Tokyo + Surfers + Dancing

This past weekend I went back to Tokyo. My first visit was right off the plane, and it was less than ideal. Jetlagged, too many lectures, generally worn down. This time was much more entertaining. The one trick was the lack of a hotel Saturday night...

All of Tokyo and its neighbors like Yokohama were completely booked up as far as 2 hours out of the city. So when we went to Kamakura, where one friend's father was born and grandparents used to live and the site of a great (but dirty at the time courtesy of a typhoon) beach, we sort of expected to find something. We didn't. What we did find were some surfers who spoke English and were willing to help. Unfortunately, nope. No hotels in Kamakura that were within our price range. We thanked them for their help and went to have a drink to think. We decided to have another drink on the beach to think. Well, it helps me think. But granted we really weren't that worried.

On the way out to the beach, we ran into the surfers again. They were having a barbecue and invited us to join. Within 5 mintues of talking with them, one girl invited us to stay at her house. We played the polite game refusing a few times, but there was a lot of sideways glances like, "Let's totally do this." So we partied with the surfers all night. Stayed up late talking to the girl who let us crash at her house with her and her boyfriend, and then tucked in for bed. Japanese style. With me all but snuggling with the girl and her boyfriend... A tad awkward in my estimation but it was still a great night.

Sunday during the day we visited the shrines in Kamakura, including the Daibutsu, A giant statue of Buddha. Lots of fun. I don't care how many of these shrines I visit, each one is different and has something new. Not unlike the mummified remains of Saints on display in Spain.

That night was a huge party at a club in Tokyo. We danced til the sun came up by the outdoor poolside DJ. This trip was much more fun that the last visit. This doesn't really seem to capture how much fun it was... oh well.

Link to more photos:
Tokyo and Kamakura Photos

Nagano Round 2

So I was able to get back to Nagano recently to meet up with some folks. Not much planned for the trip, but a lot happened. It was good fun. A little karaoke, some monkeys, some ski jumping in the middle of the summer. Fantastic.

Note to anyone that wants to go see the monkeys at the onsen outside of Nagano city, go at the end of the day, near the 5 o'clock closing time. That's when they feed them. And its crazy.

The next day we went to go see ski jumping in Hakuba where they held the event during the winter games. Apparently there is also luge here later on and they let people try it... I know I'm interested. We made some friends with some folks at the ski jumping. They were fans from the area supporting a Japanese ski jumper. He came in sixth, but the way they were partying you would have thought otherwise. I've got to say its rare that I have a beer before 11 now that I'm out of college, but these people were throwing down at 10 in the morning.

Sports Festivals

In Japan, they like sports. They like physical education. In recent years, the Japanese government has been pushing to extend class time in the most 'important' subjects, such as Japanese, Math, Science, and Physical Education. English sure isn't listed there. At any rate, the Sports Festival is like Field Day in America, except in the villages I work in, most of the village comes out to watch and support their children. Everyone from the Nursery school to the elderly have events, although the stars of the show are the kids in the elementary and middle schools.


There are all sorts of events ranging from classic runs and relays to the tug of war. My favorite event though, was a combination of steal the bacon and tug of war. The video below should give you a good idea, but basically 7 large bamboo poles are lined up in the middle of the field. The gun sounds, and two teams rush the middle in an attempt to pull as many poles as possible over to their side of the field. Pole = point. Pretty simple. Except that when you get to that last pole, It becomes a real fight. Here are some photos from the day, and a video of the "Bamboo Pull" (Rough translation).

By the way, White won.

The photo below is a link to the album of a few more photos from the day. I was really sunburned, but it was a great time. As was the barbecue enkei (drinking party) afterwards.

Sports Day

The Forbidden Lesson: Warning! Some lowbrow humor here...

In the States, as we all know, the litigious nature of our country has made the educational environment fairly rigid and structured, at least within the Public School System. Teacher - student interactions have a strict set of guidelines, and one of the first rules that any teacher, or any American for that matter knows, is that students should not hit each other and a teacher should probably not smack their students around. I have not seen a teacher outright thwack a student in Japan. But I have seen good natured sparring. It's common in class, if one of my students starts acting up, for another student to smack them (sometimes really hard) on the back of their head. If a student says something out of line, a teacher may feign to whack them on the head or shoulder too. The first time I saw this practice, it caught me a little off guard. I think my student who got smacked, a somewhat loud third grader, was caught only slightly more off his guard when his female classmate gave him a real hard smack on the crown of his head. The day that I saw a student punch his teacher in the stomach, however, and the teacher respond with a swift kick to the students back was a whole other step. What followed that first punch was a (mostly) pretend fight that evoked memories of the Kung Fu movies I watched back in America... where I had a DVD player. Teacher and student playfully punched each other in the stomach. A good time had by all. Imagine me looking on. My jaw was resting comfortably on the floor. There's even a game called Kancho where students try to catch the other off guard and thrust a finger up their friend's butt. Girls can also be front kancho'd. The points or value of the kancho is based on the effect, and depth of the thrust. I haven't seen this in school yet, but I did catch a little girl, maybe 3, kanchoing her mother at the bus stop one day.

One little match really jumps to mind though. I was teaching an elementary school class. There were 8 students in the class; a combination of first and second graders. Today was going to be a fun. We were going to practice introductions. Right off the bat, one first grader, Johnny (fake name) was louder than normal, as though he had eaten too much Mr. Donut for breakfast. As the class was getting settled, he threw a punch at his teacher's crotch. The teacher dodged, covered, and laughed. I laughed too, albeit a little nervously. But then Johnny did it again. Dodge. And again. Maybe 10 times he punched and the teacher dodged. After a particularly close call, the teacher told him to stop in about the least authoritative tone I've heard in my life. Johnny laughed maniacally and took his place., leaving his teacher nursing his inner thigh at the front of the class. With Johnny in place, I was able to really begin the lesson. Bear in mind that my objective according to the Ministry of Education with regards to the younger students is more to get them excited about learning English than to have them fluent by sixth grade.

The students stood in a circle, while I selected one student to stand in the middle. I blindfolded that student and spun them around. The lucky kid stumbled around the circle (With my guidance of course. I'm not that mean.) hands outstretched, trying to find one of their fellow students. When they did, they shook hands and the dialog went like this:

"Hello."
"Hello."
"Are you name?" The first student uses the other's, "Hello," to guess which friend it might be.
"Yes its me! I am _____" or, "No I am not!" If they get it right, they switch places. They loved it.

After all the students had gone I thought they might like to watch their teacher stumble around dizzy and blindfolded like them. This was the biggest treat yet. The 1^st grade teacher burst out laughing when I gestured towards him with my makeshift necktie blindfold and continued laughing as he tied it around his head. The students spun him around and backed away to their places in the circle, but began creeping back toward the middle, hands outstretched, in the hopes that their teacher would shake their hand. It was great fun. The teacher was laughing. The students were laughing. I was laughing.

Then, I noticed that one student hadn't gone back to his place in the circle. Before I could react, Johnny threw one last very calculated and direct fist, squarely into his blindfolded, dizzy, and completely unprotected teacher's crotch. His sensei doubled over... in pain... and laughing the whole way down. The student threw his hands up in triumph. All the other students laughed. When the teacher regained his breath, he laughed out loud, told Johnny not to do that again, and continued the game. He didn't miss a beat. But I guess students and teachers are just comfortable enough to joke around like that here. Even though it was surprising, it's refreshing. I think I could be punched by a student, but not Johnny. He's vicious.

Also, no photos to accompany this story. That would be a poor decision, BUT, here are some photos from my trip to Nagano city for our Prefectural Orientation.

Nagano and Zenkoji

Addition: This was written a while ago. As of this writing I have started calling this the forbidden lesson. I did it again with another first grade class and had a similar incident, only this time, I had the close call. Recently, I had another class with Johnny. The same teacher took another hit. And I did too this time. It's a mixed blessing that the students are now fairly comfortable with me...

Arrival in Tenryu

I arrived in Tokyo's Narita airport two weeks ago. A welcome end to a long flight made longer by the two and a half hour delay before take off in Minneapolis thanks to a Japanese English club in the United States that was running late for their flight. One of the students told me on the plane that they had been visiting Nebraska once we had gotten moving. I've never had any urge to visit Nebraska and was having trouble understanding why anyone would fly across the globe for a rousing week of corn and... is there anything else? When I think of Nebraska, I think of rural.

Tenryu is the Japanese manifestation of the idea of rural and a few more trips to Nebraska in my life might have prepared me a little more for what would be awaiting me here in Japan. For those I haven't already told about Tenryu-mura, I'll give a few sentences background. 'Ten' means, 'heaven.' 'Ryu,' means Dragon. Just like in Streetfighter. 'Mura' identifies Tenryu as a village, there's also Tenryu-kyo up the road a bit. That's a town. You get the idea. Tenryu has fewer than 2000 villagers spread out over a pretty wide area, with a modest main area clustered around the river, schools, village office, and train station. Of that population, The majority are over 50. There's a modest number of younger parents, and I teach all of their children. In the junior high school where I teach most days, there are 27 students. My smallest class has 6, the largest, 13. I haven't had class yet, but I've already met most of them.

The past two weeks have been holiday time in Japan. It's Obbon, a time for acknowledging and respecting ancestors as it has been explained to me by my Japanese friends. Obbon is a great time for Japanese families to get back together in their hometowns and villages and have some real quality time. No friends to speak of and no ancestors have made the past two weeks a little slow paced. But then last Thursday, I was finally thrust in front of the village at the annual Summer Festival.

The whole town, or at least those that are still capable of walking or being carried came out to the Junior high school's soccer field for a good old time with music, food, and fireworks. I met up with my vice principal and then we went down at 7 or so for our first beer and yakitoris. On the way, I was introduced to everyone. Every student I would teach, their parents, the PTA. I chatted with the Mayor and my bosses at the Board of Education. Lots of people were decked out in Kimonos, including many of my kids, while some people brought a little feeling of country from back home to me. The wife beaters, and bleached blond pigtails made it feel a little more like home, but not quite in a way I might have been expecting. The evening was a lot of fun, particularly as the fireworks started and the dancing began. By dancing, I mean 8 or so basic movements to a beat that would repeat for maybe 20 minutes. Then a new dance would begin and we would do it in the opposite direction around the circle. I joined a group of younger students and their matronly dance teacher to try to pick up the steps.

I was awful, but the gesture was appreciated and, slowly, village members with a few beers under their belts began to filter through the circle and find me to test out the English they had learned back in high school, or to get their children to translate for them. The most commonly asked question, "How old are you?" Immediately followed by, "You look so young!" This is the gist of every conversation I've had in Japan thus far. But I stuck around until the night ended fielding questions and fanning the humid country air off my face. By the end of the night I had even made friends with a few people closer to my age in the village getting back to their roots for Obbon. They all left their email addresses in my hand and left from the train station the next day to return to the cities they now worked or studied in.