To be or not to be...

After gratefully receiving yet another Monday off for some obscure Japanese holiday—I never ask why, I just take them as they come—I came to work on Tuesday with a heavy case of the “Monday’s,” or as in my situation, a case of the “It’s really not a Monday since we had the day off, but it still feels like the beginning of the week so technically it could be called a Monday’s.” Feelings of homesickness, missing friends/family and the like tend to be the worst at the beginning of the school week, so I was not in a particularly good mood as I rode my bike to work this morning. I was supremely annoyed when I saw that most of my neighbors had their trash in the street since it was “burnable trash” day, and I kicked myself for having let it slip my mind. Now the plastic bag of rotting fish skeletons and moldy old rice grains will have to sit out on my porch for a few more days. I’ll have to fend off the gigantic, flesh-eating crows in the meantime.

When I got to school, I put my shoes in my locker and threw on my slippers, and moseyed up to the teacher’s office where I had to say “Ohayo Gozaimasu (good morning)” about 100 times. Out of courtesy, you have to say it to everyone in the teacher’s office, and they say it right back. After you’re done with greeting everyone, more people walk in and say it to everyone else, and eventually you end up hearing everyone saying “Ohayo Gozaimasu” for about 5 minutes continuously. One of the nuances of the language I’ve managed to pick up on already is that some of the male teacher’s only say the last part of the phrase, so you only end up hearing something that sounds like, “…masssssssss.”

When I finally made it through the barrage of morning greetings, my daily schedule is decided by memos that the other English teachers leave for me at my desk. Sometimes I’m needed to correct grammatical questions in the Writing classes, sometimes they need me to read dialogues in the Oral Communication classes, it all depends on what they decide. This is where I am tormented with the question, to be or not to be?

On my desk there was no memo, which pretty much means I had absolutely nothing to do. I occupied roughly 8 hours of the day with downloading and reading economic articles, educating myself on the midsummer meltdown of the stock and housing market, as well as the long-term economic implications of the war in Iraq. In the teacher’s office there is a men’s “rest room”, not a restroom as one would normally interpret it, but a literal resting room. About an hour before lunch, I took advantage of this luxury, and brought with me Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain,, and pounded out a considerable chunk of pages. I took a brief nap, since its completely acceptable to do so at work because some of the teachers would literally get no sleep seeing as how they never leave. Its so easy to get distracted by the ease at which one can be an Assistant Language Teacher here, but its not always so hassle free. There are times when I am so busy I have to remind myself that I’m not Japanese, and its alright if I go home before everyone else in the office.

Its not really a question. Teaching the English language is something most people only have the patience to do in one or two years, and my experiences thus far have only brought me closer to that decision. Contrary to what one might think, I have a blast with the students, and I try as best as I can to relate to them the subtleties and the infinite permutations of the grammatical structure of my language, but I strongly consider my current occupation as only temporary, a means to achieve loftier ambitions in life. As solid as I am in my beliefs, the distractions and diversions do exist however, and they lure me into behaving like Odysseus once did, as he ventured through the notorious Isle of the Sirens, dangerously flirting with the temptation that would have led him to permanently stay with those winged harbingers of apathy and slovenly desires. Days like today are certainly the embodiment of such enticement. Maybe I too should consider tying myself to the mast of a ship, and order everyone around me to wear earplugs all day long.

Harvest Breed

Early Saturday morning I woke up, got dressed, and was on the road to my first ever rice harvest in some no name village outside of town. One of my teachers in our Japanese Language class owns a rice farm and thought it would be a an excellent idea both for the sake of enriching ourselves with some hands on experience with Japanese culture, and to build some character through the activity of compulsory, unpaid manual labor.






When we reached the fields, I stood amidst a sea of yellow, the color which the rice plants assume when they are ready to be harvested. I now know what Sting was talking about in that song about barley fields.. Equipped only with my bare hands and a miniature scythe with serrated edges, I was well on my way to becoming a full-fledged Japanese farmer. I must admit that after a while, my agrarian activities made me feel as though I were a Medeival peasant, or some feudal serf sacrificing his time and livelihood to a ruling class of nobility, all in exchange for shelter and protection from other hostile fiefdoms.






After a some time went by, I soon realized that clearing this field by hand would take ages. Bending over in the scorching sun, working with no immediate cessation in sight, a strange urge suddenly came over me to start humming a song to the rhythm of my bodily swinging, an old Gospel hymn I remembered from the church-going days of my childhood in the deep South. I immediately stood upright and said to myself, "What the hell?? Why does this all feel so wrong..." It later occurred to me just how funny and also inappropriate that moment was.


After about 30 minutes of work....






After that brief realization, a much needed respite was in order. It took us about 30 minutes of hacking away at the corners in order to make enough room for a small tractor to squeeze through, and clear the rest of field at twice the pace that 50 able-bodied men would have been capable of. Thank God for that. I was beginning to think that this "cultural experience" my Japanese teacher conjured up was a fabrication, a means to get his field cleared and his rice crop out on the market sooner.

Deus ex machina...




Whatever amount of resentment I may have had was immediately put to rest once I saw the reward for our farming efforts. We were treated to a Japanase BBQ of Brobdignagian proportions. Chicken, Beef, Pork, Squid, and a medley of veggies, all slow-cooked and marinated in a sweet, tangy sauce, the taste of which I'll not easily forget. Beef cutlets are a little expensive in the supermarkets, so I mainly devoured what was red and bloody. After the feasting, our teacher wowed us with his fishing expertise, as he adeptly snagged a small fish using a pole without any bait or tackle from an irrigation dike that ran along the perimeter of the rice field. It too was doomed to a fate of a slow-roasted delectability.



The First Course...




At the conlusion of the meal, it turned out to be a bad decision to eat as much as I did, because I had a training session with Renofa, a semi-pro football club based in my prefecture, and add to that my overall lack of fitness, I was not in a position to seriously impress the players or the coaches. In the end, I did reasonably well, but you can be sure that next time I'll use a little more forethought. I'm writing this entry on a bus taking me back to Hagi from the stadium where the training session was, and I have a nice long 3-day weekend to start enjoying.



What the machine did after 20 minutes....


















Now we have enough rice to feed the entire village...

Soccer Tourney in Awajishima

On Friday, after teaching some English at one of the four high schools I’m assigned to, I was on my way to an island near Osaka for a soccer tournament.

The entire senior class of Takamata High School (23 students total)













There were four occupants in the car I was riding in, 2 Americans including myself, and two Brits. The driver is Welsh, and my partner in the backseat, who also happens to be the only Muslim I know who drinks, is a scholarly gentleman who goes by the name of Shak. His vocabulary is so impressive, at times I feel as though I need to bring a Thesaurus in order to converse at his level.

Shak Attack















The other American, whose name I will not mention, is basically that Star Trek enthusiast from The Simpson’s who owns the comic book store (the guy who holds a Master’s degree in folklore and mythology, and who translated The Lord of the Rings into Klingon for his thesis); the 6-hour car ride was very entertaining.




Comic Book Store Owner


After arriving at around midnight, a few of us had some beers before going to bed. I stayed up and met some of the other JET teachers from neighboring prefectures, and tried to size them up in terms of their soccer ability. I remember thinking that although our team wasn’t as strong as I would’ve liked, we should still be able to hold our own. I have never in all my life made more of what would prove to be pernicious prediction.

On Saturday morning, when the first whistle blew, the floodgates opened. We were handed the most vicious romping I’d ever seen, and it immediately reminded of the Ronald Reagan-Walter Mondale election of 1984. The games were only two 15-minute halves long, but by the end, our backs were sore from the constant bending over to pick the ball out of the back of our own net. The only goal I remember being scored on us was the first, because at the start of every game, whatever hope and optimism I had was immediately crushed as soon as soon as the ball rolled past our goal line.

Despite the frustrations, there was some inspiration throughout this ordeal. After the score started climbing to a number that was ridiculous, I had a plan. There is an old schoolyard trick we used in recreational soccer, codenamed "the sling shot”. In this play, at the start of the kickoff, the ball is laid back to a midfielder standing at the edge of the circle who kicks the ball as far and as high towards the opposing goal as possible. It’s the soccer player’s version of a Hail Mary. I was surprised at how well my teammate was able to launch the ball over everyone, and after the fortuitous bounce over the head of the last defender, the goalie charged. I leapt into the air, and laced the most beautiful floater over the outstretched arms of the goalkeeper. The crowd went wild. I lifted my shirt over my head and ran like a madman, as our team celebrated like we had just beaten Brazil in a World Cup final. We were soon brought back to the reality of it all as the other team pounded in a few more goals before the game ended. At the end of the tournament however, there was no amount of scoring we could’ve suffered that would’ve erased the feeling of perfectly orchestrating that wonderful secret play.

After our last game on Sunday, our severely languid bodies could take no more punishment, so we went to a nearby Onsen (Japanese hot spring bath/spa) to soothe our aching muscles and joints. At first, the concept of an Onsen was a little strange to me, but now I’m beginning to feel at ease with the experience of being completely naked in a public bath with Japanese males aged from the infants to the elderly. It is a bit strange to me when some of the dad’s bring their daughters, which is the only time I feel its proper to shield my reproductive equipment from plain sight. Despite it all, there aren’t many moments that can compare to standing stark naked at the edge of a hot-spring pool, thousands of feet above the ground, assuming the likeness of a massive bronze statue commemorating some valiant hero of the past, with chest out, both hands on my hips, proudly displaying my boules d'amour for the entire world to see, and marveling at the beautiful horizon of a Japanese city miles off in the distance. This is one of the more powerful things about being here that it would be impossible to forget.


View of Koube from the Onsen

Memoirs of a School Teacher

I just wanted to share a few interesting things about the first few days of my life as a bona fide teacher. Up until now, I've been going to the beach, wandering around my town aimlessly, finding some really good bars/restaurants to go to, and spending hours sitting naked in my apartment in wanton abandon because its simply too hot for clothes.

On my first day, I pretty much had nothing to do at work, so I busied myself with learning some Japanese, checking the latest soccer reports, keeping up with the U.S. Open, etc.. The entire day was pretty much uneventful. One thing that blew my mind was that after 6th period, a gong went off, and the entire staff room cleared. "Where is everyone going," I thought, as I followed the mass exodus, and I was stunned to see the entire school, students, faculty, administration, principal and vice principal, collecting brooms and rags from closets in the hallway. Apparently, mostly everyday there is designated clean-up time, and no one is exempt. I thought to myself how you would never see this at a school back home. I thought about how lazy we are, and how responsible these young kids must be to live in a place where everyone contributes. Don't be fooled like I was, although they do set aside a regemented time slot for cleaning, there usually isn't much cleaning going on. It was more like standing around with brooms and occasionaly sweeping some dust from one side of the hall to the other, while chit-chatting with the students, but I still think the idea is what counts.

As a side note, I've also noticed that all the soccer fields I've played happen to be of the dirt/sand hybrid types, and at the end of each practice, all the players grab these rake-like tools and cover the entire field, leaving not even a cleat mark as a reminder that somone once played there. Again, I believe this sort of conscientousness would go a long way in America, if we ever had the discipline and the will to do so.

My First Assignment

I've been given several semi-important tasks, but the one I want to share is very special. I was given a stack of 400 essays written by every 2nd and 3rd year student entitled "My Memories of Summer Vacation." Let me pause here so you can reflect on how riveting of an experience it was for me. The English was decent, but there were a few gems in here that I would like to share. The first was an essay written by a young man, and they're all pretty much one page but sometimes there are a few more
sentences on the back.

One student was describing his experience when tasting shaved ice, and at the end of the first page, the student wrote, "The shaved ice was terribly....." As I turned the page over, I read, "dericious!" So the complete sentence read, "The shaved ice was terribly dericious." Say it once in your head to let it soak in. Its not the fact that he replaced the L with an R. Its the fact that he used two completely
contrasting words to describe his reaction to tasting the shaved ice. I was completely expecting it to be terribly awful, or terribly cold, but terribly dericious completely caught me by surprise. I laughed out loud when I read it, and I can only hope my supervisor sitting next to me doesn't think I'm making fun of some of the student's terribly humorous command of English.

I've also noticed that the Japanese curriculum employs many aggressive fighting words when describing certain activites. I'm convinced whoever's in charge of planning how the students are taught English is an ex-warlord. I've heard from colleagues about how students always want "English power", or about how they
have to "overcome the opponent." For instance, another student's essay was describing a tennis match with someone from a rival school. I couldn't find the essay when I went back to look for it, but it pretty much went as follows...

"He was mighty and strong.
I could not overcome his tennis power.
I will train very hard so that I can conquer the fierce opponent next time."

The last essay I'm referencing was both my favorite, and the one that made me a little weary. This student went with his/her family during Obon (Japanese holiday) to the Nagasaki peace park. For those of you who may be unaware, its the site of where the U.S. deployed Fat Man, thus killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and ultimately forcing the Japanese to surrender WWII. The following excerpt is taken verbatim from the essay I was grading:

"Peace park moved me more than anything else.
Many people were killed in the atom.
I looked picture and it felt said.
I found it that war is very afraid.
I can't forgive they who dropped a atom."

The last line is a little eerie don't you think? Should I be afraid that this student is planning a hostile takeover of the classroom one day, demanding my life in order to avenge the deaths of the hundreds of thousands of souls that perished on that terrible day? Maybe not, but I do think that people back home don't think too often about what we actually did.

At our official contract signing ceremony in the capitol of the prefecture, it was coincidentally the anniversary of the day that we dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima. To honor those fallen, we had to stand for 1 minute and reflect in complete
silence. As I stood there thinking about the things you think about when recognizing a moment of silence, an airhorn started up in the distance. After a few seconds, it grew into a howl, and I'm not sure if it was the same for everyone, but an image flashed into my mind of thousands of people hearing the same thing I was hearing, waiting for what should've been a normal airstrike, one bomb going off
somewhere in the distance, with many more sure to follow. If you were prepared, you had a good chance of surviving. This time however, there would've been only a single flash of bright light, and everything within sight would've disappeared as if it had never existed in the first place.

Just as quickly, the flashback was erased from my mind as I was brought back to reality when the airhorn faded out, and the minute was over. The ceremony commenced, and afterwords we had a nice meal at a nearby French restaurant, and took buses back to our respective towns. I just hope that the young student who wrote that essay doesn't hold anything against me.

Peculiar Suggestions

Peculiar travel suggestions are dance lessons from God.

The late Kurt Vonnegut wrote this in his novel Cat's Cradle. I woke up this Sunday morning and a strange feeling of adventure came over me. Perhaps my brain finally convinced my body that it was time to stop sitting in my lonely apartment, wondering what everyone else was doing on the other side of the world. I threw on my adventuring clothes, tossed my camera, journal, and Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain into my backpack, and I mounted my bike for a destination unknown. While I was riding through my town I remembered a spot where you can see nestled high in the mountains,
a cozy little building surrounded by dense vegetation.








Cozy little building













Photo of the building with no zoom





I wondered to myself how the hell I was to get up there? I rode around looking for a suitable route, and I found a hotel about 1/4 of the way to the top of the peak. I ditched the bike because it was getting much too steep, and I remembered I wasn't training for a mountain top finish in the Pyrénées for the Tour de France. I hid my bike in the bushes, knowing full and well that no one would want to find, let alone steal a jalopy like mine.

When I made it to the hotel, I couldn't find a direct way to get to the top, and I almost decided to call it quits and go get some lunch from a nearby curry place. I wandered around the back of the building, and there I saw, off in the distance, a rusted monorail track that went 45 degrees directly to the top of the peak. Next to the rail was a catwalk, which I'm assuming was for the maintenance workers back when this machine was semi-operational. I found the entrance to the ramp next to the monorail, but believe me, upon seeing the kind of condition the building was in, I immediately thought of R.L. Stine's classic, One Day at Horrorland. This ominous looking rollercoaster was certainly the inspiration behind the kind Mr. Stine uses in his masterpiece.














I also found a road that appeared to ascend to the top, but it looked very
lonely and ill-traveled, so I debated which decision would've been the wisest. I came to the conclusion that in the event that something terrible had happened had I chosen the Ramp of Doom, I would obviously choose to take the road less traveled if given a second chance. I am willing to sacrifice a few extra minutes of walking uphill in exchange for the risk of having the ramp give way, sending me on a fall into floral oblivion.








(No thank you)





I was correct in assuming that the road was lonely. It reminded me of a time when I was younger where my sisters and I drove across the Midwest. The only noise I heard was the teeth-grinding caw of nearby crows and a symphony of a thousand secadas. I stopped for a brief rest, and continued until I reached the summit.

What was at the top of this mountain you may ask? What once existed that was so important that a one-car railroad track was built in order to transport passengers up here? What was it that made me seriously debate whether or not I would risk life and limb just to find out what that little building I saw from far below was all about?









It was an old dinosaur kiddie park that looked like it had been shut down for decades. The building I could see from below looked like it was an old classroom or visitor center. I'll admit it was an anticlimatic conclusion, but the exercise and the breathtaking view made my trip worthwhile.
















Photo of Hagi




I stayed for a while, took some photos of my town, and tried to nap underneath a tree. The breeze was just strong enough to prevent me from slipping into the kind of sleep I was looking for, so I read a few pages in Magic Mountain, and started my descent. I chuckled on the way down when I thought about how I made a good decision not to take the ramp. I also thought about that Goosebumps book, and a strong sense of caution overcame me as I remembered how all the books have those dramatic, unforseen twist endings on the last page. No need to worry, I'm safe in my apartment writing this entry as we speak. I just hope those dinosaurs don't come to life tonight and haunt me because I was trespassing on sacred burial grounds.

Athletics Festival Part Deux

This was my absolute favorite part of the day. This event was called Kibasen, and its essentially the Japanese version of a chicken fight. The only difference is that there are three people who lift someone in the air, making for a much more exciting, more intense spectacle. Its the only time during the year that students get the chance to seriously injure a classmate and get praised by the teachers for doing so. For one hour, the laws of primordial nature were restored and it led to one simple truth: only the strong survive. It was a brutal sight, and as for the students, they quickly understood the meaning of this cruel game of survival of the fittest. The word of the day was vengeance.

Hoisted onto the shoulders of their comrades, the teams methodically scour the battlefield for any glimpse of what could be an opponent's weakness. Like a lioness crouched in the grass on the serengeti, waiting for the sick and the old to straggle away from the herd, like ancient generals of war, their decision to attack depends on certain factors. It all comes down to whether or not the opponent is nestled securely on the shoulders of his team, whether or not the mounted warrior appears to possess any raw physical ability, or the mobility--or lack thereof--of the unit as a whole. The smart ones adhere to the philosophy
of strength in numbers, and arrange themselves in a Greek/Roman phalanx formation, a wall of overlapping bodies and arms meant to decrease the vulnerability of each attack unit had they been separate entities. They huddle together forming an impenetrable blockade, whose strength lies in the discipline and the focus of all of the members in the group. They wait patiently until stragglers emerge, and then launch viscious tag-team assaults on their opponents.





Getting ready for the attack.








CHAARRRRGE!!!It begins as the two sides suddenly charge and meet face to face in the center of the battlefield.







The scene is chaotic and the carnage intoxicating.





3 units gang up on and deliver the fatal knockdown blow to one of the stragglers.





Watch as this tenacious warrior quickly and fiercly subdues his opponent, successfully and brutally knocking him to the ground.





Bloody-nosed, bruise-ridden, and semi-concussed, they shake hands and slap high fives after the battle is over.

Athletic Festival Part One

Do not be fooled by this misnomer. It would be difficult to describe the events that took place on the day of this festival at my high school as a festival of sports, other than the fact that there were 100 or so relay races, one of which I participated in. There is no word in english to describe what occurred here, as well as to describe my utter and complete confusion as to how this all makes any sense to Japanese people. Im sure that pictures will suffice. The purpose of this festival is to show off athletic ability, commemorate the pride and the honor of the schoo and its recreational clubs, and to develop strong social connections throughout the schoolwide community.



The student body is split into 4 separate teams of both girls and boys. In the opening ceremony, the teams entered the competition by parading in a military formation around the track a couple of times while the band played a lively march, and then later formed ranks in the center of the field, where the festival offically commenced.









There is nothing quite like 700 Japanese men and women standing at such fierce attention that has the ability to strike fear into the heart of a man, including me.





To kick off the games, everyone (I mean everyone, students, teachers, parents and friends who came to spectate, about 1000 people total) participated in this stretching/calisthenics exercise, while music from something that sounded like Barney and Friends was playing over the loudspeaker. It was...interesting.

There were about 13 different kinds of races, events or other presentations following the opening ceremony. Points were awarded based on the performances,
and at the end of the day, the team with the most points was crowned champion. Most of the presentations were various examples of traditional dances, which all incorporated the Japanese art of Taiko drumming. This part of the show was actually pretty fun to watch because you could tell the students worked unneccessarily hard to pull off such a fantastic performance. This reminds me of a recurring theme I'm beginning to notice that characterizes the work ethic of most Japanese people (not in this particular performance I'd like to point out) They put in more
hard work than anyone else in the world is willing to do only to be able to accomplish something completely unnecessary. You can only imagine my frustration. The other dances were done to the music of "classic" U.S. Top 40's hits such as "Hey Mickey, You're So Fine", and The Village People's "Y.M.C.A." Needless to say, I wasn't really paying any attention once I heard what songs
were being played.









Hayashi-sensei (who also happens to be fluent in French, and with whom I practice Spanish, and what little German I know), was very impressed with the performance.