Rainbows of the Rainy Season

Beach Day!

Once a year in June, Ginowan High has Beach Day. This is a day when all 650+ of our students (plus insufficient adult supervision) head out to nearby beaches from 9-3pm. I chose to go with the first year students, as they are the least likely to hit on my/ask me inappropriate questions about life and love. So I show up at Mihama beach at 9am with a latte in my hand and my shades, ready for action. Yes action. Don't think that beach day is a day for lolling about doing nothing in the sun! Is that what you think beaches are for? The regimen was tightly planned! There would be an introduction ceremony, where children were forced to sit in rows in the burning sun and give speeches. Next, there was to be a dodge ball tournament. I narrowly escaped being forced to play in this by my new found 1-5 (English Camp) buddies. Instead I became a cheerleader for their team on the sidelines. After several hours of dodge ball, it was BBQ time. In Japan, the students are responsible for all prep work as well as cleaning when anything happens. So I got to lounge about with the other teachers while 200 hundred kids bustled to and fro with bags of cabbage, large chunks of meat, bottles of gas and very heavy looking grills. Yay food!

In case it has occurred to you to wonder what my students are supposed to wear to Beach Day, if they are required to wear uniforms at school that would be inappropriate beach garb, the answer is: their gym uniforms. They were all wearing their gym uniforms. The only bit of room they had in which to shuffle was in footwear. as you know, the Japanese love different kinds of shoes for different kinds of activities. Beaches fall into one of those categories where its appropriate to wear outdoor slippers. Here are some photos of 1-5 kids' slippers.

After lunch, it was volleyball time. No time to waste digesting, we've got beach activities to complete before 3 rolls around! And then BAM, the day was over and it was clean up/closing ceremony time.

You may have noticed that there was no actual "beach" time scheduled into the day. Like, swimming or playing in the sand or sunbathing. That's because Okinawans don't do those things. They like to keep their distance from the actual water, and hang out on the concrete instead. It is a bit hard for me to be happy sitting on the concrete staring at white sands and clear turquoise waters a mere 20 feet out of my reach, but hey that's how the cookie crumbles. In fact, upon inquiry I was informed that students were not ALLOWED to get in the water on Beach Day. So none of them could drown on school time. Even though the official "beach" water in Okinawa is always roped off out to where you can still easily stand and there is a lifeguard. But about ½ my kids can't swim.

Panda, F-off.

One of my students was wearing this amazing shirt at Beach Day last week. I forgot to write about beach day, didn't I? Well I can fix that soon. If I can ever find him again, Jeff is willing to pay this child ungodly sums of money to take the shirt off his back. But for one I can't identify the child from behind and secondly it would probably be illegal to demand him to strip and give us his clothing in return for money.

Spare Me My Life!

Even though a great number of you Japanofiles out there have undoubtedly seen this already, I feel obligated to post it for the others. Puh-lease watch this video, because it might be the funniest thing you ever see. It is a training video made for Japanese women who will be vacationing in the USA. Teaching them how to cope with the violent situations that will inevitably confront them in America. It doubles as an aerobics video.

English Camp!

Last Thursday I headed up to the northern mountains of Nago with 3 fellow English teachers and 40 excited 16 year olds for 2 fun-packed days of adventure at English Camp. To the right above you see the view from my bedroom window, at the youth center where we stayed. This spectacular view might give you the impression that the Nago Youth Resort is a relaxing place to take a break in nature... which it is, in one way. However, it's important to know that one of the horrendous downsides of staying at the low-cost youth center is that you are required to rouse yourself from slumber at 6am in order to participate in group morning exercises. Oh, yes. I was twirling my arms in the early dawn along with my kids and 100 elementary school students who were much genkier than my surly, heavy-lidded lot. Apparently these exercises are traditionally done every morning, everywhere in Okinawa. The instructions are played on the radio every morning. ALTs from rural areas who teach at junior highs and elementary schools are all familiar with them. The really weird thing about these exercises was that the tape recording they put on giving us instructions was in ENGLISH. Which of course no one could understand, but I guess they all know the exercises by heart from childhood. The tape was a bubbly guy shouting out things like,

That's the spirit! Now swing your arms so hard over your head you think you're going to smack yourself in the face with em!"

Ah well. I haven't begun at the beginning. First thing, we all gathered at 9am at school to pile into a bus and drive up north. The bus driver decided it was ok for the kids to play with his microphone during the 1.5 hour drive. So Ryouji (a very funny and nice little boy, when devoid of microphone) decided to tell jokes on the loudspeaker the whole drive. I was trying to sleep, but Shintoro took it upon himself to poke me in the ribs and use his newly acquired phrase, "wake up!" every time he walked up and down the aisle. We arrived at the mountain. Then the bus stopped. "oh Joysu," Junko sensei says, "we will walk from here." What? The bus went to all the effort to drive us to Nago yet refuses to drive us the last 5 minutes up the mountain? At first I thought it had something to do with ability (the mountain was too steep for the bus) but it turned out it was just a private bus company that didn't like to send their buses where there was underbrush or foliage because of the possibility of the paint getting scratched. So 40 children get out with their overnight bags and begin a very steep hike that turned out to be about 30 minutes up the mountain to the youth center. Can you imagine what would happen if you tried to make 40 American high school students do that?

English camp was quite a bit of fun! To the left is my croquet team, Friday morning. After unpacking and lunching Thursday, 3 other ALTs arrived to help give the kids special English classes. They rotated in groups of 10 through the 4 of us. So I gave 4 hours of the same class. I had kept that knowledge in mind when planning my lesson, and therefor decided to do a fun game (for me and you, kids). I won't explain the game entirely, but it involved me shouting and jumping around, and them stampeding from the back to the front of the room repeatedly. The weaklings were trampled or left behind. I made sure to bring loads of candy for prizes, as that makes 1. everyone happy 2. everyone love ME.

After dinner we got 2 hours in the gym to go insane. This was a wise plan on the part of our camp planners. Junko said last year they only had classes and no activities, and she was up 'til 5am catching kids sneaking around in the night out of bed. New plan for year 2: wear them out before bedtime so that all they can do is collapse. I'm not sure if someone slipped the bus driver an extra 1000 for the hike up the mountain? I found the plan clever until the final stages were revealed to me: spend all day wearing the kids out, then gather them at 10-11pm for a candy/snack party where we will stuff them so full of sugar that they will be wired until next Monday. Hmmmm. I could only think that the one teacher present with no children of his own has been responsible for this part of the plan.

After a buffet breakfast of hotdogs, meatballs, salad with ketchup and mayo mixed together as dressing, miso soup, white rice, sour plums, and pickled radish and a stab at western scrambled eggs we had a special treat. My friend Michael (one of the other 3 ALTs I organized to come to the camp) dressed up in full Scottish gear and gave a presentation on the glories of SCOTLAND. His homeland. I have to say, I was probably the most excited person in the crowd. You'd think that 16 year olds might perk up for a blond haired blue eyed man in a skirt but no. I guess you have to factor in the frequency that cross-dressing seems to pop up in Japanese festivals here to account for that... maybe men in skirts isn't so exciting after all.
After Michael drilled us on how Scotland wasn't England and he wasn't an Igurisu-jin (though the Japanese language apparently doesn't have a separate word for a Scottish person other than England-Person, ouch!) We all rallied our remaining genkidom and played an energetic game of grand golf (which turned out to be a mix of golf and croquet) outside on the lawn. Actually I think I spent most of my golf-time answering these 3 questions from every single female kid at camp:

- Joysu, Maikuru wa daaringu? (Is Michael your "darling"/boyfriend?)
- Joysu, Timu wa daaringu? (Is Tim your "darling"/boyfriend?)
- Joysu, Jun wa daaringu? (Is Jun-sensei your "darling"/boyfriend?)

Yes, their minds were focused on learning.

Yay English camp!

Rainy Season Sunset

Suddenly I can no longer make changes to my blog from the server at work (they block lots of things). Since I don't have internet at home, this means that I have been posting infrequently. Look forward to that continuing. Arg.

i sing of Olaf glad and big

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelove'd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds, without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf (upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaslessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president, being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ (of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see; and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me: more blond than you.
***
a poem by ee cummings

Picasa... finally

Happy DAY, yo. I finally got the Picasa photo album thingy figured out and now I believe I will be able to imbed photo albums in the blog so that I won't have to waste space sticking tons of tiny pics up here. Even better, I won't have to waste the time of those of you who don't really want to look at lots of photos of me and my friends! Now you can click on links to photo albums only if you want, and if you dont't want well, they aren't taking up space on the blog.

Last Thursday and Friday were Ginowan high's English Camp up north in Nago. The next entry will be about that. However, after the camp I stayed up north for Paul's birthday party. Here's an album with some photos from Paul's bday as well as some recent karaoke pics!

Karaoke and Parties!

shopping

In my last few months in Japan, I plan to start carrying my camera around to mundane places and taking photos more frequently of what seems to pass for "normal" here. Last night we went to pick Jon (our faithful Island Friend) up at Main Place. Keen to do a bit of window-shopping, we quickly ran into a rack of beautiful hats (see above).

Then the boys wanted to go into the Nike shoe store. I wasn't too excited... until I saw what Nike is marketing in Japan. Do you think the CEOs of Nike have any idea what kind of funky goes on in their overseas products? Possibly such shoes have come into style in America during my absence, but I'm doubting it.

Speaking of shoes, on top of every Okinawan's list of people to kill is the manufacturer of a certain brand of children's shoe. Which of you JETs can guess what I'm talking about?

AAAARGH! The squeaky shoes!

Some dumb ass here came up with this bad idea: wouldn't it be cute if we made shoes for tots that produced incredibly loud, high-pitched, wheezing squeaky notes every time the little one took a toddle? Mom could never lose the child, even if it escaped out of sight! A revolution in parental supervision of 2 year olds who have just found their land-legs but have yet to find any sense!

That idea is all well and good until you put it into practice. Then you've just got hoards of maniacal, drooling little people toddling around Japan in a coordinated effort to produce the symphony of tone-deaf DEATH. Am I trying to read a book? Drink my coffee? Talk to my friends? Wait for them to call my name at the doctor's office? Yes. Yes I am. And this sound is ever-present as I do: SQUEAK! A-SQUEAK! SQUEEEEEEAK-EAK-EA-EAK! It's infuriating. And this time it's not just the gaijin getting bent out of shape. Everyone in a 100-foot radius is surely directing evil-thoughts at the wool-brained parents who thought such a shoe would be CUTE. But nobody ever takes the initiative to scream, "enough!" de-shoe a strange tot, and take off running. Why? It's clear that the parents are already enduring karmic suffering 1,000 times greater than a pair of stolen squeak-shoes could cause. THEY actually have to be with their child's shoes 24/7. Heh.

a poem from mom

Beannacht ("Blessing")
by John O’Donohue

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the gray window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the curach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

Kids in China

If you think that things they do at my school are weird, you should know
about what kids are doing in China. Read this entry from my friend Cheryl`s
blog. Isn`t that amazing? I admit it`s weird that in Japanese primary
schools they play brush your teeth music and everyone in the school brushes
their teeth together after lunch. But 8 year olds massaging their eye 
acupuncture points several times a day to symphony music takes it to a
whole different level. Amazing. I`ve got to get over to China and figure out
what`s going on over there.

Love Turned to Hate: a Saga of Cheetos

I have a bone to pick with Japan. How is it that the most high-tech country in the world, a nation full of tiny gadgets whose use I can barely begin to dream of (not to mention their toilets!) can have such a major failing as the one I am about to disclose? The art of easy opening, peoples! BAGS.

I myself am an avid opposer of Americanization, but I`ve come to the conclusion that there is one, no make that two, things Japan could do with importing from America:

1. The easy open bag (EOB)
2. Wall insulation (but that might be a subject for a different post)

There are many more things that America would do well to import from Japan, but for now I've got to talk about bags.

Before I rant about how hard it is to get Japanese bagged products open, lets talk about the fact that Japan is obsessed with packaging all together. If you aren`t packaged, you just aren`t cool here. Take a bag of candy. In most countries, individual pieces of candy or individual cookies tend to just hang loose in their larger packaging, unless they are sticky. Not so in Japan. Inside the package, each item has to be individually wrapped or else they don`t trust it enough to eat. I bought a box of saltines the other week. I opened the box to find 2 stacked packages of crackers. Ok. Then I open a package of crackers... to find that all the crackers inside the package are packaged into groups of 4 crackers. Even jello, people! You buy jello by the MOUTHFUL here. Little one bite servings that come in a plastic pouch with a pull off lid. You buy big bags of prepackaged mouthfuls of Jello.

It`s not just prepackaged things either. At the grocery store they insist on bagging your groceries with twice as many bags as you might actually need. Did you buy a carton of eggs? It will get its own bag, and then be put inside another bag with fellow groceries. Did you buy some tofu? Not only does the fresh tofu already come in its own bag, they will put it in another bag, tie a knot in it, then put it in a third bag. Anything that is a different temperature will also get its own bag before it gets put in the bigger bag, like frozen vegetables. As if this hasn't already made it practically impossible to get to at your food, they either tie or tape shut every single grocery bag. Their plastic bags have these little plastic tails special for tying your groceries up hostage.

I`ve gotten off my main point though, which was the EOB. I think you can`t appreciate the EOB until you live somewhere where it doesn`t. I, for one, never even knew that America had such a glorious glorious tradition until I lived in Germany and then Japan. America probably pays scientists loads of our tax money to sit around all day inventing ways to make plastic and paper and metals easily openable for our lazy asses. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Imagine a bag of chips, crackers, or cookies. In America, if you want these succulent treats to be in your mouth, all you need do is place a hand on either side of the bag and gently tug... presto! It opens. It`s magic. In Japan, they clearly pay scientists to sit around and scheme up ways to keep the sides of the bag firmly stuck together when you pull. This may be the secret as to why Japan has fewer obesity problems than America: people simply can`t access junk food.

There is a little known fact that I will share with you: Japanese Cheetos are the best thing in the entire world. You have not tasted GOODNESS until you`ve had a Japanese Cheeto. The package looks the same! The same company produces them! But Japanese Cheetos are indescribably better than everyone elses. For the first 6 months that I lived here I was obsessed with J-Cheetos. I ate a bag of them every single day. The one thing that ruined the experience for me was the pain and suffering I had to go through to access my glorious goodies. Even worse, chips in Japan come in only one of 2 sizes: teeny-tiny and small. So if you want more than 2 handfuls of chips, you must brave multiple non-EOBs. Who would think that such a small bag could spawn such frustration and fury? In order to help you understand, I will explain the process I am forced to endure to open a bag of Cheetos:

I first make sure that I am sitting down with my elbows well braced on either my knees or the table. I roll up my sleeves, get a good grip on both sides of the bag, take a deep breath. Then with all my willpower concentrated on the bag, I flex my arm muscles, let out my breath in a strangled half-screech and wrench at the bag with all my strength. It doesn't budge, but I don't stop pulling! Sweat breaks on my brow, my screech turns to a groan of effort. The bag is sapping me of all my Life Force! Then, the packaging begins to give way ever so slightly. I redouble my efforts! This time, it is not the thought of my scrumptious Cheetos that keeps me going. No, instead I am filled with fury that anyone would make a bag so difficult to open. It is wrath that powers my straining muscles; unadulterated rage at the ridiculous nature of these Cheetos' packaging (and at my inability as an illiterate foreigner to write a scathing letter of complaint to the Cheeto bag manufacturers). Yes, that is what finally makes the plastic lining give way. Hate, not love:-( It's a sad story, especially for someone who went to Friends School.

But life goes on. After a few months, I game up all attempts to show up the Japanese packaging industry through personal domination of the Cheeto bag, and began to simply hack my Cheetos open with scissors or slash at them with kitchen knives. Somehow it wasn't the same. I gradually lost my infatuation with J-Cheetos, and today I barely touch them. Their beauty is tainted by their evil packaging.