"Worklife"

Sorry the posts have been few and far between; I promise I will get into the habit of writing more often! There are definitely enough stories to fill pages and pages of intangible internet space!

On Wednesday it rained all day long. Solid sheets of rain from 10am to 6pm. It's charming until you remember that you rode your bike to work. And then it's charming again when you realize that you work with the nicest group of people ever! When I was getting ready to leave work around 5pm (that's super early in Japanland) and a few of my teachers came to the realization that I own absolutely no rain gear, the kocho-sensei (principal) offered to drive me home. And even though my school is only a ten-minute bike ride from home, they arranged for another teacher to pick me up the next morning so I didn't have to walk. Again, everyone is always so helpful!


This is my desk!

My first week at school was a little repetitive. I've been working towards introducing myself to over 550 students, two classes at a time. Every period I visit two classes and give the same spiel. I just tell them about myself and my hobbies, and about Arizona. Surprisingly, no Arizonan had ever told them about The Diamondbacks before! And I'm not even that big into baseball, but I mean, hello! We won the World Series; it's a talking point.

The kids seem really nice. Even though it's junior high, they are labeled as first, second, and third graders. So the first graders turn 13 and they are so cute! They giggle and they like answering the questions I ask them about myself for listening comprehension skills. And when given the chance to ask questions of me, they always ask, "What are your favorite fruits?" The second graders on the other hand, just stare into space. Maybe they're just a little more shy, as the teachers rationalize, if sleeping can be interpreted as such.

And I was so scared to meet the third graders! On the first day during cleaning time, there was this total punk towering over me. He was angry because my ears are pierced and they're not allowed to have ANY piercings. Enami-sensei (the teacher who has taken me under her wing) told me not to worry because the disruptive students are never in the classrooms. When I asked her where they were if they weren't in class, she didn't really have an answer for me... But it was true, there were no disruptive students in the third grade class. In fact, they were the most fun and they're easier to relate to because they're older (15) and their English is better.

You're probably wondering what cleaning time is! Everyday after lunch the kids clean the school for fifteen minutes. All the kids are assigned to specific areas. Some clean their classrooms (kids in Japan stay in the same room with the same peers all day long and the teachers move around). They move all the desks and sweep and mop and clean the chalk boards. Other kids clean the hallways or the teachers' office (all the teachers work in one big room). It's so funny watching the kids clean the hallways because they push rags along the floor, but instead of crawling on their knees, they race each other with their behinds up in the air. I promise I'll get pictures next week!

Worklife in Japan has definitely been the culture shock. The fact that I can't read any road signs or any labels in grocery stores, or understand a single word anyone says to me, that's all manageable. But adapting an American work ethic to Japanese expectations is a bit challenging. Here, it's most important that you show up and stay late. Even though my contract is for 35 hours a week (part-time), my teachers expect me to stay until 5pm, which is 45 hours. Most Japanese teachers don't leave school until 8 or 9pm, but I think that's just the cultural standard. He who stays the latest and attends the most staff parties shall succeed.

I think there's also some time management issues at play. For example, on Monday I was given a large stack of summer essays to grade. It was maybe four hours of work, and when I returned it to the teacher the same day she gave it to me, she was completely shocked. She didn't need it or expect it until the end of October! I spent the last ninety minutes of every day this week checking my email and reading the newspaper, and no one cared. In fact, it was one of the teachers who would lend me her newspapers (Kano-sensei is so cool). And teachers frequently sleep in the lounge!

A lot of the other Assistant Language Teachers from America and Australia who have been in the program awhile are upset about the expectations being placed on us. We were hired as part-timers, but we are expected to work "as hard" as the full-time teachers, even though we aren't receiving the same benefits or pay. They say the focus of the program has switched from experiencing Japan to just having a job, and they see more and more of the new ALTs getting walked all over by their teachers. They tell me I have to insist on leaving by 4pm at the latest. I guess it really isn't fair that I should be made to stay and do nothing. We'll see how it goes.

Kanpai!

I have had such a great time these last few days! On Wednesday morning I went to the new-teacher orientation and met the teachers from the two schools I will be working at this year. My first school is Koryo, and it is only a ten-minute bike ride from my apartment. Luckily I'll be there for two trimesters, so commuting through the winter won't be too much of a hassle. The second school I go to (in April) is Yasutomi, and due to a district restructuring, it's NINETY MINUTES AWAY. BY BUS. But I don't have to worry about that for several months. I can't believe tomorrow is September 1st! It will be my first official day of work. But if yesterday was a true indication of the school atmosphere, I'm going to have a great time.


(These are my teachers: Sakaguchi-sensei, Takeuchi-sensei, Enami-sensei, and Takayama-sensei. Kawakami-sensei was also there, but she left lunch early. They are all very warm and welcoming.)

I was afraid that Chelsea would be a very difficult name for Japanese speakers to wrap their mouths around, but apparently they are very familiar with it because it's a candy! Enami-sensei said that every child in Japan has eaten it, and most older people can sing the song they used to use in the advertisements!



First, after the orientation, my teachers took me to lunch at an American style restaurant called Royal Host. They were very impressed that I ordered a traditional Japanese meal (and that I could use chopsticks). Then we went to the school, and Enami-sensei let me borrow her track pants and a t-shirt so I could play ping-pong with the other teachers. Apparently, Koryo junior high school has paired up with the elementary school down the street and there was a huge meet-and-greet party for all the teachers. So after eating a huge brunch, and getting my butt kicked in ping-pong, we had a bigger celebration lunch while sitting on tarps on the gym floor. Then I was invited to my first enkai (work party)!

I had thirty minutes after the party at school to go home and freshen up, and then Katsuhiko-sensei came to my apartment, and we rode our bikes to the restaurant downtown. He was very nice, because even though he can't speak much English, and I can speak even less Japanese, he knew I was having the hardest time riding my new (used) bike. The seat was too high, and he lowered it for me (which I wish would have solved the problem, but I really just suck at riding a bike).

At an enkai, you sit on tatami mats around round tables, and the beer flows like water. You pay a set price (just under thirty dollars) and you eat and drink as much as possible. Since all ALTs work at different schools, I was the only English speaker in attendance, but I had the greatest time. Japanese people are very big into speeches, so anytime there is a gathering, they all take turns with the microphone, I think introducing themselves and giving thanks. Some would spend several minutes speaking to the group, and all were very funny and engaging. But I don't know much Japanese, so one of the nicest girls, Azusa (pronounced "Ahhd-tsa") stayed at the front of the room hoping she might translate a little bit of my English for the group. But I spoke Japanese! I said "Konbanwa. Watashi wa Chelsea desu. Dozo yoroshiku onegai shimasu." (Something like "Good evening. My name is Chelsea. Please look out for me, I beg of you.") And everything I said in Japanese, Azusa repeated in Japanese, which earned us great laughs. It was a wonderful ice-breaker all around!


(Azusa, Tomoko, Noriko, Yuko & Ritsuko)

Fortunately, all the twenty-something girls sat at my table, and we chattered like chickens for three hours! You can always find a way to cross a language barrier when it comes to talking about boyfriends! We were also teaching each other vocabulary, and they kept saying "Your English is SO GOOD!" And I would tease them back and say "Your Japanese is SO GOOD, too!" I'm looking forward to spending more time with all of them.

And then, the highlight of the evening: I found my way home from downtown all by myself! This city is mine!

Without AC in the Land of the Blazing Sun

My air conditioning is broken! Yay! This is one of the adventures I can laugh about (when I get home). It works sporadically, but it's weak and it randomly turns itself off. I asked Kevin to help me talk to the custodian (um, because the custodian of our entirely English-speaking apartment complex doesn't speak any English). It's now Tuesday afternoon, and he says they will have someone come and look at it on Monday. Is it me, or is that kind of a long time to wait just for a repairman to "take a look" at it? And the custodian keeps coming in and reminding me (in Japanese, of course), "Yes, very weak, very weak." I'm serious! He has come back a half a dozen times in the last half hour and doesn't do anything except put his hand in front of the air flow and tell me it's not working! I guess it's polite; he's showing me he knows I have a problem...it's just awkward. And Kevin (who has been in other parts of Japan for a few years already) told me I can look forward to it taking several weeks for anything to get done with any problem that presents itself. Where did we get the stereotype that Japanese people are ultra-efficient?

First Impressions

So I've been in Japan a few days now! I arrived on Friday evening, and this picture is from our arrival at the airport; Dan and Karen (who were also sent here through the Phoenix Sister Cities Commission) and I were so happy to see our names on a sign in the airport! Iizuka-san and Honda-san are our liasons here in Japan. They both work for the Himeji City Board of Education, and have been very helpful in getting us settled in. On the far right is Kevin, another Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) from San Francisco.





Friday night I went out to dinner with a few of the current teachers in the building, and then I started unpacking a little bit (it's Tuesday afternoon and I'm still not entirely unpacked). I decided that I should at the very least just get my sheets on the bed because Mac was having a party in his room, and I didn't want to come home too lazy to make my bed and have to sleep on a bed with no sheets! The party was nice because it showed how kind and outgoing everyone in Shirasagi Residence is, how happy they are to be here and how much help they have to offer in the adjustment process. I went to bed around 2AM and woke at 9AM with no signs of jetlag.

On Saturday afternoon, Dan and Karen and I went out walking. We knew we wanted to find the big mall a few kilometers south of us, but we didn't know quite how to get there. However, there's so much to see when you're out walking that it never really matters how long it's taking you to get where you're going.

So we ended up in a small little neighborhood, and realizing that we had lost our bearings, I asked a bicycle shop keeper, "Sumimasen, Himeji-jo wa doko desu ka?" (Excuse me, where is Himeji castle?) I only asked because we had lost it behind the rooftops and it is a good landmark for knowing which side of town you're on.

He pointed us to the castle, and a man getting on his bicycle twenty feet down the road hollered to the shopkeeper and asked us where we were going again. I think he just really wanted to speak English with someone. So he gave us directions to the castle in English and we were on our way.

When we were maybe 200 feet down the road, the same gentleman caught up with us and ended up taking us all the way to the castle. He showed us a shortcut and told us a lot of things about the city on our way. His name is Nishikawa-san, and it turns out that he's a teacher at Hakucho elementary school and knows our program coordinator, Iizuka-san. He gave us his phone number and offered to help us with whatever we needed! And it turns out that everyone here is that friendly.

We finally found our way to the mall and spent a few hours looking at all the shops and buying things from the dollar stores. The Hundred Yen stores are the best things in the whole world!!! Truly, they're 85 Cent stores when you take conversion rates into consideration, and you can find ANYTHING you need in them! But trying to read labels in Japanese is interesting. It's really fun trying to pick a laundry detergent when all you can do is hope there's no bleach in it. But anyway, we decided to take a different route home (going north and then east, as opposed to east and then north), which was probably an error in judgment...but a fun one!

It took us forever to get home. But every person we stopped on the street or talked to in a supermarket got us closer to our destination. The postal delivery guy got on his cell phone and asked someone, then drew a map for us. A woman with two kids on her bike spent five minutes looking up and down the street and reciting the street names aloud to herself. She then apologized profusely and told us to ask someone in a shop. Two girls in a convenience store pulled out a city map and drew another map for us, telling us which lights to turn at and which landmarks to look for...and the ONLY Japanese I understand is "Excuse me, where is (blank)" and "Thank you so much!" But it works!

Later that evening I went out to dinner with Mac, Avi, Steve, Karen and one of Mac's Japanese friends...I think her name was Mao (but I don't remember). Mac is from Phoenix, Steve is from Seattle, and Avi--from Australia--is Rosie's daughter (Rosie is our designated Filipina "den mother" who reminds me of Nana). I ate sashimi and raw prawns and squid and it was all really good! Surprisingly, deep-fried chicken cartilage is also quite tasty (I feel like Nana would be so proud).

Then we went to a gaijin (foreigner) bar, and then to a nightclub called Roxy, and then to a karaoke bar. When you do karaoke in Japan, you get your own room to share with your friends, and all you can eat food and drink are included in the price! The Cranberries and songs from The Little Mermaid were definitely the hits of the evening. And then we went to a curry restaurant and didn't get home until after 2am. They're crazy here! Avi said that's why you see people fall asleep standing up on the trains.

On Monday afternoon, John (yet another neighbor) took Karen and Kevin and me on a bike ride through the city to help us get our bearings. It turns out I can follow the canal all the way through the city and through the beautiful Himeji Castle park, and you end up at the shopping center we had tried so hard to find a few days earlier. The shopping center is called the Miyuki Dori, and it is the location of the train and bus stations, and it is also where Egret is, the foreigners' community center where they offer really cheap Japanese lessons. It's definitely the city's hub.

Soon I will write about my humble abode!