The following was taken from my wordpress blog- I wrote this after I had been living in Japan for two months.

I think I’m turning JaPaNEsE!

I’ve had a difficult time collecting my thoughts to write this posting. It’s hard to know where to begin when there’s so much to tell. I have moments all the time where I wish I had a particular friend or family member with me; because I know they would appreciate the experience or moment that I’m living.

I’ve realized why Japanese tourists seem like they’re on a photo frenzy when they travel, it’s because everything is so different here. I’ve reached a point where I’m actually tired of taking pictures. The first night I arrived I was taking photos of my first convenience store shopping experience, and Asian toilet, then I progressed to gas stations, and signs, and now I can’t even bother to snap a picture of my intoxicated Japanese teachers belting out Karaoke!

***

I’ll begin by explaining a few details of my teaching position. I’m working at two different Elementary Schools. In Japan Elementary is Grade 1-6. I am the only ‘foreigner’ at both these schools, and am often greeted by surprise and excitement by the students. I’m not exaggerating when I say that some children even gasp out loud in shock when they see me walking to school or in the hallways. There’s a celebrity appeal to being an English teachers here, even my signature is precious!

I work with the Japanese teacher in the classroom, but am the only fluent English speak at either school. This has made communication a bit of a challenge and I often speak in broken English and gestures to the teachers. I’ve been able to partake in school lessons such as sewing, science, mathematics, art, calligraphy, swimming, computers and even some school clubs. Furthermore, I eat school lunch with a different classroom every day and the students play “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” (Japanese call it Janken) to see whose lunch group I will be eating with. This game is very popular in Japan, and it’s used to decide just about everything, I even see adults playing it! I’ve heard and seen it played so many times I can now recite the Japanese version of the game.

I recently walked into a grade two classes for lunch, a class that is usually insane with children running around. Instead, they were all sitting up straight, quietly at there desks with they hands crossed on there laps, something that I’ve never seem before. The biggest surprise was that there was no teacher in the room; she had gone with some students to bring in the food cart for lunch. I began to walk slowly around the class, smiling at the students and commenting on there cartoon place mates but they all proceeded to be silent. When the teacher entered she laughed and said “They’re waiting for you.” They all wanted me to eat with them and they were showing me how good they could be, it was very sweet.

The school lunch experience has been one of most fascinating parts of being in the school system. Each classroom is assigned there own food cart, when it enters the classroom the lunch routine begins. The designated five or six students for that day prepare to serve lunch by wearing a white coat, hat and mouth mask. The teacher and one other student dish the food out, while the others distribute the food, milk, straws, forks etc. Every student is served the same portion of food and the same thing. When the serving has concluded two students stand at the front of the class and say “e ta da kimas” which is basically bon appetite and then everyone is allowed to begin eating. It’s remarkable when you see grade 1 students already in this routine. The students not only serve there lunch, they clean up afterward and then proceed to have cleaning time in there classroom. In Japan there are no Janitors!

***

My Japanese teachers invited me out for drinks in order to celebrate the last day of school before summer vacation. They brought me to a traditional Japanese restaurant where I slipped my shoes off at the door. I was led down a dimly lit hallway lined by Zen gardens to our table, that was nestled on the ground behind Japanese sliding doors. The teachers ordered course after course and at one point I didn’t think the eating was every going to end. We ate a tofu salad, squid tempora, chicken tempora, udon, eel sushi, a tofu spicy salad, pork and vegetable based soup …every fifteen minutes there was a new dish that magically appeared! To add to this fine dinning experience I can’t forget to include the alcohol consumption. I was very ladylike and drank some fine red wine. The Japanese teachers, on the other hand, were throwing back beer like it was the last call of the night!

The Japanese are very hospitable people, and this dinner was just another example of that. The teachers decided they were going to speak English all night, and one teacher even stole the handheld translation computers that were meant to stay on school property. There was never a quiet moment as they were always asking me questions about myself and Canada.

After dinner I was escorted to a karaoke bar where the night got even more interesting. Karaoke was invented by the Japanese, and they tend to love it! We rented out a karaoke room that contained couches, our personnel karaoke machine of course, two microphones for those much needed duets, and a telephone to place necessary drink orders. As the teachers seriated me with there popular Japanese music (some of which I knew from hearing it at school) I in turn sang some popular English songs and had back up singers! Whenever there was a “oh” or “yeah” in a song, the teachers were signing along after my notes.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of the night wasn’t my bad singing but the Japanese videos that were specially designed to play alongside the Karaoke songs. While singing “My heart will go one,” by Celine Dion (I picked songs I knew they knew!!) we had some cheesy video of lovers running in the sand. Almost every song was about some love struck couple and had a bad re-enactment by Japanese actors!

In the past month I have been overwhelmed with the amount of invitations I’ve recieved from my Japanese teachers and other Japanese people. I’ve been invited to summer festivals, taken out for lunch and dinner, invited to a summer beach house on the ocean, and invited to Tokyo Disneyland. The people that I’ve met have all been so generous and kind. It’s made the adjustment of living in Japan even easier.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm.

• tefl
• japan
• teaching
• elementary
• karaoke
• food