My Wonderful Weekend in October Part I

This man is a skilled ramen-chef and also a showman. He would take his ramen-paddle and throw noodles behind his back, catch them all, and them throw them back to his front with great ease. Then, as he would slide the ramen noodles into a bowl he would stare at someone sitting at his table, or at a few people, and he would make his eyes big and his mouth twitch like he was Charlie Chaplin. He made everyone at his table laugh, and during our 2 hour yakitori and ramen dinner we all laughed several times.

Earlier this month my distant cousins, Koki and Kazue, came from Tokyo to visit me in Fukuoka City. There Koki's friend from work, Taki-san, along with his wife and son Futa, gave us a tour of the city for a day, and a tour of the countryside of Kyushu the next day. I'll explain more of our trip to the countryside in my next entry, but first I have to describe what happened to us at this ramen-hut dinner.

If you can see what looks like a UFO on the upper edge, middle-right part of this photo, you are looking at a small pile of ramen, sailing over the ramen hut on the right side the picture. The chef asked me to stand up and go into the street with a ramen-paddle, and hold it out. Then, he took a pile of ramen and heaved it clear over the hut for me to catch. I was quite nervous at first, and the look of sheer concentration on my face, with my chin-out and my neck strained, should say a little about how much I wanted to succeed. People from other ramen-huts came over (we were on a street lined full with them) to check out the show. Well, when the ramen came down, I let it slip from the paddle and hit the dirty street. The chef quickly ran into the street, looked around, and grabbed the ramen to hurry it back to his hut. Then, he tossed a second pile over the hut. This time I caught a small amount in the paddle. Meanwhile, more people were gathering around and more photos were being taken of the foreigner with the ramen-paddle. The chef hucked his last pile of ramen, and on the third throw I caught most of the noodles. At this point the ramen- heavy odor in the air was accompanied by true excitement. I was being cheered on, especially by my family and friends.

Triumphant me.

From left to right: Kazue, me, Futa, Koki, and Taki-san.

Fukuoka City and Tenjin

Last weekend I went to a professional soccer game in Fukuoka city. The teams playing were the home team, representing Fukuoka, and a team from Yokohama. One of my new friends, William, a guy who works for the same company as I, and who also lives in Iizuka, scored me a free ticket. This was my first pro soccer game experience, and I really had a good time. I can't say I noticed a great deal of differences between this game and soccer games that are played in the states or in Europe, other than the fans were all Japanese, as was most of the food. I ate a juicy sausage link on a stick.

Its been really great being able to visit Fukuoka city on the weekends. From Iizuka, a train ride to Fukuoka city takes about 45 minutes and costs about 6 dollars. Fukuoka city is the biggest city in Fukuoka prefecture and I think has around 1 million and a half people. It reminds me of Portland, OR, in a lot of ways; the city is located right on the water, its has a sort of cosmopolitan feel to it (for Japan anyway - in Fukuoka city there are a lot of foreigners living amongst the Japanese), and there is a lot to do culturally. A few weekends ago I visited Tenjin, the older, more central part of Fukuoka city. It's difficult to tell much about how old things are in Tenjin, though, or anywhere in Fukuoka city really, because most of the buildings look so new.

When I was in Tenjin there was a music festival going on and several stages were set up within a few blocks to showcase bands from Kyushu and around Japan. I caught one bigger show in front of the city hall, and there were several other groups playing well within walking distance from there. It was a free show, and went on for two days. William and I were able to catch the tail end of a Japanese "Ventures" cover band performance. This group of mostly older Japanese men played some fantastic surf-rock to a small, older crowd of Japanese people. I really loved what I saw.

Its been nice for me to be able to visit Fukuoka City and Tenjin and get a change of scenery from Iizuka. The night life is big, the food is great, the people dress stylish and funny, and it's pretty easy to get around. The pictures I'm posting are of: me at the soccer game, a nighttime shot from a bridge in Fukuoka city, a shot of people walking around Nakasu, the big entertainment district in Fukuoka city, and a clip of some Japanese guys rockin' out in tribute to the Ventures.

Two Weeks at Shonai

These past two weeks have been the best and worst of times for me as an English teacher in Japan. I've been working at Shonai Chuu Gakko, a junior high school on the outskirts of Iizuka. Shonai is a small country suburb of Iizuka, surrounded by some rice farms and countryside. It's about a 25 minute bike ride from my place in Iizuka.

During my first two days at Shonai the rain fell pretty heavily. On my first day I actually fell off my bike on the way to school because raindrops covered my glasses and blocked my vision. After crossing a crosswalk on an expressway, I sideswiped a pole on the sidewalk. I fell off the side of my bike to the ground and a Japanese civil service worker picked up my backpack wrapped in a plastic bag and handed it to me. I'm sure it was a sight for those drivers that Monday morning to see me wearing my all grey rainsuit and shiny black rubber boots eat it on the sidewalk with my shiny red bike. Overall, no substantial damage happened to the bike, and I was just fine. It really was a trek getting to and from Shonai everyday (especially with the hills), but for the first two days it felt like a mission.

I noticed some stark differences between the ichi-nensei (7th grade), ni-nensei (8th grade), and san-nensei (9th grade) students at Shonai. During my first day, the ichi-nensei students were eager to ask me questions in English and partipate in the lesson. In general, I couldn't have asked for better students; I've never seen such an outgoing, friendly group of kids at junior high school here so far. One class loved to sing, and they sang "Country Road" by John Denver with pretty good voices! The teacher for the ichi-nensei students I felt had a good command of the students attention, and she was very conscious of trying to help the students improve their pronounciation and intonation (like saying the word 'student' instead of 'student-o' and learning how to raise their voices slightly at the end of a sentence when they asked a question).

The ni-nensei and san-nensei classrooms had a very different dynamic, and most of the time a different English teacher. I really had some difficulty working with this English teacher. It really surprised me how poor her English speaking ability was. Often times when she would try to help the students form a sentence in English all the grammar would be mixed up. The students didn't know any better, so numerous times when I was with her she was teaching them really poor English. Also, I felt like she could have had a better command of the students' attention. At times I felt like my place in the classroom was nothing more than a mouthpiece for her lesson. During one class period, she pointed to the textbook and said to me, "These sentences, repeat after students," which meant "Can you please read these sentences and have the students repeat them after you?" I looked at the students and noticed half of them were talking while the other half were listening. I asked her, "Now?" and she said, "Yes." So, I ended up reading sentences to a classroom of students of which only half of them were paying attention. This happened to me a few times while I was at Shonai.

The two English teachers I worked with at Shonai received treatment from the students they didn't deserve. They are working within a school system that allows them little room to take any sort of disciplinary action towards the students. I don't know the half of it, but I know it made me sad to see a student take the teacher's textbook, watch the teacher get angry and throw it at the wall in frustration, and then sit laughing while a third of the students laughed as well or sat smiling.

Yet while there things that really irked me about some of the students at Shonai, I also noticed something really genuine and honest about them. They had a self-confidence and forthrightness that I didn't see that often from students at Ichuu or Nichuu. At Ichuu and Nichuu, most of my interactions with the students were marked by nervous giggles among the girls and shy greetings among the boys. At Shonai, I felt like I was getting to know the students at a deeper level.

In order the pictures are of: Shonai Chuu Gakko, the countryside surrounding Shonai the morning after 2 days of heavy rain, a freshly harvested [rice] farm near Shonai.

Playing Basketball at Ni-Chuu

Ni-Chuu is the nickname of my second school. Its full name is Iizuka Dai-Ni Chuu Gakko. Chuu Gakko means "junior high school" in Japanese. While working at Ni-Chuu, I decided I wanted to play basketball with the school's basketball club. I had played one time with the basketball club at I-Chuu (Iizuka Dai-ichi Chuu Gakko), the first school I began work at, and I wanted to try out some hoops with the Ni-Chuu kids. I asked the English teacher if I could play with the team, and he said "Of course, let me ask the supervisor and I will be back." After coming back from the gym, he told me he would take me back to the gym so I could meet the club members. As I walked through the gym doors, I saw a group of seven junior-high age girls in basketball clothes walking up to meet me. They all circled around me and gave me these nice, big, simultaneous bows, and then I stood there feeling confused as to what I should do next.

The fact is that Ni-Chuu doesn't have enough coaching support for a boys basketball team, so, in my case, I could either choose to hoop it up with these girls or politely say no. I decided do have practice with them, thinking I could just join in on their drills or games and play some easy ball after a days teaching. It pretty much worked out this way during my first practice with them, so I felt pretty good about saying I would come back to play with them again. Well, the next time I played with them, the supervisor happened to be at an important baseball game for the local pro team around here, the Softbank Hawks. I walked into the gym again, and the girls gave me their usual greeting of respect of bowing, and I stood there again feeling awkward. "Nani-o shimasu ka?" one of the girls asked me...(What are we going to do?) "Lets play basketball," I said, really hoping they would just go into their normal routine like the last time. In fact, they started to do one of their usual drills, but during this I realized that they should have been doing some better warm-up drills, liking working on lay-ups. So, I taught them a new lay-up drill, and also showed them how to work on their reverse lay-ups. After this, I taught them other drills, thinking they would really be helpful for them when it came time to scrimmage. I ended up leading these girls through a 2 hour basketball practice.

I felt some stress during this practice because I knew I could teach them some great new things (not to mention some of their shooting forms were pretty shabby looking), but I also knew that they had a supervisor, and I didn't know much about his openness to me teaching these girls new things. I did know that some of the English teachers I'd been working with acted conservatively in the classroom, and were very "by the book" in the way they taught the class. Allowing creativity to flourish definetely is not a high priority in their classrooms. I'd say this is a trait that is more or less general to all of the English classes I've seen so far (for example, I know at least four English teachers from two different schools who have taught students ranging from ichi nensei, or 7th graders, to san-nensei, 9th graders, to answer the question "How are you?" with nothing but "I'm fine, thank you. And you?") - but it really does depends on the teacher. I think its also relevant that I am living in a semi-rural area as well - so maybe classes are taught differently in the heart of Tokyo?

Anyway, I hadn't worked with the basketball supervisor, Hano-sensei, and so when he came back the next day, I asked him if it was ok that I was teaching the girls new things (my Japanese at this point amounted to me pointing at what the girls were doing and asking - is this ok?)... He understood my question, and said back to me in Japanese "Its ok, please help me..." This really was quite a relief for me - but I have to admit I still felt a little funny teaching these girls how to bust a spin move on the court the next day.

I'll be back to that school in another 8 weeks, and I think I'll be leading some more practices at that time...

Some Iizuka history and a note on cannibus air fresheners

Last weekend I visited the Iizuka Museum of Natural History. Asking the receptionist if any of the exhibits were in English (Eigo-de?) - and I was a bit let down to find out that everything was in Japanese. So, it being a small museum, and me not being able to read hardly any Japanese, I zipped through the museum in about half an hour. After returning to the entrance, the same lady introduced me to one of the curators, and she told me that he spoke some English. He then showed me a few things on the first floor of the museum, and, between his semi-decent English and my poor Japanese, I was able to understand a fair amount of what he showed me. He ended up taking me through the entire museum (not big, but really a lot to look at) - explaining quite a bit to me about what I had previously breezed by. I found out that where we are in Fukuoka is very near the port from which all of the culture that came from China and Korea entered Japan. That is, when metal-making, rice cultivation, Buddhism, porcelain, and many other things came to Japan, they came to Kyushu first, and then spread throughout the rest of Japan (with the exception of the northern island, Hokkaido).

This I find interesting I because at my first school I remember seeing clay dolls and dishes in a glass case outside the teachers room that looked a lot like some Japanese artifacts I had seen in slide form while I was taking a Japansese Art History class at Lane Community College. Come to find out, these dolls and earthenware were the exact things I had been studying in college, and just some of the many cultural remnants that first came to Japan through the area I'm now living in! The curator told me about a few excavations that had recently been done, uncovering artifacts like clay tombs that are about 2,000 years old - around a nearby Iizuka elementary school.

Another interesting note he told me was about this group of three, pointy-looking mountains that are clearly visible from where I live in Iizuka. He said that in the 19th century, coal mining techniques were adopted from Europe - and these mountains are part of the result. Basically, the mountains aren't really mountains at all - they are made of "slack," which is the excess material that is left over after the coal is separated from the earth. I find these to be a little bit funny because when I first moved in, I thought "Wow, these mountains look kind of pretty..." and had even thought of posting a picture of the "nice view" I had in Iizuka. Now, after I know they aren't natural mountains at all, they seem really ugly and very unnatural looking.



The faux-mountains in Iizuka - remnants of the days when when it was a coal-mining town.

On a bike-ride to my first school, I noticed a cannibus-leaf air freshener in what looked like a family car, and was really puzzled at the incongruity. But, after seeing that the only selection of air fresheners in what amounts to the "Iizuka Wal-Mart" are cannibus leaf-style, I am really not surprised at all, and won't be surprised to see plenty more in vehicles with non pot-smoking Japanese families. The last picture I'm posting is of the selection of air fresheners at the local "Trial Supercenter," a big superstore and 15 minute walk from my house where I do most of my shopping.


Trial, where I buy most of my household goods...


Trial's selection of car-air fresheners...

My first two weeks at school

I have finished my first two weeks of teaching at my first junior high school. At this particular school there were 4 classes of about 30 7th graders (in Japan they are called ichi nensei, or 1st graders), 4 classes of 30 or so 8th graders (ni-nensei), and 5 classes of 30 or so 9th graders (san-nensei). I assisted the regular Japanese English teachers in about 22 English classes over two weeks, and I did one self-introduction for each class. My self introduction was really just 15 minutes of me showing the class pictures of my family, the American flag, and cartoons I drew that describe myself and where I am from, Oregon. I tried to speak clearly, and showed them all what a 'hacky-sack' is, and demonstrated by kicking it a few times. The students were all exceptionally well-behaved and listened attentively to my introduction. The dynamics of the classes differed between the three grades, each having a different Japanese English teacher, and each undergoing their various stages of puberty.

Three of my intro cards, in order:

I have to say that there has been some laughter, some bewildered looks, and plenty of both from the students after showing them these three cards. There was one class I can remember where I was standing in the front, rubbing my head, saying 'Japanese...' then rubbing my arm, saying 'American...' - only to see puzzled looks and hear silence.

One thing I found really interesting at this school is the lunch time routine. First of all, for the daily 'school routine', students stay in the same classroom for every class, and the teachers move around from classroom to classroom. At my junior high school the teachers stayed put and the students moved around. As for lunch, the students eat at their own desks, after arranging their desks into small groups that are their 'lunch groups.' During my first lunch at the school, I spent some time trying to speak English to the students, and before I knew it, the students were cleaning up their dishes and putting their desks back in order. Actual eating time was only about 15 minutes long! I barely got into my teriyaki patty sandwich that day, and I was pretty hungry after I went back to the teachers room. I've learned to eat a little faster since then.

My involvement in the classroom has been varied between the three Japanese English teachers. While each one is required to work out the textbook handed down to them from the Board of Education, they all varied quite a bit in their teaching styles and so my involvement has been different for each grade. For the ni-nensei teacher, for example, I did much assisting with the lessons that came straight from the teacher's version of the textbook, and for the ichi and san-nensei teachers I was able to create a few games and lessons to supplement their own lessons for the day. Last week I saw that the san-nensei classes were about to begin a section from their books that talked about Stevie Wonder, and so I asked the teacher (a younger girl, 25 years old) if I could play a Stevie Wonder song for the class and hand out lyric sheets that they could follow along with and fill in where I left blank spaces. She was totally game, and so we spent about 15 minutes at the end of class listening to Stevie sing 'A Place in the Sun' while the students wrote down whatever words or sounds they could make out. I was pretty thrilled to watch a group of 30 15-year old Japanese students reading along and listening to Stevie belt out a hopeful song...

Some junior high boys taking a break after lunch...


Some girls playing volleyball in the schoolyard at recess...

My new place, bicycle, and address

I've heard that most housing in the Kyushu area is un-furnished. This means that you are set up in a place with no light bulbs or anything to start with. Also, often times new residents have to pay deposit fees that cover 3-4 months ahead, making moving in a very expensive deal. My place, a newer apartment complex called 'Leo Palace,' is semi-furnished, and I have only one fee to pay for moving in. The downside is that the monthly rent is more expensive than those other, non-furnished places. In any case, my little place came equipped with a washing machine, fridge, microwave, and tv. Today I was hanging my laundry out to dry, a new experience for me that left me hoping for some nice Sunday sunshine. It came, otherwise I would have had to hang my laundry inside somehow...

Upon entering, my place has a narrow corridor, where you must take off your shoes so as to keep the hardwood floors nice. In that corridor you will find my kitchen, and off to the right you will find my bathroom. I have a small bathtub that is deep, and a mobile showerhead. Past the bathroom is my living room, where I recently bought a nice looking tatami mat, which, in my opinion, really ties the room together! My sleeping place is actually a loft, set above the living room which I have to climb a ladder to get to. Its really too hot to be sleeping up there now (even the nice air conditioning unit I have doesn't really reach that far), so I've been sleeping on a futon in the living room. But I do think the loft will serve me well in the winter. Overall, I am really happy with my new place. The smaller amount of space here has really forced me to organize my living so that I am economizing more with food, appliances, and stuff in general. I do miss buying large jugs of orange juice (Simply Orange is my favorite) at a time, though...



The corridor and kitchen...



My living room...


My empty loft...

I also bought a bike to get around. I spotted this shiny red bike at the local 'Trial Supercenter' that really caught my eye, and was relatively cheap. The day after I bought it, one of the guys who led the training for junior high English teachers told me that he had three bikes stolen in three weeks. I said, "Maybe it didn't help that I bought a red one..." He was living in a different city, but I think bikes do get stolen around here as well. There are quite a few local high school drop outs dubbed 'Yankees' here that may be prone to cause mischief. I didn't want to take any chances with my new bike, so I bought two locks, in addition to the one it came with. I have definitely become pretty attached to this bike. I've been biking to and from my first junior high school every work day, and it takes me about 15 minutes to get there or back. I've felt a renewed sense of fun riding this bike, but we are just beginning typhoon season here so we'll see how I feel in the next few months!


My new ride...

Lastly, my new address is:

Paul Meuse
Apt. 111
2-4-32
Komodanishi
Iizuka City
Fukuoka 820-0017