Some Things You Never Get Used To

the presence of raw eggs in Japanese cuisine. Actually, the omnipresence of eggs in dishes, in general. (I am not complaining. For the record, one of my favourite foods in Japan is oyakodon 親子丼 – meaning ‘parent and child’ – a delicious mixture of chicken, egg, and sliced scallions served on rice.)

mochi* pretending to be cheese. (Again, not complaining. Anything that mimicks the deliciously gooey texture, if not the flavour, of melted cheese, is a-okay by me, as the Real McCoy – expensive and unpopular -- is a rarity in rural Japan.)

mayonnaise pretending to be cheese. (This one, I’m less okay with. Whether it be on pizza, slathered thickly on sandwiches, or as a main ingredient in various meat and “cheese” breads, mayo is not, and never will be, cheese.)

individually-wrapped everything (think: Halloween-candy portions all year ‘round), including the equivalent of maybe three Pringles’ worth of small, spicy shrimp rice crackers

the use of umbrellas for sun and rain

the bone-chillingly cold water in the washrooms, or the arbitrary availability of soap

the terrifyingly “mind over matter” art of sitting seiza (on your heels, with numb feet folded under you)

when rags that were, minutes earlier, racing lint, crumbs, and hairballs along the floor, are next used to dust off counters, desktops, and windowsills

student-enforced discipline including shouts of “shizuka” (“Be quiet!”) during especially rowdy elementary school lunch-hours, and junior high girls walloping their male counterparts (hard!) when they drift off in class

the cutting of fingernails in the morning staffroom**


And some things you do…


elementary school kids cruising (and, on occasion, wobbling) around the playground (typically, a versatile gravel lot) on unicycles with slightly deflated wheels

students sprinting through unheated winter hallways from toasty classroom to toasty classroom wailing “samui, samui” (“It’s cold, it’s cold!”), only to throw open the windows of said rooms after returning from P.E. moaning “atsui, atsui” (“I’m hot, I’m hot!”)

spelling “colour” and “favour” without the “u” and referring to the United States as “America”

high school students wearing school uniforms, regardless of the day of the week

elementary school girls wearing shorts and knee-high socks that never quite meet, even in the darkest days of winter

the style, for females in general, to wear clothing that leaves the knee to mid-thigh exposed

cold rice and raw fish

sitting through all manner of meetings, ceremonies of all sorts, sermons, speeches, and street talk where, when it comes to deciphering what’s going on, anyone’s guess is better than mine

not eating or drinking on the street (when I do, it just feels weird)

watching boys in their baseball uniforms and girls in their volleyball attire (i.e. gym shorts and wind-breaker jackets) scurry/trudge through the snow to/from the gym

the brotherly closeness of boys at school, the manner in which they link elbows, hug, hold hands, and drape arms over shoulders (when they aren’t punching, pulling, or dragging each other across the floor, of course)

the graceful, elegant, expressive movements of even the most manly hands

commuters in suits on bikes with umbrellas (even though the use of umbrellas while cycling was outlawed back in October 2011)

my microwave/convection oven, which, on a miraculous day (like Holy Saturday) will bake a delectable chocolate cake, but which usually resigns itself to partially heating leftovers or 
making radioactive toast

the people and perspectives of rural Japan

the challenges of reading at a (near) Grade 1 level

the graciousness and generosity of others (I need to be so careful not to take them for 
granted)

the daily post-lunch souji*** sessions, where students change (or partly change) out of their 
uniforms and into the P.E. clothes, get down on their hands and knees, and clean dirt off the floor with a once-white rag (or, at least, push it around until the fifteen minutes is up)

the fact that what appears to be brown bread is far more likely to be chocolate-flavored

songs and musical cues to signal 6 am, 6 pm, the arrival and departures of trains, the entering and exiting of a conbini (convenience store), and just about anything else you weren't aware needed a soundtrack

the remarkable lack of litter on public transport, in the street, in Japan, in general

not understanding everything all of the time and being perfectly okay with it


*Mochi is glutinous rice pounded into a gooey, gluey goo. See July 20^th post for pictures. 

**Apparently, there is a Japanese superstition that if you cut your fingernails at night, your parents may die before you see them again. I don’t follow the connection, but I don’t follow a lot of things. As far as the significance of clipping nails at school is concerned, I think it’s merely something that didn’t get done at home. I’ve also seen some of my teachers brush their teeth upon arriving at the office.

***Because schools in Japan don’t generally employ a custodian, it is the job of the staff and students to keep their classrooms, corridors, toilets, library, and gymnasium clean. This involves collecting the trash, sweeping, wiping the floors, scrubbing the toilets, shaking out carpets and banging chalkboard brushes, shoveling snow and filling kerosene jugs in the winter, and weeding and watering plants in the spring and summer. Souji was strange to me when I first arrived in Japan, but when everyone participates, a concerted effort is made not to make a mess in the first place.

Crazy

my students’ intense love for a word they are not encouraged to use (and love all the more for that very reason) and me, fantasizing about the pedagogical possibilities: 

       Second-grade junior high school girl: “He is kurayze. Hiroto is kurayze.”

          Me : “Really? Is he crazy?”

          A gaggle of girls: “Yes, yes. He is kurayze. Bery, bery kurayze.”

          Me: “Are you crazy, Hiroto-san?”

          Hiroto: “Yes, I am. I am kurayze.”

          Or, sometimes, “No, no, no. Not kurayze. I’m not kurayze. They are kurayze.”

After a significant span of time hardly playing my violin followed by an even lengthier period of pre- and post-op recovery for my nearly good-as-new thumb, my violin’s first foray out of its case was during an elementary school music class “mini-mini concert” in front of two Grade 2 teachers and their 40+ students, who gasped and “sugoi”-ed and cheered “encoru”-ed after a variety of Canadian and Japanese folk songs and popular melodies.

crazier: unlike legitimate concerts that a performer prepares for, and, in some cases, obsesses about, the appearances I find myself making in Japan are, in general, so impossibly improvised that it’s no wonder I don’t worry anymore. In this land of non-stop preparation, my spontaneous “on a hope and a prayer” approach is decidedly un-Japanese (and fairly un-Echo, as well.)

Sports Day, when my Mochigase Junior High School girls wear yukata*, shake pompoms and dance to Avril Lavigne

Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your chorus. 
No way, no way, I think you need a new one.

while my boys do this:

Kumitaiso or "human construction" is an integral part of Japanese PE.

this:

and this:

a pyramid of 47 of the 48 boys at Mochigase Junior High
(one first-grader had a bit of a tumble in the previous attempt and is
getting checked out by the school nurse in the background)

then, they all do this:

The class that leaps together, keeps together.

instantaneous bonding with the librarian upon discovering Japanese translations of the “I Spy” series, a book of Shel Silverstein’s poems, “Harry the Dirty Dog” and “Oh, the places you’ll go” by Dr. Seuss in the Mochigase JHS library

the serene and genuinely pleasant presence of those teachers who unhurriedly inhabit a Friday night staffroom, the fact that, after finishing PTA choir practice at 9 pm, I am among them, and the realization that, long after I’ve gone for good, they will remain, seemingly oblivious or indifferent to their lives outside of school

how much my kids love John, and how kakkoii (cool, good-looking) he is to them

probably helps that I think he's pretty kakkoii, too

how applicable “working hard or hardly working” is to the lives of JETs, the Japanese, and corporate workplaces, in general

the shocking stuff that spills out of mouths after a few drinks have gone in

the volume and variety of experiences that I’m exposed to, often without time or trouble to fully absorb or appreciate them

that I’ve signed up to write the JLPT 5 (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) beginner test as motivation to study, yet still don’t…much

the scarcity of free time and the amount of it that I fritter away on Facebook

the cacophony we foreigners are capable of creating at Copo Hestia at 11:44 PM or 2:35 AM of a Saturday night and the resigned resilience of those few nameless, faceless Japanese tenants in our unfortunately resonant residence

getting stung by jellyfish in the Sea of Japan not once, twice, but thrice. It might have something to do with the fact that I swim when I shouldn't, but if you saw these pristine, deserted beaches and beautiful, blue water, you'd risk it, too.

Totally worth it!

1. Return flight to Osaka via Calgary – Vancouver – Shanghai: $921   

2. Cab fare from Kansai International airport to the OCAT bus station after missing the last shuttle bus due to a delayed flight: ¥17,200 (around $200)

3. Memories of spending the wee hours sweating in a pool of streetlamp light outside OCAT like a homeless person with ninety pounds of luggage: priceless

basically, my entire journey from Canada back to Japan, with the possible exception of a Regina – Calgary car-ride with my parents, which was lovely, but which they likely considered crazy (I’ll fly all the way next time, guys. Promise!)

that I’ll be spending my second consecutive Christmas (third in my life) away from Canada and family, and instead be in Thailand with North American friends, and how different that same bit of information makes me feel, depending on how it’s framed

the things you can buy from vending machines in this country

French fries, anyone?

how several days’ dishes amount to very few when you’re only home on weekdays for breakfast

how quickly I kill pantyhose

procrastination parading as patience and vice versa

how human are hardwired to forget the uncomfortable, the awkward, the mediocre, but (generally) do a bang-up job of recalling the amazing and the awful. A blog for another time, perhaps, but trust me on this one. 

that August is over

that September is over

that October is over

that the following conversation is true and happened to a friend of mine in Toronto in early November:

          Subway employee: "That flower on your jacket is sexy." (re: poppy)
          Me: "Lest we forget?"
          Subway employee: "What are you talking about?"
          Me: "What are YOU talking about?"


*As far as I can tell, yukata and kimono are pretty much the same, except that the former is made of cotton or linen (and the latter, silk) and thus worn during the sweltering summer.