Ohayo. Ohayo. New Jersey.

Lake Kusharo

The drive out to Nakashibetsu took us about 2 hours.  We drove through Akan National Park, the home of marimo (I could feel the little guy calling out to me).  As we exited a mountain pass, we descended upon Lake Kusharo, the largest caldera lake in Japan.  Fantastik!  Upon our arrival at our campsite about ten of us gathered to go on a hiking excursion.  We embarked on a four hour hike up the 1006 meter Masu-dake.  Interestingly, I found myself the lone American, thus a great conversation piece for the upcoming election.  We reached the top and only had about 15 minutes to chillax before booking it down the mountain before sunset…at 5:30pm.  I’m still amazed at how early the sun rises and sets here—all because of the lack of daylight savings (this certainly made for very early mornings throughout the weekend).  Afterward, we went to an onsen to wash off our grime and had a relaxing soak.  Onsens are natural hotsprings that are converted into baths and soaking pools.  Most are indoors, but they tend to have outdoor pools as well.  That night we soaked in the rotenburo (outdoor onsen) underneath the stars and nearly full moon.  I am a fan.  We returned to the camp and engaged in the debauchery of food and drink that had been in full swing.  There was yakisoba, fireworks, and sangria in martini glasses fashioned from the sawed off plastic bottle tops.  Need I say more?

The mist from Musa-dake

After a late night, I was up at 5:45am listening to someone eating cereal and the giddy excitement of camping elementary school kids.  After burning off the morning, 23 of us had a lesson in taiko drumming from the Shiretoko Taiko Troupe.  Rhythm hasn’t always been my strong suit, but I’m not completely hopeless.  I remember watching taiko when I lived in Japan back in the 80’s.  I was fascinated by it and loved the opportunity to participate for the first time.  I think my preparation in Sapporo with the taiko arcade game proved to be quite helpful.  Aside from the rhythmic factor, there was a grace of movement that was akin to martial arts.  Maybe I should just dig in to taiko and knock out my interest in a Japanese instrument and martial arts with one swoop!  Next on our list was to hit up a famous hotel onsen about 40 minutes away.  That turned out to be easier said than done.  Roads in Japan are not clearly marked and maps can only go so far.  After driving around for about an hour, we got lost and had to regroup.  Our caravan of three cars reconsidered and decided to head out to the coast.  Natsuke peninsula juts out into the Pacific Ocean and curls around much like a shrimp.  Luckily, it was pretty easy to find.  I noted to those in the car that now I’ve looked at the Pacific from “both sides now,” thank you Joni.  AND (!), we could see Russia.  From the peninsula, you can see the closest island in the “Disputed Territories,” aka Kuril Islands.  Now, I can be an expert in foreign policy (thanks Patrick)!  We witnessed an amazing sunset from the beach and watched as the full moon took its place in the sky.  After returning to the camp we decided to take another stab at finding that famous onsen.  This time, we would take a guide with us…ingenious!  After only getting a little lost (it was dark…remember the daylight hours?) we made it to the onsen.  This one had a large outdoor section with tiered pools that are flanked by a small river.  It was a clear night with a full moon.  One of the best moments in Japan yet!   We wrapped up the night kumbayah-style with some songs around a bonfire.  A great, and not at all corny, end to the night.

the beginning of a beautiful sunset

The next morning, we took the long way home and swung through Abashiri to grab some delish Nepalese food from that restaurant there that I am so fond of.  Glorious!  Food coma + late effects of onsen + camping “sleep” + social explosion = early bedtime and a great cap to a good time.

If you know me, you know that I often say that  I go running, but what those runs amount to is never anything to write home about.  Well it looks like Justin may be turning a new leaf in actually being able to run.  Today, my junior high school had its “marathon.”  In this “marathon,” there were two options: a 6 km course or a 10 km course.  Coming in to school this morning I had no that this was happening.  I heard marathon mentioned during the morning announcements and what I can only assume was concern over the fact that it was raining.  But once all the students started to gather in front of the school, I started to figure out that the big race was today.

Throughout the week, the students trained by going on 6 km runs during their gym time.  Now this is the ENTIRE school, not just the cross country running kids.  This is what I found to be so impressive.  Back when I was in middle school, the longest we ever had to run was just 20 minutes (oh Friday run, how I despised thee).  Unless the student had some sort of prohibitive injury, they would do the 6 km even if they had to walk the entire time.  So today, as we gathered outside to prepare for the start of the race, the rain started to stop and we were left with ideal running conditions: an overcast sky and a cool temperature.  As the 10 km group took off, I thought, “Gee wouldn’t it be great if one of the teachers ran along with the students, just for inspiration?”  Then the 6 km group was gathered to start and I noticed that none of the teachers were running—they had to be strategically placed to provide directions along the course.  Then I had another thought, “6 km really isn’t that bad.  I should go ahead and do it.” 

And so I ran home (right next to the school), changed into appropriate running gear, and took off about five minutes after the official start of the 6 km group.  Now since I’ve been in Japan, I’ve been running a grand total of four times.  None of which were even close to 6 km.  I have done upwards to 13 miles in one go, but that was ages ago.  Nonetheless, I was able to catch up with the students and make a decent go of it.  I think I did it in around 33 minutes, which isn’t impressive, but it’s not bad.  My favorite part was running up next to the unsuspecting students and surprising them (bikuri!).  I think they appreciated it and I was even able to motivate some of the walkers into running, at least for a little bit.  I was pretty happy with myself and I think I impressed the teachers as well for diving in.  I’ll have to shoot for the 10 km next year.

One of the neat things about working in the community center is that I am privy to a wide array of community clubs that happen to meet in said community center.  On my days that I work in the Board of Education office at the community center, I can hear music drifting in through the windows and doorways.  Sometimes it’s a choir practicing, other days it’s a brass band, and there are days when it’s traditional Japanese folk music.  One day I heard a bunch of plucking…the twangy sound that’s stereotypical to East Asian music.  I went to investigate and found a group of ladies practicing the koto.  The koto is a bit like a flat harp that you pluck using picks attached to three fingers.  The ones these gals were using were modernized to be much like an autoharp, which are much easier to play than the traditional koto.  On the traditional koto, you have adjustable bridges on each of the 13 strings that are tuned differently according to the needs of the song (much like a harp).  One of the JETs I’ve met here played piano back in Canada and has taken up the koto.  Now there’s an awesome idea!  I have to say though, that I might opt for the shamisen. 

Yesterday, while being interviewed by the local news agency, I kept hearing the banjo-like sounds of the shamisen accompanying some singing.  The shamisen’s closest western cousin is probably the banjo.  It has three strings, a fret-less fingerboard, and is plucked with a large pick.  I decided again to explore and found a circle of old ladies practicing their folk songs to an accompaniment played by the teacher on the shamisen.  They were gracious enough to let me sit in and watch the rehearsal.  What struck me first was the tone of the voices.  One lady in particular had a steely voice with an added rasp that made her sound like an old phonograph recording.  It was unlike anything I have heard before.  In each song, one soloist would sing and there would be a refrain of call and response by the circle of ladies much like Hatian folk music I once studied in college (although, of course, call and response structures are found in folk-music throughout the globe).  The melodic lines reminded me of Mongolian long song that I had once seen performed with its high sustained notes followed by quick flutters in pitch.  It was awesome (original sense of the word). 

And just today, the principal of my middle school explained to me that on November 2^nd, a small orchestra in Kitami, will be performing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and Brahms’ First Symphony.  This makes three orchestras I know of that will be performing Brahms symphonies within a month of each other!  Am I missing something here?     I’m hoping to figure out a way to perform with this orchestra.  Hopefully they’ll be in need of a violist, who happens to not speak Japanese…should make for interesting rehearsals, eh?   So not only will I have a great opportunity for participating in orchestral cultural exchange, but I might be able to get a folk instrument under my belt.  I am going to be so cool (going to be?  I already am!).

Of course, I can only mean middle school (and not the holidays).  I remember having a strong dislike, borderline hate, for middle school.  Everyone is awkward, socially and physically, and you feel like you are in academic limbo.  Luckily for me, middle school was only two years as opposed to the three years it seems to be now in America.  In Japan it is also three years, but it translates to 7^th-9^th grade rather than the usual 6^th-8^th (this means that high school is only three years—10^th-12^th grades).  My school has just fewer than 200 students with two classes of each grade.  In spite of the stereotypes of ridiculously strict and disciplined schools that we hear about so often, I’ve found middle school here to be quite the opposite.  At my middle school, I never see any obvious disciplining of the students, yet the students are mostly well behaved and at worst a bit talkative.  The most remarkable difference I’ve noticed is the student/teacher relationship.   In Japan, teachers are sometimes considered a student’s third parent.  They joke around with each other and have casual interactions.  The students walk right into the teachers’ room (with a little Japanese phrase announcing themselves at the door that I’ve been yet to decipher) and ask questions or make requests with the teacher of their choice.  Another fascinating aspect of schools here is that the teachers are the ones that go from class to class.  In fact, they are often considered guests in the classroom—that’s why the discipline factor seems to be either absent or very much behind-the-scenes. The two classes for each grade stay in the same class group throughout the entirety of middle school.  Another difference is the school lunch.  Everyone, including the teachers, eat the same lunch at the same time of every day.  The homeroom teachers eat with their classes and the rest of the teachers eat in the staff room.  I like to have my meals with the students.  I just pull up a desk at any classroom (no lunchroom here) and the kids are happy to have me.  And as for the food, it’s pretty darn good.  Usually we have some sort of soup, some source of protein, and then a variation on bread.  The school even has a dietician to track the nutritional value of each meal.  Today I had noodle stir fry with a katsu dumpling, a blueberry jam sandwich, and a corn soup with pork, potatoes, and carrots.  Oishii!  (delicious!)      

Last week, we had a sports day to cap a grueling week of testing.  I expected this to be wacky sports where there would be faculty team and we’d all participate in silly competitions including building human pyramids and five-man jump rope.  Nope, apparently that’s later in the school year.  This was all about real, in-the-Olympics, sports.  Selected students from each class were pit against members of opposing classes in volleyball, softball, table tennis, and basketball.  Oh, and there was no teacher team—much to my chagrin.  The teachers kept busy by cheering for their homeroom and by tallying points to determine a winner.  It was awesome to see the inner-athlete come out in the students.  One unassuming and shy girl (probably about 4’10”) turned out to be an absolute terror on the basketball court.  I’m sure she’d have no problem wiping the floor with Sarah “Barracuda.” 

Now, it hasn’t been all fun and games at my middle school (chu gakko).  I have been doing some actual teaching.  For my first lesson with each class, I presented my self-introduction—a serving of Alaska, a dash of Seattle, and a pinch of viola performance.  Voila!  I’ve even incorporated the “Logger Handshake.”  Yesterday I had to do a Q & A session with the first years.  The students prepared questions in English and were so nervous!  I was nervous too because I had to call each by name using a chart written in Japanese hiragana.  Now I know how my teachers felt whenever they got to my name on the roster… pronunciation mishaps abound!  So far, I’ve worked with the 1^st and 3^rd year students and interestingly enough, as a class, the English levels between the two aren’t all that different.  As with any language class I’ve seen, students’ individual abilities are all over the map.  Some of the first years have impeccable pronunciation, while a few of the third years have the lingering syllables of learning English via the katakana alphabet (Japanese alphabet used for foreign words).  Even though they aren’t perfect at speaking, many of the students seem genuinely excited for English class.  They know when I’m teaching and mention it to me in the halls.  Ok, so this excitement may be due in part to my dashing good looks…I’ve got a fan club of several girls in the first year classes who like to say, “I lovah you!” and try to get my picture on their cell phones when I see them outside of school…awww, cute.  With this kind of popularity, who needs to go to medical school?  Japanese Hollywood—here I come!

On the list of things that I miss from home, Thai food is quite close to the top.  I went from eating Thai almost every week back in Seattle to absolutely nothing for six weeks.  Donkey!  Today, though, can go down in the history books as the day that Justin was able to recreate his infamous green curry…in Japan!  Okay, so it really wasn’t that hard.  My predeccesor happened to leave behind two single serving packages of green curry paste…and the local supermarket does have coconut milk.  But the nearest Thai restaurant (read: lady that cooks Thai food and the menu is just one item…depending on the day) is about a  40 minute drive away.  Back in Seattle I had 10 restaurants within a 15 minute walk.  Anyways, long story short – I made green curry.  It was awesome.

Okonomiyaki...on a stick!

Me and the Tanno mascot

So on to the important business.  This festival also happens to mark the debut of the new English teacher—me—to the whole community.  Oh and here’s the best part.  Part of my introduction had me doing the mochi makki, the mochi toss.  (For those of you that don’t know, mochi is pounded rice and sometimes has a red bean filling.  We’ve got the mochi ice cream back in America…mmm).  While standing up on stage, along with other high ranking city and town officials, I stand in front of a box filled with individually wrapped packages of mochi.  When the emcee gives the signal, we start tossing armfuls of mochi into the audience.  There are literally thousands of little mochi packets flying through the air and the crowd scrambles to get as many as they can.  Mochi madness! 

I spent the rest of the festival eating yakiniku (along with the entire town).  This actually led to one of my more adventurous culinary excursions.  While we were barbecuing, I noticed that everyone kept eating this whitish meat…it looked a lot like fatty pork and I just assumed it was fatty pork cheek.  So I grabbed a piece, dipped it in some sauce, and tried to eat it.  It was just kind of salty and extremely chewy…hmmm.  I sat there chewing it for about five minutes.  I thought to myself, “Animal fat usually isn’t this chewy.”  And after repeated efforts to swallow what was now a rubbery mass I just took it out of my mouth and placed it into the coals.  I was a little embarrassed that I couldn’t finish it.  However, one of my JET friends met up with me just after the chewing ordeal and I related the story.  He happens to speak Japanese very well and asked the folks I was with what exactly it was that I just ate.  “Harumon,” they told him.  Then I asked what that meant and he just said, “You don’t want to know.”  So of course after hearing that, I had to know.  Turns out I just ate, or tried to eat, pig colon.  Mmmm.  I suppose that not knowing what exactly it is that you are eating is the best way to try exotic foods.  At least now I can say that I’ve tried it.

Here are some other noteworthy events at the matsuri:

1.        Water Rodeo where people joust each other off a big long log and into a pool of water.  This was like Japanese game show meets American Gladiator.  Very entertaining. 

2.       Live action anime show for the kids.  They even did a musical number.  Wow.

3.       Marching band.  They were from the high school I teach at.  I was impressed, although I’m no expert on marching band technique. 

4.       More food on a stick!

Festivals in Japan are about as ubiquitous as the apologies built into the language.  There’s one going on somewhere almost every weekend.  In fact there are two in neighboring towns this weekend.  The fun never stops.  Look for me in the Curry Rice Marathon at the end of September.  Who knows what could happen with a title like that!

Genki dancers

Ready, set, go! Immediately upon my return from the wonderful world of Sapporo Orientation I was thrust into the limelight, literally, at my middle school at 8am the next morning. Whenever a new teacher starts at any school, s/he has to give a brief introduction to the entire school. And, in spite of my inability to speak Japanese, I had to give this speech in both English and Japanese. Luckily, there are standard lines in Japanese for this sort of introduction and I was able to just read that. It’s something along the lines of: “Hello everyone. My name is so and so. I’m from yadda yadda. I am proud to be here and look forward to the honor of working with everyone. I apologize in advance for whatever trouble I may have adjusting and please be nice to me. Thank you.” Soo Japanese. After my little spiel, a student representative came up and gave a short speech in English on behalf of all the students. It was super cute and I could totally feel the love. I think I’ll like this place.

Last week I had to do the same introduction at my elementary school and then at my high school. The high school one went as expected, but only had to give the speech to the teachers. The elementary school…oh the elementary school. Here’s a summary:

I walk into the school with someone from my office. I sit down with the principal and vice principal and do some small talk. Then I give my little speech to the teachers. So far, so good. It’s just the same as the other schools. Then we all head for the gym to give the big intro to the whole school. As I walked into the gym, a girl proceeds to run at me and then head butts me in the stomach. Cute, right? I get up to do my speech and the same girl is running around playing submarine in front of the stage…looks like fun. Speech is given, although I don’t know if the students understood the formal Japanese, but it goes fine just as with the other schools. Next, Justin walks off stage and next thing I know I run full on into head-butt girl and elbow her solidly on the dome. Laugh, laugh, laugh…*oh my god did I just give an 8 year old a concussion?* Turns out that she was fine and she does the head butting a lot. Go figure. We return to the principal’s office for some more small talk. Two minutes in, I notice a green-shirted little guy roam into the office from the hallway. He proceeds to shuffle about the room—“Go ahead little guy. Yeah, that’s right, just sit in the big cushy chair.” Then he slowly makes his move toward me and latches on to my arm. Laugh, laugh, laugh…*Thank god he’s not doing this with his teeth.* Green-shirted boy is then ushered out of the room by one of the teachers. And thus wraps up my visit to the elementary school. I actually don’t know how much time I will be spending there, especially since English education at that level is just getting started, but I look forward to what other zany adventures may ensue whilst teaching there.

PS: A few days after writing the above, I was asked to chaperone a small field trip for the third graders at the elementary school. All I knew was that we would be on a bus driving around my town to see some historical sites. Sure! Little did I know, but among the third graders, head-butt girl lurked in the shadows. Luckily, on field trip day she had mellowed out quite a bit. She took to asking lots of questions (few of which I barely understood) and untucking my shirt. The kids were also quite fascinated with my “muscles.” Take that as you will. I found it quite funny. The kids were great though. They insisted that I read any English that they had on their clothing, which nearly everyone had, and then they grilled me on my ability to read Japanese. So on to the actual field trip. We saw what I think is the oldest oak tree in Japan. The kids loved it. It took over twenty of them holding hands to stretch the circumference of the tree. Many of them would pat the tree as if they were communicating with it and then would investigate its bark looking for insects. When we wrapped up the field trip, I was seen off with dozens of “Sayonara Justin-sensei!” and “Bye bye Justin-sensei!” It is adorable. This is why I love working with kids.