July 11th-Summer in Japan 3: Rise of the Degrees
Grab your
bathing suit, sunscreen, towel, fan, bottle of cold tea, and deodorant
spray! It’s summer! Well, it’s not like any of that stuff is actually
going to help you keep cool, not sweat, or not stink as badly as the shoe rack
filled with sweaty shoes…but…you can try!
As we passed through the first real week of summer, it has become
abundantly clear to me why exactly most Japanese students carry around a hand
towel and a small spray can of deodorant wherever they go. Many students also carry something to fan
themselves with. I have been going with
the towel, but I leave my deodorant in my school bag. There is simply so much moisture that needs to be dealt with all
day long. Now that it’s summer, it’s
probably sweat that you have to deal with, but there is also a lot of water
that goes around. Much of the self-maintenance
that has to be done reflects, in many ways, the way the school is designed. The way the school is designed, I have come
to notice, was done in the best way to manage the flow of heat and water in and
around the school. The differences
between American and Japanese schools in this respect are quite obvious. What do I mean? Well let me give you some examples. Windows in Japanese schools are open all the way almost all the
time. There are no screen and no bars
or anything to keep people or whatever else from falling out. You just unlock them and they slide wide
open. Often times this leads to the
feeling that class is being held outside!
Through the dozens of open windows come the sounds of the outside, the
insects, and even birds fly through the halls and classrooms occasionally! The classrooms themselves have two sets of
windows. One set is to the outside, and
the other set (designed in the same way to maximize airflow) is to the
hallway. On the other side of the
hallway is a third set of large windows.
So, when they’re all open and a breeze blows, it can flow straight
through the classroom and the entire building.
This leads to papers blowing around but also to signs and gasps of
“Kimochiiiii!” (that feels good) and “Suzushiiiii!” (that’s cool [as in
refreshing]). The water is a whole
‘nother story. At both ends of the
hallway are sets of 4 sinks and a water fountain outside the bathrooms. Outside, around every building is a massive
network of gutters, pipe ways, drains, and tiny rivers that direct the flow of
water in the rainy season. Throughout
the school grounds is also a network of covered walkways (corrugated metal)
meant to give cover to the kids as they walk around during lunchtime or between
classes. Essentially you can go
anywhere to any of the 4 main buildings and the two gyms without every being exposed
to the sky. Unfortunately, the roof is
a little high in places and if there is a strong wind, the rain comes in anyway
and you get a little soggy.
Lastly are the sinks, or what might
be wash areas, around the school, which there are about half a dozen of. What a wash area consists of are two
concrete sinks (back to back) with 5 faucets are each side under a small
roof. The sinks are about 7 feet long I
would guess. Basically students use
them for brushing their teeth, washing their hands or faces, or cleaning things
off. Ippei, Satoshi, and myself have
developed our own little ritual and use for them in the past week. Every day this week, and a little last week,
after practice, we have been doing the “head rinse.” Of course, over here we like to call it 頭洗い (atama arai) [head wash]. Basically all this is is going to the sink
area, picking a faucet of our liking, turning on the water, waiting to see how
cold it will get, and then dunking out heads and faces under the flow of water
for a couple of minutes while rubbing our faces and running our fingers through
our hair. Ideally we would like to take
a dip in the pool after practice but that is off limits for some reason. Our second choice would be to use the
showers next to the pool…but…those are also off limits. So all we’re left with are the sinks that
are everywhere so no one really cares what we do with them. Often times after we’re done with the head
wash, the guys on the team will tell me that I look like I was just born
because my hair is all wet and swirled every-which way. It is a nice way to refresh after an entire
day of sweating. Essentially it is the
only relief I get after 12 hours of burning up in the heat. I sweat from the time I wake up in the
morning until I get in the shower at night.
The only other relief I get is if we get to go to a computer room (the
only classrooms with air conditioning) or to the library (which also has had
its air conditioner on recently). In
light of this discovery I have been going to the library much more often. If we have a period where the teacher
doesn’t show up, or if it’s a class that I don’t feel I have to, or should be
made to, go to, I just go to the library.
I use the computer, enjoy the cool air, and the librarian (a pleasant,
smile, elderly woman with a permanent smile) tries to talk to me.
I know I’ve talked about this before, but
I really like Ippei and Satoshi.
They’re just so much fun to be around and EVER so entertaining. Apart they are both pretty funny, but when
they’re together and get going it’s just hilarious. The other day after practice when we were changing, we started
talking about seeing Terminator 3 (to be released here on Saturday the 12th). Then Ippei decided to reenact all his
favorite scenes from Terminator 2 (one of his favorite movies). He did the music, the sound effects, played
every character, and did the voices in Japanese. Some of the scenes he did were: the escape from the mental asylum
when the T-1000 pries open the doors of the elevator and then jumps down the
shaft while the terminator shoots his shotgun through the ceiling, the time
when the terminator shoots his last grenade into the T-1000 and it explodes,
and the ending scene when the terminator makes Sarah Conner lower him into the
molten steel to destroy the last microchip inside his head. I think was made this all the more amusing
was the fact that Ippei was only wearing boxers and his sneakers when he was
doing all of this. I’m really going to
miss those two crazy guys when I leave.
We’ve talked about meeting in Hawaii because it’s half way between
America and Japan…but…given that Ippei has never been off the Island of Kyushu,
I don’t see that happening any time soon.
We will see. Given that this is
the 3rd time I’ve been to Japan in the space of 2 years, I think
there’s a fair chance that I’ll be back in Japan before TOO long. Hmmm…speaking of being in Japan, what was I
doing two years ago today…July 11, 2001…I can’t remember. It was a Wednesday, so that means that we
had class at the alternate classroom site.
The alternate site was near Fisherman’s Warf and you had to put on the
uncomfortable slippers when you went into the building. Today was the first day that we had class
there because it was my first Wednesday in Nanao. It was very warm in that building and there was no air
conditioning. At least at Work Pal (the
regular place) there was air conditioning.
Next Saturday (the next Saturday 2 years ago) would prove to be my best
and my worst day in Japan. Hey! Didn’t I write about that in my last journal
entry or something?!?! I know I
did. I guess when you’re not living
under regular circumstances you tend to have more extreme and unpredictable
moods as well as being more sensitive to things.
Last Tuesday was an interesting day. It was the day of the 国際セミナー(kokusai
seminaa) [international seminar]. My
homeroom as well as our neighboring homeroom (29) attended the seminar as well
as students from 3 other schools in Miyazaki prefecture. The students were only part of the story
though. The rest of the people there
were ALTs (teachers like Sam who are native speakers of English). In all there were about 20 ALTs there from
different schools around the prefecture.
It was held at some hotel a block away from the city office. The nice thing about it all was that we
didn’t have to be there until 9am so I got to sleep for an extra hour! Woohooo!
The bad thing about summer in Japan is that it is just as hot at 7:30am
as it is at 1pm! This is quite a
phenomenon, but I am certainly living it now.
Well, anyway, I got a bit of a late start when I was on my way to the
hotel, so I had to hurry a bit. By the
time I got there I was burning up and dripping with sweat. It was truly disgusting. The room where all the students gathered was
slightly air conditioned, but as the bodies started to pack in (about 170
students in all) the air conditioning did less and less to relieve the
discomfort. I certainly wasn’t the only
one complaining though. Everyone was
desperately fanning themselves with a piece of paper, a folder, a booklet, or a
fan while saying how hot and unbearable it was. It took about 20 minutes for the sweat factor to go down a little
bit but I never entirely cooled off.
While we were waiting for the opening ceremonies to begin (NOTHING
starts in this country without an opening ceremony) I talked to some of the
guys from another school sitting next to our class. They thought it was pretty cool to find a foreign student at the
international seminar. They also were
really impressed that I spoke Japanese to them. The only other guy from my homeroom there was 上園 (Uezono). The other 5 were at the opening ceremonies for the baseball
tournament that started this week and they didn’t show up at the seminar until
after lunch. Finally the opening
ceremony started. All that was was the
main ALT (a rather hefty, odd-looking young woman) who said a bunch of stuff in
English that I doubt anyone but the other ALTs and myself understood. Then there were some brief statements by
some Japanese guy. After that was done,
they introduced us to our ALTs. They
called them out in front of the group one-by-one and saying strange stuff about
them like “If they were an animal they would be….” Or “If they were a superhero
their name would be….” Or “The most interesting part of their body
is…..because….” Then the ALT would bounce out in front of the students and say
“HI!” into the mic and sit down next to the other teachers. When some of them saw me sitting at the
front of the room they would ask the person next to me, “Who’s that?” On my way to school I had been thinking that
it might be interesting if I introduced myself as an exchange student from
Germany and that I can hardly speak English at all. I even had it worked out what I would say in Japanese and then in
German. I do remember enough German for
that. I did, after all, win a book
prize from the Austrian government for my accomplishments on the AATG exam!!! I was going to see if I could get them to
believe my little ruse and then tell them the truth in English and make them
feel very silly. When I got the chance
though (when we broke up into small groups with our ALTs) I chickened out and
just talked to the guy in English. My
guy turned out to be pretty nice and cool.
In fact, I think all the ALTs were probably nice and cool otherwise they
probably wouldn’t be ALTs. My guy was
Henry from England and he talked with a funny accent. He said he’d been studying Japanese for 9 months since he’d
arrive in Miyazaki. He knew a bunch of
words but he ran into trouble when he tried to make coherent sentences. I told the kids (there were 8 of us in the
group) that his pronunciation in English as well as in Japanese was funny. In our little groups the day consisted of 3
workshops. During the first workshop we
played a silly ice-breaking game. We
sat in a circle and had to say our name, where we were from, and make an animal
sound. Then the next person had to say
the name, location, and animal sound of all the people before them. My animal sound was a cat hehehe. One girl made a snorting pig sound. It turned out, through the game, we had to
make our own sound and the sounds of the other kids, several times. It was so stupid because every time the girl
had to make her pig sound she would laugh and look around in panic and then
lift her pamphlet in front of her face before snorting…as if…if we couldn’t see
her face we wouldn’t know who’s snorting….I don’t know. Japanese kids are so shy it’s pathetic. If they are shy around me, part of it might
have to do with the fact that I’m not really shy at all with them. I can do any say pretty much anything I want
without having any qualms about it. If
kids don’t want to talk to me though because I’m not shy, I don’t really care
because I don’t want to be friends with anyone who is that silly to in the
first place. During the second workshop
we were given a set of written tasks and problems to solve. All of these were written in English, but
that didn’t necessarily make it easier.
In our group we broke up into small teams to work on the problems. The two my little group got, I couldn’t
really help with. The first problem was
to make 4 different origami creations.
I didn’t know how to make any so I just made a cootie-catcher. The next problem we got was to create some
income statement given a set of numbers and figures for some fictional work
project or commercial enterprise. I
guess they figured the kids would be able to do the book keeping because it was
only commercial high schools that came to the seminar and they all take book
keeping. The problem was that all the
kids are horrific at book keeping (remember the 37% class average?) and this
problem was written in English. I
couldn’t help though because I don’t know the first thing about book keeping…and
what’s more…I couldn’t care less about the first thing about book keeping! When we solved 4 of the tasks we were given
a riddle that led us to a country or region on a world map. If we found all the places we were eligible
to win some sort of prize. We didn’t
win any prizes. After the second
workshop was done we all had lunch. I
had brought lunch from home so I just sat with the rest of the guys in the
large room we had first congregated in.
Things were pretty quiet during lunch except for when I decided to start
taking a few pictures. When the girls
from another school saw I was snapping pictures, they all massed into a huge
group and insisted I take a picture of all of them, so I obliged. I think that a bunch of the kids from other
schools wanted to talk to me, but most of them were too shy. It was alright though since we didn’t have
that much time to socialize anyway. The
kids in my group were pretty boring.
Three of them were from my homeroom (and not even people from my
homeroom that I like) so they were boring.
And then other four (girls from other schools) were also quiet and
boring. The third workshop was by far
our most extensive task. The task was
to design a commercial for some product produced in the Miyazaki area and perform
our commercial for the entire group of kids.
A lot of the kids didn’t really know what was going on or what to do, so
after lunch the ALTs put on their own presentation to give the kids an example
of what it was supposed to be like. It
turned out to be VERY funny and I was beside myself with laughter. It was an add for Miyazaki silk. I think the funniest part was when they had
Sam (from our school) wrapped in a big white sheet and he was supposed to be a
silk worm. Two people playing customers
at the store wanted to see how the silk was made. So the old man and woman from the store took them to the silkworm
farm. Then, out from under the sheets
between Sam’s legs (as he wriggled around like a worm) they pulled our a bunch
of silk scarves. It was quite amusing
to say the least. Our commercial was
about Tsuno Wine (a local win). I
didn’t do any preparation for the commercial.
Instead, I spent the prep time drawing a poster for the wine (the poster
was also required). It’s too bad I
didn’t get to keep the poster because I think it came out rather well—if I do
say so myself. I felt my competitive
spirit come back and didn’t let any one else work on the poster. Two of the girls were supposed to help me,
but I didn’t let them. They just sat
there and watched me draw the whole thing.
I knew that they wouldn’t do it the way I wanted it to be done and when
I get started on some creative project, it’s my way or not way. I really just have a hard time trusting
other people to do a good job or do it the way I think it should be done. I ended up drawing four bottles of wine
(there are 4 kinds of Tsuno wine), and then I drew a whole mess of grape vines
and bunches of grapes emerging from behind the bottles and winding around
them. Although we didn’t win any prizes
for the poster, I think it came out very nicely. In the commercial I ended up playing a drunk. I was trying the 4 different kinds of wine. Every time I drank a new kind of wine I got
a little bit more drunk. After the last
glass of wine I fell down and stuck out my tongue. The rest of the commercial was just a couple people talking on
the phone under water (with snorkel gear) about the wine and how delicious it
was. We didn’t win any prizes for our
commercial either, but some of the other ads were rather witty and I think ours
was just a little predictable so it was ok.
Unfortunately Henry ended up doing almost all the preparation and
guidance on the design of the commercial.
We only had about an hour and a half to put the entire thing together
(for this kind of thing, the kids would be given a month or two at school) and
they had a lot of trouble getting started and getting their act together. After the seminar was over we did the
closing ceremony (NOTHING ends in Japan without a closing ceremony) and it was
over. At the closing ceremony Chie
delivered a little speech that I helped her write and helped her rehearse
for. She originally wrote it, but it
had a lot of mistakes and sounded silly, so after getting her permission I
wrote another version of it for her and then went over it all with her and
helped her understand it. I figured it
would be better for me to help her so she could say something intelligent in
front of the students and all the ALTs at the risk of the fact that I basically
wrote the speech for her. I helped her
practice it numerous times and I think it went something like this.
I think we were all able to have a good
time today. Although we always study
English, we can’t communicate with native speakers very well. We simply don’t have any chances to meet
them. So, we have to study harder. I would like to believe that English can be
our language too. When I am able to
speak English well, I would like to make many English-speaking friends. I want to become a woman that can play an
active part on the global scene. Thus,
I would like to say thank you, on behalf of the students, for all your hard
work, and for your contributions to this day.
Thank you.
She was nervous and messed up a few times,
but luckily she was smart and held onto her little piece of paper so she was
able to check it a bunch of times and get herself back on track. After the seminar was over, I rode by bike
back to school and went to boat practice.
Well, I have much more to say and it’s too bad that I didn’t start this
journal entry a few days ago, but that can’t really be helped now. I really should just go to sleep. Tomorrow is Saturday so I’ll see if I can
have some time tomorrow to finish things up and post this one before tomorrow
night. Speaking of night…good! No, no, no…that didn’t come out right. Let’s try it again…good night! There we go!
Today
would be July 13th. The
following parts of my body are in pain: thighs, hamstrings, butt, the toe next
to my big toe on my right foot, my stomach, and my calves a little bit. Most of this is from the practice on
Friday. At first the practice wasn’t so
hard and I was like, “Looks like we got off easy.” And then came the rest of the practice. We went out to the field with Tanba-sensei and he told us that we
were going to do a relay race. We
actually ended up running about 5 relay races!
For three of the races, we actually had to run two times in the same
race so the race was twice as long. The
winners and the losers had to do exercises after each race, but the losers’
exercises were harder and lasted longer.
One time when we lost a race we had to do this exercise in which you
kick your right leg out, then your left leg out, then squat down, and then jump
up into the air as high as you can. I
thought he said we were going to do this 15 times, but I was wrong and it ended
up being 50 times! On the last one no
one could make it all the way up and we just collapsed onto the ground. Tanba-sensei was laughing the whole time and
yelling out, “Come on! Count
louder! I can’t hear you!” So, yesterday my legs were in a lot of
pain. And they feel a little bit better
today but I still can’t walk really well.
I’m not sure why my stomach is sore; I haven’t really done that many
sit-ups recently…so I dono. My toe
hurts because I stubbed it on the ground a few weeks ago and I keep bumping it
into things and it doesn’t get completely better. Nevertheless, today after I got home from seeing Yumi, I went
running for about 35 minutes, so that was good. After things got warmed up, my legs didn’t really hurt, but it
was too warm so I didn’t go for the extra 10 minutes. I got too thirsty and I got into the grounds of an elementary
school and got a drink. No, I didn’t
break into anything and no one was there.
I just walked in the little gate and got a drink from the sink.
Yeah,
so I hung out with Yumi today.
Originally I had wanted to go to the beach with her but she didn’t want
to go because she didn’t want to put on a bathing suit (she put on about 30 lbs
in America…yeah…no kidding, this is America we’re talking about). Then yesterday she said we could to Aoshima
to go to the beach. So I assumed that
we were going to swim and I brought my bathing suit. As it turned out she never had any intention of swimming and she
didn’t bring her suit. So we spent a
few hours walking around the really weird washboard-like rock formations while
talking about different things, picking up little crabs, and trying not to slip
on the slimy rocks. I was hungry because
I hadn’t eaten anything because I didn’t want my stomach to be hanging over my
bathing suit when I put it on. So we
went to get some food. While I was
eating (Yumi had already eaten) her mom got in touch with her and said that she
didn’t have anything to do so she wanted to come pick us up. We had already bought the round trip ticket
back to Miyazaki station from Aoshima, but there was not much we could do. Her mom came about 45 minutes later to
Kodomo no Kuni and her dad was there too.
When I opened the car door and got in I was hit with a blast of chilly
air from the air conditioner in the car.
It seemed like it had been so long since I had ridden in an
air-conditioned car that it was almost luxurious. I`ve gotten so used to riding my stupid everywhere and sweating
my guts out that I forgot what it was like to be able to move from point A to
point B without being exhausted or need a shower by the time I got there. I wonder what it will be like when I get home
and I can drive my car again...maybe I won`t bother unless I`m going somewhere
far away. Maybe I`ll just ride my bike
like I’ve been doing. But, even if I
ride by bike, it will be luxurious compared to what I`m riding now. Even though I got the blown tire fixed and
the breaks tightened up, the bike has developed another problem! Ironically, this problem came up
about...ohhh...2 minutes after I left the bike repair shop! Now, the chain likes falling off. I`ve figured out how to put it back on
without much trouble, but it`s such a pain in the you-know-what and my hands
get so filthy when I do it that I often have sick fantasies about dismantling
my bike with a blow torch or just throwing it into the street so cars can run
over it. Yesterday when I was riding
home, the chain fell of the back gear as well as the front gear. This was the first time that it did
this. I was able to get it back onto
both gears after about 5 minutes, but now when I pedal the gears make a
crunching sound like someone is chewing little rocks. Well, it just has to last another 11 days before I’m out of this
town! At any rate, when Yumi and I got
into town we decided to see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Although I had been looking forward to
seeing it, I didn’t have high expectations.
The main problem was that it was directed by some guy who I’ve never
heard of. I read his bio on moviefone.com
and he has next to no experience. So, I
have no idea why any producer handed him such a big movie. Anyway, the movie was all right and I wasn’t
disappointed because I wasn’t expecting too much in the first place. So, it was ok. I was glad that the whole world blew up in the end though instead
of there being a happy ending.
I
really think the next topic that has to be discussed is that of the issues and
follies surrounding the night of Saturday the 12th. The thing about that night though is that it
wasn’t just one night, it was really a series of days and nights that led up to
one massive amount of stupidity on the night of the 12th
itself. I think this is a good example
for me to go into because it really illustrates quiet well, I think, the kind
and quantity of garbage that I have to deal with on an almost daily basis
because I’m living with a host family.
It all started back in the end of June when Chie mentioned to me that on
the night of Saturday the 12th the Oyodo Matsuri (Oyodo Festival)
would be held in the area around Minami Miyazaki Station. She wanted me to talk to my host parents
about it to see if it was ok for me to go.
I had been intending to talk to them, but since the day was still two
weeks away, it wasn’t really that high on my priority list. One night, I guess about a week and a half
before the festival, after we had finished dinner, I asked my host mother if I
could go to this festival. Now, one
thing you have to understand first is that Saturdays are supposed to be “family
communication” days. In other words,
I’m not supposed to go out (except to boat practice), make any promises to
friends to hang out with them, and I’m not supposed to have any fun. This was all decided way back before I even
moved in here when I met my host mother for the first time. The theory behind all of this is that unless
there were some day during the week when I was just supposed to spend time with
my host family, I wouldn’t really see them that much and the meaning of “home
stay” would get kind of lost. Since
this seemed like their only real request at the time and I did see some
validity in their desire for such a day, I agreed to it. So, when I asked about being allowed to go
out on a Saturday night, I thought there might be some trouble. But really, let’s think about this. I potentially could have spent the ENTIRE
day with them minus a few hours in the evening. Like…if I went to this festival at 7pm, that would be the entire
day with the family and I would only be missing about 1 hour of potential
family time anyway because my host father goes to sleep at 8pm! Well, after discussing this all for about 2
hours (everything takes two hours to discuss when my host mother is at one end
of the conversation, but usually she takes both ends) it seemed like she wanted
to let me go to this festival. The
issue was when I would get back. Even
if I got back at like a pretty reasonable time like 9 or 10, my host father
would be asleep. In order to get into
the house I would have to ring the doorbell, thus waking him up, and him
getting mad because his sleep was disturbed.
Now I know what you’re asking now, “Why don’t they just leave the door
open so you don’t have to ring the bell?”
Oh lordy…if only I knew the answer to this question I would be a man
wise far beyond my years. Let me tell
you something, the door to this house is ALWAYS locked no matter what time of
day it is or who is home. Like when I
get home from school I have to ring the doorbell to get in the house. If I go on a run (which I often do), I get
home and the sweat is pouring off me, I’m short of breath, and my legs are
burning. I have to ring the bell to get
in the house. It’s time likes that when
I just want to scream at them, “LET ME IN THE &#*@!% HOUSE! WHO ELSE COULD IT POSSIBLY BE!?!?!?!” If you think they sound stupid and paranoid
enough already, let me tell you that they have a video camera and an
intercom! So when you ring the bell
either my host father or mother will come on the intercom and look through the
little video monitor so they can see who it is. My host parents are so paranoid and bizarre that it’s almost
comical. I say almost because I have a
hard time laughing about it when I’m the one who is living with them. My host mother is convinced that there are,
what she calls 変なおじいちゃん (hen na
ojiichan) [weird old men] who just walk around the neighborhood at night with
trench coats on and nothing underneath so they can expose themselves to
people. Everything is dangerous and
scary according to my host mother. She
tells me all these stories she heard about people’s houses being broken into by
random people and everyone getting killed.
I guess she’s forgotten that she lives in one of the safest countries in
the world, in a city that’s said to have the nicest people in all of Japan, in
a part of town where almost everyone is a farmer and just wants to be left
alone to tend their crops and not bother anyone. Reason and logic are not two of the things that my host mother
understands too well though. So, the
door couldn’t be left open so I could get back in. So I suggested that the door to my room be left open
instead. In my room, there is a door
directly to the outside. It has a lock
on it too. So I suggested that she can
lock that door if she wants, but just give me the key so I can let myself in
without waking anyone up. I never
understood the reason why this was a no-no, but she just told me that she
doesn’t have the key—her husband has it, and she doesn’t think he would give it
up even for one night. So I was like,
“Ummm…oooo…..k……..?” The way the house
is set up, my room is actually in a separate area from the other bedrooms. To get to my room you have to go down a
hallway past the bathroom and laundry room.
When you get to my area (my room, bathroom, and sink area) there is
another door that can be closed and locked from hallway side, not my room’s
side. So I suggested that I not be
given the key to the door to the outside in my room—instead they could just
lock the hallway door. My host mother
considered this one and thought that might be ok because when random people
just wander in off the street and come into my room, simply because everything
isn’t bolted shut, and take all my stuff, it will only be all MY stuff that
they take. I was willing to take this
risk. Then somehow this wasn’t going to
work either. What it finally came down
to was that I could go to this festival if I got on the last bus to leave the
festival area at 9pm and got home by 9:30pm.
If I was home by then she thought it would be ok with my host
father. A day later Chie decided that
because this was causing so much trouble, it might just be better if we waited
until the Minato Matsuri (port festival) on the 21st to go to a
festival together. I really want to go
to a festival with her because she’s going to put on her yukata (summer
kimono) and I can put on my jinbei (light traditional summer wear for
men) and it would just be SooOoOoOoO nice and I would take a million
pictures.
So
you think the story of the night of the 12th is over? No!
All that stupidity and mess was just the first half of it. The second half started last week (Tuesday I
believe) when Sam (the Canadian ALT) who’s wanted to take me out some time
since I first arrived here, invited me to a BBQ party. This BBQ party was going to be at the beach
and was going to be attended by a bunch of the ALTs in Miyazaki. This certainly sounded like a lot more fun
than staying at home and I wanted to let him do something with me since he’s
been asking for so long. And besides,
he’s a nice, smart guy, who’s really funny at times, so why shouldn’t I want to
go to a BBQ party with him? The issue
again was with Saturday night. It was a
little bit different though because I would be out with a teacher, not some
punk kids, and it would start about an hour later than the festival would have,
so essentially I would miss NO family daytime.
Additionally, the issue of getting back late wouldn’t be an issue
because when I mentioned this to Sam he said it would be OK if I slept over at
his house. Naturally, my host mother
didn’t see it all as clearly and easily as I was able to. When I asked her if this would be ok, she
decided THEN to tell her that her husband had been secretly planning to leave
work early so HE could take me to the festival after all! Naturally I’m the last one to ever hear
about anything in which I’m the first one who should hear about it. So, she said that she would have to talk
about that with her husband. Aside from
that, her main concern was that she didn’t know Sam and she thought he might
get me in all kinds of trouble or adulterate me or some junk like that. She did recognize the fact that he was a
teacher at my school and not just some guy off the street. Nevertheless, she thought the best thing to
do would be to meet him. This was
impossible of course because there was no place for her to meet him and the BBQ
was only a day or two away. So, she
ended up talking to him on the phone.
Since Sam doesn’t really do Japanese that well, she had to talk to him
in English (which she was really really nervous about at first). In the end she pulled it off though and was
satisfied that he was a decent guy. She
also talked to Bingham-sensei (English teacher at Miyasho married to an
American). Of course she talked to both
of them as long as she humanly could (she doesn’t know how to shut up) as if
she was some punisher appointed by a sadistic court to make Sam and
Bingham-sensei pay for their sins. She
also was worried about me staying over at Sam’s house. Although she thought it was all right after
talking to both of the teachers, in the program rules it’s written that the
student’s local contact is supposed to be consulted before the student spends a
night somewhere outside of the program parameters. I thought that that applied to some situation like if I went to
another town with friends and wanted to stay over there with them—not me
staying at a teacher’s house in town.
My main concern was that, despite the fact that Saeki is not officially
my contact in Miyazaki (some guy named Kawami who I’ve never met is) my host
mother thought that she would have to talk to Saeki given that he is the one my
host family has been dealing through the entire time. I was highly against this because I knew that when he heard that
I was trying to: go to a BBQ party, miss ANY portion of family day (even if it
was 15 minutes), make any kind of arrangement or think of making any kind of
arrangement on family day, or have any FUN in this town…..he would blow a
gasket and yell at me over the phone for 30 minutes and not listen to
anything. One of the things I hate most
about that man is that he has tunnel vision.
He only sees what he wants to see, and what he wants to see when it
comes to me, are things that I’m doing wrong or that make him annoyed so he can
get mad at me. One of the many stupid
things about that man (there are many things), is he is so narrow minded and
stubborn that even if my host family told him that they thought it was fine for
me to go to this BBQ and were going to make an exception this time, he would
still get mad because I was trying to “break” the family rule. My host mother recognized all of this though
and made every effort to not have to bring Saeki into the situation. It turned out that he didn’t have to be
brought in though because she was able to get comfortable enough with Sam so
she thought it was ok. So, that was
it! It was on and I was going!
On Saturday the 12th, I spent the
first part of the day with my host mother and Kouki. First we went to the house of my host father’s brother so we
could see the new baby. I think the
baby was about 2 weeks old. It was a
weird and boring being in there. Like…I
didn’t know these people at all, and their ancient parents were in there too,
and the baby kept crying, and the two parents and my host mother kept sniffing
the baby’s diaper to see if it needed to be changed, and Kouki was being really
annoying because I guess he wasn’t getting enough attention, and then the
mother lifted up her shirt and started breastfeeding the baby, and they kept
saying that they ordered sushi for us but it was taking forever, and I was just
kind of sitting there sipping my orange juice and munching in tea cookies that
they had put out. Kouki was being such
a little brat and a baby that day. When
they asked if we wanted to stay for sushi, my host mother asked me what I
wanted to do and I didn’t want to tell her that I wanted to leave cuz that
would be impolite so I just told her anything is fine. Kouki said he wanted to eat first and then
leave, so we stayed and waited for the food.
When it finally got there my host mother and I ate quickly so we could
get out of there but Kouki had completely lost interest in eating. Occasionally he would say that he wanted to
eat some cucumber or melon, but when my host mother put it in his mouth he
would spit it out. When we finally left
we went back home and then headed back out to go to some little water park next
to the Miyazaki Zoo. I didn’t have any
real objection to the water park because I wanted to go swimming, in the
picture my host mother showed me it looked like fun, and it seemed like there
was a good chance that there would be lots of young Japanese gals in
swimwear…so…what is there not to like?
When we got there we had to walk up a hill to get to the entrance of the
water park. About 15 feet up the hill,
Kouki said that he wanted to go in a stroller.
Of course there was no stroller for him so my host mother just said that
he had to walk. Basically we spent the
next 20 minutes goes up a hill to the entrance which should have taken 5
minutes. Every 10 feet or so he was
plop down on the ground, start kicking his legs in the air and scream about how
he wanted a stroller and that he can’t walk anymore. My host mother offered numerous times to carry him and I offered
to carry him too but he didn’t want that.
It was so embarrassing for my host mother because he was making a
tremendous amount of noise, everyone was looking at us, and kids half Kouki’s
size and age were walking or running up the hill without making any fuss at
all. When we were about 20 feet from
the entrance to the water park, he only stopped crying because my host mother
took him into a little store they had there and bought him a toy to reward his
good *cough…sputter* behavior! When we
got inside it wasn’t nearly as interested as I thought it would be. It was half the size that it looked in the
picture, it was way too crowded, and I could have counted the number of people
around my age on 1 hand. Almost all of
the people there were around 5-12 years old and their parents. The pool was a circle like a river and
everyone just followed the current in one direction. In the middle there were some little kiddy-pools that Kouki went
in and a water slide. Every 20-30
minutes everyone had to get out of the bigger pool so they could check to see
if any kids had drowned and were floating face-down in the water. I was under the assumption that the reason
for lifeguards is to prevent that kind of thing from happening in the first
place—not to fish out the bodies when it does happen. When we left the park around 4, the only way my host mother was
able to get Kouki out of the pool was to promise him that she would take him to
Toys R’ Us after we got home. When we
were leaving he miraculously remembered how to walk and ran down the hill way
ahead of us.
All
afternoon I had been trying to get in touch with Sam to figure out when and
where we could meet so he could take me to the beach. No one was picking up the phone at his house and he cell phone
was turned off. He didn’t even have an
answering machine at either number.
Well, when we got home from the water park, I changed my clothes, got my
stuff together to get ready to leave, and called him one more time. The phone rang…and then…he answered! What did he tell me? That the BBQ had been canceled!!!!! Apparently, there was a DJ that was supposed
to come but since everyone thought it was going to rain (it never rained) the
DJ had canceled on them so they called off the BBQ. Sam was still at the beach and was talking to everyone on the
phone telling them that it was called off.
So…after all that, there wasn’t even a BBQ to go to!!!! Wonderful….
So,
I went to Toys R’ Us with my host mother and Kouki to pick him out a toy for no
good reason. The round trip, including
the shopping, took about an hour and a half.
My host mother talked to my host father on the phone though and he said
that he would take me to the festival.
When we got back home I was actually getting a little excited because
when we went to Toys R’ Us I had seen the first people showing up at the
festival and everything getting set up for it.
I put on my jinbei and e-mailed Chie (who was going to be dancing on the
stage at the festival) that I was going to the festival with my host father
after all. When we finally left the
house my host mother and Kouki came too.
I was relieved at this because it meant that I wouldn’t have to try and
talk to my host father (my host mother would hold the entire conversation
alone). For some reason that I only
came to understand a little while later, we were out on the highway and had
gone way past Minami Miyazaki Station and the festival area. At first I thought we were just taking
another route because the roads had been crowded, but after a while it was just
ridiculous how out of the way we were going.
So I asked my host mother where we were going. She said we were going to the Aoshima Matsuri…not the Oyodo
Matsuri. I didn’t even know there was
an Aoshima Matsuri!!!! So, I wouldn’t
be able to meet Chie or have any fun at the place that I thought we were
going. The disappointment of the
evening was just continuing though.
When we got to Aoshima, the entire town was dead. Like…I counted about 5 or 6 people on the
street as we went to the parking lot.
Meanwhile, at the festival I thought we were going to, fireworks were
going off, there were dancers, loads of food, and probably a few thousand
people in yukata and jinbei milling around the streets looking at the
spectacles and having a great time!
What the “Aoshima Matsuri” turned out to be…was…actually…not a matsuri
(festival) AT ALL!!!!!!! We walked up
to some building and I could hear some drums beating inside. We went in, walked upstairs, and there was a
small theater. The seats were filled
with old people in eveningwear. A lot
of people had cameras and were taking pictures or filming the drummers. Of course the place wasn’t air-conditioned
and it was sweltering in there. They
had a number of large fans set up, but they were just blowing the hot air
around the room. I felt silly because
since this wasn’t actually a festival at all, I really didn’t need my
jinbei. We went and stood at the back. Within 5 minutes, my host father had taken
Kouki outside so he wouldn’t make noise.
Within 10 minutes my host mother was asking me if I had seen enough so
we could leave because it was really hot in there. The dances were not entertaining at all. They were slow and the music was almost
putting me to sleep. The last dance we
saw the beginning of was one in which god was supposed to show up. I asked my host mother sarcastically if we
looked out the window I would be able to see god descending from heaven, but
she said I couldn’t because he was going to come from back stage. When god came out, I took a couple of
pictures of him (just some robes, funny pants, and a mask) and we left. When we got outside we found my host father
sitting at a table drinking beer and sake.
When we left we went to a restaurant and then went home.
You
see the kind of stuff that I have to put up with here? Well, I guess I will just laugh about it all
some day when I have to retell these stories to my rotten friends who don’t
bother to read these journal entries or even e-mail me. Well, I’m going to be out of this town in
9.5 days so I guess that will be the end of it. I’ll talk about that stuff and the stuff that happened in the
past day or two in my next journal entry.
I really should post this one now because I haven’t posted an entry in a
long time. So I’m going to go take care
of that now.
-Maikeru