Japanese efficiency

Sunday morning. Early. The world is awake because, it seems, Sunday is just another day to work in Japan. Last night my neighbours kept me up past 1am (which is a big deal now I'm not a student anymore) so I was looking forward to at least being able to lie in until 9am or later.

At around 6.45am an unexplained loud noise woke me up. Groggily, I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I was aware of moving around outside my balcony.

At around 7.30am the machinery started. Loud hedge trimmers and something that sounded like a pneumatic drill began operating on the area outside my apartment. A group of men were intermittently chattering loudly in Kansai dialect close to my balcony. They sounded so chirpy and awake that I wanted to go out and thump them.

The noise continued and continued, until I was fully conscious and unable to go back to sleep. At 8.45am I gave up and decided to go and make a cup of coffee and start my day. I came and sat at my computer at about 9am and looked out the window to see the guys all loading their machinery back onto their truck, the day's work apparently completed.

HGFUISDHGFKNDKGBAEDIHGFSD

Volunteering - June

Today I went to the children's home again, which was a lot of fun and just what I needed. There were only two of us going today but it caused a fair amount of excitement anyway. With no game tournaments going on and the weather too rubbish for running around in the yard, we wandered the corridors to see what the kids were up to. The girls appeared to be eating a late lunch so we made our way to the boys' floor.

That's where I was first attacked by a 7 year old with an imaginary light sabre.

As I fell to the ground in slow motion, matrix style, another small child rushed at me with a large yellow bean bag and began swiping for my head. I stood up straight, realising only my height would save me and noticed I'd arrived at the main play room for the boys. The more boisterous boys got distracted by something further down the corridor, so I breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the others who were staring up at me inquisitively.

"It's a new person," one of them said in Japanese. Another one popped up from behind me and began tugging at my name card. I hadn't seen him before and figured he must have arrived fairly recently. He sounded out my name and asked where I had come from. "I'm from England," I replied.

"Not Japan?" His eyes widened.

"No, I came from England," I answered. I asked his name and he said it slowly before pointing to his name on the list in the corridor. Then he charged off to overpower another boy's dinosaur with what I think was a plastic gun (it more closely resembled a drill.)

I stuck my head into the playroom and asked if I could come in. The kids graciously granted me permission so I scurried in and sat down on the floor next to a very quiet little boy who was carefully arranging shogi (Japanese chess) pieces on a board. He didn't seem to mind me being there, but he wasn't interested in small talk.

Eventually the others burst back into the room in a storm of fake gun sounds, light sabre swishes, and what can only have been battle cries. I was dragged into the battle between the gun and the dinosaur - the rules changed every minute so I'm pretty sure I lost every round. Then I was whisked away to watch TV, play several rounds of tag, hide and seek, and be killed in battle a few more times. When we left I was pretty exhausted, but happy. Hanging out with the boys was a different experience to last time and reminded me of playing in the garden with my little brothers when we were younger. These boys even had a bag of 'slime' on the playroom table that they claimed to have collected from the garden. It all feels so familiar..

Goodnight, grandma

One of my biggest fears about coming out to Japan was that something would happen to my grandparents whilst I was away. My grandma has had a fair few health problems over the past few years, and even though she pulled through every time, I still worried that something might happen whilst I was so far away.

My grandma died yesterday. She'd not been too well after a recent fall and had deteriorated over the past week or so. The family was with her when she passed away at home and I'm told it was very peaceful. I'm glad that she went in the best way possible.

But I'm also selfishly sad that I couldn't have been there too, to say goodbye or to say thank you. I feel wretched that I can't even go to her funeral when she was there my whole life. This post is my way of saying what I can't say to her, it's the only thing I can do.

When I was little, I used to go to my grandparents' house to stay. I'd normally go with one of my cousins, and at first we'd only stay for one night. As we got older and grew used to being away from home, we'd stay for a few days at a time and sometimes I would even go by myself. We'd all go on day trips to the local park, grandad would help me with my maths homework, grandma would play games with us and talk to us about whatever was going on in the news.

One of the things that stands out at me about memories of my grandma is that she was passionately anti-Thatcher. For as long as I can remember she would talk to me (at me?) about politics, even when I was too young to really understand what she meant. She also talked about social issues in general, teaching, learning difficulties, employment.. no doubt fuelled by what she was learning in her second degree in social sciences. I joked that these were 'lectures', but she inspired me to take sociology at college. Naturally, all the things she'd taught me gave me a head start in my classes, and it's probably not a surprise that I would never ever consider voting Tory.

Learning was a big deal for her. In fact, it always has been for both my grandparents. They bought my brothers and I our first encyclopaedias. For years we would go to see a play by the Royal Shakespeare Company every summer (beforehand she would always insist we dig out the big encyclopaedia of literature and read a synopsis of the play we were about to see.) She taught me a lot, about specific subjects and about the importance of studying. Every morning, before she started to be unwell, she would wake up between 6-7am and do the crossword whilst waiting for my grandad to wake up. I would sneak into her room, sit on the floor and stroke the cat, pretending to muse over the clues she was giving me (I make no pretence, I'm still not capable of doing those crosswords even now.) Sometimes she would give my cousin and I a really long word and ask us how many smaller words we could make with it. We would scamper off to do this whilst she and grandad got up and ready for the day and then together we'd try to make the list longer.

She was a convinced Christian too, and some of the explanations she gave me strengthened the faith I have today.

My grandparents' house has always felt like my second home to me. My cousins and I learned to play so many games there. Scrabble was always the hardest one, and grandma was quite strict about the 'no proper nouns' rule. But my cousins and I learned early on that we could easily trounce her in a game like 'pairs' or any card game involving memory. Those were such fun times, and I used to really look forward to school holidays when I could go and stay with my grandparents.

She'd always been hard of hearing, so one day my grandad bought her a hearing aid. It felt like a new era! All of a sudden she could hear us so much better. When she had it in, of course. She had a habit of not putting it in when we went to see her, which we only realised when she started to tell us off half-way through a conversation for speaking too quietly (often ensued by cries of 'put your hearing aid in, grandma!') She'd put it in and switch it on, then look expectantly at grandad. Grandad would then quietly say 'Mary had a little lamb..' and she would finish with 'and then she had some more.' This was their test to check the hearing aid was working properly, and it cracked me up every single time.

I'm going to miss my grandma so much. She was a huge part of my childhood and used to give such great advice, especially when I was having a tough time at school.

One day she said to me 'don't worry about boys and about what the other girls at school are doing. Study hard. Do well at school, pass your exams and when you get to University you'll be the belle of the ball.' I never forgot those words.

Thank you grandma, for everything. Thank you for helping me do well at school. Thank you for helping me be a better Christian. Thank you for your wise words. Thank you for patiently sitting and playing with me and my brothers and cousins for hours and hours. Thank you for being the best grandma ever.

I'll always remember you xxx

Japanese flower arranging

Determined to do as many Japanese things as possible before returning to the UK, I approached one of the teachers in charge of the Tea Ceremony club (茶道部) and asked if there were any activities I could join in with. She gave a me a schedule of some classes and invited me to an Ikebana lesson! Ikebana 生け花 is Japanese flower-arranging. I have never even done European flower-arranging before, so I’ve been excited about this for a while. Nervous too, because I heard that the lady outside school who comes to teach was very strict.

So yesterday I went along to the lesson with my English-speaking colleague, who was kind enough to stay with me the whole time to translate. I learned a huge amount about flowers in that short time.

Each of us had a selection of three types of plant waiting for us. Small, yellow chrysanthemums; the leaves from a kind of lily; and the focal flower which was tall and straight, with a purple bud. The main teacher came over to me and explained the principles of flower arranging, the main one being balance. You shouldn’t have too many flowers, and they shouldn’t be too bright. They shouldn’t all be the same size, and there are rules governing how tall or short they should be.

For example, there were three of the main flower in my selection, which the teacher cut to three different sizes for me. They were placed on the base first.

The base, by the way, is a flat pin bed submerged in water. You stick the flowers onto the pins so as hold them in place.

I was told that the shortest flower on the base should be around a third of the size of the tallest flower. (Yeah, this is where I started to get lost in the forest of yet more Japanese rules and etiquette.) The chrysanthemums were duly cut to size for me. There were additional tall leaves with the bunch that had apparently come from the tall flowers. This should be cut to the height of where the stem of the tallest flower stops and the flower itself starts. (Still with me?)

The lily leaves (the flowers of which are superfluous because the leaves themselves display a simple beauty worthy of a place on the stand) should not all face the same direction. Rather, they should look in or out in different directions in the interests of balance.

Before I knew it, the main teacher had arranged all my flowers perfectly for me. She was then whisked off to help some other students, leaving my colleague and I to look at the masterpiece she had left behind.

“You can try now if you want to,” she said. “This is the teacher’s style, but if you follow the principles of Ikebana then you can find your own style.”

I voiced my concern that the teacher would be offended at my interference in the balance that she had created. My colleague insisted though, so I took away all but the tallest flowers and began rearranging them with her help.

In the meantime we talked about flower arranging traditions. I learned that there are three main holidays each year, from January to May, where she herself would arrange flowers in her home. For other times the Japanese in general might display smaller pockets of flowers around their home, in front of which they might pray for dead relatives. Interestingly she said they favoured small chrysanthemums over the big ones, as they ‘give gentler feelings.’ I liked this idea.

The teacher came over to see what we’d done and contained her dismay in a very Japanese way – by emitting a small nervous laughter. Then she began rearranging my flowers again until they resembled more closely what she had done before. Apparently the main flowers were very tall and straight, meaning we should adopt a very ‘tall and straight’ style for them.

My flowers are now on display in front of the office.. I cheekily tweaked them one last time after the teacher reorganised them. It’s mostly my work I guess but it doesn’t really matter, I enjoyed the experience anyway.

My colleague left me with a wise observation. “We Japanese often think about colour and the brightness of flowers, but Ikebana is about balance. We should spend more time thinking about the balance.”

I guess in a country where work-life balance is hard to achieve, it is all the more important to preserve the principles of practices like Ikebana.

The countdown has started

This week the office lady has called me in for a couple of meetings to discuss end of contract formalities. Aside from the reminder that I should pay all my bills before I go and cancel any outstanding mobile phone / internet contracts, she also requested a date for my return in August / September. Now she has all the details and a set date, she'll be booking the ticket next week to make sure the prices don't rise any more.

Since then, I've been feeling really sad about it. Now that I know when I'm going home, it all feels a bit more real that my big JET adventure will be over in a few months. There are things about going back to the UK that excite me, but on the whole I've fallen in love with this beautiful country and its amazing people and I don't want to leave.

I've never been much of a tourist. I've been to a fair few places, and of the past six years of my life I have spent three of them abroad. But I'm not into visiting only the tourist spots and taking the photos that everyone takes. It can be fun, and I do it on occasion, though I prefer living in a place and building friendships with the people around me. I like to use the local shops and drink in the local cafes. I get a kick out of learning a new language and picking up local slang. The issue with this is, by the time I have to leave, I have already formed attachments. The culture shock that I went through when I arrived was intense; but it's nothing compared to the reverse culture shock I'm going to experience when I go back.

I'm going to miss the friends I've made, JETs and Japanese alike. I'm going to miss the food. The efficient public transport system. The mannerisms of the people around me. The mountain outside my apartment. The harbour of Kobe. Seeing the whole of Osaka bay stretch out in front of me from the window of my visit school.

I'm going to miss my students.

Now I have a countdown, I'm having to think realistically about my time left. I've got many things planned, including a trip to the theatre, a baseball game, climbing Mount Fuji and visiting a few other places in Japan. I'll upload as many photos as possible to this blog so you can all see my last few treks out here. I guess Japan will make a tourist out of me yet..

KitKat challenge May 2011

The latest instalment of my KitKat challenge.

Pudding KitKat

This was not dissimilar from the Kobe pudding KitKat. Possibly less sweet but only slightly.

 

Citrus KitKat

This and the following three KitKats are courtesy of my kiwi friend who travels a great deal more than I do. This one was tangy and orangey but also quite lemony. Very enjoyable.

 

Apple KitKat

This was.. very appley and quite sweet. It was nice and I'd eat it again, but it's not top of my list.

Chili KitKat

It took a few seconds for the hot chili to kick in. But kick in it did.

 

Blueberry Cheesecake KitKat

This was one of the cruellest KitKats. It tasted divine.. if you held your nose. The Japanese don't seem to understand the use of cheese in desserts and use the most pungent and smelly cheese ever. I don't understand. Anyway, I did eat it all. If I didn't breathe through my nose, it tasted amazing.

 

Tiramisu KitKat

I got so excited to find this one.. but was disappointed when no sooner had I removed the wrapper than the waft of cheese once again smacked me in the face. So much for a delicate mascarpone. I couldn't taste the coffee (or the chocolate) over the smell of cheese in this one. So much potential.

 

Edamame KitKat

In the Tohoku region they eat a lot of ground up sweetened edamame, so this is the token KitKat from that area. Recently they have been selling them locally and donating money from the proceeds towards the areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami.

It tasted.. odd. It appeared to start off tasting a bit like green tea but definitely got more 'beany' as the eating went on. I'd buy it again because every little helps, but.. yeah. Odd.

 

Volunteering

Yesterday I went with a couple of other ALTs to do some volunteering at the local children's home. To be honest, it didn't feel like volunteering; it felt like a lot of fun. We arrive in the afternoon when the children are playing and we just take part, playing whatever games they want to play and hopefully aiding the building of international relations that JET is so big on.

When we arrived the kids were busy playing 囲碁 (i-go), a board game for two players where you place black and white stones on the board to capture as many of your opponents pieces as possible. I had no idea how to play, so a member of staff whisked me off to a table and taught me (in Japanese, so I had to follow his actions very carefully). Shortly after, each of the kids took it in turns to play with a different opponent and received a stamp for their efforts. They were so good! I lost time after time against 6 year old boys who gleefully snatched up my pieces as I made one dumb move after another! They quickly filled their stamp sheets, after which the staff gave out prizes to some of the kids who had made the most effort (not just in the game but in other activities too.)

Shortly after, we all went outside to play. I quickly discovered that with small children, the language barrier doesn't mean a thing at playtime. With the other ALTs I spent an exhausting half hour chasing the kids around the yard for a game of tag. Some of them invented their own rules as the game went along though, so I had trouble keeping up! 'No tag back!' 'You can't tag me up here!'

One of the boys taunted my friend from the very top of the climbing frame - 'Come on!' he teased in English. We both made concerted efforts to reach him, but he had far more energy than we could muster.

One of the little girls asked me a question but said it too quickly for me to understand. When I asked her to say it again she looked confused for a second and then a look of comprehension spread across her face. 'It's your first time here, isn't it?' she said knowingly. I had forgotten how incredibly astute small children could be.

I'm already excited about going back next month, it was one of the best Saturday afternoons I've ever had!