久しぶり

It’s been a busy summer, except when I’m at the office, of course. Other than one morning cutting and bundling rice with one of the elementary schools, and a couple of afternoons swimming with the First to Fourth graders at another Elementary school (dear god, their little grabbing hands, their claws, their constant demands…bless ‘em) work has been uneventful- But outside of work, it’s just going home to festivals, five or so visits to the beach a week (I am now officially tanned and buff- although more burnt really) climbing Mt Fuji, greeting new JETs in Tokyo and organising events for them down here. I also bought The Sims 2 today (not sure why really…Maybe I don’t have enough distractions- my excuse is it will get me through winter and save me from spending money I don’t need to spend) In English though, so I can’t even call that Japanese study.

Speaking of Japanese study, I’ve been getting quite addicted to かきとりくん on DS, which I accidentally bought on my first day in Japan thinking it was a dictionary (needless to say, my Japanese has improved since then). Every day an animated man greets me, saying 久しぶり If I haven’t practiced for a while, wearing a suit on weekdays and a hawaiian shirt and shorts on weekends. His parting words are はりきってはじめましょう- harikitte hajimemashou, which I didn’t think about at first until Mum mentioned Harikiri- the western mispronunciation of 腹切, the samurai ritual suicide- the characters literally mean ’stomach cut’. So I had to look up what はりきってはじめましょう　meant, it turns out 張り切る means ‘to do enthusiastically. So he is not ordering me to perform ritual suicide, but to do my best! Isn’t that reassuring?

 

Sorting out my new computer

So, working on a Japanese keyboard which is different to the one I use at work- It’s hard to imagine before coming here how long it takes all of the little things to get used to. Little things including using Flock for web browsing (trying to hold on to some Indie cred now Firefox is pretty much mainstream) and using Leopard- or is it Tiger? One of the big cats. The most recent one.
I had an amazing conversation on the phone today. I had my first full Japanese phone conversation, where something more meaningful than ‘I can receive the package tonight’ was communicated, a week or two ago. I’m getting more confident on the phone. So when I saw a missed call from an unknown number on my phone I dialed it- I was kind of expecting a call about my computer anyway. And on the other end a girl with a great voice for the telephone picked up. I caught everything she said except for the company- she was in Tokushima, she giggled as she spoke to the ignorant gaijin- but I managed to understand none of it. Well, to say I caught it all is misleading. I understood every single word she said. I knew what it all meant. But the way she spoke- the kind voice, the impossibly long honorific sentences, meant that I didn’t actually understand anything, so I mumbled ’sorry, I don’t understand’ twice and hung up, figuring if it was important they’d call back. I get a lot of missed calls from Tokushima for some reason…
I’m sure honorifics were designed to make life hard for Japanese learners, or, more likely, to cement the class system in formal language. A complete rejection of Keigo (honorific language) would probably be a great social protest, in theory, but when so much is communicated by context a lot of communication would be lost. The weird offshoot of this is I’m not able to properly communicate with my supervisor because my speech is not polite enough, and I’m not able to understand anyone speaking Keigo to me. Another weird thing is that the standard form of Japanese I learnt at university is too formal to use with friends and not formal enough to use with co-workers. Using plain form with my students is fine, but I never really learnt plain form at university, most of it I’ve learnt since.
Looking back I really should have done more out-of-class study, I mean, I had Japanese friends and went to Chatterbox every week, but I could’ve done so much better. But now is the time to write such wrongs.

Also, the blog editor on Flock is telling me that ‘Learnt’ is a spelling error. Ah, irregular verbs, how I would hate thee if I were one of my students. Today I had a regular conversation with a JTE, and we wrote all the iregular verbs we used on the boards- Even in a basic conversation with first year JHS students the board was full up in a few minutes. And one boy miraculously knew that the past tense of catch is caught. Amazing.

 

First Class (no puns, I promise)

I have my first classes today, with the 1年生s at 清水小。There were no tears, no broken noses, the obnoxious kids who would keep shouting at me in Japanese ended up being well behaved after they were told off (so I gave them a koala…I’m going to run out very soon, and I’ll have to move on to stickers)

It was hot, like, 32 degrees and 75% humidity in the staff room, which was cooler than the classrooms and far cooler than outside. Not as cool as the air-conditioned Board of Education office though. And I was trying to be 元気！ Which is hard enough with twenty-five six year olds looking up at you, even when you’re not dripping sweat.

I was surprised at how easy it is to make a fifty minute lesson using only four words. I made the mistake of using two animals with almost identical pronounciation (the kids had enough difficulty with ‘dolphin’, even without ‘possum’ to confuse it with) The third teacher wrote everything on the board, so the kids didn’t have to remember anything, which annoyed me a bit…I didn’t even know the kids could read Japanese. I don’t think I could read six months into year 1.

The funniest thing that happened was at the beginning of the first class. I had told them where I was from, repeated it several times, and immediately afterwards I asked where I was from;

ルイス: what country do I come from?

学生： *stunned silence*

ルイス： what country am I from? *pointing at map*

学生: *more stunned silence*

先生：どこの国から来ました？

学生１：アメリカ？

ルイス： no, Not America *points at map*

同じ学生：ロシア？

ルイス：　no….

もう一度学生：　韓国？

ルイス：　wtf?

I mean, good on the kid for knowing his countries, but Korea? Do I really look Korean? And no matter how many times I said “in English” or “英語で”　the kids would always be speaking in Japanese, eventually I just ended up saying “In Japanese, you say いるか、 in English we say ‘dolphin’ ” and things like that.

But anyway, I think I like teaching. I hope all my classes are this cute, all my JTEs this nice (and helpful! and good at English) but I don’t know if that’s hoping for too much. Today I had three classes of twenty-four six year olds, tomorrow I have three classes of five junior high students, one class for each year. I have to be down there at 8:30, which means arriving here before 8:00. It’s a hard life.

 

A clear up and a catch up

Now that I’ve got my departure date (and flight details, more on that later) I can once and for all clear up things for everyone confused about my departure date. For all those who heard me/read in my blogs about me talking about franticly running around and seeing everyone and doing everything before I go, no, my departure is not in June. Some of my work colleagues thought so too, which is good because I think all the meaningful goodbyes are behind me (with the only remaining staff member I really like on a plane somewhere over China at the moment, not to return until a week before I leave, I have less feelings about saying goodbye) now all I have left to say goodbye to are characters who were fun to work with but I’d never consider friends, or people who I’d rather kiss Hitler than be in a working environment with them again.

And for all my managers who thought when I said I was leaving the country in August it meant I would keep working up until mid August, no, I expect to be on a flight to Sydney on the first Saturday in August. And I need July to pack/spend time with Tamara/get rid of everything in this house I don’t or won’t need. I think, when I’m not 100% clear people tend to believe what they want to believe. I think the Japanese working environment is going to change me, hopefully I’ll become a master at getting my way through non-aggressive techniques. That’s the Japanese way, apparently.

So, as I was saying, the first Saturday in August. August fourth. 11:25am. That’s when I’m leaving. And I know, the flight that leaves Perth twelve hours later direct to Tokyo would arrive only one hour later, but because all the group one (Sydney, Brisbane, Perth Embassies) JETs have to arrive at the same time (all the others go through Melbourne three days later) that’s just how it works. It means I’ll miss The Cure, who play Fuji Rock the weekend before I’m in Tokyo, and Perth the night I’m en route from Perth to Tokyo. It also means I get to catch the bus across the runway between the terminals in Sydney, which might bring back memories. The flight from Sydney to Tokyo is the same length as the one from Perth to Tokyo.

I need to submit my reply form to make sure I get vegetarian food, and my Visa application form, and probably other things as well. The first meet-up is Friday. I RSVPed three times saying I was coming, just to make sure. Don’t anyone let me forget, Friday evening, JET meet up. I wouldn’t miss free sushi for anything.