Small victories

Living abroad and trying to find your feet in a new culture is really tough. Some people go on about how difficult it is (and we all know I do my fair share of moaning, it hasn’t all been Kit Kats and grape Fanta you know!) whereas others seem to be having the time of their lives all the time. I think it’s your perspective. You can dwell on the things that drag you down (like when the sales assistant at the local convenience store makes you look like an idiot because you can‘t read kanji) and you can loudly boast about the amazing places you are seeing and the crazy new things you are experiencing. This makes for a bit of a roller coaster and I find that can be a bit exhausting. Still, everybody has a way of getting them through the culture shock of being in a new country and having to learn new words, new customs, and even new facial expressions.

My way is by counting the small victories.

The small victories are the tiny little things that might happen once a day, or once every two days, or maybe once a week. They’re the moments which disappear as quickly as they came and risk being forgotten completely when you have a negative experience. So when I get to the end of the day I think about the small victories of the past couple of days, and it helps give me some perspective when I’ve had a bad day and want to book a flight back to London. To give you an idea, here are the small victories from the past 48 hours:

- I asked the vice-principal for permission to go to the shop, in Japanese, and was understood.

- I learned to dance at the local ‘Bon Dance’ festival of my supervisor’s home town - in front of everyone and wearing the tightest tied kimono known to womankind.

- I went to the convenience store and paid an electricity bill. By myself.

- I asked for two customs labels at the post office, in Japanese, and was understood.

- I spent over half an hour in the supermarket looking for dashi stock, miso paste and tofu, then came home and made a really good miso soup first time around.

Individually these things don’t look like very much at all, but every single one of these experiences felt like overcoming an insurmountable obstacle. That’s not to say I don’t have a long way to go of course, but reminding yourself of the small things helps you to keep a grip on the bigger picture; it makes those misunderstandings, those wrong trains, those frustrations at having bought the wrong item at the supermarket seem like mere blips on what is ultimately a slow but steady journey.

So, having put in my two pence worth for the evening, here is a picture of me in a yukata.



I wasn’t joking about it being tight by the way, but I couldn’t tell the kind lady who tied me in that she was being a bit over eager. I’m not sure I would have even if I did possess the necessary linguistic abilities - as it turns out, putting on a kimono is a lot more complex than wearing a bathrobe with a big sash. Also, it is just as hard to get out of as it was to get in, so I would probably still have left her to it. Learning Japanese is one thing, learning how to put on a kimono properly is an entirely different thing altogether! That won’t stop me buying one to bring home by the way. I can’t come home from Japan without a yukata. It just wouldn’t be right.

The Kit Kat Challenge

There are many worthwhile things to do in Japan. My prefecture, for example, runs an event once a month where JETs go and play games with the children at the local orphanage. And I intend to do this.

But in the meantime I have taken up The Kit Kat challenge.

Kit Kats change fairly regularly in Japan, it would seem. So I have decided to try each and every flavour available on the market. Here are the first three of my challenge:

Green tea Kit Kat



I had my reservations about how much a Kit Kat could possibly taste like green tea.. But it really did. It tasted a bit like white chocolate had been mixed with the dregs of a cup of green tea and put on the Kit Kat instead of normal chocolate. A little strange.. but not bad if you’re not put off by just how green it is.

Banana Kit Kat




As soon as I opened this I was overwhelmed by the smell of banana milkshake. It was bright yellow, too! It tasted like a delicious banana milkshake with the crunchiness of wafer. This is one that I would definitely have again.

Salt and Caramel Kit Kat



I was a bit dubious about this one as well actually… it is a bit difficult to describe the taste. It wasn’t overly salty but it definitely tasted more savoury than other Kit Kats. I don’t think I’d have it again. It’s like the Kit Kat that can’t make its mind up.

And now, as an added treat, some photos I took in the supermarket of the frozen desserts, just in case you wanted to see how they did haagen dazs in Japan:


Maple Cookie flavour and Strawberry flavour (so far, so normal)


Tahitian Vanilla Caramel flavour (sounds nice! But what is Tahitian about it, exactly?), Milk Classic flavour (I’m confused) and the standard Green Tea flavour.


Finally, Cookies and Green Tea flavour (eh?!), Cookies and Sesame Cream flavour (what?), Almond Praline Cream flavour (ok, a little more normal) and Honey Milk flavour (actually this one sounds quite nice.)

I would love to take up the Haagen Dazs challenge, but alas my funds do not stretch that far. Kit Kats are probably better suited to my budget!

Japanese for beginners

I couldn’t let too much time go by without writing something about the Japanese language. Whilst learning it is genuinely the most difficult task I have ever undertaken, I am truly fascinated by it. Now seems like right time to write about what I have learnt so far as I recently unlocked the Japanese IME on my computer and learnt how to type in Japanese - so I can show you exactly what I’m talking about!

Ok, for those of you who know little / nothing of Japanese: There are basically three writing systems - two alphabets (where each symbol represents a syllable) and kanji (ancient Chinese characters where each one has a different meaning and pronunciation.

The first two alphabets are called hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is derived from the Chinese characters and are pronounced more less as they are read (unlike English where words are often spelt differently from their pronunciation). Hiragana are slightly more rounded, cursive symbols, and can look like this:
わたしは　(I am)

Katakana is used in a similar way but is employed for foreign words and onomatopoeia:
マイケル　(Maikeru - Michael)

It’s slightly more angular.. I prefer hiragana.

Kanji is used for many words, and there is a basic foundation of about 2000 kanji that will help you get by in daily life. In newspapers about 40% of the words are actually in kanji. They are so difficult to learn for foreigners, especially as there is no true way to look them up in the dictionary. You can look them up by stroke order (so the number of lines you use to write them) or by radical (a smaller kanji within a kanji). The concept of a radical might be easier to explain with an example.

火　this is ‘hi’, meaning fire. It sort of looks like a little flame. This can be used as an element of bigger kanji, making this a radical in some cases.

炎　this is ‘honoo’, meaning blaze. A double fire! Makes sense I guess.

災　and this kanji means disaster. If you use your imagination you can see a destructive fire doing some real damage in the symbol.

So, many kanji are symbols which represent ideas. Reading names of people and places is really fascinating as the kanji that make up their names portray different ideas and aspects of the culture. Take the common surname ‘Yamashita’.

山下　‘yama’ is the first symbol and it means mountain. It looks like three mountains in a row. Or three Diglett. But mountains for the sake of this explanation. The second, ‘shita’, by itself means to come down. When part of this name, however, it means ‘person who lives under the mountain.’ So, ‘a well balanced person.’ At least, this is how it has been explained to me.

I live in Nishinomiya.　西の宮。The first symbol means West. The final symbol means palace. The middle one is a particle which is often dropped when the name is on signs.. It links the two together. I like the name more now that I know the meaning!

I realise that this is the most basic of summaries so I hope my Japanese friends won’t think I’m simplifying things too much. I have a long way to go yet. Of the 2000 or so kanji, I have thus far memorised… 30 odd. Of these 30 odd I can only remember the pronunciation of about… 10. Of these I can probably reproduce half on paper; I am only capable of recognising the rest. It’s going to be a long year of flashcards!

Orientation

20-08-2010

Time for an update again! For the past three days I’ve been in Yashiro having the final orientation with Hyogo Board of Education. I have to say it has been a strange few days. In all we had about 10 seminars based on life in Hyogo, the educational system and various team-teaching techniques. Some of the information was really useful, but the rooms we were in for the seminars didn’t have air conditioning and there was no supply of fresh drinking water between meals for the first day, so everyone struggled to concentrate in the 34 degree heat. Japan is a beautiful country but the heat is unbearable, and in all honesty the only humidity comparable to the Japanese climate is that of a sauna.

And I don’t last very long in saunas.

We had an opening ceremony where our notice of employment was presented to us. The Japanese are big on ceremonies, even for small things, so when I arrived (on time! Woohoo!) and forgot to change out of my canvas shoes with bright pink laces (D’oh!) I thought I had set myself up for a fall. I seem to be the queen of bad impressions. In fact, the day I arrived in Hyogo I was dressed in my scruffs for the long journey as one of the group leaders gave the impression that we wouldn’t be meeting anyone important… but when I was collected by one of the English teachers I was taken straight to school to meet the two vice-principals and the staff. In any case the orientation staff weren’t the slightest bit bothered by my shoes, and I even checked with one of the Japanese ladies organising it beforehand, so the ceremony had a bizarre feel to it.. semi-relaxed but definitely a formality. It was pretty cool to get an official notice of employment anyway. The Japanese take such pride in a lot of things, their work in particular, and it’s such a nice change when you contrast this with Britain and its nation of job-hoppers.

The ceremony wasn’t the only part that had a bizarre feel to it. In one of the opening speeches the main supervisor from the Board of Education listed the rules of the institute and joked that previous JETs referred to the place as Yashiro prison, reassuring us that this was not at all the case. I suppose it depends on your perspective - to me it felt like being on a school trip with a twist. We were allowed to drink alcohol and even encouraged to do so, but requested not to get so drunk that we would set off the fire extinguishers in the toilets. We could go out if we wanted but there was a curfew of 10pm. Lights went off at 11pm and anyone who was caught wandering the halls was sent off to their dormitory (four JETs to a room, men and women on separate corridors.) In the morning, the tannoy played gentle piano music into the dorms at 6.55am, followed by a wake up announcement at 7am. After this, the music switched to ‘I like to move it move it.’

I think I can safely say that this is the one part of my Japanese experience so far where I have truly woken up and thought ‘where… on Earth… am I…’

So it’s been a change of scenery, to say the least! But I feel much better for having done it. I had no idea there were so many JETs close by - there are even some in South Nishinomiya! I got to meet loads of other people from the surrounding areas and I feel so much better for it. For the past few weeks I really have felt like the only gaijin in the village. This was not a good feeling! Yet it seems I have struck the right balance - whilst I have JETs close enough to meet up with if I want, I am still living around Japanese people, so I have the incentive to learn Japanese.

All I have to do now.. is learn Japanese.
Uh…

SoftBank

15th August 2010

The quest to get my keitai (mobile phone) lasted two whole days. I now have a beautiful black shiny phone with a pretty good deal through the company AU - the internet is too expensive to access through my phone but I can send and receive email for free! Actually it blows my mind a bit that you can receive email without having to open an internet connection.. but I guess I’m just a bit behind the times.

The first company I tried was called SoftBank. At the Tokyo orientation all the Jets had been talking about how text messages between Softbank phones were free, so it seemed like the obvious choice - except my application for a contract got rejected. After we spent nearly an hour filling out paperwork and waiting for an answer from their central office. Natch.

Whilst we waited for the decision, Sensei explained the advertising campaign of SoftBank to me.


The dog is the father of the family. There is a mother, daughter and son. In various adverts on TV the Japanese can see the family life of these characters as the dog tries to look after everyone and keep them in line.

The dog also graduated from the Sorbonne University and speaks fluent French. Who comes up with this stuff??

Who nose what's acceptable in Japan?

14th August 2010

Hello everyone. Well, it’s a Saturday night and I’m sat in with a green tea peel-off face mask on (I pray that it won’t stain my face green. That would certainly give the kids something to talk about!) So whilst it’s drying into a peel-able form I thought I would write and summarise the past week. That is to say my first full week at work.

It’s going to be a bit difficult for you all to work out what point I’m at, which is purely because without the internet I can’t upload these posts as I write them. So if you find yourself getting a bit lost, please refer to the diagram:


Clever isn’t it? I didn’t even realise I had Microsoft paint on this netbook. How handy.

In the time that I wasted making that little doodle my face mask dried, by the way. My face wasn’t stained green, although I did nearly lose half an eyebrow to the peeling process. What a moron.

Anyway! So I’ve been organising various things, such as signing up for my alien registration card, internet, phone etc.. you get the idea. Japanese bureaucracy, aside from the obvious fact that it is all conducted in Japanese, is a lot less frustrating than that of the Italians or the French. That is except for one small thing. Dates. In Japan the date is written year-month-day, which isn’t such an issue as I guess it’s just as logical as writing it day-month-year. But their years are different!

On all official documentation they don’t write 2010, they write 22. Every time a new Emperor takes over they start from the year zero - this is such a pain in the backside when you’re trying to backdate things and especially when you have a deadline to meet! But I guess it’s culturally quirky, one of the whole reasons I set off on this adventure.

The parts of my week that weren’t taken up with trudging around shops and offices have been spent planning lessons and reading books on team teaching. In Japan, when you start a new job (and I am told this is standard) no one talks you through what you’re meant to be doing - they just sit you at your desk and expect you to pick it up from watching other people. It’s quite unsettling really, but I like that I don’t get watched all the time. I like that I’ve had the time and opportunity to read through the materials that are available, even if it has led me to realise that I am way in over my head here (seriously - how am I going to teach English to these kids? How?)

On the Monday I was summoned into the principal’s office and given an insight into what was appropriate attire for a public servant. Earrings - ok. Make up - ok. Nose piercing - no way José. So here is a picture of my beloved nose piercing as I beheld it one last time:



I took it out that same night (reluctantly) and within an hour it was but a mere dimple. Of course, I knew there was a possibility of this happening, but I was still really upset about it. Still. Them’s the rules.

So aside from these little discrepancies, things are going alright for the moment. The Hyogo Jets have been summoned to prefectural orientation next week so I’ll have to go away to Yashiro institute for a few days. According to previous JETs it is much like a prison… I remain optimistic. As long as it has Western toilets, I will handle it. I think.

Funny things I have seen so far..

A few random photos I have knocking about from the first week in Japan.. The first is a poster on the Tokyo underground, advertising (I think) the latest Cats and Dogs movie. The dog, as you can see, is an aeroplane. On the wing, possibly a bit too dark to make out, a pigeon is perched as the two are pursued by a cat sporting a jet pack:


Also of interest, especially to a particular friend back home, is a demonstration of how the Japanese are keen followers of a certain British band:


I don’t know what exactly inspired me to take that photo.. I guess it was just seeing familiar popular faces in such an unfamiliar environment. It’s a bit trippy. Speaking of trippy…


…now THAT is weird, right??

Finally, as a treat for all you frenchies out there, one hilarious example of how using French to appear chic can go drastically wrong:


Tee hee.

Food and drink 1

I’m hoping to do a few of these blogs because I think they might be interesting for those of you back home. If nothing else there should be some cool pictures. So, drinks and snacks that I have found in Japan!

First up, the ‘lemon water’ I discovered in Japan at Tokyo train station, awaiting the shinkansen. On an incredibly humid day I was attracted to this drink on the top row of one of the many vending machines on the platform. ‘Physical drink’ was the English description on the bottle. Perfect! A refreshing sports drink for a hot day spent lugging a heavy bag on and off trains. In went my 150 yen and out popped the bottle.


Lemon water my foot. It tasted like ‘resolve’, the hangover cure I resort to at my lowest of morning-after ebbs. Bleugh. It was pretty thick and didn’t taste anything like the lemon cordial I had imagined. Major letdown.

Next, the apple juice. I think it was apple juice anyway, it had pictures of apples on it:


The flavour was so full of apples, it was incredible. But it also tasted like a lot of added sugar so it didn’t taste particularly healthy. On the day in question this wasn’t an issue; I needed the sugar!

Ah, these are the blueberry ‘sours’ that I bought on my way home from my second day at school:


I didn’t want them, or need them, but I thought buying random sweets was a good way of meeting the shopkeeper. He was a friendly old guy, but we couldn’t understand each other. Still, my Japanese will improve and I hope to have a conversation with him by the end of the year! The sweets were quite nice! But not sour. Hmm…

Finally my can of Fanta Grape. My little brother tells me this doesn’t really exist as a standalone flavour in the UK; apparently the grape flavour gets mixed with other berries.


Anyway, this tasted… like anything but grapes, actually. How bizarre.

Shinkansen

8th August 2010

Ah, what is more symbolic of Japan than the bullet train? Apart from cherry blossom.. and Sake.. and sushi.. Well it’s still up there in the top ten of ‘things that represent Japan’ anyway. My first trip by shinkansen took place on the way to my placement town from the Tokyo orientation. As I didn’t book the trip myself (it was done by the JET crew) I don’t have any tickets to show for it.. although in Japan the ticket machines tend to eat your ticket at the end of the journey, so you can’t keep them as souvenirs anyway. Sad face. This also means that I don’t know how much the journey actually cost, but some pre-departure research suggested it was in the region of about £100. Ouchy.
I would have paid it, however. In fact, I don’t expect that was my first and only trip by bullet train, I do intend to return to Tokyo at some point this year to visit my friend Mai. We met when she did an exchange year at my University when I was in first year and we lived together for a while. This is a very pleasant upside of this placement, seeing people I never thought I would see again!

I digress. At the request of someone back home, I took the opportunity to take a few photos. So here they are! Firstly, an arty attempt (I stress ‘attempt’) at a diagonal shot of two trains side by side:


Here is a more serious attempt:



With an added shot of the carriage for good measure:


So you get the idea really. Very aesthetically pleasing, sparkling clean, plenty of leg room, and discreetly speedy! I say discreetly as it never really seemed to be going that fast, though the distance covered in a couple of hours suggested that it clearly was. For those of you who are interested, here is a video clip of the scenery, just for a minute or so. Nothing much happens in the clip, I just thought it might be nice to capture the landscape as the train rushed by:



As one final point to add, the Japanese sell lunchboxes at train stations, often including the local delicacy of the area. At 1,000 yen I can’t help but feel the lunchboxes at Tokyo were slightly overpriced (and they do seem to be cheaper in small towns). I had the surprising good fortune to find a box containing only vegetables and rice! It was even easy to spot amongst the meat alternatives, as you can see:


All in all, a great experience! Why can’t we have such great trains??

Arrival in Tokyo

1st August 2010 Keio Plaza Hotel
Local time: 19.47
UK time: 11.47
Status: Knackered.

Unfortunately even though I’m writing this blog whilst it’s relevant, it may be a while before I can track down an internet connection to upload it, so there may be a surge of posts from time to time. I did spot a starbucks earlier with a wi-fi connection so if I can get time to go there during the orientation then I will do.. But it may be hard :(

This won’t be a long post anyway as I will probably crash out in bed soon. I got on the plane at 19.15 UK time on Saturday and arrived in Japan somewhere around 14.45 local time.. I still can’t get my head around the time difference but I suspect I have been robbed of an entire night of my life. The injustice! I don’t expect to recover it on the return home next year either, the world doesn’t work that way. Ah, the ramblings of the sleep deprived.

I have now truly, truly experienced jet-lag. It feels remarkably like the day I handed in my dissertation.

At Narita airport, Tokyo, I experienced the infamous Japanese toilets for the first time ever. There was a control panel next to the bowl with various pictures of things (bidets, bums, etc) and symbols in Kanji with English ‘translations’. Whilst searching for the flush I found a button labelled ‘flushing sound’. Ah! Thought I. Surely a mistranslation, probably just a warning that the flush is loud. So I pressed it, only to hear a recorded flushing sound (no actual flushing) and buttons flashed, encouraging me to increase and decrease volume. As it turns out, the Japanese like to muffle the sounds of their bowel movements with various different noises, from the less obvious (toilet flush) to the more obvious (bird tweets, so my room mate told me this evening.) Consider this your first strange fact about Japan from my voyage of discovery!

To compliment this blog, see below for a photo of the toilet in our hotel room. Considerably less high tech, but the drawings on the panel are most enjoyable. Note also the possibility of electronically controlling the water pressure of the bidet or ‘spray’ (I have not managed to work out the difference, but I’m sure as heck not trying!)

Actually here are some more photos of Japan so far. My in-flight vegetarian meal:


And the plush bathroom of the hotel:



That’s all for now folks. More updates soon! First day of training tomorrow!