Goodbye Yoshino

After a bout of travelling, the new academic year was upon us once more. Only this time I was one school down. Yoshino, the smallest school in Nanyo, with exactly 20 students in the whole three year groups, has finally been closed down. I have such fond memories of Yoshino, which was the first school I went to when I started teaching. The drive to the school was amazing - passing along mountain after mountain with rice fields and quaint rustic houses along the way.

There was a wonderful sense of community in Yoshino. The students were quite but always engaged. They were one big family, and they welcomed me too. I took part in their sports days, culture festivals, teacher enkais - and it was so calm and unlike all the bigger schools. Despite this, it was most likely not financially worth keeping it open anymore. Nanyo invested in a bright pink school bus to take the remaining children to the much bigger Miyauchi JHS about 20 minutes away. And then there were six. The next year - three more schools (the smallest ones) will close, leaving only the three big ones left. The big ones are great, and the kids are much more confident and the schools is more bustling, but you don't get the same sense of community as the smaller schools (and I have a better chance of remember at least some of their names) so I better start making the most of my time with the rest of the schools!

Goodbye Yoshino! I'll not forget you!

My last visit was in November - it was a bit early for snow, but it makes for some wonderful picture around Yoshino!

The first grade class - no issue with over-crowding!

Someone, whilst cleaning the floors had left a heart shape and rubbed out 'Yoshino' inside it.

A Yorkshire invasion in Tokyo

My mum came back to Japan, for the second time, with my aunty Chris, her older sister. My dad was quite clear on the fact that he wasn't prepared to eat any more raw fish, drink green tea, and most importantly spend half a day inside an airplane. Whilst mum said she was coming over more to see me, than Japan. My aunty Chris was both equally looking forward to seeing me, and quite excited and quite nervous as to what Japan would have in store for her. (Mum was obviously a seasoned Japanophile by then).

I met them in Tokyo, and we arrived just in time to see the cherry blossoms in Tokyo in full bloom. We were all so lucky as it made Tokyo so much more charming! The weather had been perfect while the blossoms were blooming around the Kanto(Tokyo) area, so they were probably in very good condition this year. I told my mum and aunty Chris to bring some warm clothes because usually at that time the weather is still quite chilly, especially in Yamagata. But they were so lucky! Pretty much throughout the entire time they were in Japan, the weather was glorious.

We spent a few days in Tokyo, and did all the things you're supposed to do in Tokyo (my goodness I know that city well now), we went to Sensouji Temple, and a found a MASSIVE pair of reed sandals that were reportedly from Murayama City - in Yamagata hanging on one of the large gates of the temple.

We visited Rokugi-garden, a traditional Japanese garden which both my guests really enjoyed, went on a boat ride along the Sumida river, and went on an illuminated Ferris Wheel at night. I can't really say that boat ride is the one of the nicest boat rides you can go on, but particularly whilst the Blossoms were in bloom, it was nice to see them glittering in the sun in rows along the river.

We also went to Kawagoe, which is a little way out of Tokyo, but was a charming little historically-mainted town. I'd been to Kawagoe before when I went to visit a friend, but being able to speak more of the language and read more meant I could get a bit more out of the place this time. We tried to walk a bit further up to see 'a castle' that the map was advertising, only to be extremely disappointed that it was 'under repair'. Not wanting to wasted a second waiting for buses and such, as soon as we realised the castle was VOID, I quickly noticed a bus coming our way, and then noticed that the bus stop was a little back behind us. Shouting 'A BUS IS COMING, RUN!' to my bewildered dear mum and aunt, I legged it for the bus. It was a small old fashioned looking 'tourist-route' bus with a group of old ladies sitting at the back, and two gentlemen.

Luckily the bus stopped for me, and I ran on with eyes that said more than I could have said in such a short space of time which was basically 'Please mr bus driver, don't drive off without my dear mum and aunty, leaving them stranded in a country where all they can say is 'Hello' and 'Thank you' and even then they get those confused sometimes'). I made a bit of joke to the old ladies who were chuckling at me being out of breath, cheering to my mum and aunt in Japanese 'Come on! Run Run!'). Always the charmer in any language, once my mum and aunt had successfully made it on to the bus, we were off, and the old ladies seemed rather excited that I could speak Japanese to them. We chatted about alsorts and they told me with fervour about where they had come from, and where they had been that day. Rather unusually for Japanese people - because I spoke Japanese they seemed to assume I could read Japanese fluent, thrusting me copies of their Japanese brochures on the temples they visited (which always have incredibly rare and unusual chinese characters and words).

That bus journey was so fun - perhaps because of the size of the bus, there was a rather cheerful and bustling atmosphere aboard. Everyone got off the bus smiling and glowing - and I thought I even saw a little smile from the bus driver too. Afterwards, my mum and aunt asked me why the people on the bus were so interested and eager to talk to you. Not trying to sound special or anything, I guess for them it was a nice opportunity to speak to someone they could understand, and learn some first hand experience of what a foreigner thought of their country, and get a first hand impression of my own country. True internationalization at its best eh? I'm going to find it slightly hard to give up the ol' ambassador role (An honour from the Queen here I come!!!!)

Our last night was spent on the top floor of the New York Bar, listening to some top class Jazz, and sipping on some good drinks in a classy environment - they'd a good variety of what Tokyo had to offer. Next it was time for the REAL japan experience.

Chinatown, Churches and Champon

Holiday time again! Woooo! This time I went with my friend Rebecca alllll the way down to the South of Japan - not quite the tip, but almost. We went to Kyushu which is the third largest island of Japan's main four. Our trip entailed visits to Nagasaki, and an island called Yakushima. Nagasaki was on my 'list of places to see before I leave Japan' list - I was really interested in the influence of its historical port around the city, and turbulant history with Jesuits, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese and various other peoples from around the world.

Nagasaki is a charming city. It has lots of character and atmosphere and a slightly european feel to it as well. You can walk down nicely laid stone paths by the riverside, the often higgledy-piggeldy lack of colour coordination that you regularly see in Japanese houses, actually makes Nagasaki a little similiar to the various colours of Prague. Nagasaki has two large hills that surround it to make it a sort of valley. From either side you can walk up and admire the view.

Colourful houses and buildings crawl up the hills around Nagasaki.

KAWAI COOKIES!

This is an artists interpretation of what riding the ropeway up to see the view of Nagasaki is like!

Nagasaki from the top of the ropeway in the evening. A bit chilly, but a lovely view!


We visited a Chinese temple 'Sofukuji' which was refreshing from the TEMPLE OVERLOAD you can often get whilst in Japan. We also went along to Glover Garden - a series of European influence houses and gardens built for a Scottish Entrepeneur who helped contribute to the modernization of Japan.

Rebecca shows off Sofuku Temple

Glover Garden had a load of really big Koi, some of the biggest I've seen so far (this ones for cousin Nick!)

Being the kind and considerate English ALTs that me and Rebecca are, we pretended to be some random tourists and approached a group of girls to ask if they would take our photo! A bit shocked by our approach we started talking to them, which apparently gave them license to include us in their school trip memories! We bumped into them again a bit later, when they had a photo taken with Rebecca instead!

The cherry blossoms were just starting to come out in Nagasaki.

Posing as models in the european house!

The nicest places for me were the churches around Nagasaki. I miss all the beautiful churches we have in England, all the interesting architecture and the interesting histories surrounding the many churches. From the time when the Portuguese landed in Kyushu and started teaching the Japanese about Christianity, Nagasaki has always had a high concentration of Christians living there. We visited two churches - the first being the the only church which is a national treasure in Japan 'Oura Church- which was apparently built in a gothic style, but to me looked a little lacking in character. The nicest church was Urakami Cathedral, which used to be the biggest in East Asia until the Atomic bomb was dropped on the city. It was built on the ground where, during the ban on Christianity, every resident in the area was made to trample on an image of either Jesus Christ or Mary, and if they showed signs of relutance, or refused to step on the image they were identified as Christians (brilliant detection system eh?!) - if they didn't abandon their faith, they were tortured or executed, and apparently some were even chucked into the nearby volcano!!!

Oura church looks quite nice from the outside...but not so striking from the inside.

Compared to the Oura church which was located closer to shops and other attractions, Urakami Cathedral was quieter, and I thought it had a lot more character and charm to it. The hall was bigger and broader, the stained glass was more colourful and interesting. I walked in and saw an elderly man and woman cleaning the pews and vacuuming the carpet with great care and attention. I felt that same feeling of peace and tranquility that I often get inside churches back at home. It was really refreshing and nice to feel like you had stepped out of Japan for a little bit. Whilst you had to pay to enter the 'Oura church' (which was over-priced if you ask me!) you didn't have to pay to enter the Urakami cathedral - so I decided to buy a little brochure and postcard from a nice eldery man at the reception desk. He told us (as many people often do when we're on holiday) that he was relieved we could speak some Japanese, and told us about a smaller chapel at the side of the cathedral. Inside this chapel was a large alter and in the centre was a very bruised and disifigured head. It When the Atomic bomb was dropped, quite near to the Cathedral, the Cathedral was completely destroyed, and 30 of its worshipers and two priests were inside the church at the time. When people returned to search through the rubble after the bomb - somebody found a head of a statue of the Virgin Mary still in tact, and when the Cathedral was rebuilt, the head has since been kept there as a reminder of the tragic incident, as well as for others to pray to. The catherdral had a load of interesting history!

Urakami Cathedral

So enough about churches, Nagasaki has one of the biggest Chinese communities in Japan too, and I think Nagasaki's Chinatown is better than Yokohama's! Really cool Chinese-imitation design buildings, gorgeous aromas of Chinese food and we enjoyed the local delicacy 'Champon' which is actually a strange noodle fusion of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and who knows what else influence. It was originally just a cheap dish to satisfy the tastes of Chinese scholars who came over to study, but in Japan EVERY place needs a '名物' or a speciality. Usually you have a famous food/dish, famous drink and famous reason to visit! And everybody goes specifically to do, eat or drink those things. It's very easy to 'do as the Japanese do' and have an urge to do all the things the Japanese recommend you do in a certain place!

Chinatown was really grand and colourful

We also met a few Nagasaki ALTs, which is always interesting to see the differences between ALT communities, and after a few drinks, a bit of pool and of course Karaoke..we stayed up a bit too late, and had about 4 hours sleep before we had to get up very early in time for our next part of the trip - even FURTHER down south!

The Nagasaki Peace Park and museum was a little bit nicer than Hiroshima, only because it wasn't crowded at all and a lot more calm and sombre.

IYA!

I found this bizarre touristy mutation where you could apparently pray to a giant piece of sponge cake called 'Casutera' - this is the mascot of Nagasaki.

We went a bit crazy while at the observation deck on the mountain, perhaps over our excitement of how awesome Nagasaki was. And we attracted the attention of some other Japanese folk who wanted to take part in our crazy shenanigans!

Illiteracy isn't cool, kids.

As an English literature student, who spent many a time scrutinizing the subtle meanings and differences of various words, and relying on my understanding of my langauge to make sense of various opinions and arguments I wanted to make. Coming to Japan, one day sitting on the train, it suddenly dawned on me that I was virtually Illiterate!

I had gone from enjoying the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare to wondering what the heck those lines and squiggles might mean.

One of the things that helped increase my fascination in Japan was its poetry. Everybody will most likely have heard of 'Haiku' and perhaps 'Tanka', perhaps famous poets like 'Bassho' and perhaps 'Issa'. The more I read, and read about Japanese poetry, the more the language became interesting to me. I discovered that Japanese was a syllabic alphabet - using clear cut syllables such as 'ka', 'nu', 'to', 'shi' etc. etc. to spell and pronounce vocabulary. This fit well with the strict rhythmic structure (which is supposedly a bit more complicated than the simple 5, 7, 5 structure many might be familiar with for Haiku-style poems). And it became clear to me that Japanese was a pretty elliptical language, causing for (my favorite current useless word in Japanese at the moment) 閑寂枯淡 kanjakukotan - which apparently means : aesthetic sense in Japanese art emphasising quiet simplicity and subdued refinement. (how romantic and difficult to understand eh?!).

But then you delve a bit deeper in to the Japanese language and you begin to understand that it uses not one script like English does (ie. the latin alphabet) but FOUR. The latin alphabet (romaji) two Japanese-originated scripts (hiragana, katakana) and the dreaded Chinese characters (kanji). Over the many hundreds of years since these characters were introduced from China - they have evolved into very different forms. Everybody looks at Kanji.....and most people run for the hills upon first sight! There are over 6000 Chinese characters - but only about 2000 that are most commonly used (and part of a government created list which ensures newspapers and important documents/announcements use only those characters). Japanese 'kanji' are typically considered harder to get to grips with than Chinese 'kanji' because they usually have more than one way to say the same kanji. Most likely the thing that people first think when they embark upon Japanese study is.....where do I start....

From the age of 6 years old Japanese students begin their journey of about 9-12 years of tedious 'Kanji' study - repeatedly writing out the characters in the right stroke order, and remember the various ways to say each kanji. (Some kanji have up to about 12 readings!)

HOWEVER, don't think this is intended to put anyone off learning Japanese - quite on the contrary. I want to tell you that its possible - and that it is actually one of the most logical scripts I think I've seen!

Let me explain:

here is the character for light: 光 - (my apologies if your computer won't read Japanese...this post kind of relies on it for purposes of explanation)

the Japanese reading for 光 is 'hikari', but the Chinese reading for 光 is 'ko-'. If you find 光 on its own (without another kanji next to it) then you will undoubtedly use the Japanese reading, but if you see another kanji next to 光 for example 観光 (sightseeing) you will read the 光 part as 'ko-' (the word in Japanese is kanko-), this is the same for 栄光 (glory)、光栄 (honour)、月光 (moonlight) You will always use (kou-)!

Once you understand this key - you being to realise that Japanese is extremely flexible in terms of creating a plethora of words. And learning how to read Japanese becomes so much easier.

In other instances you just simply have to remember the different ways to say a particular kanji (just like in English, usually the most common words are the ones that have loads of exceptions or complications too!)

One of my favourites is 下 'shita' - the character for 'down'. With the kanji on its own you can read it two ways　shita, or shimo

Put it next to some Japanese and you can read it as: o, sa, ku

Put it next to some different kanji and you can read it as: ka, or ge

And in those instances you just have to remember when to use which reading! But it sounds more difficult than it is, there is always some kind of system...

So if you have the desire and determination to read Japanese, you two can do it. I once was one of those people who thought I would only be able to possibly remember 10 or so kanji. But it was particularly on my latest trip in Japan that I realised 'By eck, I can more or less read and understand all this Japanese around me!' and its so ace! What was once a restrcited land full of things I couldn't read or understand has now become a world of opportunity and satisfaction resulting in such expressions as 'Ah so THAT'S where the car park is' and 'oh it's open on THAT day' and 'Ahh I CAN'T drink this!' We often take our reading abilities so much for granted - we don't realise how much we can do being able to read and write and express ourselves!

The next stage after reading, is not just to recognise them when you see them, but to have them ingrained in your mind and be able to write them in the correct stroke order....but lets not jump more hurdles than we need to for now!!!

Planet of the monkeys

I have more than once expressed a developed anxiety regarding travel in Japan. Everything runs to the second (usually!!) and does not wait for anyone! So, feeling rough and a little hung over, we wake up early to catch the tram, and then the train. Unfortunately we failed to realise that it was the start of a long 3-day weekend in Japan, which means that transport gets very busy. Luckily though, not only are we more sufficient in the ways of speaking Japanese, but we are more sufficient in ways to get those Japanese folks out of our way and get a seat...most of the time!


Our expert operation goes something like that (waiting in the long queue for the train doors to open...)


Me: Right, Bex, I'll handle all the big luggage and find a place to store it, you grab the first two seats you can find.


Rebecca: Ah, but the queue is massive! I'll try and push in front of a few people.


Me: Spare nobody. Ready? GO!


I would say for most of the journey we got some seats while other poor chaps we made to stand up in the aisles. It was very packed...half of India seemed to join us for the journey half-way too....



In Kyushu, the Shinkansen is still being built - often the quickest way to get from A to B is to go straight, unfortunately Japan has lots and lots of mountains in the way, so building something like the Shinkansen costs a LOT of money (probably why Shinkansen tickets are so expensive to pay for it all) and takes a lot of time. SO we hopped on to the three years old, not-quite completed (only half way or so) Kyushu Shinkansen called 'Tsubame' which means 'Swallow' (the bird!) in English. That was a nice train, furnished like your mum would furnish out her best room (although maybe she wouldn't use a albeit fancy, very durable kind of linoleum on her floor in that room...)



Finally after a four hour train journey we had little time to spare before we could catch the ferry over to Yakushima. All in all the journey was about 6-7 hours. Needless to say we were a little exhausted. When we arrived we decided to rent a car. At the reception desk of the building we were helped by two fantastic little ladies who totally surpassed normal knowledge levels of foreigner-stereotypes. When they discovered we could speak some Japanese, every reference to us (to anyone - to people waiting next in line, to the rent-a-car man on the phone) was 'these foreigners who can speak amazing Japanese'.

Our awesome island cruiser!
Finally with our lovely little LITTLE car, we were ready to cruise around the island and get to our hostel on the south of the island. We were exhausted. But, lucky for us, we had the energy after something to eat to visit the 'Kaichu onsen' which means 'Hot bath in the sea'. A series of rock pools, RIGHT by the sea contain naturally heated water which only during low tide can you enter. It was amazing. On the first night, there were no clouds in the sky, so there we were - out in the open, in a rock pool of really warm water, hearing the waves lap all around us, staring up at the sky of amazing bright stars. It was a fantastic experience. And because it was a mixed onsen, it wasn't as popular as it could have potentially been.

Yakushima is famous for being Japan's first world heritage site, and for Cedar trees that are thousands of years old. It's an island with beautiful lush thick forested mountains, small quiet villages and lots of monkeys and deer. We hiked, saw beautiful massive waterfalls, went to the beach and went to lots of 'onsen' hot baths. It was a really relaxing time.

I love how Japanese this photo is! Taken by a Japanese person, us in a Japanese photograph pose, and a very well layed out arrangement of elements in shot!

Getting in a beachy/surfing mood.

We also wanted to swim. The weather wasn't very warm, but we were determined to swim. Needless to say, when we went to the beach one day, we were the only people swimming in the sea, and we didn't stay in too long. In fact, it seemed other people who had come to walk on the beach or admire the beach were being entertained by the crazy foreigners who decided to enter the water. But it was still great fun, and the beach was beautiful.

The oldest tree on the island is estimated to be some 5000-7000 years old and called 'Jomon Sugi'. However, the hike takes about 10 hours to do, and we didn't have the time for it, nor the motivation. The oldest tree that was saw was about 3000 years old, which we thought was good enough! The island was so tranquil and working around the forests, all you saw was beautiful greens, browns and blues, and all you heard was bird calls, rushing water and the wind. Whilst we drove, there really weren't so many cars, and on the roads we often encountered 'Yakusaru' - the monkeys that live on the island. 9 times out of 10 they just seem to sit at the side of the road and groom one another, whilst curiously staring at the cars as they drive back. Occaisionally we'd stop to try and take a good look at them, or take some photos. It seems the 1 out of 10th time, sometimes the monkeys get a little bit annoyed for some reason or other. So when we slowed down to look at a lone monkey (he was alone, and he looked a little grumpy now we reflect back) - all of a sudden he charged so quickly at the car causing Rebecca to scream in shock, and me to put the pedal down on our lawnmower-engine type car. We survived the attack, laughing so hard at how shocked and panicked we were, once we had escaped the near-fatal monkey attack. Other than that, it was great to see all these monkeys and deer roaming about the place.

This was a typical scene on the island - piles and piles of trees, and random monkeys and deers roaming about the place thinking they own it!

Most of the monkeys were cute, and excellent photograph material. Unfortunately our angry-monkey friend wasn't keen on the idea of a photo-shoot... but here is a rough idea of what the monkey looked like!! (monkey to scale in drawing...)


Having had a good few days on the island, it was time to go back to the Kyushu mainland. On the same day we were planning to fly back to Tokyo, we very carefully scheduled a cheeky trip to a place called Ibusuki to try out a sand bath - whereby, on the beach, you are completely covered (all except your head) in warm-to-hot volcanic sand, and there you stay sweatin' it out for about 10 minutes or so. Another good Japan experience to add to my book! You feel pretty refreshed and liberated once you escape from that sand coffin, and we were ready to get out of Kyushu and closer to home!

We had done SO WELL to fit everything into our tight schedule. 99.9% of the time you can totally rely on Japanese efficiency, but to add a damper to our holiday, our flight was delayed by TWO HOURS. Our holiday didn't quite stop once we got the plane back to Tokyo - we had planned to see American artist Beck play in Tokyo in the evening of the same day we flew back to Tokyo - so the delay meant that we missed about half of the concert! Gutted!

Oh well, you win some and you lose some - overall this Kyushu holiday was a big success! Kyushu rocks!

Word in the nursery

Every now and then I'm asked to go and spend a day at the nursery playing some games and letting the small kids dip their toe into the warm and beautiful sea that is English. 

Whilst this sounds awe-inducing, it is not so easy planning a lesson for 3-5 year olds who are only just getting to grips with their native language, let along this bizarre completely-unintelligible new language that this 'alien' is speaking! I have immense respect for nursery teachers and infant teachers to sustain levels of energy day after day! (20 minutes with 3 year olds seemed like a whole day!) 

But despite the planning it was great fun, and as you'd expect, kids are the same no matter which country you're in. After learning a bit of English with them, we ate dinner together. The kids would ask me such brilliant questions like 

'What is soo-paa mario burusaa-s in English?' (A lot of Japanese computer games use English titles with Japanese pronunciation ...)

'Well, it's Super Mario Brothers!'

'What is pokemon in English?

'Well, it's Pokemon!'

The kids put their hands together before the meal for the customary 'itadakimasu' (Thanks for the meal!)

Now my Japanese is pretty good now, and I go to nursery school thinking - 'Ha! It'll be so easy to understand the little kids because I'll have a better grasp of Japanese than they do!'. This is of course wrong. The nursery kids are the ones I have the hardest time understanding, because of course they're still learning their own language. But it's so lovely to see their little faces trying to make sense of why I can't understand them when they ask me one particular question.

In other news: Japanese kids love dinosaurs and building things, and the girls love drawing and writing letters (I got a few little letters in the playtime between dinner and afternoon session!). The most popular thing to play with, was these kind of old-fashioned looking spinning tops. There is a cartoon from Japan I believe, called 'Beyblade', which is about spinning tops fighting other spinning tops (I generalize quite severely!) - well these spinning tops are kind of on that same theme.

Showing off their super spinning top gadgets!

They're made of wood with a think piece of string wrapped around them which you wrap around the top, and then flick the top on to the ground and pull on the string to make it whizz around really fast. It's not terribly interesting, but a lot of people's ideas of Japan are a very technologically advanced society. Yes, they might have phones that can make coffee and transform into an electric scooter, but sometimes no matter where you are the simplest things are the best.

This is snakes and ladders! Japanese style! To be honest not quite sure how it works. There are like some circular spinning spots which can put you back on the line before if you do something...not sure what!

February's holiday: Bean Throwing Festival!

Or 'setsubun' (節分）as its known in Japanese. My dictionary translated it such as 'Bean Throwing Night' or 'Holiday for the end of winter'. If thats the case, its a bit early. On February 3rd, Setsubun is celebrated in homes around the whole of Japan. 

In anticipation of 'spring', rebirth, new life and all that spring jazz, the festival is all about chucking out the bad things and bad luck, devils and demons, and bringing in luck, fortune and happiness. Naturally, the only way this could possibly be done in Japan is by making one of your family members the 'devil' and chasing them around the house, throwing soy beans at them and eventually kicking them out of the house!

Look how with the power of beans, this kid can send the biggest, scariest looking devil running!

This year one of my school's English teacher's homeroom class were going to do it at school too, and I got a chance to take part too. We had two of the kids wear these devil masks, and the rest of the kids got to throw the soy beans at them around the class until sending them out of the class once they had run out of the beans. Whilst throwing, they had to say 'oni wa soto! fuku wa uchi!' which means (Devil out! Happiness in!)

The two little devils of Urushiyama

It was a pretty fun little festival, albeit a little messy (and we got to nibble on a few of the beans before we threw away the rest).

And that, is the end of winter!