Ohayo. Ohayo. New Jersey.

My international driver’s license is set to expire at the end of July, and unless I want to repeat the mistakes of other ALTs, I’ll be taking the test for my Japanese driver’s license this month.  Just to set the scene…pretty much only Americans have to take the driver’s test to switch over to a Japanese license.  Folks from any of the Commonwealth countries (New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Britain, etc) and some other countries are lucky enough that they can switch over with just an official translation of their original license.  Apparently it’s based on the supposed difficulties of the respective country’s driver’s tests, but I have my suspicions.  From day one, I have heard horror stories of the wacky and absurd Japanese driver’s test and the ominous presumption that no one ever passes it on the first go.  I took these warnings with a grain of salt, especially since I had at least three friends that had passed the test their first time.

Now, heh, well…people were certainly not understating the screwiness of this test.  I had my first lesson, at 7am (!) on a workday, and boy howdy was it frustrating.  First, these little lessons are expensive, so that’s already under my skin.  Next, there are innumerable quirks that I have to remember each time I get into the car and get out of it.  Walk behind the car, not in front.  Check in front of the car for any sleeping hobos.  Before you open the door, look both ways.  Getting into the car feet-first is a BIG no-no.  When you close the door from the inside, only close it most of the way and look back again to check for those on-coming cyclists.  Adjust your seat.  Put on your seatbelt.  Check your mirrors (no glancing here, actual physical touch is required).  Put your foot on the brake.  Start the engine.  Release the emergency brake.  Put the car in drive.  Turn on your blinker (or as my instructor called it, “winker.”  *chuckle chuckle*).  Check around starting from your back left to your back right.  Then slowly pull out.  Yikes!  And that’s only to get out of the parking enclave.  So no doubt, as you can see, this is a MAJOR pain in the ass.  I don’t know yet if there are minor infractions you can get away with or if everything is a major “DA-ME” and you fail if you forget one thing.  My instructor was very thorough, which was nice, BUT she kept on using the brake and putting her hands on the steering wheel so it often felt like she was doing the important parts.  And of course, lacking the language facilities to request otherwise, I had a subpar learning experience.  The good news is that she didn’t think I was incompetent and thought I would be definitely ready for the test after one more lesson (that’s another 60 bucks for her).

I’ll leave you all with my favorite little tidbits from the lesson:

1. Hug the curbs so you can be sure to hit those kids on bikes if they suddenly move off the path.  Not really, but seriously, they want you to be within 50cm of the curb.
2. Use your blinker/winker a LOT.
3. No brakes allowed on turns.

Good luck!

Update: You can add another name to the list of folks that passed the test the first time!  Woo hoo.  I’m now an officially licensed Japanese driver.  You know what that means!  I can do ANYTHING! (so long as I have my hazards on)

The weather’s warmer and that means it’s time for field day!  The middle and elementary schools all burst alive with their 運動会 (undoukai—literally, exercise meet).  I hear people calling it a ‘sports day,’ but really, there isn’t anything all that sporty about it.  Although there are 100 meter dashes and a 1200 meter relay race, it’s filled mostly with wacky races.  It’s definitely more of a throwback to field days I had in elementary school and even the crazy WACKO games we had in high school. (WACKO was a sort of wacky olympics we had in high school where each grade level, and the teachers, would compete against each other for the crown.)  For two or three weeks prior to the festival, usually around the end of May and beginning of June here in Hokkaido, the classes practice in the afternoons to get ready for the big day.

Ok.  So get this.  I think it’s quite ironic how Japan always seems so bureaucratically safe in everything from their absurd driver’s test to their extremely low speed limits.  But unofficially, they’re a reckless and impetuous people!  They drive around with televisions in their cars and their kids balanced on the dashboard (no joke).  Or they drive 50 cm from a curb so as to be sure not to miss that mis-stepping pedestrian.  Oh, and remember the old people?  Anyways, for field day they have a race called the kawa kudari.  It consists of a student walking on top of his classmates backs as they bend over using a long pole for support while the students recycle through for about 200 meters.  The kids are about a meter up in the air running across their classmates’ backs as fast as possible.  Oi.  It’s a mouthful of smashed teeth waiting to happen.  (Amazingly, nothing bad happened from the numerous practices to the actual competition)  Then there’s also the crazy seven man leg-tie train race.  The students stand in small lines of seven or eight and all of their right and left legs are tied together respectively so they have to coordinate right steps and left steps with shouts of “one” and “two.”  Now in this one, as soon as they get going, one person tripping leads to all the others in front to eat shit.  I will admit though that this was my favorite one to watch because a group could just be trucking along and next thing you know they’re flat on the ground.  It’s good for a laugh.

Just like golf and baseball games, field day is subject to the weather.  They postpone to the next day in case of rain.  The presence of fireworks at 6am the morning of indicate whether or not the field day will happen.  The morning of our field day, I could hear the rain on my roof before the fireworks were set to fire.  6:00am rolled around and boom, boom, boom.  Field day was a go.  We’re rugged Hokkaido folk that won’t let a little rain get in the way of our field day!  By the time I arrived at school, the rain had abated.  Field day was held out on the school field or “ground” as they call it.  Families lined the sidelines, each had pitched their own tents and coverings in case the rain returned.  As with any event here in Japan, there was an opening ceremony and speeches, then we launched into our collective calisthenics.  For the group exercise, they used a recording with a piano that sounded like it was from 1950.  It’s another comical moment as the students’ enthusiasm for the senior aerobics-esque exercises vary from person to person.  Arms fly around, there’s some jumping, and I think there was even a move to make sure your dentures stayed in place.

We had made it through the major (legitimately competitive) races and the tug-of-war (!) when the rain started to come down again.  At first it was just on and off sprinkles, but soon, it turned into a decent shower.  Determined to press on, we continued.  Eventually, pretty much everyone was soaked to the bone and we decided to cut the beloved folk dance (that was a weird event, I admit) so we could wrap up early.  One of the third year classes had emerged victorious and posed with the winning trophy next to the scoreboard.  In spite of the rain, or maybe even because of it, we had a fun (and quick) field day.  The students all open up more for these non-academic activities and it’s great to interact with their toothy smiles and upbeat energies.  Too bad they have their big midterms the next week…

Later, at the post-event party, I suggested to the teachers that there should be a faculty relay team next year.  They laughed at the suggestion and agreed, but only if I ran three legs of it.