Sara - Rice Planting

On May 31st, Patrick and I went to plant rice. In Japanese it's called Taue (Tah-oo-eh)田植え. We were invited by our friend, Mr. Kamura, who is the owner of a restaurant we frequent.

Patrick had done it last year and I was unable to attend because I had fractured a bone in my foot. I was very happy to go with them this year.

The rice field was for making sake and it was being maintained by a group Mr. Kamura's friends. It was a very friendly atmosphere. I've never planted rice before but it was really fun. I took off my boots and went into the mud barefoot. The mud was warm and felt pretty good under my feet. I was almost knee deep in it.

But before we went into the mud, there was a tractor that planted rows of rice. We were to plant to remaining rice plants between the rows. Planting rice was pretty easy. You don't plant seeds, but the actual plant. This is because the fields are flooded with a lot of water and a seed would just wash away. Instead, the rice are grown elsewhere until there are several inches tall. Then you take the plant and gently place it in the mud. You have to give it a slight twist when you plant it to make sure that it stays in the mud and not just be sitting on top of it.

After we planted the rice, we went and had a great lunch that included great sake. Here are some pictures that I took of the rice planting.

This is the field before it was planted.


This is the rice tractor.


These are the rice plants in bunches.



This is the field after we planted the rice.



This is a close up of the rice.

Travel

Dear All,

So this year, after listening to a great deal of nagging from my various family members, I decided to go back to the states for Christmas. This is my first trip back since coming to Japan. I am looking forward to it mostly for the food. Chunky peanut butter, those Reese's chocolate Christmas trees, turkey sandwiches to name a few. I am also looking forward to getting some shopping done as I have had to resort to using safety pins to keep my pants up. This is all beside the point though as I really wanted to tell you all about making travel arrangements.
When I originally thought to buy the ticket I first shopped online to compare prices but because buying anything online can be problematic I also visited two travel agents here in Japan. Namely H.I.S. and JTB. Both are known for international travel. The prices they offered were in line with those online at the time and had the additional benefit of being easily accessible to me so I decided to go with JTB. On the whole I am pretty happy with the interaction. The service, like most of Japan, was impeccible. They kept ahead of problems, including six time changes and a necessary one night layover in Toronto, for me admirably. I was also able to purchase my buller train tickets from them directly.
Some interesting things I noted about the travel agents were these. All of the agents at the counters are women but the manager is usually a man. Women are considered more desirable for service oriented positions like being a travel agent because they are considered to be friendiler. The agency also offered numerous travel packages broken down into three categories: travel within the country, travel abroad, and weddings/honeymoons. These categories are further sub divided. I have to say that I don't know how such things are divided up in the states but I was impressed with how orderly it all was.
That all being said I have to say that sometimes it was all too much. I recieved numerous additional phone calls about issues that seemed unimportant to me but they just wanted to tell me about just in case.
In order to travel out of the country and return legally I had to get a re-entry permit. I filled out a form bought a 3000 yen stamp from the post office and had my permit in about six minutes. The immigration officer took a moment to point out to me the expiration date on the permit and tell me to have a nice trip home and I was off. It was wonderful.
The last or the first thing I had to do involved filling out a form from my school and the board of education asking for a special leave to go out of the country. I had count up the number of days I would be gone, surrender my flight information, provide contact information for when I would be in the states, provide a reason for the travel, and collect three stamps to officiate the document. Then from there it was sent to the BOE to do whatever they do with it. Of all the things I had to do for going home taking the time from work was the most personally involving.
Well that's the story of leaving Japan with the intention of returning.

Patrick- Update for the past few months

Here are some old things I wrote a few months ago but forgot to post to the blog.

Recently, I have been studying like mad for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test that will take place on December 7. If I pass this, I can quit working so hard and be able to casually enjoy life again, in addition to making more frequent updates here on this blog.

***

Impressions of Switching Schools

Since the students are taking semester final exams all day today, giving me eight hours to sit at my desk, I have some time to update.

So, in August, we all switched schools. I switched from the strictest, oldest school in the prefecture (which was also one of the smallest) to a school that is rapidly growing and near the bottom of the pack. What they both have in common is that neither are pulling from affluent neighborhoods.

At first I was surprised because I jumped from 369 students to nearly 600. But, after having worked here nearly two months now, the far bigger difference is working with new teachers. At my previous school, I worked with some of the most experienced, best teachers. This often let me with little to do, as they didn't need an assistant for most things. At my new school, however, the teachers have much less experience, and so I end up doing a bit more work. This is good, except when the work is correcting papers, since instead of 100 per grade there are now 200, and the students' abilities are lower making the corrections much more frequent.

The other big difference is that students at this school are much more friendly. At my old school, only a few students would talk to me freely. But at this school, many students often crowd around my desk. One reason for this is the difference in discipline. At the old school, students could only enter the teachers' room with special permission, but at my new school they need no reason and so come and go freely.

Japanese

I have been continuing to study Japanese. Sometimes I wonder if I'm even getting better, but then I look at what I did a few months back and realize that I am at least making some progress, slowly.

Weather

Suddenly it has gotten very cold. It went from too hot most days last week to me having to wear my winter coat this week. It seems we have skipped the nicer part of fall.


＊＊＊

In front of many stores are little gardens. What often makes for interesting morning scenes is that the employees, not professional gardeners, maintain them. For example, in front of a real estate agency is this elaborate pond, about two meters by six, filled with some flowers and a fountain. Yesterday, on my way to work, I observed a man in his normal work suit and boots taking a net to the pond to clean out the trash.

Another thing that's new on my commute are the unmanned vegetable and flower stands. There are several farms along the way, and by the road are little sheds which included vegetables and flowers and a money box. The items all have prices and you can simply take what you want and then put your money in the box.

In one stand, the money isn't even in a box. It just sits out on a tray. I'd seen this arrangement before in temples but this was my first time to see it on the side of the road.

Sara-Akita trip

This past weekend, Patrick and I went up to Akita as part of my birthday celebration.
Patrick took me to the aquarium there. I really love aquariums, and this one was really fun. So I put together a little video.


After the aquarium we stayed at a very nice onsen (public bath house, one for men, one for women). An onsen is also a hotel.


We had a very spacious room with a good view of the ocean. The room was actually bigger than our apartments!


We had a great dinner of fresh sea food that they brought to our rooms.



The food was incredibly good. And the bath was very relaxing after you get over the shyness.
After dinner and our bathing, we met up again to go to a taiko drumming performance that was at a small community theatre down the street. I can't particularly remember the troupe's name, but they dressed up as Namahage (A type of demon/god of Akita). People usually dress up as these beings for various festivals in Akita. This troupe performed as Namahage as a way of preserving tradition and teaching their culture in Akita. Namahage are beings who would punish/take away bad children so when they performed, the Namahage would wander the audience yelling "Arrgh! Are there any bad children here today?? Are there lazy, or rude children?" Parents were told to hold tightly to their child to protect them from these gods. It was a really great show. The drumming was amazing and it was free. It is a must see for anyone going to Akita.
This is a brief video I put together of the performance. The last piece they performed, I believe they composed themselves. For anyone who is familiar with taiko drumming, you may notice the more modern sound.



The next day we had another wonderful meal. Breakfast was served in their dinning room. It was a traditional tatami mat room. We were the only ones there but it was nice to have a quiet and relaxing morning. After breakfast, we checked out and wandered around the small town and then took the train to Akita city, in Akita. We went to a small art museum and wandered through a nice park. We ate dinner at the train station and then took the shinkansen back to Morioka. Though it was a brief trip, it was a lot of fun.

Catherine-Long time no see

Hello all,

I'm sorry that I am a terrible blogger. I just tend to forget that this is here which is why it's fortunate that Patrick and Sara are such good bloggers. I could tell you all about the various things I've been doing since my last post but as it's been several months I won't. Instead I will talk about all the recent events.
For our job we work at one school for one year. The catch is that we start work at the beginning of second term rather than first term. Recently, meaning the end of July, we all ended our last term at our old schools and prepared to head to our new ones. For me this meant cleaning out my desk, saying goodbye to all the teachers and students at Josei during various events. To say a proper farewell to the students I gave a speech in English and in Japanese telling the students how much I loved working at Josei and how much I would miss them all. I cried two lines into it but I had come prepared with tissues. After my speech a student of mine gave me one in return. He had written in both English and Japanese and though the English was not perfect I was very impressed and moved by what he had to say. I was also given a bouquet of flowers. It was very nice.
At the end of the day, after my farewell to the students, I went to a nomikai with all the teachers from Josei. There I gave another speech that was much shorter and ended with the line, "Please drink a lot." I am happy to say that they had no trouble complying. This nomikai was a chance for me to say goodbye and thankyou to the people I had worked with for a year. I really loved being and Josei for a lot of reasons but the staff that sat around drinking and talking with me was a big part of it. I miss them already.
The next major event for me was actually a series of events, namely Board of Education seminars spread out over the course of this past week. These seminars included the four new AET's: Rylan, Alicia, Kim, and Dan. These four were all SICE students and had been to Morioka before for four months on a homestay program that included two and half days a week teaching English but I still felt a little like a senpai. We spent time going over teaching methods for both middle school and elementary and talked about living and working in Morioka. We had a contract ceremony to start the year off right, visited our new schools to introduce ourselves, and attended workshops with other teachers about teaching English.
Tomorrow is the first official day at school for all the AETs but Rylan. He is in the Tamayama area and will be visiting all five of his schools tomorrow. I am looking forward to starting at my new school, Kuroishino Jr. High, and I hope that it will be another great year.
As I think back over the past year at Josei and in Japan I feel like I have learned a lot about Japan and Japanese culture but I also think that I will always be surprised. I know that I have learned a lot about being an English teacher because I had three amazing role models to learn from and I'm glad but I also think that I will still make a lot of mistakes. Teaching may be a process of learning everyday how you can mess up and then never doing that again.
Well that's enough.

Until the next time I remember or am reminded,

Catherine

Everyone- Earthquake OK

So, a few days ago there was the worst earthquake since we came to Japan. Fortunately, though it was quite strong, and we certainly felt it, no one was hurt, and as far as I (Patrick) know, no property was damaged.

More updates soon, but I figured the safety announcement should come first.

Sara-Fourth of July and Wanko soba

So this past weekend Risa and Jura came to visit us. On their first night, Friday, Catherine, Patrick and I took them to eat wanko soba. Wanko soba is basically a soba eating contest. My record best is 100 bowls, but that night I could only eat 90.

All together, we probably ate around 400 bowls.
Then on Saturday, Catherine organized a Fourth of July picnic dinner for us and our other ALT friends in the neighborhood.

We had a lot to eat and we had a lot of fun. After the picnic, we then went down to the river and lit up some sparklers.

Catherine is holding a 'senko' sparkler. You have to keep it very still and it is very pretty. As Martin said, it looks like a sparkling holly.
Then to finish off a fun night, we all went to a local Karaoke and sang for three hours or so.

Sara-Miyako

This past weekend our Earlham friends, Risa and Jura, came to visit from Tokyo. During their time here, Patrick and I went to Miyako with them. Miyako is a small town on the coast and it's about 2 hours away by bus. We got bus tickets for 5,000 yen that was round trip and it included lunch, a boat tour, and local bus fair to get to the boat tour. Unfortunately I believe that this is just a limited summer deal. The food was great and the boat tour was amazing. It was an overcast day, but we had a lot of fun on the rocky beach and wandering the beautiful town.

Patrick- Pictures from the International Symposium

Here are some pictures from the International Symposium described in a previous post.

In this first picture, my principal is introducing the school:



Here, I am explaining a video that describes the day to day activities of the students:


And here I am actually teaching class:


And in this picture I am accepting a gift on behalf of the school from the representative from Vietnam:

Patrick- Field Trips at the Junior High

This week we had several field trips at the school. First, on Monday, the whole school went to a nearby park to draw and paint pictures of the landscape. They were given the entire day (8am-2pm) to do this. All students take art class for all three years of junior high school, and they had a brief trip to the park the week before to help them select what particular scene they wanted to sketch and paint and what perspective they wanted to do so from.

Then, today, first year students (and I) went to the river near the park to do basic botany. After identifying and cataloging as many plants as they could, they went to the park to study some more. Meanwhile, I and another teacher hid plastic animals by the river, which they were supposed to find. The catch was they had to stand on the sidewalk and look for what was fake; they couldn't get close to sift through things. They also only got ten minutes for this particular "game." Out of the 11 items, the best students could do was 7.

Meanwhile, the second year students visited various companies to see people working and learn about jobs. Both first and second year students only had morning trips; third year students, on the other hand, are off to another prefecture to plant trees as a service project and then study the relationship between the forest and the ocean.

Patrick- International Lesson Study

Last week, a delegation of 26 teachers and principals from 25 countries visited the junior high school where I am teaching. They spent an afternoon at our school, during which we had a presentation, followed by an opportunity for them to visit the students' classes.

The countries represented included about 5 teachers from Africa and the Middle East, 10 from Europe, and 10 from Asia. The program is paid for by the Japan Foundation, which is a generously funded government institute that, for example, can host $100/head dinner parties for these 26 and another 75 guests, plus cover the flights, trains, and a weeklong stay in Japan for all participants. Of course, if your country doesn't go to war and maintain a standing army then perhaps you have money for other things.

It was interesting for me to get to meet and talk to many of the visitors. Also, when asked "Where are you from?", it was nice that people actually knew where Indiana was. Aside: It gets a little tiring when Japanese teachers ask, "Where are you from?"->"The US"->"Where in the US?" but when they ask that second question they maybe only know one or two cities in the US, such as LA and NY, and can't put them on the right coasts. Unfortunately, US and Japanese students are about the same when it comes to total ignorance of maps.

For me, perhaps the most interesting part is hearing what people expected to see when they visit a Japanese school for the first time. Since I've been working here, and I studied the Japanese educational system, I have forgotten some of the things that people expect, for example an absence of chalkboards (and in turn LCD screens/smartboards/something fancy in their place). In fact, nearly every school in Japan still uses chalkboards, and not just for classwork but to collect the attendance for the day and other mundane things.

In fact, Japan uses very little "high tech" equipment in the schools, and that includes not just computers but TVs.

Aside from that, probably the other biggest surprises for people were the inability to fail and suspend/expel students. "Without those punishments, how would we maintain order in our classes?" one teacher asked.

One does wonder sometimes.

Earthquake

Yesterday morning there was a relatively powerful earthquake in our prefecture. Some roads collapsed. But, the four of us are fine-- we all had dinner together last night-- and are all safe.

Although we certainly felt it here in Morioka, we were far from ground zero.

Individually wrapped everything, PS3

Despite many good efforts to reduce waste, it seems like everything I buy comes individually wrapped. Usually there are packages within packages within packages. For example, when I bought yogurt the other day, it came in a three pack. So, the three little yogurt containers were supported by a cardboard base, which was then again wrapped in plastic. When I purchased the yogurt, it was put into a bag, and the ice cream I purchased along with the yogurt was put into a separate, smaller bag, which was then inserted into the yogurt bag, which was then taped.

I didn't really need a bag at all. But if you don't say it quick enough, you can be triple bagged before you know it.

Also US economic intuition doesn't work here. For example, it's cheaper to buy five individually wrapped ice cream cones than a box of five ice cream cones-- of the same brand, in the same store. It's cheaper to buy several regular chocolate bars than a single large one. (Why all my examples are desserts I don't know...)

Second, it's cheaper to buy things out of vending machines than convenience stores. This one gets me every time. I'll go into the convenience store, buy a bottled drink for $1.50, and then walk right outside the convenience store and in the vending machine right outside the same drink is selling for only $1, and it's colder.

But it's not just the little stuff. I bought a PlayStation 3 the other day, because I wanted to play Metal Gear 4. Well, for Metal Gear 4, there is a special bundle that includes the PS3, the game, and a special controller. There is also a special edition bundle that's very expensive, but the regular bundle is intended for the mass market and is supposed to be a value (it's not a limited run). However, it was still cheaper for me to buy the game, the system, and the controller separately.

Buying individual parts instead of packages is hard to get used to, and my fear is that as soon as I become accustomed to it, I'll go back to the US and get confused all over again.

Patrick- Planting Rice

So on Sunday I went rice planting. These days, most rice planting is done by machine, not by hand. However, because of the lack of good farmland, most fields are still small enough that you could do them by hand if necessary.

I was invited by the owner of a restaurant that Sara and I frequent, and we took the bus over to the paddies, about a fifteen minute ride, well within the city limits.

When you plant rice, it turns out you don't plant the seeds first, as I would have expected. Instead, you grow the seeds somewhere else, until you get little shoots, and those you plant in the paddy. So in our case, the shoots were already grown, and we just walked through the paddy and stuck them in the mud, more or less.

Except, of course you have to measure this so that it goes in an orderly fashion. And for whatever reason, it took four men about an hour to take two pieces of string the width of the field and make marks 60cm apart. This wouldn't have been so bad, except there were about forty people waiting on them, with more showing up all the time.

All told, the planting proper only took about two hours for an area about half the size of a football field, but we had more than sixty people helping.

So, in practice, planting the rice meant holding a huge tray of the shoots in one hand, walking through the mud, and then sticking them in rows as neatly as possible.

Afterwards, there was an attempt to drink all the sake leftover from the previous year, but even with sixty people there was too much.

Patrick- New Faces, Website, Studies

So it's been awhile since the last update. In the interim, I have been working on a "learn the Japanese language" website, and in two months I received over 10,000 visitors, so unfortunately the blog has taken the backseat for a little while.

However, the plan is to now return to weekly updates going forward.

The Japanese school year starts in April. Recently I've been very surprised at how incredibly well behaved our new students are. At first, I thought their good behavior must wear off very quickly, since they get behavioral cues from the older students and many of them behave very badly, but for whatever reason, after about two months at school our kids are still trying to do what they're supposed to, actually upset when they forget their homework or fail a test, etc.

It's a nice change of pace, since the second year students have nearly the opposite attitude. Unfortunately, the teacher who returned from sabattical, who is now responsible for the second years, isn't very assertive, and it's much more difficult now to keep them under control. We have about six students in one class who haven't brought their textbooks to English since April. Of course, they will probably fail the class. But, since the system is automatic promotion, it's very hard to motivate them that hey, actually you shouldn't fail the class if you get the chance.

In other news, I've also been studying Japanese a lot, more than before. I finally finished reading my first book in Japanese. Which is not to say it took me eight months; it only took me eight days, but up to this point I have been so busy learning vocbulary, grammar, etc. I hadn't bothered to actually read any books. Well, since none of that is so interesting in and of itself, I finally couldn't take it and decided to read something.

But of course, the reason I was studying the vocabulary and grammar was because I didn't want to read just any book, and go back to being ten years old. So I read a book on Hegel and Marx that was intended for new college students, which turned out to be a little disaster, but I got through it, and I looked up every single word I didn't know as punishment, which I have discovered is the real key to reading success and not turning into a moron later, when I half remember words but have no idea what they mean because I never bothered to learn them.

Tomorrow I will go rice planting. I don't really know anything about growing rice, so I hope it's a good experience.

Patrick- Another comment about credit cards

When shopping online, I'm not eligible for a Japanese credit card (they don't give them out like candy here), so I have to use the "pay at a convenience store" option. In Amazon's case, that means after you order, they send you a number by e-mail after about thirty minutes. You walk down the street and show the people at the convenience store the number, then pay them, then Amazon ships the product to you.

This is pretty simple and about as good as it gets.

But for Apple, if you choose the convenience store option, they physically mail you the number, causing you to wait two or three days, which you then take to the convenience store and pay. Why a US computer company feels the need to physically mail payment numbers for online purchases is beyond me.

Sara-"Spring vacation" in Tochigi and Saitama

From March 27-30th Patrick and I went to Tochigi and Saitama prefecture to see two friends. First we went to Tochigi to visit our friend Jura who is studying at a university there. Then Jura joined us to visit our friend Risa in Saitama. There, we walked up a mountain, but only a little way up because I had injured my foot earlier. Then we walked around the Tokyo area. We had dinner in Shibuya, and looked at the cherry blossoms. The following day we said goodbye to Jura and then Risa, Patrick and I went to the World’s only Parasite Museum. It was interestingly disgusting. We had a really great time and the Shinkansen one way was 13,000 yen from Tokyo station to Morioka.
Here are a few pictures from our trip. The fist is Patrick (green jacket) and Jura (red jacket) going up to see a Shrine while in Utsunimiya city (Tochigi). The next is an Izakaya (bar/restaurant) that we went to. We went to the one on the right that has たこ which is Octopus in Japanese. The next pictures are of cherry blossoms and a view from the mountain that we walked up while around the Tokyo area.

Patrick- Here's a hilarious thought

Kids in the US coming to school over their summer vacation to sweep the halls.

Patrick- Recent events

For my third year (ninth grade) students, we had a farewell party last week, which lasted two hours. They called it a party but it included one hour of singing, choir style (each grade to each other), half an hour of cheering (thank god the cheerleading system is completely different), and video and pictures of the kids from their first year to their third.

Also much to my surprise, the teachers "sang" a song which included changing into ridiculous costumes, busting out an electric guitar, and rapping.

Also, we had a special end-of-the-year ceremony for our three deaf students. We have one in each grade-- first, second, and third. Two things surprised me: first, there was no sign language. The teachers and principal spoke to the students almost as if they were no different from any of the other students. As part of the ceremony, the students each had to deliver a speech about the year. When one of the girls didn't see/hear the principal call her name, he gave her a two minute lecture on not paying attention right in the middle of the ceremony. It seemed a bit absurd to me, but the principal runs the whole school like that.

Lastly, we've been doing the year-end cleaning, which runs about forty minutes each day. It mainly includes scrubbing the floors with sponges and little rags-- instead of mops, we use the large number of students (and teachers) to get the job done.

Patrick- Patrash

So my students were joking around after cleaning time, and one boy comes up to me and says, "My nickname is 'Slow Pikachu,' because I'm like Pikachu but not as fast." What's your nickname?

I replied I didn't have one and he said he'd make me one. He thinks for a second and says, "Ah! Patrash!"

Now if he had arrived at that name because I was always after him about picking up the trash (which I am, since he's the only boy able to make the room dirtier during cleaning time), I would have been impressed, but he didn't know the word "trash."

Later nickname suggestions included "Patri", "Patr" "Pa" and "Patrick." When I explained to him Patrick was my name, and therefore could not be a nickname, there was a brief pause, an epiphany, and then a sudden running away.