Off to Kyoto

Hi everybody,

I had a wonderful, wonderful Christmas even though I was sick for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I missed my end-of-year party because I didn't feel well, but I did make it to a Christmas Eve party and a Christmas Day get-together! I had dinner with my host family on Christmas Eve night (chicken, albeit not KFC), and afterwards went to a bar and socialized with a bunch of cool Japanese people for a couple of hours. It was a little terrifying being one of only two gaijin there, plus I was just getting over being sick so I felt kind of woozy, but I ended up meeting a bunch of cool people. I just wish I could speak Japanese better so we could have more meaningful conversations than "Where do you work?" and "How old are you?" and "What are your hobbies?" Little by little, I have to keep reminding myself!

Christmas Day I spent with a bunch of other ALTs with no place to go; we had a really fun time sitting around and watching "Christmas Vacation" and "A Christmas Story" and a couple of Disney cartoons. I think I've watched every Christmas movie I've wanted to see except Rudolph, so I'm happy! The day after I Skyped with every member of my family, and even though it kind of made me sad not to be with them, it made me happy to be able to talk.

I'm off now to Kyoto with my friend Anna. We'll be gone for about a week. We're taking the Shinkansen there tomorrow morning (because we travel in style), and staying in some cheap hotel once we arrive. A couple other of our friends are also going to be there, so hopefully we'll all be able to hang out once we arrive. (Side note: the Japanese word for "hang out" or "get together" is the same word as "play". "Let's play!" really means "Let's go do something." Does anyone else find that odd? If I go back to the States saying, "Let's play!" I'd sound like a 5-year old...)

I'll try to keep you posted on these end-of-year adventures. It will probably be a nice cheap trip of walking around and looking at famous buildings, and eating whatever food Kyoto is famous for. They're also calling for snow so that might be fun--! My first Japanese snow!

I hope you're all doing well and I'll write back in a week or so.

Love!

Jaimie

Vietnam

Remember a while back I told you about Sakura, the Vietnamese girl from my Japanese class? She'll call me once in a while to say hello and we'll always say we're going to get together, but we never do. This afternoon, though, we actually did hang out. I was still in my pajamas at three in the afternoon, still feeling kind of woozy but trying to rustle up something to eat, when she called. I explained the best I could that I was sick, but it didn't seem to make a difference. "Daijoubu, daijoubu," she kept saying. So I took a quick shower, threw on some clothes, and went to meet her at a restaurant near my house.

We didn't eat there, though, but instead drove to a cute Vietnamese restaurant called "Saigon" about 15 minutes away. The proprietor, a cute woman in her 30s, studied English a while back, and we were able to have a bit of a conversation. It was a strange feeling to be in a Vietnamese restaurant in Japan, speaking in a Japanese/English mix, eating Vietnamese food and listening to popular Christmas songs being played in Vietnamese. And what was even stranger was how much it reminded me of Greensboro! I miss Binh Minh and that other place off of Spring Garden St. (what is its name again...? Ah, Pho Hien, thanks, Google). It's just something about hanging out with immigrants from other countries that makes me feel like I'm right back in North Carolina, like I could walk outside and be on High Point Road (sketchy!). We ate Vietnamese "nabe" (hot pot), which is really similar to Japanese nabe except some of the vegetables are different and the sauce is spicier. And afterwards I got to have some delicious Vietnamese coffee--yum!

We talked about dating Japanese boys (both of them are married to Japanese men:"taihen!"/terrible! in their words, haha), about America, about learning English, about learning Japanese, about using chopsticks (why is everyone always so impressed?) and about clothes. Even if I was coughing every once in a while, the hot soup and coffee helped me breathe easier, and I left feeling almost all right. Fun times in Takasaki!

(Side note: I asked Sakura who she was able to speak Vietnamese with. She said she only had two Vietnamese friends in Takasaki. It was really nice to see her speaking so quickly to her friend, even though I didn't understand a word of it. All day long she goes about struggling in Japanese at work, at home, all around. It makes me appreciate the 100+ English-speakers I've met so far. . .imagine if I could only speak my native language with two people--! Taihen!!! )

Christmas @ School

Unfortunately all of my plans for a fun-filled Wednesday night fell through when I caught a nasty cold (from whom, I’m not sure; everybody is sick recently). I came home from school at 4:30 feeling like a ghost and crashed on the couch until 9:00, when I got up just to go to bed. So I missed the end-of-year enkai (party) and what seemed a promising karaoke experience, all because I got sick. On the bright side of things, I also saved myself 11,500 yen (60,000 for dinner, 25,000 for karaoke, 30,000 for a cab ride home). But I really was looking forward to it.

This morning (Thursday, the Emperor’s Birthday and a national holiday), I woke up at 6:00 and couldn’t go back to sleep since I had slept so much the day before. So I made myself comfy on the couch again, wrapped up in two quilts, and drank tea and read for a while before talking to my parents. Google Talk really does do the trick when Skype is down, like it was today.

But I digress.

I wanted to tell you about school.

We made balloon piñatas in my Special Ed class. The kids—there are seven of them—really enjoyed putting them together, and their decorations were fantastic! One boy hung origami cranes all over his, giving the Mexican tradition a Japanese flair; another kid made his into a head, drawing the features on the newspaper with magic marker and using pink construction paper for the hair. Mine, the one I filled with tiny presents from the hyaku-yen shop (dollar store), was a jumble of red, pink, and yellow tissue paper.

Since yesterday was the last day of school, it was the day we broke the piñatas. After learning the English words for “spin” and “hit,” we went to the “Friendly Room” (no joke, the フレンドリールム)where Ms. I and I had set everything up. We attached the piñatas to a thin green rope that hung from a bar on one side of the room to Mr. K’s hand, who stood on the desk opposite. I didn’t have a good stick to use, so we used my Mt. Fuji stick—more than a meter long! After a little squabbling about who would go first, the kids lined up. They really enjoyed having their turn at whacking the piñata (or the air) as hard as they could! But once it actually broke, they were so kind and polite to each other! I was astounded. I was so used to kids throwing themselves on the ground and beating each other up in order to hoard as much as possible, but these children stood by quietly waiting to be told what to do. I explained that there were enough presents (a pad of paper with a dog picture on it, an anime-themed pencil with a pencil tip holder, candy, and tissues) for each of them, and then they knelt politely down to pick up what was theirs. Oh, Japan!

Back in October, I had gone to an elementary school to pick up some ideas from an ALT there, and he inspired me to make Christmas cards for my students. He actually makes Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas/New Year’s cards for the entire school (hell, he might even make Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day cards, too, for all I know) but after I started cutting the construction paper, I decided only to give them to the san-nenseis (3^rd years/15 years old). I made them green and red, with a green (or red, whichever the contrasting color was) tree, snowman, or star silhouette on it. With the help of two other teachers at my school, we managed to put all 120 cards together by the end of November, and I spent my free time in December writing variations of “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I wish you much happiness in your life!” on each card in curlicue cursive writing. I even tried to write a more meaningful message to the 15 or so students that I know better than others, like the ones I helped during the speech contest.

Before I passed out the cards (and after we watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas/Snuu-pi no Ku-ri-su-masu”) I first explained how the U.S. Postal Service works. Showing a small cardboard box wrapped in green paper with a red cardboard flag, I demonstrated how the postman takes note of the raised flag before taking the cards out. There were a few gasps of astonishment from the students, as here in Japan, you mail your letters in the orange post boxes scattered around town. You don’t leave mail at your door like back home, and you certainly don’t have a cute flag that raises and lowers. “So,” I told them, “When you write a card, you put it in the box, and raise the flag. Then I’ll know I have mail.”

I stole that idea from RG, as well: ask the students to send me a card that they write on their own time. I wasn’t really too sure how it was going to work out, but I am very impressed with the results! It’s not a lot, but 18 san-nenseis (and two ni-nenseis, who didn't even get one from me) gave me cards! All of them except two are homemade, and so super cute! Almost everyone said, “I really like your class” (even if it’s a lie, it’s sweet), and one boy promised me, “Hereafter, I will hold out English because I want to go the foreign country some day.” M, one of my favorite students but don’t tell anyone, wrote a long message in almost-perfect English, telling me at the end that sometimes I look sad, and that if I ever need anything I can talk to her. At the bottom she put her email address. I didn’t think I look sad a lot, but it was a very nice thing for her to say!

The cards are up top because I couldn't figure out how to put them down here. Enjoy! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Haruna Lights & Hiking in Agatsuma

Haruna Lake has a big Christmas Illumination [Ku-ri-su-ma-su I-ru-mi-ne-shyo-n] going on, but it wasn’t as impressive as I wanted it to be. Or maybe I would have paid better attention to the glowing lights if it hadn’t been so [expletive deleted] cold, or if I had prepared for it better, like with a fur-lined polar bear suit wrapped around me and fire in my pockets.

Mt. Haruna is only about a 20-minute drive from Misato, up into the mountains on a windy mountain road through a forest of bare-trunked trees (a little scary, actually; that little old blue lady could have been hiding anywhere in that darkness). But at the top of the mountain where all the people were, the lights were twinkling and there was a huge green “laser show” flashing all around.

I’ll say it again, boy howdy it was cold up there; I had on about five layers and was still complaining! I was in utter astonishment at the number of scantily dressed girls I saw, too. They were certainly beautiful in their short-shorts and pantyhose, but good grief, how could they manage?! I must be too American: comfort before style, always!

Liz and Angela and I had a good time wandering around and taking pictures of everything—us with the group of sexy firemen beside their fire truck. . . us with the creepy Santa Claus passing out omiyage. . . us with a group of juvenile delinquent Japanese college kids who kept following us around and speaking to us in incoherent English. There were strings of lights forming Christmas trees, wreaths, and hearts, and more lights lining the walkway, a child-sized airplane, an 1800s carriage, and a boat. There were even lights on the water. To add to the magical Chrismas air, they were playing Danny Elfman’s “Edward Scissorhands” music, making me want to spin in the ice like Winona Ryder.

The lights were beautiful, but my favorite part was eating the food (curry and rice, a hot dog with no bread, hot chocolate) and huddling around the bonfires that were scattered around the parking lot. Oh, warmth! We only stayed for about two hours because I just couldn't take it any more. When I got home, I thawed out under the kotatsu, eating my mom’s Chex Mix, a German stollen I got from Kaldi, and hot milk.

But, as if once were not enough, I went back again on Friday night because my friend Oren wanted to see the lights, too. It was mostly the same—really really really cold but with pretty lights—except that this time I got to practice my Japanese! Some little girls—one was 12 and in 6^th grade, the other was 14 and in 8^th (chuu gakko sannensei)—started talking to Oren and me in English and the four of us we ended up talking for about an hour! As we were having our English/Japanese conversation mix, one of the girls’ dad, an extraordinarily drunk Japanese man in a Santa costume, stumbled over and handed us cups of hot chocolate. And then a pair of bunless hot dogs sitting in a glob of ketchup. Then some yakimochi (?). Then a paper plate of French fries and fried chicken. He kept going to different vendors, grabbing whatever they were selling, and handing it to us! I got so full from all that street vendor food, but it was so delicious—and free! We took our picture together. I felt sorry for the little girl who kept trying to excuse his behavior. . . but she seemed used to it and not too bothered.

Later, after we went inside one of the dining tents and were huddling around the kerosene heater, the girl’s mom brought us cups of hot tea. I felt like a very privileged guest, and all I was doing was talking about which member of Arashi I liked (even though I didn’t have much to contribute . . . ) We left around 10:30, and I got emoticon-filled text messages from the girls for the next hour. They were really sweet, though, and it was a fun night. Yes, that was my Friday night: sitting around a heater on top of a mountain talking with a couple of middle school girls in Japanese.

Saturday night about the same, except that I was talking in English and there were no children. I was on a mountain in front of a heater, though. My friend Peter was in town on Saturday afternoon and offered me a ride up to Agatsuma, an area up in the mountains about 25 miles northwest of Takasaki, where some other JETs live and where I was going hiking on Sunday morning. Way in the middle of nowhere, our Saturday night consisted of watching half of Willow and half of Pulp Fiction before everyone fell asleep at 11:00.

Sunday morning was beautiful, though. We woke up bright and early at 8:00 and were at Seven Eleven to meet Ebachan and Friends by 8:30. (Ebachan is the guy who rents cars to ALTs and who also hosts mountain climbing/hiking adventures around Gunma. He’s in his 50s—or was it 60s?—and was joined by three other older Japanese men around the same age.) We had a lovely time, Jacob and Peter and the Japanese guys and me! The hike wasn’t too strenuous, even though we had to use chains to climb up some of the rocky parts. Unlike Miyogi, I didn’t think I was going to die on this climb. It was just like taking a stroll out on the Appalachian Trail in late fall: the brisk weather, the leaf-less trees, the ground a carpet of brown and crunch.

We stopped for lunch halfway down in a small picnic area overlooking the mountains around us. Even though we Americans hadn’t bought a very good lunch at the 7-11 (just a Snickers bar and some mixed nuts for me, and an apple all three of us were eating), the other climbers shared their rice balls, snacks, and fruit with us. Everything eaten outside always tastes better, and it was delicious. Afterwards, feeling full and complete, I laid down in the leaves, feeling the warm sun and smelling the crisp late-autumn-smelling air. I was feeling lazy and could have fallen asleep if I hadn’t been jolted awake by leaves being thrown all over me. Soon, they were all kicking leaves onto me, raking them up with their feet and hands, and I was quickly buried under a huge pile, with only my head sticking out. Ebachan made a crude wooden cross out of two sticks and stuck it in the ground at my head, and Peter took a picture of the four Japanese men and Jacob kneeling at my side with their hands under their chins in prayer and their eyes closed. In retrospect, the picture looks kind of creepy, but it was fun while we were doing it! I at least didn’t have to do anything: I just laid there with my eyes closed covered in leaves.

After the funeral, I burst through the leaves like a zombie--first one arm, then the other--and raked the dried leaves from all over me. Then we finished the descent down the mountain. The path took us through a magical-looking forest with widely-spaced trees and little undergrowth, over a tiny shallow steam, beside a (hopefully not-in-service but still scary) electric fence (a little incongruous with the rest of the scenery) and through a tightly woven bamboo forest that reminded me of House of Flying Daggers. Running through the thick branches of the short trees, brambles flying back and hitting people in the face, we could have been ninjas. It was exhilarating.

Back on the pavement, Ebachan & Co. drove off to soak in an onsen for three hours, while Jacob and Peter and I went back to Jacob’s to finish Pulp Fiction. I went home soon afterwards, on the 16:39 train, arriving in Takasaki at 5:33, just in time to realize I missed the 5:30 bus back home. Luckily, though, I ran into our lovely Gunma CIR at the station, who drove me the thirty minutes back to my house on her way back to Maebashi. (And thank you! thank you! for not making me wait until 6:25!)

It was a very fun chill weekend, unlike this one coming up, which is sure to be raucous from Wednesday, the night of the end-of-year-school-party, to Christmas. I'll let you know how it goes. Next post: a little more about school!

The Usual Chill & Pre-Christmas Festivities

I am buried under my kotatsu (a coffee table with an electric heater underneath, surrounded by a blanket to trap the heat at your legs), drinking hot tea and eating a pb&j and an orange, listening to Christmas music and waiting for L to call me about what we’re doing for New Year’s in Kyoto. When I came home from school today, I turned my kerosene heater on, and the thermostat told me the temperature inside my house was 9 degrees Celsius. Yes, that’s 48 degrees Fahrenheit. I know it’s going to get pretty old if I keep complaining about the temperature all winter—I mean, everyone’s house is cold in Japan, and it’ll probably be hovering in the 30s when I wake up in the morning most days this winter. So I’ll try to keep my bitching to a minimum, and not screech when I can see my breath in the kitchen or when boiling water becomes tepid in a matter of minutes. It’s just par for the course. But man oh man it’s gonna be a long winter!

I’m keeping warm for the most part, though: I’ve got this handy-dandy kotatsu, a gallon-sized hot water bottle that I sleep with every night under a pile of thick blankets, and the not-so-dangerous kerosene heaters. I should make out all right for warmth all winter, as long as I keep wearing several layers of clothing and heating only one room at a time. I remember reading in an Early Colonial America magazine (don’t laugh; I get into stuff like that) of a foolproof way to stay warm all winter with only one log: Go to the top floor of your house. Drop the log out the window. Run downstairs. Pick up the log. Run back upstairs with the log. Repeat process until warm. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Changing the subject, I’ve had some fun pre-Christmas events recently. On Friday night, about 25 Takasaki ALTs got together at a fancy-shmancy restaurant called Hanabi’s in downtown Takasaki for an end-of-year Christmas party. Because I miss all my friends at the CNNC, I asked if we could play the White Elephant/Dirty Santa gift exchange and it was a hit. I got a cool “I Heart Melbourne, Australia” t-shirt that I’ll wear with pride, and a three-piece sake set. I was also able to get rid of a bunch of leftover stuff from my predecessors, like a Japanese manga set I’ll never read, a weird pink stuffed animal, and some other randomness. After our dinner and gift exchange (the stealing went quite well; Nolo would have been proud), half of our group went off to sing karaoke until 1:00 in the morning. (And I, cough cough, sang a song in Japanese. And by sang I mean fumbled my way through the verses but actually got the chorus right--thank you, Soshi, for that Radwimps CD years ago!) I took a taxi back home and surprised myself by having a conversation with the taxista the entire 20 minutes back to my house. The conversation consisted mostly of how much—or little—Japanese I could speak, how long I’ve been in Japan, what I do here, how long I’ll stay, and directions to my house. I was thrilled I could reply “either one” to his question of “Which 25 should I take?”

SATURDAY

On Saturday, I had a fun morning cleaning—like every Saturday—before meeting Mr. K at the Gunma Library at 11:30. We went to his house, where I met his wife and 8-year old daughter, who regaled me with an origami Santa Claus card, absolutely adorable. Over a cup of tea, we talked in a Japanese-English mix about a variety of topics: easy things like where we worked, hard things like language. I was very impressed with his wife’s English, though, especially since the first words out of her mouth were, “I’m sorry I don’t speak English!” before giving her entire self-introduction in it!

This led to a conversation about language in general, like how today’s Japanese is different from the Japanese spoken even 100 years ago. I was also interested when, as we were discussing the merits and drawbacks of kanji, Mr. K said that there were kanji used in the newspaper that even normal Japanese people don’t understand! To give me an example, he picked up the local paper that was lying on the table, and, after skimming it for about 15 seconds, pointed out three kanji in a row that made up one word. He read it out loud, pronouncing them fine, but when he looked up he said, “I don’t know what that means.” So Dr. P was right: pronouncing words does not mean you understand them. Reading is understanding, not just putting the string of syllables together correctly.

After our little visit, Mr. K and I went to a tempura restaurant off of the Takasaki Loop. The rest of his family couldn’t go because his wife was sick, wearing the traditional white facemask that everyone around here wears when they have a cold. All the way to the restaurant we debated the finer points of Christmas and American Christianity in our grossly inaccurate ways, neither of us really able to explain ourselves the way we wanted to, but understanding enough to have a lively conversation. We got to the restaurant just thirty minutes to closing time, so we ordered fast. When our food came—a nice meal of fried vegetables and shrimp, rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, and hot tea, with a glass of apple juice for dessert—Mr. K coached me on the proper way to eat in a Japanese restaurant. You pick each dish up to bring the food to your mouth, never bend over the table to bring your mouth closer to the food. “This is the way dogs eat,” he said, referring to bending over your food. “People pick their plates up.” Duly noted. I was a little self-conscious for the rest of the meal, but I think I did okay, considering how much I like dogs.

I saw two of my students at the Gunma Library when Mr. K dropped me off. It was so cool to see them without their blue tracksuit uniforms on! K was wearing a black t-shirt under an unbuttoned teal- and black-checkered shirt, and T had on a pink coat. (Funny how Japanese style can be so early 90s and so super hip at the same time.) My students looked like real people outside of school, not just carbon copies of each other. It was refreshing to see some individuality.

On Saturday night I had a date with A, G, and Australian L—we drove from Takasaki all the way to Ogo to pick G up, then all the way back to Maebashi to eat shabu-shabu (which I couldn’t quit saying every time I dipped the thin slices of pork or beef into the boiling water), then back to Ogo again to see a light show in the Flower Park for the five minutes we had before it closed. It was a fun evening, despite the miles.

SUNDAY

Sunday was my host mom’s Christmas party. I got to her house bright and early at 9:30 a.m. so we could drive to a community center a couple miles away to set up. I got to wear a Santa outfit—well, a Santa hat and red Santa-like jacket, at least. It was a fun party even though I felt a little out-of-place. The families of her English students—about 50 people in all—brought all kinds of food, and we played a bunch of different games. I won two toothbrushes for being the first to finish an English-language word search, but I didn’t even try to compete in the “Guess This Song” contest. I couldn’t tell Exile from Arashi if I tried. I had to make the beginning and ending speeches in front of the group as well, which I did in a mix of easy English and incomprehensible Japanese (Yoko-san had to translate my Japanese into a language the crowd could understand). In the off time when I wasn’t participating in games or activities, I read “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” in Japanese, with about 60% success.

My Japanese is getting better, bit-by-bit. I need to sit down and conjugate verbs (and adjectives, too) until I can say them without thinking. I have a mental block on the dates, also; no matter how hard I try to learn first, second, third, fourth, etc. I can never remember them! But I am having marginal success at some things, so I feel like there is hope for me.

Back to Christmas for a second: I miss normal Christmas activities back at home, like caroling （や）, singing Christmas songs at church（や）, having a tree（や）, etc. I hope that all of you back in the States are drinking store-bought eggnog for me, too. That’s the one thing I’m dying for that I can’t get anywhere, and even though I make it at home, it’s never as delicious as ol’ Maola makes it. And a big thank you to all my friends who have provided me with Rice Krispie Treats, Chex Mix, fruitcake, Moravian cookies, spiced apple cider mix, and other such holiday goodness. Christmas Day will be yummy and traditional!

Till next time . . . メリークリスマス！Me-ri--Ku-ri-su-ma-su!

Japanese Names 日本人の名前

Working at a school with about 400 students, I have a lot of names to memorize. Most of them are names I’ve never heard before (Hajime and Junpei come to mind) and some of them sound downright weird: Eigo (“English”), Wataru, Itta (the past tense of go???), Takanori (that last one reminds me of something you would eat, like yakitako). I have trouble pronouncing some names, especially the ones that start with RY: Ryo, Ryosuke, Ryota, Ryuuta. The students do love to hear me call out their names when I’m passing back papers, though; oh, how they howl at my mistakes!

I like that some names have a meaning in Spanish and are easy to pronounce: Noe (here, a girl’s name, not Noah), Risa (laughter), Reina (queen), Rio (river), Yuga (yoke, a bit weird…). I’ve also noticed that while in Spanish, “-a” is a girl marker and “-o” is a boy marker, it seems to be reversed in Japanese. Masaya, Keiga, and Shunya are all boys, while Masayo, Yukiho, Kaho, and Nao are girls. (A lot of girl names end with “ko,” “child,” too.) And there are Anglicized names, also, like Arisa or Anna.

It’s been an interesting experience to learn so many new names, and to try to match them with the faces, too! I’m still learning teachers’ names, and it will probably take me until next year to remember more than the 50 students’ names I know so far. I’m trying, though!

Here are my Top Ten Favorite Japanese Names I’ve heard so far, in order:

BOYS

1. Kohei (Kouhei) (You just can’t go wrong. Ko-hay. It sounds so nice!)
2. Daisuke (I love all those –suke endings on names, but Daisuke is my favorite)
3. Masaru
4. Masahiro
5. Takahiro
6. Daiki
7. Masaya (The Masa- and –hiro names just sound so strong!)
8. Kazuki
9. Shyou (Shou)
10. Kenji (an oldie but a goodie)

GIRLS

1. Mizuki (so beautiful-sounding!)
2. Chitose (I like the way it sounds: Chi-to-se, almost like chistoso/funny)
3. Ai (who could resist a girl named “Love”?)
4. Misaki
5. Miyu
6. Natsumi
7. Yuu
8. Megumi
9. Michiko
10. Yumiko (I like the –ko and the –mi, apparently)

If there was a kanji for “Jaimie,” I could use “美” (-mi) as the last sound (it means “beautiful”). Unfortunately, though, there’s no native Japanese sound for “Jei” in their syllabary. ジェイ美 looks funny, so I’ll just have to stick with ジエイミーor じぇいみい if I want to be snazzy. More’s the pity.

Koto

I was putting the finishing touches onto my Christmas English bulletin board (see above) when Ms. N, the music teacher, came up to me.

“Jaimie Sensei!” she said. “Do you know koto?”

“Um. . . “ (think think think) “. . . no.”

She mimicked strumming a stringed instrument with one hand, facing down.

“Like a guitar?” I asked.

“Mmmm. . . . ” (That means no.) “Do you know ‘Sakura’? Famous Japanese song?”

“Um . . . “ (think think think) “. . . no.”

“Come to the music room!” she said. “One, three or four time.” (First, third or fourth period.)

I didn’t know what a koto was, but I had first period free, so, dropping my bulletin board materials on my desk and putting off preparing for next week’s Christmas lesson for another day, I followed her up the stairs and into the music room.

I am impressed with my school’s music program: three huge rooms take up half of the third floor, two filled with instruments and one a large empty space where the band practices (and where I was serenaded a few months ago). Today we went back into the large room, its wooden floors covered today in large musical instruments I had never seen before, propped up between two chairs. They were long and wooden, with 13 strings made of white twine. They strings were numbered 1-13 on the side. White plastic Eiffel-Tower-shaped legs held up the strings, and, I discovered later, could also be moved to tune the instrument.

(Picture from http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00717/pages/instruments.html, not from my camera. Also, it says the picks are called tsume, which, I want to say, means fingernail in Japanese.)

“Dozo, dozo!” Ms. N waved me in cheerily. A woman I didn’t know, well-dressed but with what looked like exceptionally long claw fingernails, was already inside.

“Jaimie sensei, this is T-sensei,” Ms. N told me, then introduced me in rapid Japanese to the long-fingernailed woman. I caught “ALT” so I smiled and said yoroshiku onegaishimasu politely. She smiled back.

Ms. N shooed me over to the instrument in the back of the room. I sat in front of it, not knowing what to do. I was given three picks, which turned out to be what Ms. T had on her fingers as well: inch-long plastic fingernails fitted into red leather holders. I put one on my thumb and two on my index and middle fingers but didn't touch the koto.

Then the ichinensei (first year, 12-and-13-year old) students filed in. There was a twitter of “Jaimie-sensei!”, some awkward smiles, and a couple of rowdy, “Hello!”s at first, but they got settled in after a while. I sat through my first all-Japanese class like a real ESL student (or JSL student, as the situation would have it). First the bow, then the lecture, then the practice. I understood the word “rhythm” but the rest of the lecture was pretty incomprehensible.

When it came time to play, though, I felt great. We started off strumming up and down to get a feel for the instrument. The strings were more difficult to pluck than a regular guitar string, but the sound, if I played it with the right strength, was clear and strong. We started right off with a song that only used the sixth and seventh strings, written on the board in Japanese: 七六七六六七七六. (seven six seven six six seven seven six).

After that, our class was given free reign to make up our own songs. I composed a nice Asian-sounding melody before class ended, feeling proud of myself. And after class finished, Ms. T came over and showed me the famous “Sakura.”

When I walked into my second period class, I saw that I was teaching the same ichinensei group that I had just learned koto with. The English lesson for the day was the following introductions:

Her name is Jaimie.

She lives in Takasaki.

She is my English teacher.

She is good at piano.

She likes books.

She is 28 years old.

When we got to the “is good at” part, Mr. T wrote on the board, “She is good at koto” and everyone laughed.

Apples and Aesop

I forgot to mention A and I stopped by a vendor on the way up the mountain to buy some apples. We were able to go out in the orchard and pick our own--! Here is a view of the apple orchard (Apples: 1 kilo for 400 yen):

I made fried (and baked) apple pies when I came home. Oh, yum!

Also, I feel so happy that I can understand 75% of one of Aesop's fables in Japanese! I bought this kid's book the other day on a whim (it was only 350 yen at Bookman's Academy) and I've been reading it. Today I studied vocabulary and actually understand some of it!

ああ。。。おなかがすいたなあ。。。

そのとき、木の下にあかりが見えました。それは、はたらきつずけていた、あのありのいえでした。

きりぎりすにたべものをあげて、ありはそっといいました。

よくはたらけば、本とうにたのしいくらしがてきるんですよ。

きりぎりすははすかしくてかおがまっかになりました。

Ahhh...I'm hungry...

At that time, he saw a light coming from under a tree. It was the house of the hard-working ant.

After the ant gave the grasshopper some food, he said gently to him:

If you work hard (often?) it's true that you will live a good life.

The grasshopper felt ashamed, and his face turned bright red.

So my translation might not be perfect, but I think I get the gist of it. I even understand the "te" form from "Tabemo o agete." Thank you, Kotoba dictionary!

"I think I'm getting smarter! It's a piece of cake--!"

(said before I fall into the oubliette...)

Learning Japanese, Christmas, and the Gunma Mountains

The little things that remind me of home are enough to tide me over until I get there. Being able to talk with my friends and family on Skype (when I remember we have a Skype date, CG, sorry), smelling the autumn leaves as I walk through the woods, cooking familiar food, listening to familiar music I can download from iTunes--they all help ward off the sad, homesick feelings that can creep in every now and then. I'm also busy a lot--so busy that I wish the weekend was just a little longer so I could do fun exciting things and also have time to clean the bathroom. Japan is treating me so well, though, and I can't help but love it here.

My community Japanese class is over (I accidentally missed the last class because I went to watch Harry Potter instead) and doesn't pick up again until February. In the meantime, I have acquired a private tutor--a middle-aged Japanese woman who speaks almost perfect English from her time living abroad in England a decade ago. She tutors a lot of ALTs here in Gunma and I have heard her praises sung from a couple of people here. And if I'm going to learn Japanese, I'm going to need real lessons!

I went to her house on Saturday. I did an immediate double-take when I saw the full-sized Kawai grand piano in her living room. I've been keeping an eye out for pianos ever since I was a kid, much to my parents' embarrassment ("Oooh, can I play?!") "Do you play the piano?" I asked her in Japanese. "Yes," she told me. "Do you? How long have you played?" It took me a second to realize I have been playing for -- hold your breath -- twenty years now. I started when I was eight. "If we have time afterwards, you can play," she offered, and I was happy to find myself an hour later flipping through her terrific songbooks and playing. (She wanted me to play "The Star Spangled Banner" for some reason, too, which left me feeling terribly patriotic!)

We didn't have a real class, only an overview of what to expect. I'll start studying for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) that will be held in August. She'll teach me GRAMMAR! Verbs, adjectives, conjugations, real conversations: I'm so excited! She even has a little whiteboard in her living room, and stacks of JSL (can I say that?) books on the bookshelf. She's been teaching for a while, it looks like. I feel vaguely like I'm being a traitor to my other sensei from the kaikan, because he's such a nice, kind, grandfatherly figure, but . . . . I want a real class. I want grammar. I want English-Japanese explanations. And this will help me more.

After I met with her, J, his gf, S and I went to Costco again. I needed more Christmas cards, but of course they didn't have any . . . so I got vinegar and baking soda instead.

Sunday was beautiful. I woke up at 8:00, graded those papers I had brought home (ugh), then went to A's house. We had planned on going to Mt. Akagi and to Fujioka, but after two hours at Sakurayama Park, we just went back home, being lazy.

It was a beautiful drive down to Fujioka. Takasaki almost touches city limits with Fujioka, a town a few miles southeast of here. Fujioka is more mountainous, though, and the brilliant green evergreens contrasting against the deep blue autumn sky were gorgeous. The city was behind us, and the narrow mountain roads reminded us of just how in the country we were. Most of the leaves have fallen off by now, and only the brown or deep red ones remain, slowly dying and falling off the branches. At this park, though (Sakura = cherry blossoms; Yama = mountain), winter cherry blossoms were still blooming. There weren't as many as we would liked to have seen, but it was still fun to wander around the park and see the white blossoms on the trees.

At the base of the parking lot, vendors had set up tents, displaying their wares on big wooden tables. I bought some mochi from one lady, who said something about miso soup that I didn't understand. The parking attendant had also told us something about go-hyaku-en (500 yen) but we didn't see any place that looked like where we'd have to pay. We finally decided that we had misunderstood him and he had given us free entrance instead of forcing the issue. Thank you, parking attendant man, for having pity on two gaijin girls.

Tonight I'm making what I hope will be a delicious turkey and sweet potato soup, out of the turkey carcass from last week's dinner and the leftover (oji? what are they called?) potatoes I had bought for my party. I bought a huge stock pot at Costco for the express purpose of making soup all winter. That's what's going to keep me warm on these cold Gunma nights.

Christmas festivities are starting up. I want to see the illuminations at Mt. Haruna some weekend. The Takasaki ALTs are also having a Christmas party on Friday night. Closer to Christmas, my host mom is having a party, and then we have a date to eat KFC and Christmas cake on the 24th. Christmas is almost Valentine's Day-y around here; it's all about having a date at Christmas. Considering how nil my Japanese is, I'm kind of giving up on my dream Japanese boyfriend . . . but my host mom and I will have a wonderful evening I'm sure! Then I want to go to Maebashi Catholic Church for the English-Japanese-Portuguese-Spanish mass on Christmas Day. It's not exactly like being home and opening presents with my family, but it's something . . .