't strictly necessary, but fun nonetheless.
Duk Tuk travelling is grimy and glorious.
I'm thinking of getting a quick close shave, that if I come to trust a Khmer with a knife to my throat.
I'm reading Rilke from Mike leisurely, slowly, repetitively. I started it at Ueno station and how far that seems from South East Asia and all the hotch potch and dirt and happy smiling faces and display.
Friday 28 December 2007
Wednesday 19 December 2007
Shorts
Sometimes they find a way- yesterday a student tried to say bald without knowing bald and came out with 'See you hair!' instead.
Tuesday 18 December 2007
Shorts
You know your car is getting on a bit when...
...you go to put the key in the ignition and it instead finds another crack to enter in the plastic casing around the wheel.
...you go to put the key in the ignition and it instead finds another crack to enter in the plastic casing around the wheel.
Monday 17 December 2007
Shorts
I was in the toilet the other day and it was one of those awkward moments when one of the teachers who hardly passes any words at al with me came in.
A while back at an Enkai (drinking party) he suddenly started speaking to me in careful, accurate English, and told me his brother lives in London and that he himself has travelled all over the world. Back at work after that, it was back to notmuchings at all and Ohaaayoooos in the morning and that's about it.
So I was a little surprised when he asked what I would be doing at Christmas. I told him Cambodia. He got excited, and told me he was there in September, Angkor Wat is fantastic.
A while back at an Enkai (drinking party) he suddenly started speaking to me in careful, accurate English, and told me his brother lives in London and that he himself has travelled all over the world. Back at work after that, it was back to notmuchings at all and Ohaaayoooos in the morning and that's about it.
So I was a little surprised when he asked what I would be doing at Christmas. I told him Cambodia. He got excited, and told me he was there in September, Angkor Wat is fantastic.
Shorts
You know you've been away for a while when....
you get sent some money and you don't recognise it's English at first.
you get sent some money and you don't recognise it's English at first.
Sunday 16 December 2007
Shorts
They had run out of Men's size Santa trousers when I went so it was Boys size felt 100 yen Santa trousers I wore when I had a face-off in J's bar. It was with a High School Hip hop kid (it was Hip hop night). The trousers reached down to my shins, no further. They went up to just about my waist, and they had holes in them from being over-stretched. The High School kid wore a Granny Smith green beanie and matching hoodie. His girlfriend, who I'd been chatting to (BEFORE I knew her age) at the bar was in an equivalent Stars and Stripes blue get-up. Turns out our green meanie wasn't best chuffed with me and his lady hip hopper chatting, hence the ensuing face-off. He blew smoke in my face and squared up an inch or so away. I couldn't help chuckling in his face at the thought of a tight-fitted Santa and a fresh-faced, green clad, Japanese Hip hopper.
Shorts
I said to a teacher at an Elementary School I was going to Cambodia for Christmas and New Years. She got excited. She told another teacher, the Kyoto Sensei (that's deputy head). Without looking up from his computer he said, simply, 'Naze?!' (that's 'Why?!').
Tuesday 4 December 2007
It's Very Formal
Last week me and a mate, Roger, were asked to MC for the Recitation Contest, in which our students also happened to be taking part.
Leading up to the contests, ALTs (that's 'Assistant Language Teachers') work pretty hard with the chosen students, perfecting accents, those tricky r and l and th sounds, gestures, manner, we even try and tease a smile out of them now and then. It's a busy time of year, so you snatch at time when you can- early in the morning when the heaters have barely been turned on or way after school has finished when the dark has long since descended.
So Rog and I had a certain amount invested in the Contest. The winner goes on to Regionals, the winner of which makes the Prefectural or somesuch, there's a progression anyhow, the end of which is Nationals, meeting the Royal Family and dining with them razzmattazz and BigDeal written all over it and my you must be flavour of the month if you get that far. Except my mate Ian, who was subjected to a horribly calculated kind of bullying by a member of his English Department following just such a success. But that's another story, and one I probably shouldn't tell here at all, or so we are Warned.
Rog and I were uncertain over a few of the contestants' names- boy or girl? Mr or Ms? Isn't a bit formal, I ventured to one of the organisers, isn't it a bit formal? They're just kids after all....
'Oh no', came the reply, 'It's very formal', she said, 'Very formal'.
It just so happened she belonged to the same school as the bully. In fact, that school were the organisers of the Recitation Contest this year. Formal they wanted, so formal we tried. I'd even bothered to wear a suit on the day, albeit coupled with my novelty Union Jack socks- and that just about sums up the formality of the following Recitation contest. Shallow. At best.
The judges, the guests, everyone seemed to be working to a completely different script. Barely had we uttered something than one of the teachers from said school would say, from the other side of the room, 'Er, actually, no..' and we'd freeze, everyone would freeze, the poor students got even more nervous and the course of things would be set to rights.
But the most farcical moment came precisely half way through. The First Grade students had finished. The break had finished. Everyone was settling back into their seats. The teacher from the other side of room started gesticulating to us, across the students (sat between us). It looked like he wanted me and Rog to change our seat. Both of us were a bit bemused (why would we need to change our seats??), but change our seats we did, awkwardly stepping around one another, pushing our papers and things across the table as we did.
'No no...' the teacher started, and finally we both realised who it was he wanted to change seats. The students. Of course. Now it was the Second Grade kids go, it seemed perfectly obvious they should sit in the front rows. Perfectly obvious.
Leading up to the contests, ALTs (that's 'Assistant Language Teachers') work pretty hard with the chosen students, perfecting accents, those tricky r and l and th sounds, gestures, manner, we even try and tease a smile out of them now and then. It's a busy time of year, so you snatch at time when you can- early in the morning when the heaters have barely been turned on or way after school has finished when the dark has long since descended.
So Rog and I had a certain amount invested in the Contest. The winner goes on to Regionals, the winner of which makes the Prefectural or somesuch, there's a progression anyhow, the end of which is Nationals, meeting the Royal Family and dining with them razzmattazz and BigDeal written all over it and my you must be flavour of the month if you get that far. Except my mate Ian, who was subjected to a horribly calculated kind of bullying by a member of his English Department following just such a success. But that's another story, and one I probably shouldn't tell here at all, or so we are Warned.
Rog and I were uncertain over a few of the contestants' names- boy or girl? Mr or Ms? Isn't a bit formal, I ventured to one of the organisers, isn't it a bit formal? They're just kids after all....
'Oh no', came the reply, 'It's very formal', she said, 'Very formal'.
It just so happened she belonged to the same school as the bully. In fact, that school were the organisers of the Recitation Contest this year. Formal they wanted, so formal we tried. I'd even bothered to wear a suit on the day, albeit coupled with my novelty Union Jack socks- and that just about sums up the formality of the following Recitation contest. Shallow. At best.
The judges, the guests, everyone seemed to be working to a completely different script. Barely had we uttered something than one of the teachers from said school would say, from the other side of the room, 'Er, actually, no..' and we'd freeze, everyone would freeze, the poor students got even more nervous and the course of things would be set to rights.
But the most farcical moment came precisely half way through. The First Grade students had finished. The break had finished. Everyone was settling back into their seats. The teacher from the other side of room started gesticulating to us, across the students (sat between us). It looked like he wanted me and Rog to change our seat. Both of us were a bit bemused (why would we need to change our seats??), but change our seats we did, awkwardly stepping around one another, pushing our papers and things across the table as we did.
'No no...' the teacher started, and finally we both realised who it was he wanted to change seats. The students. Of course. Now it was the Second Grade kids go, it seemed perfectly obvious they should sit in the front rows. Perfectly obvious.
Friday 30 November 2007
Kyoto
'Are you...?' 'and you're....?' was how it went the first time I met Risa. She'd just got out onto the street from Shijo Keihan station. I'd been early, waiting outside Minami-za, the Kabuki Theatre where we'd arranged to meet. We set off straight away, where to I wasn't exactly sure.
Risa set up accommodation for me and my Dad when he came to visit this year in April May time. Since then we've traded e-mails pretty much every weekday about all kinds of stuff, and gotten to know each other quite well. A right regular 21st Century pen friend. So it was a little difficult, when I met Risa for the first time outside the Minami-za theatre, to reconcile the Risa I'd known for six months or so with the Risa right before me, standing in the sunshine (we had beautiful weather every day we were in Kyoto). A bit like reading a book, then seeing the characters you know and love done a little differently on the silver screen. Except this was all real, of course.
Risa was a lot of fun to hang out with. We set off straight away and walked all over. She told me her Dad likes to walk but not with her, because she goes too fast. I could see that. We saw some really pretty trees just nearing perfect autumn bloom, crisp reds and auburn yellows and golden greens setting it all off. Friday night me and some friends from Yamagata had gone to nearby Osaka to see Nathan Fake play, and the first train back wasn't til 5 or 6 or something- so when I met Risa for the first time there outside the theatre, it was already 1.30 ish. We spent the afternoon together, then when I caught up with everyone else it turned out there was a spare place at the izakaye Julia had booked up- so Risa came along too. We arranged to hook up Sunday too.
You can see what Risa made of the weekend here: http://www.kyotoguesthouses.com/news.php
Cheers again Risa, I enjoyed Kyoto with you a lot.
Risa set up accommodation for me and my Dad when he came to visit this year in April May time. Since then we've traded e-mails pretty much every weekday about all kinds of stuff, and gotten to know each other quite well. A right regular 21st Century pen friend. So it was a little difficult, when I met Risa for the first time outside the Minami-za theatre, to reconcile the Risa I'd known for six months or so with the Risa right before me, standing in the sunshine (we had beautiful weather every day we were in Kyoto). A bit like reading a book, then seeing the characters you know and love done a little differently on the silver screen. Except this was all real, of course.
Risa was a lot of fun to hang out with. We set off straight away and walked all over. She told me her Dad likes to walk but not with her, because she goes too fast. I could see that. We saw some really pretty trees just nearing perfect autumn bloom, crisp reds and auburn yellows and golden greens setting it all off. Friday night me and some friends from Yamagata had gone to nearby Osaka to see Nathan Fake play, and the first train back wasn't til 5 or 6 or something- so when I met Risa for the first time there outside the theatre, it was already 1.30 ish. We spent the afternoon together, then when I caught up with everyone else it turned out there was a spare place at the izakaye Julia had booked up- so Risa came along too. We arranged to hook up Sunday too.
You can see what Risa made of the weekend here: http://www.kyotoguesthouses.com/news.php
Cheers again Risa, I enjoyed Kyoto with you a lot.
Tuesday 27 November 2007
Monday 19 November 2007
Quitter!
I hate quitting.
I don't often do it- most of the time I pick things I know that if I work hard enough and long enough at I can get done to my satisfaction.
I like to run, far. Not marathon far, just yet, but far enough away from home to start wondering if you've got enough in the tank to make it all the way back again.
Trying to write a book of 50,000 words in a month has been a real challenge. I've had to organise myself immaculately, to know exactly when I'll have time to get chores done, to get work done, to maximise time spent tapping away in front of the computer. And of course, I've had to make more time- I've been getting up at around 5.30 to write before work, then straight away and all the way to bed as soon as I get home again from work.
It was ok at first, as I fell into a pattern, a rhythm. My friend Kathryn was also doing it and it was the most comforting, inspiring thing to know that as I sat in the dark except for the milky blue light of a pc screen, she was out there somewhere else in the ken doing the same thing. Thinking about a book all day whenever I was away from my computer was also great and it really strengthened my resolve to try this schtick for real some day.
Apart from the glorious sunrises I've seen whilst scrambling for more words and more and apart from a warm cosy bed I've craved crawling into or back into, there's a whole life to be getting on with. I feel a schmuck for thinking up excuses, especially when you get pep talks through from the National Novel Writing Month people detailing this and that and the other and a horse then a dog getting sick, then the wheels falling off a car and I'm still going to write this bloody novel. My excuses pale in comparison with that.
But then, I've never really felt a part of the whole Na No Wri Mo community (I believe the term for us is 'WriMo's'...), it's just been me and Kathryn sitting and tapping a few dozen kilometres away from each other.
So when I was just pouring out the rice from my measuring cup into the rice cooker, I started to think about how relieved I'd be if I quit, how much more I could achieve with that time. I've got a big Japanese test to study for that coincides with the end of NaNoWriMo. The book has been sucking my time out of Japanese study, and I like to pass tests, to pass them well when I take them.
Besides that, I've got a life to live. I don't want to compromise my three day trip to Kyoto this weekend, trying to write on paper so I can later type on my desktop, or studying kanji on the way down I know I'll have forgotten by next Monday. There's not much time off, there's not enough time off.
So I spoke with Kathryn and we decided to se our own, revised limits. 5,000 more words, and try to make some sense of the crap we've written so far. That'd take me to 30,000, or about 65 pages. Let's just why not call it National Novella Writing Month.
The strangest thing, though, is that as soon as there was talk of quitting batting round my head and over Skype with Kathryn, I felt as motivated as I ever have this month to write, to get things down, which was all I hoped to gain from the entire experience in the first place. A little bit of motivation.
I don't often do it- most of the time I pick things I know that if I work hard enough and long enough at I can get done to my satisfaction.
I like to run, far. Not marathon far, just yet, but far enough away from home to start wondering if you've got enough in the tank to make it all the way back again.
Trying to write a book of 50,000 words in a month has been a real challenge. I've had to organise myself immaculately, to know exactly when I'll have time to get chores done, to get work done, to maximise time spent tapping away in front of the computer. And of course, I've had to make more time- I've been getting up at around 5.30 to write before work, then straight away and all the way to bed as soon as I get home again from work.
It was ok at first, as I fell into a pattern, a rhythm. My friend Kathryn was also doing it and it was the most comforting, inspiring thing to know that as I sat in the dark except for the milky blue light of a pc screen, she was out there somewhere else in the ken doing the same thing. Thinking about a book all day whenever I was away from my computer was also great and it really strengthened my resolve to try this schtick for real some day.
Apart from the glorious sunrises I've seen whilst scrambling for more words and more and apart from a warm cosy bed I've craved crawling into or back into, there's a whole life to be getting on with. I feel a schmuck for thinking up excuses, especially when you get pep talks through from the National Novel Writing Month people detailing this and that and the other and a horse then a dog getting sick, then the wheels falling off a car and I'm still going to write this bloody novel. My excuses pale in comparison with that.
But then, I've never really felt a part of the whole Na No Wri Mo community (I believe the term for us is 'WriMo's'...), it's just been me and Kathryn sitting and tapping a few dozen kilometres away from each other.
So when I was just pouring out the rice from my measuring cup into the rice cooker, I started to think about how relieved I'd be if I quit, how much more I could achieve with that time. I've got a big Japanese test to study for that coincides with the end of NaNoWriMo. The book has been sucking my time out of Japanese study, and I like to pass tests, to pass them well when I take them.
Besides that, I've got a life to live. I don't want to compromise my three day trip to Kyoto this weekend, trying to write on paper so I can later type on my desktop, or studying kanji on the way down I know I'll have forgotten by next Monday. There's not much time off, there's not enough time off.
So I spoke with Kathryn and we decided to se our own, revised limits. 5,000 more words, and try to make some sense of the crap we've written so far. That'd take me to 30,000, or about 65 pages. Let's just why not call it National Novella Writing Month.
The strangest thing, though, is that as soon as there was talk of quitting batting round my head and over Skype with Kathryn, I felt as motivated as I ever have this month to write, to get things down, which was all I hoped to gain from the entire experience in the first place. A little bit of motivation.
Thursday 8 November 2007
An interesting thing
I never knew it before but,
'It is estimated that nearly 50 percent of Japan's 35,000 kilometer coastline has been covered or somehow altered by Tetrapods and other forms of concrete.'
I (heart) tetrapods.
'It is estimated that nearly 50 percent of Japan's 35,000 kilometer coastline has been covered or somehow altered by Tetrapods and other forms of concrete.'
I (heart) tetrapods.
Friday 2 November 2007
NaNoWriMo
I did something veery foolhardy, late at night on October 31st.
I took the plunge, jumped straight in and signed up for National Novel Writing Month 2007.
50,000 words in one month. You win if you do it.
I'm determined to make this one go further than the plans for a Triathlon (ha! a triathlon! aahhh.) back in the summer.
Apologies if this blog turns into a photo blog for the next 30 days or so.
I took the plunge, jumped straight in and signed up for National Novel Writing Month 2007.
50,000 words in one month. You win if you do it.
I'm determined to make this one go further than the plans for a Triathlon (ha! a triathlon! aahhh.) back in the summer.
Apologies if this blog turns into a photo blog for the next 30 days or so.
Monday 29 October 2007
Stevenage
Saturday night I went to Shinsuke's house for a Halloween party. Not knowing where it was, I met him on his bike in my car, outside a foreign foods store right near to his place. I followed him through the pouring rain as he pointed the way with sharp jabs of his umbrella left and right.
Most of the others there had costumes. Then there were two guys who had matching suits, hair-cuts and name-badges, and I wanted to ask, 'What did you come as, tax inspectors?' Turns out they were two of the Mormon missionaries here in Yamagata from Shinsuke's conversation class, and no, they weren't in costume.
I met Shinsuke's family too, all of whom were really warm and welcoming. Turns out his Dad has visited England- he went to Stevenage (the next town along from my home town Hertford) about 20 years ago. Stevenage isn't the nicest place in the world. But it was the first new town in the world, so Stevenage it was Shinsuke's father and some other representatives from the Yamagata city hall visited those years ago.
I wanted it to be true a little too much. I asked, 'So....Yamagata is modelled on Stevenage??'
Shinsuke's Dad said a little, just the south part.
Most of the others there had costumes. Then there were two guys who had matching suits, hair-cuts and name-badges, and I wanted to ask, 'What did you come as, tax inspectors?' Turns out they were two of the Mormon missionaries here in Yamagata from Shinsuke's conversation class, and no, they weren't in costume.
I met Shinsuke's family too, all of whom were really warm and welcoming. Turns out his Dad has visited England- he went to Stevenage (the next town along from my home town Hertford) about 20 years ago. Stevenage isn't the nicest place in the world. But it was the first new town in the world, so Stevenage it was Shinsuke's father and some other representatives from the Yamagata city hall visited those years ago.
I wanted it to be true a little too much. I asked, 'So....Yamagata is modelled on Stevenage??'
Shinsuke's Dad said a little, just the south part.
Sunday 28 October 2007
Hello cold
I got really excited the other day. I've got an electric toilet seat heater, and I used it for the first time in months.
Friday 26 October 2007
Imoni Kai
I've eaten Imoni 6 times so far this year, but today's bowl was the loneliest, after it had promised to be so much fun.
Let me see now....there were two double header weekends when I had it twice, once on Saturday and once on Sunday. Wait, hold on, first things, I should explain what it is. Imoni is a local stew, although it's not thick like Irish stew, more soupy and lumpy. It's renowned across Japan, and if you want to eat Imoni, then Yamagata is the place to do it. In August they hold the biggest Imoni Kai (Imoni party) in Japan by Mamigasaki river, feeding some 30,000 people from a giant bowl they ladle and mix with mini diggers greased with butter.
The stew itself has, in more or less equal quantities- fatty beef (just how Japanese people love it), thick leeks (Negi), Devil's Tongue- a gelatinous and tasteless substance- and of course the legendary Imoni potato. It's stickier than your average King Edward or Maris Piper, halves reluctantly falling apart as you pincer it between chopsticks. After that, it's soy, sake, water, some other stuff. So much for Shouyuu Aji (i.e. taste or flavour). Miso is quite a different beast, but that can be dealt with another time.
So I had Imoni at the old school nurse, Ito-Sensei's place, during which I stared at her daughter Tomoko for long periods of time, then there was an Imoni Kai with the Yamagata Univeristy Frisbee guys by the river, at which I met Tomoko's boyfriend and I felt a little lighter and not one teeny sad at all but glad, strangely. There was one up in Sakata, there was one on Tuesday this week inside the Washington Hotel with the City Hall people, there was another my mate Shinsuke organised on a day to hot to walk in the sun, let alone eat steaming hot stew. We ate it standing ankle deep in the river water, until we finished and jumped in kit and kaboodle.
Then there was today's, at Osato Shogakko (Elementary School). I'd been looking forward to it for ages- the kids form groups, big kids little kids all jumbled up and they each have their own pot that they each manage. I went along last year, didn't take a camera, kicked myself. The Imoni itself isn't great, but that's not the point- the kids made it. I think the Imoni potatoes they grow too, so they see it through from plant to pig-out.
But today I had lessons at another Elementary School it looked like rain it rained they started early at Osato and by the time I arrived they'd all finished and were busy washing up their pots. I had my bowl, saved just for me, in the teacher's room. They kids were all outside- it was play-time, and I heard one teacher say it'd all worked out perfectly, the kids had just finished washing up.
Let me see now....there were two double header weekends when I had it twice, once on Saturday and once on Sunday. Wait, hold on, first things, I should explain what it is. Imoni is a local stew, although it's not thick like Irish stew, more soupy and lumpy. It's renowned across Japan, and if you want to eat Imoni, then Yamagata is the place to do it. In August they hold the biggest Imoni Kai (Imoni party) in Japan by Mamigasaki river, feeding some 30,000 people from a giant bowl they ladle and mix with mini diggers greased with butter.
The stew itself has, in more or less equal quantities- fatty beef (just how Japanese people love it), thick leeks (Negi), Devil's Tongue- a gelatinous and tasteless substance- and of course the legendary Imoni potato. It's stickier than your average King Edward or Maris Piper, halves reluctantly falling apart as you pincer it between chopsticks. After that, it's soy, sake, water, some other stuff. So much for Shouyuu Aji (i.e. taste or flavour). Miso is quite a different beast, but that can be dealt with another time.
So I had Imoni at the old school nurse, Ito-Sensei's place, during which I stared at her daughter Tomoko for long periods of time, then there was an Imoni Kai with the Yamagata Univeristy Frisbee guys by the river, at which I met Tomoko's boyfriend and I felt a little lighter and not one teeny sad at all but glad, strangely. There was one up in Sakata, there was one on Tuesday this week inside the Washington Hotel with the City Hall people, there was another my mate Shinsuke organised on a day to hot to walk in the sun, let alone eat steaming hot stew. We ate it standing ankle deep in the river water, until we finished and jumped in kit and kaboodle.
Then there was today's, at Osato Shogakko (Elementary School). I'd been looking forward to it for ages- the kids form groups, big kids little kids all jumbled up and they each have their own pot that they each manage. I went along last year, didn't take a camera, kicked myself. The Imoni itself isn't great, but that's not the point- the kids made it. I think the Imoni potatoes they grow too, so they see it through from plant to pig-out.
But today I had lessons at another Elementary School it looked like rain it rained they started early at Osato and by the time I arrived they'd all finished and were busy washing up their pots. I had my bowl, saved just for me, in the teacher's room. They kids were all outside- it was play-time, and I heard one teacher say it'd all worked out perfectly, the kids had just finished washing up.
Wednesday 24 October 2007
Big Cheeses
The advantage of not writing diddly-squit for ages and then bursting out with a torrent of crap is that you can kind of cast an eye back, a retrospective, and tie things all up nice neat, draw threads and pick out all the pairs and similar things.
A while back, then, there was a training day for all the English teachers across the city. Aside from me, there was only one other English assistant, Nick. When asked for comments and questions, he stood up and asked what mistakes ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers- us) make, in order that he can better himself, improve etc bless his cotton socks. You could almost hear the collective sucking of air through tight teeth. Nobody ventured an answer, and I watched in rapt fascination as the question was bounced from the Professor heading the meeting, to another teacher, and finally to me. So I, as an ALT, ended up answering on behalf of the teachers a question about common mistakes we make. Unberievable. You just cannot get anyone Japanese to speak their mind in front of others.
But that's not what I wanted to write about.
By virtue of being foreign and nothing else, following the Professor's speech, Nick and I got invited along to the Head-Teacher's office with the diminutive man to take tea and discuss matters English. The professor had put one hand in his pocket as he worked with the chalkboard during the speech and he had a fussy, boisterous manner about him when you said something he didn't quite understand, which isn't to say I disliked him. I just didn't particularly like him either.
His speech had included a model of concentric circles, inner and outer, representing various Englishes. The Inner was native, the outer, pigeon, bastard, fresh, like Nigerian pigeon English. And I felt it strangely appropriate, given that I was invited into a different kind of inner circle that day, to take tea and discuss.
That's all for that one.
Next was the Governor of Yamagata. I first met him at the reception desk of the Komian Club, the social venue for film makers and fans alike at the Yamagata Documentary Film Festival (come on, you must have heard of it..). He was volunteering too. I was wondering why everyone was taking his picture, and upon questioning I found out who he was. But every time I asked a question, he'd look at me real strange, as if to say, 'And who are you to ask me?' before literally turning his shoulder on me, having given as curt an answer as was feasible (he spoke immaculate American English).
Two nights ago I saw him again, at the after-party for the volunteers of the Komian Club. Nothing happened but for me to get a picture taken along with him. I didn't want my picture taken with him, but when Satomi Sensei took my camera, I had little say in the matter. With all the hauteur of a traveller returned he regaled a small audience at one table with anecdotes of his time abroad (he worked at the IMF once). He told exactly the kind of stories you'd expect the Governor of Yamagata to, and I noticed he even wore a badge on his jacket lapel of the little green monster character that usually sits above the slogan 'Oishii Yamagata', advertising home-grown produce and local specialities. A big fish, a puddle.
Then yesterday I met Oba Sensei, top dog, boss of bosses, the man I don't see often and don't want to annoy. I want to get a famous foreign t.v. 'Tarento' guy called Daniel Kahl to come and speak at Nanachu. I think the kids would get a kick out of it. It just so happens he was an ALT here back in the day when there weren't any others. He travelled all over the prefecture, only visiting schools that requested him. That seems so refreshing. He mastered the local dialect, Yamagata-ben. He made his mint. He pissed off to Tokyo.
When I told K-T the idea at school, he said go speak to Oba Sensei. Daniel Kahl still returns to Yamagata and he still sees Oba Sensei when he comes back. So. I duly did that. Butter up the big man and get Daniel Kahl along to school.
So I feel like I've been mixing amongst the elite of Yamagata lately.
A while back, then, there was a training day for all the English teachers across the city. Aside from me, there was only one other English assistant, Nick. When asked for comments and questions, he stood up and asked what mistakes ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers- us) make, in order that he can better himself, improve etc bless his cotton socks. You could almost hear the collective sucking of air through tight teeth. Nobody ventured an answer, and I watched in rapt fascination as the question was bounced from the Professor heading the meeting, to another teacher, and finally to me. So I, as an ALT, ended up answering on behalf of the teachers a question about common mistakes we make. Unberievable. You just cannot get anyone Japanese to speak their mind in front of others.
But that's not what I wanted to write about.
By virtue of being foreign and nothing else, following the Professor's speech, Nick and I got invited along to the Head-Teacher's office with the diminutive man to take tea and discuss matters English. The professor had put one hand in his pocket as he worked with the chalkboard during the speech and he had a fussy, boisterous manner about him when you said something he didn't quite understand, which isn't to say I disliked him. I just didn't particularly like him either.
His speech had included a model of concentric circles, inner and outer, representing various Englishes. The Inner was native, the outer, pigeon, bastard, fresh, like Nigerian pigeon English. And I felt it strangely appropriate, given that I was invited into a different kind of inner circle that day, to take tea and discuss.
That's all for that one.
Next was the Governor of Yamagata. I first met him at the reception desk of the Komian Club, the social venue for film makers and fans alike at the Yamagata Documentary Film Festival (come on, you must have heard of it..). He was volunteering too. I was wondering why everyone was taking his picture, and upon questioning I found out who he was. But every time I asked a question, he'd look at me real strange, as if to say, 'And who are you to ask me?' before literally turning his shoulder on me, having given as curt an answer as was feasible (he spoke immaculate American English).
Two nights ago I saw him again, at the after-party for the volunteers of the Komian Club. Nothing happened but for me to get a picture taken along with him. I didn't want my picture taken with him, but when Satomi Sensei took my camera, I had little say in the matter. With all the hauteur of a traveller returned he regaled a small audience at one table with anecdotes of his time abroad (he worked at the IMF once). He told exactly the kind of stories you'd expect the Governor of Yamagata to, and I noticed he even wore a badge on his jacket lapel of the little green monster character that usually sits above the slogan 'Oishii Yamagata', advertising home-grown produce and local specialities. A big fish, a puddle.
Then yesterday I met Oba Sensei, top dog, boss of bosses, the man I don't see often and don't want to annoy. I want to get a famous foreign t.v. 'Tarento' guy called Daniel Kahl to come and speak at Nanachu. I think the kids would get a kick out of it. It just so happens he was an ALT here back in the day when there weren't any others. He travelled all over the prefecture, only visiting schools that requested him. That seems so refreshing. He mastered the local dialect, Yamagata-ben. He made his mint. He pissed off to Tokyo.
When I told K-T the idea at school, he said go speak to Oba Sensei. Daniel Kahl still returns to Yamagata and he still sees Oba Sensei when he comes back. So. I duly did that. Butter up the big man and get Daniel Kahl along to school.
So I feel like I've been mixing amongst the elite of Yamagata lately.
Naoya
Last week we were doing a new topic in the textbook with the Ni Nen Sei kids.
I think----.
What do you think?
I think so too.
I don't think so.
There was a choice, you see- I think so. I don't think so.
Naoya is one of those kids who commands a fair amount of respect from the others. He gets on with stuff, most of the time, he's got an older brother who all the kids look up to who comes along to football practice a lot. He's got hair that's a little wild, thick and too long for Hitoshi Sensei who told him to get it cut the other day. I don't think he has yet. He's a good kid. Last week we did the question 'Do you think studying English is important?' and all the kids respond together, as one higgly-piggly voice. God forbid they voice an opinion alone, in a classroom, in front of everyone else...no no no, that's simply not how things are done here!
Except, this time, Naoya raised his voice, practically shouted actually, 'I don't think so' amongst the chorus of unidentifiable responses. The lesson continued, Naoya got on with it all.
I kind of felt a little sad at that. There's nothing like taking a language and using it against itself for impact. There's nothing life taking a language and using it.
So last weekend was the Kentaikai- a wee while back the football boys went and got to the final of the Shinjinsen tournament, came second but won a place in the Prefectural tournament. They got through the first round, but not the second. They looked a different team in that second game. Gone was all the verve from their game. Nervous on the ball, anxious without it, they went down 1-3, I think. It was an entirely forgettable performance, and it was without Naoya, the little general, the fulcrum of the team, won runs at the opposition and backs himself not only to beat men, but to then take it all the way and pelt the ball away to the back of the net. And he bloody does it too.
But not in the second game at that tournament last weekend. He sat that one out, the team spirit not so much dropped as vanished, we went out to Kaminoyama Minami Chugakko: coincidentally the school the kids' old football coach and Industrial Arts teacher, Shoji Sensei, got sent to at the re-shuffle in April.
Naoya got floored from behind in the first game when they were already winning 3-0 or so. It was a heinous challenge, right in front of all of the supporters. Yellow card, Naoya dropped his head, and got flattened again seconds later. No card or free kick that time, and he was pulled off soon after. He showed me the graze on his calf after the match.
No, it's not for me to second guess just how bad his injury was, whether it was painful enough to keep the little general out of the second game...but I got to ask, could he have played in that second game?
I think so.
I think----.
What do you think?
I think so too.
I don't think so.
There was a choice, you see- I think so. I don't think so.
Naoya is one of those kids who commands a fair amount of respect from the others. He gets on with stuff, most of the time, he's got an older brother who all the kids look up to who comes along to football practice a lot. He's got hair that's a little wild, thick and too long for Hitoshi Sensei who told him to get it cut the other day. I don't think he has yet. He's a good kid. Last week we did the question 'Do you think studying English is important?' and all the kids respond together, as one higgly-piggly voice. God forbid they voice an opinion alone, in a classroom, in front of everyone else...no no no, that's simply not how things are done here!
Except, this time, Naoya raised his voice, practically shouted actually, 'I don't think so' amongst the chorus of unidentifiable responses. The lesson continued, Naoya got on with it all.
I kind of felt a little sad at that. There's nothing like taking a language and using it against itself for impact. There's nothing life taking a language and using it.
So last weekend was the Kentaikai- a wee while back the football boys went and got to the final of the Shinjinsen tournament, came second but won a place in the Prefectural tournament. They got through the first round, but not the second. They looked a different team in that second game. Gone was all the verve from their game. Nervous on the ball, anxious without it, they went down 1-3, I think. It was an entirely forgettable performance, and it was without Naoya, the little general, the fulcrum of the team, won runs at the opposition and backs himself not only to beat men, but to then take it all the way and pelt the ball away to the back of the net. And he bloody does it too.
But not in the second game at that tournament last weekend. He sat that one out, the team spirit not so much dropped as vanished, we went out to Kaminoyama Minami Chugakko: coincidentally the school the kids' old football coach and Industrial Arts teacher, Shoji Sensei, got sent to at the re-shuffle in April.
Naoya got floored from behind in the first game when they were already winning 3-0 or so. It was a heinous challenge, right in front of all of the supporters. Yellow card, Naoya dropped his head, and got flattened again seconds later. No card or free kick that time, and he was pulled off soon after. He showed me the graze on his calf after the match.
No, it's not for me to second guess just how bad his injury was, whether it was painful enough to keep the little general out of the second game...but I got to ask, could he have played in that second game?
I think so.
Autumn
is certainly my favourite season, surely.
I spend a fair amount of time at school staring out of the windows. What is it they say? Things change and stay the same. At school I stared out onto the quad and watched the swallows swoop up into their nests in between the mortar and the roof tops. At Uni in Amsterdam I stared out onto a canal and 7 geese that came to rest on the opposite bank, through thick thin snow and sun, until one day when there were only 6. Back in Edinburgh, studying, I'd scrutinise the wall instead, because the window was too small and facing the wrong way (up-ish) and besides it was time to buckle down and work by then. I had to, after all those years of staring out of windows.
But that's behind now, and I look out of new windows, facing Mt Zao to the south and the smooth lump and craggier description of, respectively, Hayama-san and Gas-san to the south. The teachers room doesn't face that way though, so I snatch glances when I can. This morning was the first time since last winter that the haze burned off and both Hayama and Gassan were sharp to the eye as a knife to the heart. There's still snow on Gassan, I guess from last winter (you can ski in summer there).
Elsewhere there's all kinds of flowers out. Cosmos, the purple pink petals that fade and fray at the edges as they die. Kinmokusei, tiny little beads of yellow that nestle in between otherwise unobtrusive and ordinary green leaves. The smell is otherwise, once you get close enough. Then there's some other ones I don't know the names of; then there's the persimmons. Orange and big as a kid's fist, growing brighter even as the tree grows blacker and hardens against the cold, as the leaves curl and fall until the whole thing resembles an absurd and living chandelier, outside.
Then the leaves. I've never seen prettier reds oranges yellows and all between.
I spend a fair amount of time at school staring out of the windows. What is it they say? Things change and stay the same. At school I stared out onto the quad and watched the swallows swoop up into their nests in between the mortar and the roof tops. At Uni in Amsterdam I stared out onto a canal and 7 geese that came to rest on the opposite bank, through thick thin snow and sun, until one day when there were only 6. Back in Edinburgh, studying, I'd scrutinise the wall instead, because the window was too small and facing the wrong way (up-ish) and besides it was time to buckle down and work by then. I had to, after all those years of staring out of windows.
But that's behind now, and I look out of new windows, facing Mt Zao to the south and the smooth lump and craggier description of, respectively, Hayama-san and Gas-san to the south. The teachers room doesn't face that way though, so I snatch glances when I can. This morning was the first time since last winter that the haze burned off and both Hayama and Gassan were sharp to the eye as a knife to the heart. There's still snow on Gassan, I guess from last winter (you can ski in summer there).
Elsewhere there's all kinds of flowers out. Cosmos, the purple pink petals that fade and fray at the edges as they die. Kinmokusei, tiny little beads of yellow that nestle in between otherwise unobtrusive and ordinary green leaves. The smell is otherwise, once you get close enough. Then there's some other ones I don't know the names of; then there's the persimmons. Orange and big as a kid's fist, growing brighter even as the tree grows blacker and hardens against the cold, as the leaves curl and fall until the whole thing resembles an absurd and living chandelier, outside.
Then the leaves. I've never seen prettier reds oranges yellows and all between.
Monday 22 October 2007
postsecret.com
If you haven't ever been to the titular website, go now. Leave my blog! Better more stimulating things await you there.
I remember finding out about it in a Sunday paper (oh! to have a Sunday paper, I'd read all of it, even the rubbish motoring section!) sometime in final year at Uni, and flatmates and I shocked moved burst out laughing at some of the secrets there. That flat, in final year of Uni, was a happy place. 6 of us who'd lived near, above-below, close to one another for 3 years but never actually all-together-who-ate-all-the-beef-leftovers-together until 13 Gilmore Place.
I then proceeded to do other things, degree, move country, speak lots of English in classrooms, and completely forgot about the website, until today. It's on the blogger bulletin roll. And here's the best bit- in the intervening time, a book of some of the secrets has been published. Wait, that's not the best bit, the best bit is that people have started writing their secrets out and leaving them in copies of the book in book shops, instead of/as well as continuing to send them in to the website. Isn't that just fucking beautiful?
Now go go, go.
I remember finding out about it in a Sunday paper (oh! to have a Sunday paper, I'd read all of it, even the rubbish motoring section!) sometime in final year at Uni, and flatmates and I shocked moved burst out laughing at some of the secrets there. That flat, in final year of Uni, was a happy place. 6 of us who'd lived near, above-below, close to one another for 3 years but never actually all-together-who-ate-all-the-beef-leftovers-together until 13 Gilmore Place.
I then proceeded to do other things, degree, move country, speak lots of English in classrooms, and completely forgot about the website, until today. It's on the blogger bulletin roll. And here's the best bit- in the intervening time, a book of some of the secrets has been published. Wait, that's not the best bit, the best bit is that people have started writing their secrets out and leaving them in copies of the book in book shops, instead of/as well as continuing to send them in to the website. Isn't that just fucking beautiful?
Now go go, go.
Tuesday 16 October 2007
Old News- Names
A while back I gave the entire Ichi Nen Sei English nicknames. At first I wanted to give them a variety of names drawn from different groups- theme it, if you will. 1-1 was going to be popular 50's England names, 1-2 My Heros' Names, 1-3 Sports stars.... but I soon realised that was a bad idea.
At 13 I was re-christened Michel by Madame Maynard (was it?), much to the hilarity of the rest of the class, who didn't have a girl's French name. And, oh, how it still stings to this day! What if the little tykes, god forbid, actually make it outside of the prefecture, out of the country even, nay dare speak it, will it, could such a thing ever happen? What if they did, and took the name I gave them, a Cuthbert or a Rio, (equally ridiculous) and used it as an alter-ego, a substitute name like Prakit Sanguanpiyapand from Thailand did at my secondary school, Prakit, known as Jim to everybody in his year?
So I played it simple, played it straight. Akiba Yuusuke became Ben (Takuya called him BIG! Ben after I put pictures up of his illustrious namesake; Ben chased him round the room). Unno Riho became Leanne. I ran in to difficulties with Oyama Momoka and Oyama Momoko, respectively solved Olivia and Molly. Occasionally I had to fit two of the little smurfs with the same name, made unique only through spelling: Ota Kenichi is Kenny...Togashi Kensuke is Kenni. But they both really are Kennys, so I had to do it.
1 hundred and some 17 names later, nameplates and all in different colours according to the houses of Hogwarts (that flew over their heads) and the weirdest thing is I found it easier to remember two names than I did one. Jimbo Ryo-kun really does look like a Ryan, and once Ryan has hit me, Ryo isn't so far away. And as for little Tucker... well, who wouldn't see the resemblance with Kusakai Tomohiko??
At 13 I was re-christened Michel by Madame Maynard (was it?), much to the hilarity of the rest of the class, who didn't have a girl's French name. And, oh, how it still stings to this day! What if the little tykes, god forbid, actually make it outside of the prefecture, out of the country even, nay dare speak it, will it, could such a thing ever happen? What if they did, and took the name I gave them, a Cuthbert or a Rio, (equally ridiculous) and used it as an alter-ego, a substitute name like Prakit Sanguanpiyapand from Thailand did at my secondary school, Prakit, known as Jim to everybody in his year?
So I played it simple, played it straight. Akiba Yuusuke became Ben (Takuya called him BIG! Ben after I put pictures up of his illustrious namesake; Ben chased him round the room). Unno Riho became Leanne. I ran in to difficulties with Oyama Momoka and Oyama Momoko, respectively solved Olivia and Molly. Occasionally I had to fit two of the little smurfs with the same name, made unique only through spelling: Ota Kenichi is Kenny...Togashi Kensuke is Kenni. But they both really are Kennys, so I had to do it.
1 hundred and some 17 names later, nameplates and all in different colours according to the houses of Hogwarts (that flew over their heads) and the weirdest thing is I found it easier to remember two names than I did one. Jimbo Ryo-kun really does look like a Ryan, and once Ryan has hit me, Ryo isn't so far away. And as for little Tucker... well, who wouldn't see the resemblance with Kusakai Tomohiko??
Saturday 13 October 2007
Hisashiburi here!
I've been slack lately.
No writing here. No writing anywhere.
So apologies to the regular readers!
I'm going to take an exam in December, you see, and I'm studying hard for that instead of writing at work/in free time. It's a little strange- at first I had to pace myself when it came to studying. I got sick of it some days, literally, and not just headaches sore back or weary eyes but actual nausea, a real unsettled feeling. It might have been something else, of course.
But lately, i can't get enough of it. I study at the weekends, in the evenings, when I'm hungover, three persistent periods when I would never usually have studied before.
Full steam ahead. We'll get this bloog business back up and running to.
No writing here. No writing anywhere.
So apologies to the regular readers!
I'm going to take an exam in December, you see, and I'm studying hard for that instead of writing at work/in free time. It's a little strange- at first I had to pace myself when it came to studying. I got sick of it some days, literally, and not just headaches sore back or weary eyes but actual nausea, a real unsettled feeling. It might have been something else, of course.
But lately, i can't get enough of it. I study at the weekends, in the evenings, when I'm hungover, three persistent periods when I would never usually have studied before.
Full steam ahead. We'll get this bloog business back up and running to.
Monday 1 October 2007
Sunday 30 September 2007
Shinjinsen
They’ve been counting down to this weekend for ages now, and each time I asked any of the Ichi Nen Sei or Ni Nen Sei football club kids how many days during the last few weeks, they’d reply eagerly and quickly.
Shinjinsen, the Rookies Tournament, where dreams are shattered and heroes, made whilst the older kids buckle down to more tests. Nanachu’s plucky little band of smurfs netted 14 times and picked up three yellow cards in the four games on the way to the final today and it was brilliant to behold. They all played their socks off, and were clearly playing the best, most fluid football, a really confident passing game. They looked like real footballers. In between games they pulled each others’ shorts down and fucked about.
I was on the sideline with the cheering unit, the younger club members who didn’t cut the mustard sharp enough to make the squad. The first games yesterday, they were a shambles, but hilarious. I have never experienced such apathetic cheering and today looked like it wouldn’t be much different, as a dozen or so smurfs ambling round the pitch and into position with no particular hurry after the game had already kicked off. But it got better and the volleyball girls and the tennis girls came along and cheered too.
And they got to the final and faced Fuzuoka Chu and lost 0-1. I was sure we were going to win the whole thing but the team was out-muscled by bigger kids and never hit their stride with their game.
Shinjinsen, the Rookies Tournament, where dreams are shattered and heroes, made whilst the older kids buckle down to more tests. Nanachu’s plucky little band of smurfs netted 14 times and picked up three yellow cards in the four games on the way to the final today and it was brilliant to behold. They all played their socks off, and were clearly playing the best, most fluid football, a really confident passing game. They looked like real footballers. In between games they pulled each others’ shorts down and fucked about.
I was on the sideline with the cheering unit, the younger club members who didn’t cut the mustard sharp enough to make the squad. The first games yesterday, they were a shambles, but hilarious. I have never experienced such apathetic cheering and today looked like it wouldn’t be much different, as a dozen or so smurfs ambling round the pitch and into position with no particular hurry after the game had already kicked off. But it got better and the volleyball girls and the tennis girls came along and cheered too.
And they got to the final and faced Fuzuoka Chu and lost 0-1. I was sure we were going to win the whole thing but the team was out-muscled by bigger kids and never hit their stride with their game.
Wednesday 26 September 2007
Recently
Well then. I was going to post this…
Big Ones
The best and worst thing about taking out your mountain bike on a ride is that you go places nobody else seems to. The good of that is all too clear to you I’m sure, but the bad…oh, the bad.
Spiders, in a word. They’re the bad.
Today I took a ride near Yamanobe. The route there is a long road section, followed by a steady climb that doesn’t ever get too sharp. On the way, I met an old guy who was piling up harvested rice on sticks he’d lined up alongside the road. I slipped in a bit of local dialect which brought a smile from his face and bought me a pair of photos.
I had packed sun-cream. In accordance with my new bid to be more prepared for physical arduousness, I had thought ahead. Never again will I climb a mountain (Fuji) with scant provisions (a spare jumper, and a can of beer with which to celebrate at the top). ‘My it’s hot and sunny today’, I had thought, ‘Better take sun-cream’. It started raining soon after I met the farmer.
So I was hurrying on the down, scrambling as best I could along the trail as the rain turned to torrential rain and even my hopes of keeping my camera dry grew sodden and started to runnel off me. More or less at that point, I hit the first one, bam, a little tiny tightness across my arms and a silent snap. It wasn’t long before I encountered another web…and another, and another and another. Undisturbed, these webs had gotten big, and the spiders- well, I didn’t see those first few ones, I just crashed through the webs.
It was when I took one to the face that I leaped off my bike and danced about swirling my arms and yelling blue murder to nobody and nothing but the trees and the rain. The horror got worse. The web was dangling complete with some kind of debris, or prey, godknows maybe even the spider itself, from my spectacles. It seemed logical at the time to throw them off my face but how I cursed that logic as I hunted for them in the undergrowth for 10 minutes afterwards, all the while with the sensation of something crawling over my legs where really there were just dozens of sticky green seeds stuck to me.
It wasn’t enough to proceed slowly as I still copped a few webs I didn’t see coming. So, man-whimpering all the way (there’s no really getting away from it- a whimper is a whimper no matter what you prefix it with), I walked my bike down, thrashing a stick in front of me like it was Arthur’s sword itself. When the stick broke and I didn’t have another to hand, I picked up my bike and thrashed that at the air and the webs. ‘Take that spider!’
I think we’ll call that Spiders 1 Guy 0.
…that was Saturday.
Today, a chain of events, and all my plans to post unwound and balled up anew.
Somewhere down there is a post about my new Japanese teacher, Aoyagi Sensei. I said she seemed nothing like my two previous teachers and I pined a bit. Last week was Lesson One and it was a small disaster. I walked away feeling de-motivated. Surely that’s not good! Today was going to be the next lesson.
I went jogging before, in the dark, around the path that circumnavigates the park perimeter, marked by a ridge all-a-crinkle with tree roots. I fell over one and just had enough sense to watch my glasses zip off my face before all was black and fuzzy where before at least there was a sharp blackness. Reminiscent of Saturday, I spent 10 minutes or so scrambling in the dirt on all fours, patting the earth. Not again.
All a rush I hurried home to fetch a torch, thinking I should cancel the lesson as I wouldn’t have time now. And then I remembered Rule Three or Four, I can’t remember I didn’t pay attention, that a lesson cannot be cancelled less than 12 hours prior. That’s when I snapped and thought, ‘Bollocks to this, I’m calling time on lessons with Aoyagi Sensei’. And instantly I felt a burden lifted.
I went back with a torch. At the approach to the part of the ridge where I had fallen is a copse of stumpy trees that I picked my way through. As luck would have it, I picked a pair of trees that something else already had, and there was that tightness across my face and the same silent snap and again I was cursing the sky, the trees, nothing in particular but spiders.
Maybe Spiders 2 Guy 0 then.
Big Ones
The best and worst thing about taking out your mountain bike on a ride is that you go places nobody else seems to. The good of that is all too clear to you I’m sure, but the bad…oh, the bad.
Spiders, in a word. They’re the bad.
Today I took a ride near Yamanobe. The route there is a long road section, followed by a steady climb that doesn’t ever get too sharp. On the way, I met an old guy who was piling up harvested rice on sticks he’d lined up alongside the road. I slipped in a bit of local dialect which brought a smile from his face and bought me a pair of photos.
I had packed sun-cream. In accordance with my new bid to be more prepared for physical arduousness, I had thought ahead. Never again will I climb a mountain (Fuji) with scant provisions (a spare jumper, and a can of beer with which to celebrate at the top). ‘My it’s hot and sunny today’, I had thought, ‘Better take sun-cream’. It started raining soon after I met the farmer.
So I was hurrying on the down, scrambling as best I could along the trail as the rain turned to torrential rain and even my hopes of keeping my camera dry grew sodden and started to runnel off me. More or less at that point, I hit the first one, bam, a little tiny tightness across my arms and a silent snap. It wasn’t long before I encountered another web…and another, and another and another. Undisturbed, these webs had gotten big, and the spiders- well, I didn’t see those first few ones, I just crashed through the webs.
It was when I took one to the face that I leaped off my bike and danced about swirling my arms and yelling blue murder to nobody and nothing but the trees and the rain. The horror got worse. The web was dangling complete with some kind of debris, or prey, godknows maybe even the spider itself, from my spectacles. It seemed logical at the time to throw them off my face but how I cursed that logic as I hunted for them in the undergrowth for 10 minutes afterwards, all the while with the sensation of something crawling over my legs where really there were just dozens of sticky green seeds stuck to me.
It wasn’t enough to proceed slowly as I still copped a few webs I didn’t see coming. So, man-whimpering all the way (there’s no really getting away from it- a whimper is a whimper no matter what you prefix it with), I walked my bike down, thrashing a stick in front of me like it was Arthur’s sword itself. When the stick broke and I didn’t have another to hand, I picked up my bike and thrashed that at the air and the webs. ‘Take that spider!’
I think we’ll call that Spiders 1 Guy 0.
…that was Saturday.
Today, a chain of events, and all my plans to post unwound and balled up anew.
Somewhere down there is a post about my new Japanese teacher, Aoyagi Sensei. I said she seemed nothing like my two previous teachers and I pined a bit. Last week was Lesson One and it was a small disaster. I walked away feeling de-motivated. Surely that’s not good! Today was going to be the next lesson.
I went jogging before, in the dark, around the path that circumnavigates the park perimeter, marked by a ridge all-a-crinkle with tree roots. I fell over one and just had enough sense to watch my glasses zip off my face before all was black and fuzzy where before at least there was a sharp blackness. Reminiscent of Saturday, I spent 10 minutes or so scrambling in the dirt on all fours, patting the earth. Not again.
All a rush I hurried home to fetch a torch, thinking I should cancel the lesson as I wouldn’t have time now. And then I remembered Rule Three or Four, I can’t remember I didn’t pay attention, that a lesson cannot be cancelled less than 12 hours prior. That’s when I snapped and thought, ‘Bollocks to this, I’m calling time on lessons with Aoyagi Sensei’. And instantly I felt a burden lifted.
I went back with a torch. At the approach to the part of the ridge where I had fallen is a copse of stumpy trees that I picked my way through. As luck would have it, I picked a pair of trees that something else already had, and there was that tightness across my face and the same silent snap and again I was cursing the sky, the trees, nothing in particular but spiders.
Maybe Spiders 2 Guy 0 then.
Wednesday 12 September 2007
No Ishikawa Sensei
Tonight was my first lesson with Aoyagi Sensei. I say lesson- what actually transpired was a crisp ironing-out of details and setting of rules. Aoyagi Sensei means business. I pressed the buzzer of the Yaponica Nihongo Academy, a two storey building that still somehow conspires to look like a tall portacabin, and heard a loud ‘Dozo!’ but no-one came to the door. Poor Aoyagi Sensei showed me a picture of the metal rod that now occupies her hip, and she spent the twenty minutes hobbling about between the table and the photocopier with a walking stick and without much haste.
There was an application form. There was an application fee too, but that’s been deferred until I make up my mind. Not much in the way of where froms, who bys, what nows. All that was taken care of by the form. Well, most of it. And when the end came I wasn’t really sure it was the end- thinking I’d come for a taster lesson. When what I got was a break-down of the rules and a pile of homework. Just like school.
Things used to be different. My mate Max has been yapping on about how great Ishikawa Sensei is for months so when my first teacher got sick and couldn’t tutor me anymore, I got in touch and had a couple of lessons with her. And it was great. It was in her house, in a room next to the kitchen filled with African art-work (she travels). Near the end of the lesson her husband would move from the living room through to the kitchen and start producing wonderful smells as dinner was prepared.
They were both young, hip, fun.
But now Ishikawa Sensei has moved to Singapore.
My first teacher, Suzuki Sensei, I stuck with for a long time. She was just like me- she was teaching her own language and, apparently, had no schooling in doing so. She made it up as she went along, did it on the fly, took me through the textbook and chatted lots. That’s why I liked her.
There was an application form. There was an application fee too, but that’s been deferred until I make up my mind. Not much in the way of where froms, who bys, what nows. All that was taken care of by the form. Well, most of it. And when the end came I wasn’t really sure it was the end- thinking I’d come for a taster lesson. When what I got was a break-down of the rules and a pile of homework. Just like school.
Things used to be different. My mate Max has been yapping on about how great Ishikawa Sensei is for months so when my first teacher got sick and couldn’t tutor me anymore, I got in touch and had a couple of lessons with her. And it was great. It was in her house, in a room next to the kitchen filled with African art-work (she travels). Near the end of the lesson her husband would move from the living room through to the kitchen and start producing wonderful smells as dinner was prepared.
They were both young, hip, fun.
But now Ishikawa Sensei has moved to Singapore.
My first teacher, Suzuki Sensei, I stuck with for a long time. She was just like me- she was teaching her own language and, apparently, had no schooling in doing so. She made it up as she went along, did it on the fly, took me through the textbook and chatted lots. That’s why I liked her.
Wednesday 5 September 2007
Babelling
`Only the fragrance taste hermitage club charge volunteer sends (at Bcc) This time of today when it reaches the point where sign of the fall is felt, everyone how you probably will pass? At movie festival Executive Office on last week end, スケジュールチ ラシ which thoroughly contains all program of movie festival completed. While also everyone is close, you think as the thing which is made the hand. Well, it meaning that time of the fragrance taste hermitage club hitting setting is decided, we inform. < Day and time > September 25th (fire) 19:00? At the Satomi reform dentistry clinic of Yamagata city fragrance being clear town (with ビューティフルコミッション and combination it becomes the hitting adjusting.) * 023-632-9553 we ask the inquiry of the hitting adjusting to Satomi. In addition, it becomes in the future to scramble ビューティフルコミッション and communication`
Curse you and curse you again Babel Fish online translation service!
Curse you and curse you again Babel Fish online translation service!
Tuesday 4 September 2007
Oh, the injustice of it all!
Another year, another speech contest, another gross violation of justice, of good ears, sound judgement, fair play. We were robbed.
Bless her, Megumi’s got a lot of fight in her. She being Nanachu’s contestant whom I have coached through her speech, ‘What a waste!’ for the last week and a half or so, a job her English teacher Kikuchi Sensei had done over the preceeding summer holidays. We three took a cab, we three ate packed lunches and one pair of hands spent the build-up wringing out nerves on a skirt.
The contest took place, Megumi didn’t get placed in the top 4 of 14, and again I found myself cursing the judges, with nothing much to say by way of commiseration in English, let alone in Japanese.
But there was something else that really stung me to the quick.
I’m going back now, to during the contest, to the recitation part, in which younger students took part and when Megumi sat with Kikuchi Sensei and I. Before that, even, in the morning when we had our last practice at school before we three took that cab. And then way way later, after the taxi driver- who happens to be the old secretary’s husband and a very happy granddad to boot- had taken us back to school.
She didn’t talk to me during the recitation part, she looked down during the morning practice and she didn’t make any kind of eye contact at goodbyes, instead conversing exclusively with Kikuchi Sensei.
I can’t help feeling that at some point, she lost faith in me, comprehensively. But then, it is really my place to trample on her disappointment with my own throwaway complaints?
Bless her, Megumi’s got a lot of fight in her. She being Nanachu’s contestant whom I have coached through her speech, ‘What a waste!’ for the last week and a half or so, a job her English teacher Kikuchi Sensei had done over the preceeding summer holidays. We three took a cab, we three ate packed lunches and one pair of hands spent the build-up wringing out nerves on a skirt.
The contest took place, Megumi didn’t get placed in the top 4 of 14, and again I found myself cursing the judges, with nothing much to say by way of commiseration in English, let alone in Japanese.
But there was something else that really stung me to the quick.
I’m going back now, to during the contest, to the recitation part, in which younger students took part and when Megumi sat with Kikuchi Sensei and I. Before that, even, in the morning when we had our last practice at school before we three took that cab. And then way way later, after the taxi driver- who happens to be the old secretary’s husband and a very happy granddad to boot- had taken us back to school.
She didn’t talk to me during the recitation part, she looked down during the morning practice and she didn’t make any kind of eye contact at goodbyes, instead conversing exclusively with Kikuchi Sensei.
I can’t help feeling that at some point, she lost faith in me, comprehensively. But then, it is really my place to trample on her disappointment with my own throwaway complaints?
Scottish mimicry
It would make more sense if I started to mimic his gravelly Scottish bark before he said, ‘Ahm gonnae bite yer fookin noze off pal’ but I’m really not sure I did. It’s all a bit muddled and muddied in my head- I was drunk, he was drunk, this happened a couple of weeks ago now- but I’m pretty sure the timeline was:
I was getting drunk,
(He was probably getting drunk too, somewhere else in the very same bar [the Underbelly bar at the top of Victoria Street or the middle of the Cowgate, depending on which way you take on the place]),
He and I came to occupy adjacent spaces,
He said ‘Ahm gonnae bite yer fookin noze off pal’,
I started to mimic, parrot, if you will, his Scottish accent.
That’s better, now I’ve got it set down somewhere.
It’s a funny thing living in a different country and then returning home. Cars move quicker on the M25 then they do anywhere in Japan. And it’s a fucking big road too. Suddenly you get a real kick out of daily interaction with strangers, even if it’s just something like asking in a pub where the lav is. You want to hug people a lot more.
And also you start noticing all the habits you’ve picked up that don’t quite sit so well at home. Nobody bows to say thank you in Britain! And it seems mimicking accents and everything you hear is another skill I’ve picked up along the way, like a like a beer trophy on a big night out.
Not that it didn’t work out alright. He didn’t bite my nose off. He kissed me on the side of the head instead.
I was getting drunk,
(He was probably getting drunk too, somewhere else in the very same bar [the Underbelly bar at the top of Victoria Street or the middle of the Cowgate, depending on which way you take on the place]),
He and I came to occupy adjacent spaces,
He said ‘Ahm gonnae bite yer fookin noze off pal’,
I started to mimic, parrot, if you will, his Scottish accent.
That’s better, now I’ve got it set down somewhere.
It’s a funny thing living in a different country and then returning home. Cars move quicker on the M25 then they do anywhere in Japan. And it’s a fucking big road too. Suddenly you get a real kick out of daily interaction with strangers, even if it’s just something like asking in a pub where the lav is. You want to hug people a lot more.
And also you start noticing all the habits you’ve picked up that don’t quite sit so well at home. Nobody bows to say thank you in Britain! And it seems mimicking accents and everything you hear is another skill I’ve picked up along the way, like a like a beer trophy on a big night out.
Not that it didn’t work out alright. He didn’t bite my nose off. He kissed me on the side of the head instead.
Wednesday 8 August 2007
England
I'm back.
It's weird.
It feels like autumn, not summer.
I keep flicking the wrong light switches in my Dad's house.
I rooted round through all my old stuff, found some photos and unlocked a lot of memories.
It's weird.
It feels like autumn, not summer.
I keep flicking the wrong light switches in my Dad's house.
I rooted round through all my old stuff, found some photos and unlocked a lot of memories.
Friday 3 August 2007
My favourite memory of Sean who has now left
Recently we went to a high school festival day. All sorts going on- grotesque collages with teachers faces strung up, yaki-soba stalls, corridors packed, everyone turned out their best for the big day. Sean quickly found some old junior high school students of his in the Gym and started chatting (with a sprinkling of English) while I stood beside, doing my best to look Older. Some students were trying to get rid of the last of the food- bowls of udon, rice balls, boxes of unused eggs and all around the take-down was slowly progressing. We'd come late, at the end in fact, after all.
We made our way back to our bikes. There was a farewell barbeque to get to, that we'd spend under the bridge beside the river since the rainy season was still living up to it's name. Along the corridors, Sean bumped into more students who clearly idolised him, or looked up to him, or just fancied him. And then someone popped up with a bag full of bouncy balls the size of maltesers. Sean was given or bought the bag and then I told him to throw it on the floor and see if it bounced. Turns out, a bag of bouncy balls isn't as bouncy as one on it's own. Sean threw it straight down, hard. The bag landed with a plastic splat and the balls all went bobbling all over the place. And that's my favourite memory of Sean, who left this week.
We made our way back to our bikes. There was a farewell barbeque to get to, that we'd spend under the bridge beside the river since the rainy season was still living up to it's name. Along the corridors, Sean bumped into more students who clearly idolised him, or looked up to him, or just fancied him. And then someone popped up with a bag full of bouncy balls the size of maltesers. Sean was given or bought the bag and then I told him to throw it on the floor and see if it bounced. Turns out, a bag of bouncy balls isn't as bouncy as one on it's own. Sean threw it straight down, hard. The bag landed with a plastic splat and the balls all went bobbling all over the place. And that's my favourite memory of Sean, who left this week.
Nice Guy!
It's written in my name.
Guy is
Gai- is
Gai-jin is 'Alien Person', to move from English, twice through Japanese roman phonetics ('romaji') and back to English again. I don't belong here and sometimes when I start mulling over it all, it feels like I don't even belong in my name.
Then there are all the little lies you tell. Could they be called 'white lies'? They are calculated and abundant. I've told them to a lot of Japanese people I've met. It's practically a verbal handshake, except, I suppose, they're not lying back. Or they're really good at it.
It's just easier. It's easier in the classroom, if you lie a little and package yourself a little tighter and more manageably. I like football and I support Arsenal. I follow their progress quite closely, but I've only ever been to one game and just recently got an Arsenal shirt. If I ever told the first XI football team guys from my school days of my allegiance, they'd probably tell me where to get off the bandwagon I leapt on.
But to the kids here, football is my thing. I live it breathe it.
So I'm constantly living this fraudulent-me, whether it's a dressing up or down of anything to do with me. It's like working undercover in yourself. It gets a bit tangled when you start living by the fraudulent you. You're held accountable to that fraudulent-you, and you can't always live a little lie with conviction.
Unless, of course, the fraudulent-you grows and grows in you and on you, and you start to become a little less like you were originally. You buy a football shirt. You play football more. Or is that just part of, you know, natural, personal maturing?
You get me?
Guy is
Gai- is
Gai-jin is 'Alien Person', to move from English, twice through Japanese roman phonetics ('romaji') and back to English again. I don't belong here and sometimes when I start mulling over it all, it feels like I don't even belong in my name.
Then there are all the little lies you tell. Could they be called 'white lies'? They are calculated and abundant. I've told them to a lot of Japanese people I've met. It's practically a verbal handshake, except, I suppose, they're not lying back. Or they're really good at it.
It's just easier. It's easier in the classroom, if you lie a little and package yourself a little tighter and more manageably. I like football and I support Arsenal. I follow their progress quite closely, but I've only ever been to one game and just recently got an Arsenal shirt. If I ever told the first XI football team guys from my school days of my allegiance, they'd probably tell me where to get off the bandwagon I leapt on.
But to the kids here, football is my thing. I live it breathe it.
So I'm constantly living this fraudulent-me, whether it's a dressing up or down of anything to do with me. It's like working undercover in yourself. It gets a bit tangled when you start living by the fraudulent you. You're held accountable to that fraudulent-you, and you can't always live a little lie with conviction.
Unless, of course, the fraudulent-you grows and grows in you and on you, and you start to become a little less like you were originally. You buy a football shirt. You play football more. Or is that just part of, you know, natural, personal maturing?
You get me?
A funny old week
This week marked exactly a year to the day I've been in Japan (Tuesday). My friend Mike left on that anniversary, a year after he also arrived. Sean left the same day, but he's been here donkeys, and he'll be back, if only briefly, following travels in Asia.
Since they went, I've been living part of Sean's life- riding his bike (mine is fucked after a car hit me, Wednesday, bitch) up Mt. Zao (Wednesday, see picture down below), moving into his room for a view of the mountains and mailing his friends Sachi and Tomo. Them I met
at the lock-in at the Sagae branch of the Spice Magic Indian on Sunday night, a lock-in in every sense with no-one else but us, cheap prices, a sneak look backstage and even drunken hugs and arms wrapped round the owners' shoulders come the end of it all.
There was the beach and a barbeque with Chippie, Sean, Mike in Atsumi before that (Sunday morning and Saturday evening respectively)
and shodo (calligraphy) and another barbeque with a teachers family Sunday afternoon.
Monday and Tuesday I skipped off midday to pin up posters for the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. Apparently it's world famous. I'm dubious. Anyhow, they asked me,' Fnoo fnah fleee flum TV fllo oll flii flu' and I said yes, of course and before I knew it I was in front of a camera, well three actually, reciting lines (in Japanese) I'd learnt ten minutes before, along with two others from the YIDFF. That'll be aired tonight, (Friday), YTS, 6.45-55. Catch it if you can.
My legs kind of hurt a bit from climbing up Zao (on Wednesday, remember?), but also from playing frisbee with a bunch of Uni students on Wednesday late afternoon. They didn't believe I'd been up Zao by bike. Who would?
If you're finding it hard to make snese of this, so am I. But I thought it only fitting for such a landmark entry. Half a year writing this. Just over. A year in Japan. All change ahead and some more of the same.
Since they went, I've been living part of Sean's life- riding his bike (mine is fucked after a car hit me, Wednesday, bitch) up Mt. Zao (Wednesday, see picture down below), moving into his room for a view of the mountains and mailing his friends Sachi and Tomo. Them I met
at the lock-in at the Sagae branch of the Spice Magic Indian on Sunday night, a lock-in in every sense with no-one else but us, cheap prices, a sneak look backstage and even drunken hugs and arms wrapped round the owners' shoulders come the end of it all.
There was the beach and a barbeque with Chippie, Sean, Mike in Atsumi before that (Sunday morning and Saturday evening respectively)
and shodo (calligraphy) and another barbeque with a teachers family Sunday afternoon.
Monday and Tuesday I skipped off midday to pin up posters for the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. Apparently it's world famous. I'm dubious. Anyhow, they asked me,' Fnoo fnah fleee flum TV fllo oll flii flu' and I said yes, of course and before I knew it I was in front of a camera, well three actually, reciting lines (in Japanese) I'd learnt ten minutes before, along with two others from the YIDFF. That'll be aired tonight, (Friday), YTS, 6.45-55. Catch it if you can.
My legs kind of hurt a bit from climbing up Zao (on Wednesday, remember?), but also from playing frisbee with a bunch of Uni students on Wednesday late afternoon. They didn't believe I'd been up Zao by bike. Who would?
If you're finding it hard to make snese of this, so am I. But I thought it only fitting for such a landmark entry. Half a year writing this. Just over. A year in Japan. All change ahead and some more of the same.
Thursday 2 August 2007
Friday 27 July 2007
Calling Hertford
I telephoned Hertford today, not the town of my birth but near enough. I grew up outside Hertford, but spent far more time in Hertford than is really necessary in any one lifetime. I'm struggling to think of any attractions...I guess you could say my current home, Yamagata, is a step up in the world then.
So I telephoned the society for old boys and girls of my old school, seeking some information, some bits and bobs I might be able to show the kids at school here. This morning a teacher who spent two years in an Uzbekistan school and returned in April gave a talk about it, with videos and photos and everything. What can I say, I was inspired.
'You're calling from Japan now?'
'Yes'
'You're at home?'
'Yes'
You're not in Japan, you're at home, in Hertingfordbury?'
'No, I'm calling from Japan.'
I reached the school holiday staff. I'm a long way from home but I've made my very own home here. So it's kinds like I left home and came full circle, in an odd way.
'Let me see, we have two e-mail addresses here...g-i-t-guy@hotmail.com'
All I could think was, 'Say it, go on say it. You can't bring yourself to say it! Say it!'
I can't say I've missed Hertford, nor Hertfordians.
So I telephoned the society for old boys and girls of my old school, seeking some information, some bits and bobs I might be able to show the kids at school here. This morning a teacher who spent two years in an Uzbekistan school and returned in April gave a talk about it, with videos and photos and everything. What can I say, I was inspired.
'You're calling from Japan now?'
'Yes'
'You're at home?'
'Yes'
You're not in Japan, you're at home, in Hertingfordbury?'
'No, I'm calling from Japan.'
I reached the school holiday staff. I'm a long way from home but I've made my very own home here. So it's kinds like I left home and came full circle, in an odd way.
'Let me see, we have two e-mail addresses here...g-i-t-guy@hotmail.com'
All I could think was, 'Say it, go on say it. You can't bring yourself to say it! Say it!'
I can't say I've missed Hertford, nor Hertfordians.
Thursday 26 July 2007
I -heart- Yamagata
It's nearly a year to the day since I came to Yamagata; therefore, it's time for some reflections. And where better seek a starting point than my own starting point nearly 365 days ago, the four-and-a-half-page long Rough Guide entry? It begins...
'Few tourists make it to Yamagata, a large, workaday city ringed with high mountains, and those that do are usually just passing through...'
And so friends leave and a few strangers somewhere else in the world start packing their bags for Yamagata, Japan.
'...The district's west side is bounded by the train tracks and Kajo koen...on the site of Yamagata castle, where there's a moderately interesting municipal museum...'
The 'site', mind, the site of Yamagata castle. They ran out of money re-building it and now all that, er, remains, is a bridge that leads to nowhere.
'...the interior of this forner Prefectural Office (Tues-Sun 9a.m.-4.30p.m.; free) has been magnificently restored...don't forget to look up at the ceilings' spectacular plasterwork- it was all handcrafted by one man at the rate of 15cm per day...'
One man. 15 cm per day. Things move, here in Yamagata.
Next,
'...the Yamagata Art Museum...boasts a small collection of major European names...but unless there's a special exhibition of interest it's not really worth the entrance fee...'
Well then.
But enough of smarmy interjections, wisecracks and lightning judgements. I'm prying my way further and further into this town. I'm here for another year.
'Few tourists make it to Yamagata, a large, workaday city ringed with high mountains, and those that do are usually just passing through...'
And so friends leave and a few strangers somewhere else in the world start packing their bags for Yamagata, Japan.
'...The district's west side is bounded by the train tracks and Kajo koen...on the site of Yamagata castle, where there's a moderately interesting municipal museum...'
The 'site', mind, the site of Yamagata castle. They ran out of money re-building it and now all that, er, remains, is a bridge that leads to nowhere.
'...the interior of this forner Prefectural Office (Tues-Sun 9a.m.-4.30p.m.; free) has been magnificently restored...don't forget to look up at the ceilings' spectacular plasterwork- it was all handcrafted by one man at the rate of 15cm per day...'
One man. 15 cm per day. Things move, here in Yamagata.
Next,
'...the Yamagata Art Museum...boasts a small collection of major European names...but unless there's a special exhibition of interest it's not really worth the entrance fee...'
Well then.
But enough of smarmy interjections, wisecracks and lightning judgements. I'm prying my way further and further into this town. I'm here for another year.
Tuesday 24 July 2007
Another one of those weird nights
Just after having visited Spice Magic, Yamagata's very own (authentic!) Indian curry house for what we thought was Mike's last visit before he jets off back to the U S of A, we got a surprise. The Spice is right on the Nishi Bypass and all the night traffic was zipping past and the owner is awkward enough, without the social pitfalls of inviting us to a lock-in at his restaurant.
A lock-in at an Indian!
'Beer, you like beer, we have beer and whiskey, we eat together, when you come?'. Magnificent.
Next I ended up on the street outside Tully's coffee place with a bunch of skateboarders and a bottle of tequila. In Britan it would have been called 'loitering with intent' or 'disturbing the peace' (Tully's is on the main street after all) but here in Japan, it's just something to do on a Tuesday night.
A lock-in at an Indian!
'Beer, you like beer, we have beer and whiskey, we eat together, when you come?'. Magnificent.
Next I ended up on the street outside Tully's coffee place with a bunch of skateboarders and a bottle of tequila. In Britan it would have been called 'loitering with intent' or 'disturbing the peace' (Tully's is on the main street after all) but here in Japan, it's just something to do on a Tuesday night.
Saturday 21 July 2007
I have got so much to learn about digital cameras
....
'Gimmick or not, it has to be said that Fuji’s FD system is very good, as far as such systems go. It will detect any face in the central two-thirds of the frame almost instantly, including faces in photographs or on TV and even my Star Wars action figures. However it only detects faces that are looking directly at the camera, and even a slight angle is enough to confuse it, as is strong side lighting. Also for some reason it will sometimes recognise cats’ faces, but doesn’t seem to like dogs.'
....
'Gimmick or not, it has to be said that Fuji’s FD system is very good, as far as such systems go. It will detect any face in the central two-thirds of the frame almost instantly, including faces in photographs or on TV and even my Star Wars action figures. However it only detects faces that are looking directly at the camera, and even a slight angle is enough to confuse it, as is strong side lighting. Also for some reason it will sometimes recognise cats’ faces, but doesn’t seem to like dogs.'
....
Wednesday 18 July 2007
Crafty Buggers
There's one in every year group, the kid who acts like he ate too many fizzy colabottles and stood on his head, the one who clamours for attention and screams out in class at everything and gets away with it (this is Japan, watch, here it goes: win[disci......pline]dow).
In the third grade it's Hiroya, who sat in English the other day rubbing a piece of sandpaper against itself for 20 minutes. He's calmed down a lot though, and so has the second grade's number one cheeky blighter, Shuto. He got gangly and his hero is Henry, so he can't be all bad.
I was talking with Shuto in football practice the other day and he was trying to speak in English, no jokes, no shouting and the crafty bugger didn't even break eye contact to look over my shoulder. He had a bbq or something- that's not the point. Moments later, K-T Komatani Sensei appeared from behind me and said well dones and little by littles to Shuto and I suddenly realised the little fella hadn't been trying to impress me after all. He was hunting bigger game.
K-T stopped and started talking to me in English about a funeral he had to go to and I thought it a little strange for him to stop there, on the way to his car, to tell me that. A little late, again, I clocked his plot. Shuto, fairly bowled over by this demonstration of how it's done, himself impressed, started to tell K-T as much, asking him how he spoke English so fluently. 'Little by little' he said over his shoulder, walking to his car and a funeral.
In the third grade it's Hiroya, who sat in English the other day rubbing a piece of sandpaper against itself for 20 minutes. He's calmed down a lot though, and so has the second grade's number one cheeky blighter, Shuto. He got gangly and his hero is Henry, so he can't be all bad.
I was talking with Shuto in football practice the other day and he was trying to speak in English, no jokes, no shouting and the crafty bugger didn't even break eye contact to look over my shoulder. He had a bbq or something- that's not the point. Moments later, K-T Komatani Sensei appeared from behind me and said well dones and little by littles to Shuto and I suddenly realised the little fella hadn't been trying to impress me after all. He was hunting bigger game.
K-T stopped and started talking to me in English about a funeral he had to go to and I thought it a little strange for him to stop there, on the way to his car, to tell me that. A little late, again, I clocked his plot. Shuto, fairly bowled over by this demonstration of how it's done, himself impressed, started to tell K-T as much, asking him how he spoke English so fluently. 'Little by little' he said over his shoulder, walking to his car and a funeral.
Friday 13 July 2007
Kensuke
has been sitting behind the goal on the step between the sports gravel ground and the road that curls around it and out of the school grounds. He plods along and dumps himself down and while I run about collecting stray and mis-hit footballs during practice, he is slouched amongst his bags. He's got the same bags, the same number of bags as everyone else but some how he manages to make it look like he's been weighed down like a Nepalese pack mule.
His hair doesn't reach all the way down to his ears so he's got these bald patches and he wears a pair of electric blue-framed glasses. Goofy teeth too and that's our Kensuke.
His cousin Maika was at Nanachu last year, now having graduated to High School, and she was as friendly and lucky-go as li'l Kensuke. He is one funny little man.
In a week of turbulence and euphoric moments, those spent sat beside Kensuke behind the goal, in the quiet moments when footballs have stopped flying, speaking bad Englsih and worse Jpanese, those have been my favourite.
His hair doesn't reach all the way down to his ears so he's got these bald patches and he wears a pair of electric blue-framed glasses. Goofy teeth too and that's our Kensuke.
His cousin Maika was at Nanachu last year, now having graduated to High School, and she was as friendly and lucky-go as li'l Kensuke. He is one funny little man.
In a week of turbulence and euphoric moments, those spent sat beside Kensuke behind the goal, in the quiet moments when footballs have stopped flying, speaking bad Englsih and worse Jpanese, those have been my favourite.
Wednesday 11 July 2007
`So still to stars I bludgeon on, `Til suns have spark`d and on me shone!`
...so runs my favourite couplet in an unfinished epic poem about Pixies. It`s written in calligraphy pen across squares of paper blue, red, yellow, beige, green, whose intended use is really for origami. These are sellotaped to a large cardboard box I cut down from 3-d to 2-d. The entire structure is suspended by thin plastic strips, pinned to the wall above my bed.
The Tanabata Festival runs a little similar. It`s my kind of festival. It all fits in with my preferred `tramp chique`.
You`ve got a hole in your trousers? Hey. You`ve got a HOLE in your trousers. Don`t knock it.
In celebration of Tanabata, people write wishes on coloured paper and tie them to bamboo, in turn lashed to upright, immobile structures: lamp-posts, flag poles, policemen etc... And that`s the festival.
Funnily enough, Tanabata celebrates the stars too- Orihime and Hikoboshi, to be exact. On the 7th of the 7th, apart from remembering one day sparks flew down in the London underground, way way way way up there the lovers Orihime and Akiboshi meet, their only chance all year, as the Milky Way thins and parts just for that day. I`ll bet sparks fly up there too.
The Tanabata Festival runs a little similar. It`s my kind of festival. It all fits in with my preferred `tramp chique`.
You`ve got a hole in your trousers? Hey. You`ve got a HOLE in your trousers. Don`t knock it.
In celebration of Tanabata, people write wishes on coloured paper and tie them to bamboo, in turn lashed to upright, immobile structures: lamp-posts, flag poles, policemen etc... And that`s the festival.
Funnily enough, Tanabata celebrates the stars too- Orihime and Hikoboshi, to be exact. On the 7th of the 7th, apart from remembering one day sparks flew down in the London underground, way way way way up there the lovers Orihime and Akiboshi meet, their only chance all year, as the Milky Way thins and parts just for that day. I`ll bet sparks fly up there too.
Sunday 8 July 2007
How it went down
at Meiji Shogakko, 5 nen Sei, 3rd Period:
Reading and repeating 'Sing' (The Carpenters) lyrics- bag of hammers.
Singing it through (quiet as mice)- baby elephant.
Play-ing soccer, Read-ing a book, Watch-ing tv- a sack of spuds.
Total Physical Response and making groups- a storm.
Reading and repeating 'Sing' (The Carpenters) lyrics- bag of hammers.
Singing it through (quiet as mice)- baby elephant.
Play-ing soccer, Read-ing a book, Watch-ing tv- a sack of spuds.
Total Physical Response and making groups- a storm.
Tuesday 3 July 2007
Cross-Bred
Maybe two or three years back, I marvelled at the 'LIGER': half lion, half tiger, all muscle and looking docile as a sofa. The thing was about as big as a sofa too. A big bloody sofa.
Now there's a new mammal mash-up, born in Germany: 'Eclyss, the HEBRA'. Half horse and half zebra, with a hide to prove it. Coming forth from the loins of mother Eclipse the zebra and father Ulysees the horse, Eclyss (see what they did there...??) is something of an anomaly, our trusty BBC reporter reports. Usually, it's the other way around and a male zebra and female horse copulate to create a 'ZORSE'. They're worried Eclyss will be shunned by the pack and won't find a friend.
Now there's a new mammal mash-up, born in Germany: 'Eclyss, the HEBRA'. Half horse and half zebra, with a hide to prove it. Coming forth from the loins of mother Eclipse the zebra and father Ulysees the horse, Eclyss (see what they did there...??) is something of an anomaly, our trusty BBC reporter reports. Usually, it's the other way around and a male zebra and female horse copulate to create a 'ZORSE'. They're worried Eclyss will be shunned by the pack and won't find a friend.
Monday 2 July 2007
Air-conditiioning
An executive decision was taken and the air-conditioners in the teacher's room were turned on.
The air conditioners somehow emit a faint, but distinctive smell. It's difficult to pinpoint. Not bad, not good, but one that snags your nose. In the bookshop, too, mingling amongst the smell of paper and glossy magazine. The smell washes over you with the cool air on entry.
You grow accustomed to it, of course, like all smells good or bad, sooner or later. Then it becomes unremarkable, it slips right out of the air and seeps straight through you.
The muggyness picks up a smell too, but again, you'll only notice it at the threshold of muggyness and air-conditioned. A tight little border, ring-fenced with smells, and with them memories.
Air-conditioning and soggy heat brings back last August, when I first arrived here in Yamagata and when all sorts and sods were flying through my head and over my shoulder. I bedded myself in and earthed the worst of the exotic shocks and everything became a little less remarkable.
But lately, it's all been coming back, just as I pass through doorways, to the teacher's room, to the bookshop and soon enough to my own room. And out again, into the soggy heat...
...well. I say lately. That was actually last week. Lately, it's been pissing down cats and dogs.
The air conditioners somehow emit a faint, but distinctive smell. It's difficult to pinpoint. Not bad, not good, but one that snags your nose. In the bookshop, too, mingling amongst the smell of paper and glossy magazine. The smell washes over you with the cool air on entry.
You grow accustomed to it, of course, like all smells good or bad, sooner or later. Then it becomes unremarkable, it slips right out of the air and seeps straight through you.
The muggyness picks up a smell too, but again, you'll only notice it at the threshold of muggyness and air-conditioned. A tight little border, ring-fenced with smells, and with them memories.
Air-conditioning and soggy heat brings back last August, when I first arrived here in Yamagata and when all sorts and sods were flying through my head and over my shoulder. I bedded myself in and earthed the worst of the exotic shocks and everything became a little less remarkable.
But lately, it's all been coming back, just as I pass through doorways, to the teacher's room, to the bookshop and soon enough to my own room. And out again, into the soggy heat...
...well. I say lately. That was actually last week. Lately, it's been pissing down cats and dogs.
Saturday 30 June 2007
Success?
Not everywhere you get called handsome by a gay Canadian-Vietnamese polyglot (good luck on your travels Thang!)
Friday 29 June 2007
Thursday 28 June 2007
Monday 25 June 2007
Bananas
Bananas. I am...bananas about bananas. But you see, that doesn't really float so good across the language barrier put like that. Instead, I like bananas, again and again and I peel an invisible banana and chomp chomp chomp through it in two or three bites, before cramming the palm of my hand into my mouth.
The Elementary school kids sort of get it, but the Kindergarten kids are a lost cause. They have no idea why this bearded man is stuffing air into his mouth and repeating 'A-i-mu Ga-i, A-i ra-i-ku ba-na-na-zu'. But he's got a big pink ball and who knows where it's going to go next.
To Miyuki, as a matter of fact, the only other person with any idea what's happening. Miyuki likes cherries and says and gestures so much, plucking and dropping the famous Yamagata cherries (come on, you must know of them!) from thin air into her mouth.
Eventually, the big pink ball gets lightly slung from Miyuki down to the kids on the other side of the circle. They all scramble away from it like it's a big pink pregnant snake, or something. It's not.
The Elementary school kids sort of get it, but the Kindergarten kids are a lost cause. They have no idea why this bearded man is stuffing air into his mouth and repeating 'A-i-mu Ga-i, A-i ra-i-ku ba-na-na-zu'. But he's got a big pink ball and who knows where it's going to go next.
To Miyuki, as a matter of fact, the only other person with any idea what's happening. Miyuki likes cherries and says and gestures so much, plucking and dropping the famous Yamagata cherries (come on, you must know of them!) from thin air into her mouth.
Eventually, the big pink ball gets lightly slung from Miyuki down to the kids on the other side of the circle. They all scramble away from it like it's a big pink pregnant snake, or something. It's not.
Sunday 24 June 2007
HIKE
Preambles
Cycling around to Electro, fun though it is, just doesn't quite cut the mustard measured up alongside the full experience, the natural habitat, a few hundred like-mindeds and a trunk full of booze down and dealt with.
Hoping for a belting night out
I fell into the old trap on Friday night. That Friday feeling tickling me all over. 'We're bound to find some fun, some spontaneous night-life is going to sock us in the guts and drag us off into the unknown.' Oh no, dear reader. This is Yamagata.
Sushi started things off, which was perfectly ruined as we each conspired to pick the nastiest thing from the menu for the other to eat (except, of course, sea urchin, a clear sea mile out of bounds). We drank a bit more and went to a couple other regular places.
The next day and the great outdoors
Putting the hangover aside to be reckoned with at a later point, Max Dave and I trotted off up a mountain along a ridge over the hills and down them through rough and thorny terrain and eventually landed out by the next train stop along from Omoshiroyama, Yamadera. We each had our own personal escort of bugs orbiting roughly eye-level. I went to sleep seeing dots zipping across my vision. There were spectacular views. Musings. Discussions. Light-heartedness only the Famous Five could match. And then we got the train home.
Wrapping up thoughts that flaked off
And so, another weekend in Yamagata:
another outdoor sport begun/conquered with minimal necessary equipment (it turns out a box of koala biscuits and some breadsticks doesn't go far on a 7 hour hike)
another wet fart of a night
another reminder where the strengths of this place lie.
Cycling around to Electro, fun though it is, just doesn't quite cut the mustard measured up alongside the full experience, the natural habitat, a few hundred like-mindeds and a trunk full of booze down and dealt with.
Hoping for a belting night out
I fell into the old trap on Friday night. That Friday feeling tickling me all over. 'We're bound to find some fun, some spontaneous night-life is going to sock us in the guts and drag us off into the unknown.' Oh no, dear reader. This is Yamagata.
Sushi started things off, which was perfectly ruined as we each conspired to pick the nastiest thing from the menu for the other to eat (except, of course, sea urchin, a clear sea mile out of bounds). We drank a bit more and went to a couple other regular places.
The next day and the great outdoors
Putting the hangover aside to be reckoned with at a later point, Max Dave and I trotted off up a mountain along a ridge over the hills and down them through rough and thorny terrain and eventually landed out by the next train stop along from Omoshiroyama, Yamadera. We each had our own personal escort of bugs orbiting roughly eye-level. I went to sleep seeing dots zipping across my vision. There were spectacular views. Musings. Discussions. Light-heartedness only the Famous Five could match. And then we got the train home.
Wrapping up thoughts that flaked off
And so, another weekend in Yamagata:
another outdoor sport begun/conquered with minimal necessary equipment (it turns out a box of koala biscuits and some breadsticks doesn't go far on a 7 hour hike)
another wet fart of a night
another reminder where the strengths of this place lie.
Henry's gone and done it
I couldn't have put it better myself:
'I really fill pity and hopless.
He was every thing for Arsenal ,the captain, goel scorrer, freekick taker, playmaker, world class player,good example for the player
and faithful.
So arsenal leaders must give aqucik
solution to this miss.
Posted by sSamson teshome on June 23, 2007 1:55 PM'
'I really fill pity and hopless.
He was every thing for Arsenal ,the captain, goel scorrer, freekick taker, playmaker, world class player,good example for the player
and faithful.
So arsenal leaders must give aqucik
solution to this miss.
Posted by sSamson teshome on June 23, 2007 1:55 PM'
Wednesday 13 June 2007
Achi Mee-tei HOI !
It's simple.
Jun-Ken-Po (that's paper-scissors-stone) as a pair (oh yes, it does get bigger- I've seen entire football teams Jun-Ken-Po for the pleasure of the keeper's gloves).
The winner points a finger at the loser's nose. You can waggle it a bit too, if you feel inclined.
The winner says, "Achi Mee-tei, HOI !' and points up, down, left or right. (It means 'Look over there, HOI !')
The loser looks up, down left or right as the winner says 'HOI !'.
If the loser looks the same way as the winner points, he gets a flick on the forehead, like you might flick a large spider off your coffee cup rim.
'Slaps', 'Knuckles', 'Achi Mee-tei HOI !'... I guess it's a universal thing. I'm quite glad, on reflection, that Kouta (the 92kg prefecture judo champion) didn't quite grasp the rules of 'Knuckles' when I tried to teach him it a while back.
Jun-Ken-Po (that's paper-scissors-stone) as a pair (oh yes, it does get bigger- I've seen entire football teams Jun-Ken-Po for the pleasure of the keeper's gloves).
The winner points a finger at the loser's nose. You can waggle it a bit too, if you feel inclined.
The winner says, "Achi Mee-tei, HOI !' and points up, down, left or right. (It means 'Look over there, HOI !')
The loser looks up, down left or right as the winner says 'HOI !'.
If the loser looks the same way as the winner points, he gets a flick on the forehead, like you might flick a large spider off your coffee cup rim.
'Slaps', 'Knuckles', 'Achi Mee-tei HOI !'... I guess it's a universal thing. I'm quite glad, on reflection, that Kouta (the 92kg prefecture judo champion) didn't quite grasp the rules of 'Knuckles' when I tried to teach him it a while back.
Tuesday 12 June 2007
We Japanese say it like it is
I really should have known better than to ask Ikue what kind of home-room teacher Hitoshi Sensei is, today at lunch time.
The man in question was just the other side of the classroom, so she cupped her hand around her mouth and said something Japanese. Then she elaborated with gestures.
A fat one.
The man in question was just the other side of the classroom, so she cupped her hand around her mouth and said something Japanese. Then she elaborated with gestures.
A fat one.
Monday 11 June 2007
The Bugs Are Back
It was the classic football-stuck-in-a-tree dilemma, to which I had the classic solution: throw another ball up to knock the first one down.
It was the classic two-footballs-stuck-in-a-tree dilemma, to which I had the classic solution... where's a big stick.
There were lots of parents milling around at club activity time today, as we had the grand send-off ceremony ahead of the city sports tournament this weekend. The slogan adopted is 'You can do it!', which I giggle at every time it's shouted (which Adam Sandler film did that feature in??). They do shout it with such gusto too.
Just after I'd hurled the second ball to it's nestling place, one of the younger kids pointed at the tree trunk and started yelling something I didn't understand in Japanese (who am I kidding, I don't understand anything yelled in Japanese...I don't understand a lot in Japanese). There was a biiiiiiiig beetle (about as big as that last big) scaling the trunk in that nonchalant, two-fingers-to-gravity way that bugs do. The creepy bastards.
After school, getting on for mid-dusk, I went to the river for a run. I've often caught a fly in my mouth, running, or cycling along, but I have to say I've never experienced the pleasures of jogging through a cloud of midges. Several clouds of several thousand midges. So many, in fact, that even going at a fair old pelt there's still enough time as you scramble through to
a. register you have entered a midge cloud
b. cough
c. hack
d. swat left and swat right
e. catch a few in the eyes
f. stumble
g. swat right and left
h. cough
I can tell you reader, it's not the most pleasant nor gracious of ways to stride beside the river.
It was the classic two-footballs-stuck-in-a-tree dilemma, to which I had the classic solution... where's a big stick.
There were lots of parents milling around at club activity time today, as we had the grand send-off ceremony ahead of the city sports tournament this weekend. The slogan adopted is 'You can do it!', which I giggle at every time it's shouted (which Adam Sandler film did that feature in??). They do shout it with such gusto too.
Just after I'd hurled the second ball to it's nestling place, one of the younger kids pointed at the tree trunk and started yelling something I didn't understand in Japanese (who am I kidding, I don't understand anything yelled in Japanese...I don't understand a lot in Japanese). There was a biiiiiiiig beetle (about as big as that last big) scaling the trunk in that nonchalant, two-fingers-to-gravity way that bugs do. The creepy bastards.
After school, getting on for mid-dusk, I went to the river for a run. I've often caught a fly in my mouth, running, or cycling along, but I have to say I've never experienced the pleasures of jogging through a cloud of midges. Several clouds of several thousand midges. So many, in fact, that even going at a fair old pelt there's still enough time as you scramble through to
a. register you have entered a midge cloud
b. cough
c. hack
d. swat left and swat right
e. catch a few in the eyes
f. stumble
g. swat right and left
h. cough
I can tell you reader, it's not the most pleasant nor gracious of ways to stride beside the river.
Sunday 10 June 2007
The Rise and Fall of Bernard the Balloon
No-one knows quite how the blue Family Mart balloon ended up tangled in the grass, next to a path in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo. It was a sunny day and 5 friends had spent a pleasant afternoon throwing a tennis ball and drinking beer in the very same park. The time came for them to go home. By chance, one of the friends spotted the balloon, and she raced over and rescued it from the clutches of the undergrowth and an unthinkable fate, being pecked by a bird or stamped on by a child. The 5 friends went on their merry way with a new companion and Bernard the Balloon was born.
That night, the 6 of them went out on the town. Tokyo is a big place, and it would have been easy to get lost had they not stuck together. First they visited a rollicking drinking establishment. Everyone ate and drank to their content and maybe a little bit beyond! Except Bernard, of course. Being a balloon, he couldn't eat or drink anything, but he had fun nonetheless. At the end of their allotted time on they tumbled, out into the night and the city and the bright, bright lights again.
Onto the underground system and out to the bay area they travelled, skipping merrily down escalators and dashing all the way. Finally they arrived at their ultimate destination: the night club. Inside, Bernard and one of the 5 other friends made a special bond and spent much of the night dancing and bobbing together. The night club was a splendid place: it even had a swimming pool outside, although no-one swam in it. Instead, everyone danced around it. Bernard and his friend circumnavigated the pool several times.
They had a grand old time. Suddenly, Bernard's friend looked up and saw that the others had all left the swimming pool and gone back inside the night club. Without thinking, he hurled Bernard into the middle of the pool, thinking it a fitting end to such a wonderful relationship. 'I'll treasure the memory of you Bernard', he thought, as he threw Bernard.
Inside, he found many, many people dancing, hundreds and hundreds of them. He knew without help, he would never find his friends. Then he had an idea- 'Bernard! Of course!' So he went back to the pool and fished out Bernard before returning to the club. Together they danced and jigged, Bernard held aloft and his friend weaving between people. 'Hopefully they'll see Bernard and come and find me'. But instead, Bernard led his friend straight to the others, near the front of the dance floor. Reunited at last!
The final chapter of the story is sad. Bernard died, a steady exit, withering and deflating in his friend's hands.
But he had a bloody good innings for a balloon.
That night, the 6 of them went out on the town. Tokyo is a big place, and it would have been easy to get lost had they not stuck together. First they visited a rollicking drinking establishment. Everyone ate and drank to their content and maybe a little bit beyond! Except Bernard, of course. Being a balloon, he couldn't eat or drink anything, but he had fun nonetheless. At the end of their allotted time on they tumbled, out into the night and the city and the bright, bright lights again.
Onto the underground system and out to the bay area they travelled, skipping merrily down escalators and dashing all the way. Finally they arrived at their ultimate destination: the night club. Inside, Bernard and one of the 5 other friends made a special bond and spent much of the night dancing and bobbing together. The night club was a splendid place: it even had a swimming pool outside, although no-one swam in it. Instead, everyone danced around it. Bernard and his friend circumnavigated the pool several times.
They had a grand old time. Suddenly, Bernard's friend looked up and saw that the others had all left the swimming pool and gone back inside the night club. Without thinking, he hurled Bernard into the middle of the pool, thinking it a fitting end to such a wonderful relationship. 'I'll treasure the memory of you Bernard', he thought, as he threw Bernard.
Inside, he found many, many people dancing, hundreds and hundreds of them. He knew without help, he would never find his friends. Then he had an idea- 'Bernard! Of course!' So he went back to the pool and fished out Bernard before returning to the club. Together they danced and jigged, Bernard held aloft and his friend weaving between people. 'Hopefully they'll see Bernard and come and find me'. But instead, Bernard led his friend straight to the others, near the front of the dance floor. Reunited at last!
The final chapter of the story is sad. Bernard died, a steady exit, withering and deflating in his friend's hands.
But he had a bloody good innings for a balloon.
Thursday 7 June 2007
The Proudest Dad
K-T got really angry today and roasted some poor little blighters in 1-2 for not doing their homework, or forgetting their textbooks, or something, I didn't really follow. Discipline is handled differently here (gently, mostly) but when they lose their rag, boy do Japanese teachers go all out. I've seen bollockings last a good twenty minutes. 20 minutes of bursts of shrieks and caustic silences that stretch out across the room.
Right after he'd dished out a truncated arse spanking K-T's kei-tai went off. He always has a very cute little ring tone and this latest one was no less twee. His face, his mood changed completely as he sheepishly pulled out his phone and turned it off, before explaining what he thought the call was about.
Today was the first big tournament game for his son, who attends the city high school renowned for sporting prowess. Chuo High School are in the district tournament for baseball, and K-T's son- who usually warms the bench- put them there. Last week they had their last qualification game and K-T's boy came in to bat with a runner on third and the score tied at a miserly 1-1. Before he stepped up to the plate proper though, he paused and pulled off this strange pose.
K-T explained. It was a samurai stance. It was a kabuki actor pose. I got lost, again. Maybe it was a kabuki actor doing a samurai stance. That makes sense, in a Japanese kind of way (it doesn't...). Then Ken hit to the left, enough for the runner to get home and Chuo to win the game and get them to today's tournament game. How fucking wonderful is that?
And now K-T can't stop pulling out pictures of his son he printed off a post on the net by another parent. I caught him at it at cleaning time, flashing them to students and he was visibly swelled with pride last week, 7 whole days before today's roasting and the last time he taught 1-2, as we tackled the lesson material. 'This is my son...This is my son...This is MY son!' They won today too, 5-4.
Right after he'd dished out a truncated arse spanking K-T's kei-tai went off. He always has a very cute little ring tone and this latest one was no less twee. His face, his mood changed completely as he sheepishly pulled out his phone and turned it off, before explaining what he thought the call was about.
Today was the first big tournament game for his son, who attends the city high school renowned for sporting prowess. Chuo High School are in the district tournament for baseball, and K-T's son- who usually warms the bench- put them there. Last week they had their last qualification game and K-T's boy came in to bat with a runner on third and the score tied at a miserly 1-1. Before he stepped up to the plate proper though, he paused and pulled off this strange pose.
K-T explained. It was a samurai stance. It was a kabuki actor pose. I got lost, again. Maybe it was a kabuki actor doing a samurai stance. That makes sense, in a Japanese kind of way (it doesn't...). Then Ken hit to the left, enough for the runner to get home and Chuo to win the game and get them to today's tournament game. How fucking wonderful is that?
And now K-T can't stop pulling out pictures of his son he printed off a post on the net by another parent. I caught him at it at cleaning time, flashing them to students and he was visibly swelled with pride last week, 7 whole days before today's roasting and the last time he taught 1-2, as we tackled the lesson material. 'This is my son...This is my son...This is MY son!' They won today too, 5-4.
Wednesday 30 May 2007
Internationalising
I was invited to a real Japanese meeting yesterday. It came just after teachers from all of our feed Elementary schools (numbering three- the schools, not the teachers) had introduced themselves. Well, the new ones, anyway.
We split into groups and discussed things. Our group was all about internationalisation. Mighty long word, that one. Alongside a dozen or so teachers, Mari-Sensei was present, who spent two years in Uzbekistan and in whose form-room there is a slogan in Uzbekistani above the blackboard.
More introductions done, gazes fixed on desks, the floor, very-important-things-that must-be-written-with-great-care and other objects that demand absolute concentration like you're you're trying to levitate them like Silent Bob. This kind of reticence isn't unusual in Japanese schools, it's just usually it's the students you're bribing with smiles to speak. Any sense of conviction in the group topic whisked away like rainy season clouds that threaten and don't deliver their payload until far out at sea and out of sight.
Later, Joe and a beer fixed my bike and I and a beer watched on. Wife Heidi and baby Hana (his not mine nor the beer's) came out...a neighbour and toddler Shuu-kun appeared and hung about hunting down rocks and staring up open-mouthed...another neighbour, pregnant, wandered out and cooed over Hana while Shuu tackled walls and mum nattered in broken English and Japanese with Heidi.
And that's where the real exchange was happening, 8km away from the circle of silent teachers and that faint conviction.
We split into groups and discussed things. Our group was all about internationalisation. Mighty long word, that one. Alongside a dozen or so teachers, Mari-Sensei was present, who spent two years in Uzbekistan and in whose form-room there is a slogan in Uzbekistani above the blackboard.
More introductions done, gazes fixed on desks, the floor, very-important-things-that must-be-written-with-great-care and other objects that demand absolute concentration like you're you're trying to levitate them like Silent Bob. This kind of reticence isn't unusual in Japanese schools, it's just usually it's the students you're bribing with smiles to speak. Any sense of conviction in the group topic whisked away like rainy season clouds that threaten and don't deliver their payload until far out at sea and out of sight.
Later, Joe and a beer fixed my bike and I and a beer watched on. Wife Heidi and baby Hana (his not mine nor the beer's) came out...a neighbour and toddler Shuu-kun appeared and hung about hunting down rocks and staring up open-mouthed...another neighbour, pregnant, wandered out and cooed over Hana while Shuu tackled walls and mum nattered in broken English and Japanese with Heidi.
And that's where the real exchange was happening, 8km away from the circle of silent teachers and that faint conviction.
Friday 25 May 2007
Bowing Yellow Mango Clouds
The rice fields have all been flooded and planting begun. The heat broke and the sun spilled out clouds across the sky today that broke in turn in sodden wisps around the mountain peaks and belts alike and snagged in water in the rice fields, reflected.
I have never seen 31 students more unimpressed with a rendition of 'Yellow Submarine' as today, 1st period, 1-1.
Atsushi, or At-chan to his classmates, managed to post his own and 8 more portions of frozen mango through his mouth at lunchtime.
As I cycled back I re-realised, it doesn't matter how low you bow to some people, they still won't acknowledge your brown hair and green eyes, your white skin, you.
I have never seen 31 students more unimpressed with a rendition of 'Yellow Submarine' as today, 1st period, 1-1.
Atsushi, or At-chan to his classmates, managed to post his own and 8 more portions of frozen mango through his mouth at lunchtime.
As I cycled back I re-realised, it doesn't matter how low you bow to some people, they still won't acknowledge your brown hair and green eyes, your white skin, you.
Tuesday 22 May 2007
Cleanliness
There is some very incongruous music played at school, over the announcement system, at various points during the day. Everyone else just kind of carries on like it's normal and I've figured this is the best way to act. Don't stick out, doubled over crying with laughter in the corner.
A 2 minute slice of an instrumental version of 'Danny Boy' heralds the end of cleaning time, when we can all return to what it was we were doing and which brings sweet relief on my part. Everyone has got their section at cleaning time, you see, so no matter where I try and help, I'm stealing someone else's routine.
Another piece of music (a dandy little classical number) indicates the beginning of cleaning time. Sometimes, the kids in charge of the announcement room are a little slow, and everyone else dons their white caps and starts pushing brooms and rags across the floors without the music.
Not me.
'The music hasn't started yet, it's not cleaning time yet, the music hasn't started, I don't know what you're all doing, I'm not starting until the music starts!!' : is what runs through my head.
A 2 minute slice of an instrumental version of 'Danny Boy' heralds the end of cleaning time, when we can all return to what it was we were doing and which brings sweet relief on my part. Everyone has got their section at cleaning time, you see, so no matter where I try and help, I'm stealing someone else's routine.
Another piece of music (a dandy little classical number) indicates the beginning of cleaning time. Sometimes, the kids in charge of the announcement room are a little slow, and everyone else dons their white caps and starts pushing brooms and rags across the floors without the music.
Not me.
'The music hasn't started yet, it's not cleaning time yet, the music hasn't started, I don't know what you're all doing, I'm not starting until the music starts!!' : is what runs through my head.
Monday 21 May 2007
Purikura
'Now come on, you'll ruin it!', Dad'd said as I gleefully splashed digital tropical fruits all over the image of us and the tall building in Tokyo we'd climbed. It didn't matter it seemed to me he'd missed the point about Purikura photo-taking- on a trip where I had mostly led the way, gabbling bad Japanese to anyone that would listen, here was a moment the Dad-Son axis righted itself and roles bobbed back round upright, to their established correctness, like a bucket in the sea.
It wouldn't be Japan if there wasn't a Purikura photo booth (that's Japanese English for 'Print Club'...'Purinto Kurab'...'Puri Kura'...get it??) on the 42nd floor of that particular Metropolitan Government Shinjuku building. Who wouldn't want to superimpose their face onto an image of the building before decorating with hearts, hats and cartoon beards?
Curiously enough, the 42nd floor of that building beats the 52nd of another famous Shinjuku skyscraper, in which Bill Murray and some others made a film a few years back. 'Lost in Translation': you might have seen it. I don't know how 42 tops 52, but I do know that sometimes there's an upside down or even kaleidoscopic logic to things in this land. Who knows, maybe that's spatial as well as Dad logic.
It wouldn't be Japan if there wasn't a Purikura photo booth (that's Japanese English for 'Print Club'...'Purinto Kurab'...'Puri Kura'...get it??) on the 42nd floor of that particular Metropolitan Government Shinjuku building. Who wouldn't want to superimpose their face onto an image of the building before decorating with hearts, hats and cartoon beards?
Curiously enough, the 42nd floor of that building beats the 52nd of another famous Shinjuku skyscraper, in which Bill Murray and some others made a film a few years back. 'Lost in Translation': you might have seen it. I don't know how 42 tops 52, but I do know that sometimes there's an upside down or even kaleidoscopic logic to things in this land. Who knows, maybe that's spatial as well as Dad logic.
Saturday 19 May 2007
RIDE
'Why move when you can cut' Joe said this morning deep in the woods. Max, Joe and I had encountered a fallen tree on our ride that lay across the trail, barring our path. Joe rummaged in his bag and when he turned back he was brandishing a foot-long, fold-away saw.
Having been a mechanic before, Joe knows a lot about bikes. It was great to hit the trails with him because, in his own words, he is only too keen to 'micro-manage', giving us heads-ups on the nasty bits, teaching us how to get going again once you've stopped on a Steep hill and how to walk the bike on narrow, un-ride-able parts, with the handlebar at your chest and the front wheel in front of your head.
I think I'm, what's the expression, down with the lingo now too. If it's steep then you don't brake with your front brake: you feather it. The first climb was a hellacious hill and on the down you've got to get your ass off the seat if you don't want to endo. Come to think of it, maybe it's just the way Joe speaks rather than mountain bike lingo, but it's great.
A while ago Sean took me on the same trails on my virgin ride, without a helmet. I wasn't exactly prepared for what I was getting myself into. Sean would brief me a little, mostly of the, 'Ah, I think you'll be fine' variety rather than Joe's technical equivalent. But in a strange way, I think I learnt just as much on that first ride, finding out for myself about cartwheels and the aero-gymnastics you're capable of when you brake and don't feather and end over the bars, into the moss and bracken again.
Having been a mechanic before, Joe knows a lot about bikes. It was great to hit the trails with him because, in his own words, he is only too keen to 'micro-manage', giving us heads-ups on the nasty bits, teaching us how to get going again once you've stopped on a Steep hill and how to walk the bike on narrow, un-ride-able parts, with the handlebar at your chest and the front wheel in front of your head.
I think I'm, what's the expression, down with the lingo now too. If it's steep then you don't brake with your front brake: you feather it. The first climb was a hellacious hill and on the down you've got to get your ass off the seat if you don't want to endo. Come to think of it, maybe it's just the way Joe speaks rather than mountain bike lingo, but it's great.
A while ago Sean took me on the same trails on my virgin ride, without a helmet. I wasn't exactly prepared for what I was getting myself into. Sean would brief me a little, mostly of the, 'Ah, I think you'll be fine' variety rather than Joe's technical equivalent. But in a strange way, I think I learnt just as much on that first ride, finding out for myself about cartwheels and the aero-gymnastics you're capable of when you brake and don't feather and end over the bars, into the moss and bracken again.
Saturday 12 May 2007
Paper me
I went to my Japanese lesson in the usual place and found, along with Suzuki Sensei, a man who wore bandages wrapped round his hands,looking more like a fighter than a leper. There was a single piece of paper between them. Ah, the paperwork. We'd been ousted from the usual room in the international centre by new management and new rules.
So this week we had our lesson in the foyer area of Kajo Central in an Imoni bowl themed table. Surrounded by the bowl and imitation blocks of beef, leek and devil's tongue, we talked about Golden Week, what she did and all that me and my Dad did.
Half way through, Suzuki Sensei gave me a newspaper clipping of me. The reporter had come to school a while back. Most of the interview was spent giggling at one another as I fell back from true answers, to slightly true answers, to down right lies, but lies I could express in Japanese.
I thought I wouldn't have a copy of the article (front page of the Yamagata Evening newspaper!) to send back home. How wrong I was. The clipping Suzuki Sensei gave me falls roughly in the middle of the following timeline:
Tuesday: I text the City Hall and manage to arrange a copy of the clipping;
Wednesday: Ito-Sensei shows me the article and gives me the paper...Oba-Sensei is exhilarated to tell me I was in in the paper;
Thursday: Oba Sensei gives me the clipping...Suzuki Sensei gives me the clipping;
Friday: A letter arrives (from whom I still do not know) at school, with the clipping pasted on a piece of paper...A copy sent by the Yamagata Evening Newspaper awaits my return at home.
Looks like you'll get a copy after all Mum!
So this week we had our lesson in the foyer area of Kajo Central in an Imoni bowl themed table. Surrounded by the bowl and imitation blocks of beef, leek and devil's tongue, we talked about Golden Week, what she did and all that me and my Dad did.
Half way through, Suzuki Sensei gave me a newspaper clipping of me. The reporter had come to school a while back. Most of the interview was spent giggling at one another as I fell back from true answers, to slightly true answers, to down right lies, but lies I could express in Japanese.
I thought I wouldn't have a copy of the article (front page of the Yamagata Evening newspaper!) to send back home. How wrong I was. The clipping Suzuki Sensei gave me falls roughly in the middle of the following timeline:
Tuesday: I text the City Hall and manage to arrange a copy of the clipping;
Wednesday: Ito-Sensei shows me the article and gives me the paper...Oba-Sensei is exhilarated to tell me I was in in the paper;
Thursday: Oba Sensei gives me the clipping...Suzuki Sensei gives me the clipping;
Friday: A letter arrives (from whom I still do not know) at school, with the clipping pasted on a piece of paper...A copy sent by the Yamagata Evening Newspaper awaits my return at home.
Looks like you'll get a copy after all Mum!
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