Party at the Vice Principal's House

Tanaka-sensei, the vice principal at Kita Elementary, had a party at his house. He invited all the Kita teachers, as well as Joe, Rose, Gavin, and me. Joe was busy, so that left us three foreigners at the party. Tanaka's wife, Megumi, teaches at Ofunakoshi Elementary with Gavin.

Three other teachers from Kita--Araki, Shugyo, and Umeno--picked us three up on the way. Tanaka has a huge house, especially by Japanese and Tsushima standards. It's two-story, with a huge tatami living room. The Tanakas had prepared a whole pile of food. There were salads, drumsticks, and soup already on the table, along with two large bowls for nabemono The setup was simple: the bowls were half-filled with water, and were on top of a heating flame. The gas was turned on, then meat and vegetables from nearby plates were added to the bowl to stew.

When we were ready to take them out to eat, Tanaka pointed out two bottles of sauce. We poured some of the sauce into our bowl, and took stuff from the main cooking bowl and let it cool and soak in the sauce. There was ponzu, soy sauce, and a tangy green kool-aid-looking mixture. Tanaka explained that this was called mizutaki, a Fukuoka specialty.

I sat at one end of the table with Rose and Tanaka. We had a great time talking. Tanaka told me about his family: they have two children, a university-aged son and a high school-aged daughter. The son being the elder is apparently regarded as the more difficult among Japanese people. Something about daughters being more agreeable and submissive, and sons being more challenging. I know next to nothing about parenting, but I'd think daughters would be at least as difficult if not more so than sons.

Anyway, Tanaka and I talked a lot about teaching. I found out that elementary and junior high school teachers don't get moved nearly as often or systematically as high schoolers do. It sounds like they have a lot more say in the matter, too. He also explained that when he was in school, teachers were in high demand because, at the greatest expanse of the bubble, most graduates were heading straight into business to chase after money. I wonder if teacher salaries were scaled up to be competitive with the private sector...

While we were talking about education, I mentioned my plans to try teaching back home. I told him I was worried about the differences between teaching in America and in Japan. My biggest concern is taking charge of the students. Tanaka explained that when he was a kid, teachers could and did hit students, and that it went on without any interference from parents. Nowadays, he says, teachers aren't allowed to do that, and parents increasingly complain about teachers disciplining their kids.

Like most men his age in Japan, Tanaka smokes. After he got back from ducking out the back door for a cigarette, I asked why he doesn't smoke inside. He discreetly gestured to his wife, said, "If I smoke inside...," and stuck two fingers from his head like horns.

At one point, he showed Rose and me a room adjoining the living room. Inside were some paintings and other framed art. One was a head crafted from paper, made by Tanaka's mother on his daughter's birthday. There was a drawing of an ox--his daughter's birth sign--and an inspirational poem that I was shocked to find I was able to read.

We somehow got on a tangent about the inoshishi in Tsushima, which led to the Inoko festival. Inoshishi are problems for farmers, as they root around the ground digging up food. From what I remember hearing, one night every year, children traditionally go from farmhouse to farmhouse and ask for candy in exchange for not disturbing the crops. That's remarkably analogous to western trick-or-treating; I wonder how much influence the one had on the other.

This somehow led to another tangent about the deer population in Tsushima. With so many deer, hunters are paid by the city to bring in carcasses.

Anyway. There was a whole pile of food. Megumi didn't sit down to talk to us at all the entire night. She stayed busy, buzzing around the kitchen, serving one dish, preparing the next, clearing the table of empty plates, and generally playing the hostess. Megumi's from Kansai, which is famous for (among many other foods) takoyaki. She cooked some for us, and Rose helped out.

Observing Megumi, I realized that this is exactly how I've seen hostesses behave in snack bars. They flit around, refilling drinks, telling jokes, facilitating conversation, and serving food. That's the hospitality Japanese men go to snack bars looking for, and that's why they pay out the nose for the hostess' company. Understanding it doesn't make me any more comfortable with paying a woman to sit and talk to me, but it sure is interesting.

Eventually, things started winding down. Araki, Umeno, and Shugyo got steadily drunker, and began calling me Japanese. During conversation, we happened upon the fact that I had decided to leave in July. When Umeno heard this, he reached across the table and play-slapped me across the face.

I had work the next day, thanks to graduation rehearsal, so I (literally) bowed out at around 11:30. Megumi was still cooking: onigiri with coffee, after all the rest of the food she'd made. I had understood we'd be taking a taxi back, so I was ready to call one up when Tanaka told me his wife would drive me back. Rose and Gavin were ready to call it a night, too, so Megumi drove us all back home.

Fun in Sasebo

In exchange for working the next Saturday in preparation for graduation, I had a three-day weekend. Itching for some adventure and willing to settle for hijinks of any kind, I booked a trip to Fukuoka. I let Carol and Mutia know I was coming, and they had a get-together in Sasebo that Saturday night. The plan was for me to fly in at around noonish, get to Sasebo by mid-afternoon, and have time to chill out with people before dinner and craziness that night.

I was stupid and didn't bother doublechecking the flight time. I could have sworn I'd booked the 12:30 flight. I got to the airport at 12:10, only to find out that I was in fact supposed to be on the 12:15 flight that was at that time taxiing for takeoff. The lady at the check-in desk was extremely nice and helpful, and got me on the next flight with no fuss. The next flight didn't leave until 4:45, however.

Furious with myself, and with nearly five hours to kill, I made my way back to Izuhara. Joey had driven down to pick up a friend at the ferry port, so I met up with them. We went to Tsushima Ramen with Joe. Gavin was going to come, too, but there were workers at his house installing a shower. (That's right. He'd gone seven months without a showerhead in his bathroom. Not surprisingly, he isn't recontracting.)

I made the 4:45 flight, and caught the next available Sasebo-bound bus, which left at 6:20. That put me in Sasebo a little after 8. Still fuming at my stupidity, I was thoroughly embarrassed and afraid that everyone either a) was waiting for me to eat or b) had finished eating and gone on about their evening. I found Carol, Mutia, Zoe, Rachel, Jacob, and Stephanie at Mike's Tex-Mex restaurant. They hadn't been there long, and were going to town on some frozen margaritas. Nobody seemed to mind that I was so late.

Dinner was a lot of fun--enchiladas and random catch-up conversation with folks I hadn't seen since the mid-year conference. Phase 2 of the plan was termed "marathon karaoke," wherein everyone gets a karaoke booth for about four hours. We finished dinner and met Laurence, Sarah, Sue Ann, Chris, and Eleanor at Shidax. It wasn't until I saw the special--three hours, all-you-can-drink, for about $30 per person--that I realized the group wasn't kidding about marathon karaoke.

We had a blast, with Rachel picking awesome songs for everyone to sing. Carol got me to sing "Georgia on My Mind", marking the second time I'd ever sung it, and Jacob and I, the only southerners in the group, represented with some Alan Jackson. We finished before midnight, which nobody could believe--this group's accustomed to getting out of karaoke no earlier than 3am. We were all pretty tired, though, so we called it a night. Rachel offered her couches and extra futons to Mutia, Carol, Stephanie, and me, so we made our way back to her place.

Sunday morning, Mutia had to roll out early for a magazine meeting in Nagasaki. The rest of us didn't start stirring until around 10. Rachel and I cooked hashbrowns, and I made cheese omelets for everybody. We planned to meet Zoe in town for a late lunch, and proceeded to spend the next three hours playing Catch Phrase in our pajamas. Rachel drove us back to Sasebo proper, where we dropped Stephanie off at a bar so she could see a friend DJing. We met Zoe at a nearby Starbucks, then headed to a bowling alley that offered Mario-themed scoring as a kids' option.

That evening, Carol headed back to Hasami, leaving Zoe, Rachel, and I to get dinner on our own. They took me to a nearby Thai restaurant. I've had Thai twice, both times in Japan, and I like it just fine--when it isn't burning my tongue off. With Zoe's advice, I managed to avoid the spiciest stuff, and we had an awesome dinner. It was great to catch up with them, reminisce about Indonesia, and talk about our plans after JET. We headed out at around 9. Zoe and Rachel had work the next day, so I got a hotel room near Sasebo station.

Monday, I did some solo adventuring in Sasebo. Nothing too exciting: I mainly walked around, window shopping, and eventually settled down at the bus station to read. I made a slight detour, but I'll talk more about that later.

The bus to Fukuoka was uneventful. On the shuttle bus between the international and domestic terminals, I overheard a conversation between two Americans on the bus. A girl was going on in remarkable detail about just how drunk so-and-so got this one night and how many people got naked and went running around town. Just as I was tuning her out, appreciating my inability to understand such inane conversations in Japanese, I heard her stop and say, "By the way, what's your name?" She had been talking to this guy--who I had assumed was her traveling buddy or at least an acquaintance--without even knowing his name.

The awesome lady at the check-in desk happily put me on an earlier flight to Tsushima, and I got back with no problem. The landing was exciting, though. Tsushima's almost always windy, which tends to create shaky landings. This was the first time I can remember actually bouncing off the runway during landing.

Tsushima Chorus Festival 09

Today was the second annual Tsushima Chorus Festival. The setup was pretty similar to last year's: chorus groups from all over Tsushima attended, with ensembles ranging from mixed junior high school to older all-women groups.

A couple of weeks ago, posters were put up around town. I stopped to take a picture of one for posterity, when I noticed the photo at the bottom was from last year's concert. Not only was it a group photo of all the singers from last year, but it was the second take--the goof-off picture. I'm glad my best picture was chosen for the public to see.

The plan was for everyone to meet at 9 this morning for a final on-stage rehearsal of our set. The concert didn't start until 1, and I remembered last year's morning being full of lots of sitting around. For that reason, I wasn't in any hurry to get there, and rolled in at about 9:10. By 9:30, we were done, and had nothing to do until 11. Last year, I didn't have a car, so I just spent the downtime being bored with the rest of the group. This year, though, I sped right back home and enjoyed my midmorning.

I went back at 11, in time for the combined group rehearsal. Our finale was a group rendition of Shima Uta. (Watch a video of the song here.) The conductor was Mrs. Hirayama, one of the teachers at Kita Elementary. She's kind but very strict, and doesn't mess around too much with the flowery passive-aggressive formal Japanese speech. I simultaneously enjoyed and loathed her getting everyone lined up correctly. The other women in Chorus D spent the rest of the day bemusedly imitating her frankness.

We'd been preparing for this since Christmas. Sajikibara is the head of the group, but everybody in the chorus handles something administrative: Abiru is the treasurer, Kazumi contacts everyone regarding changes to rehearsal times, Ino photocopies music for everyone, etc. The group doesn't ask me to do anything extra outside of concerts. For the concerts, though, I give the introduction speech for our group. It falls to me as a way to make up for all the other stuff I don't do for the group. This one was no different.

As far as speeches go, it's not a bad deal: each time, they've given me the basic script to learn. Each time, they tell me I don't have to memorize it, but I do anyway. This concert is a pretty big deal for us--I think we're the main organizers of the whole thing--so we try to make the most of the chance to recruit new members. Kazumi gave me a script detailing what we've done over the past year:

こんにちは。　私たちはコーラス・Dと言います。
Good afternoon. We're called Chorus D.
現在女性８名男性５名の１３名で歌っています。
At present there are thirteen of us: eight women and five men.
去年は老人ホームへ慰問に行ったり、釜山で行われた国際コーラスフェスティバルに参加したりしました。
Last year we paid a visit to retirement homes and participated in an international chorus festival held in Busan.
コーラスに参加して楽しく歌ってみたいと思ってくれた方は、ぜひ私たちといっしょに歌いましょ！
For those persons who do us the favor of thinking they want to participate and have fun singing with us in the chorus, by all means, let's sing together!
水曜日交流センターのリハーサル室でお待ちしています。
We're waiting every Wednesday in the Exchange Center rehearsal room.
今日は釜山のコーラスフェスティバルでも歌った「朧月夜」とたけみつ・とうるの曲から「○と△の歌」と「島へ」の３曲歌を歌います。どうぞお聞きください。
Today we'll sing 'Oboro dzuki yo'--which we sang at the Busan chorus festival--and 'Circles and Triangles Song' and 'To the Island'--by Toru Takemitsu--for a total of three songs. Please listen.
アダム・シャーリーでした。　ありがとう。　Thank you.　감사합니다.
This was Adam Shirley. Thank you. (In Japanese) Thank you. Thank you. (In Korean)

I didn't get the script until Saturday night, so suffice it to say I spent all day Sunday chanting the speech to memorize it. When it came time for our set, I had it memorized, but the flow was throwing me off a little. (The line that begins with 'For those persons...' was especially difficult. Relative clauses in Japanese get longer to the left of the noun, which, combined with all the deferential and formal constructions Kazumi threw in, kept confusing me around that part.) In front of the audience, I actually got through that long phrase, but lost my rhythm and had to pause for a beat before finishing the sentence. The audience apparently understood me perfectly, and sympathized with me, because everyone laughed and applauded me when I finished the sentence. I made it through the rest of the speech, getting more than a few laughs at the trilingual 'Thank you' conclusion.

Somewhere between the end of my speech and the start of our first song, I looked around the audience and saw Joe, Rose, and Kim. While this didn't make me any happier about my speech--I'd kind of hoped nobody else there would recognize me--I was thrilled they'd made it.

Our set went well. We basses did fine, which allowed the women to wow the crowd with their harmonies. The finale was a lot of fun: after we sang the first verse, Mrs. Hirayama invited the audience to join in. By the end, the auditorium was filled with a few hundred voices singing in unison.

Afterwards, I mingled in the lobby with my fellow Anglophones. They said we were great, which made me reconsider how well my section did. One of Kim's junior high schools had performed, and she knew all the kids. We talked for a bit, then I broke away to help clean up.

English Day Party

As with most school events, English Day was celebrated with an office party that night. We all got together at a local restaurant and ate, drank, and talked a ton. I've gotten increasingly braver with my Japanese lately, so I tried talking about deeper things than the usual "What's your favorite Japanese word?" and "Oh, you're very good with chopsticks!"

I was talking with Tsuiki and Takimoto, and we got on the subject of protests. I asked why there aren't many protests in Japan. They explained that the Japanese will demonstrate and protest when it involves international affairs, but with domestic issues, they're very submissive. (I've had lots and lots of time to observe and think on this, and hopefully I'll get around to putting those thoughts on paper at some point.) Slowly, our conversation brought in a couple of others at the table, including the vice principal, Tanaka-sensei.

Tanaka was the first person I met from Kita Sho. My first year, before I got a car, he ferried me to and from Tsushima High and Kita Sho. His English was about as good as my Japanese, but we laughed it off and understood each other through loanwords and charades. Slowly, as my Japanese got better and I got more comfortable with the teachers at Kita, he and I have been able to talk more easily about more things.

First he brought up something about the American financial crisis. He pointed out--very carefully and politely--that it seemed many Americans spend all our income on things like shopping. He fumbled a little with a concept, mainly because he had to put it in terms simple enough for me to understand, and it took me a minute to realize he was talking about credit. I'd managed to stop noticing that nobody in Japan uses credit cards or personal checks--all face-to-face transactions are made in cash. His point was that a benefit of dealing with cash is that you're always aware of what you're spending, and you can never spend more than you have.

Soon he and I were the only ones in on our conversation. We moved on to random things involving Japanese and American culture. He explained, for example, that part of traditional Japanese etiquette is leaving the last piece of food on the plate. He illustrated this by pointing out a fried shrimp that had been sitting on its serving dish for a long time, while people ate from other courses. Of course, he added, the younger generation doesn't always abide by it, which was illustrated by Takimoto taking that last shrimp.

Talk turned to my plans after I return to America, and I explained that I'd like to be a teacher. This led to talking about teaching styles, specifically with foreign languages. Tanaka argued that it's more difficult to learn a language "through your eyes and head"--as is done in language instruction--than it is "through your ears," the way we learn from our mothers. He explained that most of his English education was individual, with his time spent poring over texts, memorizing sentences, and listening to tapes of English conversation. I told him of how much swifter elementary students are than high schoolers when it comes to English education, citing the similarity in lessons used in the 4th and 10th grades. He suggested having high school English teachers observe an elementary English class sometime.

As the party wound down, and the guys started showing the effects of their drinks, I got several compliments about my Japanese. Umeno in particular called me Japanese. This led to somebody calling me "the last samurai," which got laughs and agreement from quite a few teachers. (I was sporting a beard at the time, so I particularly enjoyed the comparison.) There wasn't a second party, and everybody went home by 9:30, providing further evidence that the amount of time Japanese spend partying each night is directly proportional to the amount of time they spend at work. In the education field, anyway.

Dr. Seuss and English Day

I went to my elementary school today. Most of the day was normal for my visits to Kita Sho: the teachers explained the lesson plan, I studied Japanese in my free time, and the kids were simply awesome. (I taught a food shopping dialogue with the fourth-graders, identical for the most part to the same lesson I'd used with my high school freshmen.)

Every year, the school has an English Day, and they gather as many ALTs as possible to play games and have fun with the students. Last year, they got all eight of us--no small feat. This year, they were only able to get the four southerners, plus Tsuiki, a local Japanese lady who speaks excellent English. English Day officially began at 2: all the students gathered in the gym, and they made a line of flower arches for us to enter through. Two students were the official announcers, and the principal gave an opening speech in well-practiced English. We each gave our self-introductions, and then the activities began.

The five of us each had a station, and the students would go from station to station every ten minutes. We each had prepared an activity: Tsuiki taught them one of those clapping rituals girls do all the time at recess in elementary school. Rose played musical chairs. Gavin had the students design and create their own flags. Joe had them make Valentines. I decided to be bold: I brought in Horton Hears a Who! and read it to the students.

I tried. Really I did. Tsuiki taught me a quick explanation of the book's rhyme to give to the students, and I read as loudly and clearly as I could. I used different voices for the narrator, Horton, the kangaroo, and the Mayor. (I even tried using a tiny voice for the Mayor and the Whos.) It didn't work out very well. It just wasn't the right setting for story time, situated as I was right after Valentines and flag making. I tried, though, and the kids paid attention to me, but it definitely wasn't a success.

We finished by playing a game of Sharks. The gym floor is strewn with several hula hoops. The hula hoops are islands, and everything else is the ocean. One person is the shark, and everyone else is a swimmer. A teacher calls out "Swim! Swim! Swim!" and everyone swims casually, while the shark swims among them. At some point the teacher calls "Shark!" and everyone races for the nearest island. The shark tries to grab as many people as he can, but he can't hurt anybody on an island. Anyone he catches becomes a shark.

This was a hit with the kids. The call of "Shark!" always got a scream from all 130 kids as they made a beeline for the closest island. Hula hoops were taken away after each round, until eventually there was only one hula hoop and about 20 sharks.

After this, English Day was formally ended. As with all Japanese events, I do mean formally: the vice principal thanked us in English, and the two student announcers officially ended the assembly.