俳句

Last night at Japanese class, a woman from Hohoku-cho came and led a haiku workshop. While watching this woman teach, it was clear that she was in love with haiku. The experience brought back memories of a four-week Writer’s Workshop I lead my senior year of college for elementary school kids at the local library in Madison. Each week students wrote a different poem. At the end of the month, we had a poetry reading where parents came and listened to their children’s poetry. I disliked poetry as a kid due to the constraints of rhyming words. But through high school English classes, I realized that not all poetry has to rhyme. Thus, I began reading it on my own.

Haiku is a poetry style I have never explored. I knew it was 5-7-5 syllables, but beyond that I didn’t know much. I discovered last night that genuine haiku must be about nature and must reflect a season. I can do nature, and I was thinking of all kind of nice, flowery imagery in English. But my lack of Japanese vocabulary and making my imagery reflect a season as opposed to just nature in general was a daunting task. The haiku teacher suggested we write about spring, but I wanted it to be meaningful, not just another haiku about sakura. So I gave up on the idea of spring and opted for something more general. The one that a teacher and I came up with was something like, “The fog covering the mountains in the early morning evokes the memory…[of my Kikugawa home].” I liked it. Alas, other teachers said it was not haiku enough. So after much stress and with the help of four teachers, a proper haiku was created. It ended up being about fall, which is my favorite season, but in actuality, in my head, it reflects every season.

山霧に　(やまぎりに)
日本の暮らし　(にほんのくらし)
思いだす　おもいだす

A flowery translation of this is: The autumn mountain fog evokes the memories of Japanese life. (sounds better in Japanese, ne?) That middle line could be changed to 菊川の家　(きくがわのいえ), meaning Kikugawa home. And apparently やまぎりreflects autumn even though the word for autumn does not appear in the poem. And ぎりis actually きり, but because the word before it starts with a “y,” the “k” in “ki” is changed to a “g” making it “gi.” This is also why the 口in 山口 is pronounced “guchi” instead of “kuchi.”

The teachers put on a sumo haiku contest, which was great fun. I was on the East/Red team. Since none of our Japanese was good enough to understand all the poems everyone created, we ended up voting based on our friends (thanks, folks ;). In the end, my poem ended up winning and I was crowned the grand champion. I don’t think the haiku teacher liked it that much since it was not seasonal enough, but nonetheless I received a booklet of haiku postcards and a haiku book as my prize. I think I could get into studying haiku since they are short enough to not feel daunted by the task of translating.

One thing I really appreciate about Japanese culture is how they pay such close attention to nature and the changing of the seasons. It all has to do with Shintoism and various things. Sometimes it seems over the top and I desperately wish they’d pay more attention to nature when building homes and businesses. But the average person does take the time to smell the roses and observe nature and the beauty of each season. I hope that when I return to the States I am more aware of the changing of the earth with each coming and going season.

札幌雪祭り

Sapporo Yuki Matsuri

It doesn’t snow much around this part of Japan in the winter (Yamaguchi is on about same latitude as the top of South Carolina/bottom of North Carolina). This is a stark contract from all the snow that Indianapolis received this year. But I did get to experience four days of proper winter this year. From Febuaray 9-12 Laura, Chris, Anita, and I went to Sapporo for the annual Snow Festival. Sapporo is the capital city of Hokkaido, the large northern island of Japan. Hokkaido is a ski and snow lover’s paradise. In 1972, the Winter Olympics were held there, marking Sapporo as the first place a Winter Olympics was held in Asia. And Sapporo is indeed where Sapporo beer is made. Every year thousands of tourists come for the Snow Festival. There are about 12 giant snow sculptures, and hundreds of smaller ones, as well as large and small ice sculptures. Also, about 20 or so countries enter into a competition as to which country can make the most unique snow sculpture. The United States’ sculpture was of the Frog Prince. Sapporo was a very relaxed place. The people were relaxed and didn’t hesitate to approach us (and sometimes speak English, even. Shock!) if it appeared that we were confused or in need of assistance. I doubt I will make it back up to Hokkaido while I’m here since it is far away and costly. But it was a lovely experience.

Day 1
Famished.

Snow and Ice Sculptures at Odori Park

Look at the "member" on that one! I was a little in shock.

Likewise, I was in shock when we first stumbled upon these little green men in a souvenier booth. Unbelievable. Read all about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimokkori

Day 2

Laura, Anita, and Chris headed for the ski slopes and I headed for the Okurayama Ski Jump. Having seen one of these in person, I am more in awe of ski jumpers than I was before. How on earth do they not kill themselves?! It is much steaper than it seems when watching on television. The FIS Nordic World Ski Championship is being held there now through March 4. Unless there is a major event in process, people can take the chairlift to the top of the ski jump where they can look "straight down the barrel", the same view the ski jumpers see before take-off.

Overlook of Sapporo.
The surrounding mountains.

Day 3 and 4

Sato Land

The less centrally located Sato Land Site in Sapporo Sato Land Park is a family oriented site, featuring slides and a maze made out of snow and ice. It is truly a kids' winter dreamland.

Hokkaido AJET Enkai

After a long day of snow-man building, we headed to the Kirin Beer Garden for an enkai sponsored by the Hokkaido AJET. Poor Laura and I were stuck at a vegetarian table all to ourselves. All the other vegetarians were sitting with their friends then kept coming to our table to get food. This lead to those people getting annoyed. But we enjoyed heaps of lovely vegetarian food while all the other tables ate mounds of lamb.

We also had this entire beer tower to handle. Laura's face describes the situation perfectly.
We decided to entertain ourselves and take some silly photos. Laura makes a perfect monster/dinosaur face.
I tried the face and did not have quite the affect. Laura said I looked like a doll.
Thankfully Leanne and Ashley arrived and kept us company.
Ashley was quite excited about the tower.

Unfortunately Laura got an entire glass of beer spilled all on her pants by a very intoxicated girl from Hokkaido. Anita is demonstrating this with the beer in her hand. We all look very sad for Laura (and we all look about 12 years old).
Chris doesn't want to take off his bib, even in the subway.
On the plane, heading back after a lovely several days in snowy Sapporo.

Let's Being Happy

If I don’t write about a day like today, then it will forget about it. These are the kinds of days I don’t want to forget about. Recently I feel my blog has been negative, which is strange because I am doing very well. I was really dreading this winter because last winter was so horrible. My body was physically ill nearly the entire season, I was cold and not dressed properly, it was my first real bout of culture shock. I cannot put my finger on exactly why things are so good this winter. Maybe because this winter has been milder than last. Maybe because I have learned how to dress more appropriately for the cold days (much love to my long johns), so even the cold days have not seems so bad. Maybe because I’ve been taking some new vitamins that one of my friends swears have changed her life. Maybe because the sunlight is lasting longer so I have started walking again. Maybe because I haven’t seen a cockroach or any mold in about six months. Maybe because my time here is ending soon so anything seems bearable in that light. Maybe because...

Today I woke up and felt it was going to be a good day. The weather looked crappy and the town was covered in fog due to the mountain air. But one of my favorite e.e. cummings poems (see last post) came to mind despite the weather, and I sensed the day would be good. I only had one class at a city school. When I got off the train at Shin-Shimonoseki I noticed an elementary school boy walking about 20 yards ahead of me. I thought it was strange to see him out of school at such an hour in the day. Then a teacher walked up the stairs and met him, leading him to a large group of children. I noticed that this teacher was Mr. Y (see May archives, post entitled “Please wear a ring”). I almost had a heart attack right then and there. Some of the students noticed me and remembered my name (I taught them last year). I waved to them. They tried to get his attention, but he was preoccupied. Finally he turned around as they were walking in a line with one of the stationmasters. Mr. Y was definitely as surprised to see me as I was to see him. I haven’t seen him since the summer when Laura and I did a workshop together for his school. He said the class was learning about “barrier free” things. Ah, the moment lasted no more than 15 seconds. But it sure was good to see him and I was smiling all the way to school.

On my walk to school I kept running into a bunch of elementary school kids who were out and about for who knows what reasons. They all said “hello” in a non-annoying way. Perhaps they recognized me, too, who knows. But they were not freaked out or overly giggly, which is always a good feeling.

Today’s school was definitely not my favorite school, but it’s not the worst, either. It was much worse last year, and this year I’ve had a few good classes there. On the surface today’s lesson went very well. Any observer would have considered it a success. In my mind, though, I felt it was pretty crap. Today’s teacher and I work pretty well together. She is one of the best English teachers I work with and actually challenges her students. She does not, however, explain things to me very well before hand (sometimes never before hand), and I am stuck, standing there in the moment trying to guess/read her mind as to what I should be doing. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don’t. I hate this feeling, because inevitably I feel badly about my performance afterwards. Granted, things would go much better if she could explain things she wants me to do before hand. But this is the way it is; it has been this way for 1.5 years. It is not going to change now. She has been at this school awhile and is very unhappy there. I hope for her case she gets transferred and starts to like teaching again. The good thing about this part of the days was, 1.) I only had one class; 2.) students didn’t misbehave in the class.

On my way back to Shin-Shimo I popped into 7-11 for some lunch and had exactly 15 minutes to eat it at the train station. I didn’t sit down for 5 seconds when an older man came running in and said in English, “Hello. Welcome to Japan.” Two minutes later he came back through and said, “That looks delicious. Bye!” I got a little laugh out of it. A minute later he came back to where I was and sat down, asking (in English) where I live, what I am doing in Japan, the usual. Turns out he lives in Kikugawa, too. Then he ran off because he said he had to work. I then realized he was a taxi driver. I was nearly finished when he came back again just to give me some rice crackers and say goodbye again. What a lovely man.

When I got off the train at Ozuki I ran into one of my favorite students from last year’s Kikugawa 3rd graders. She is in high school now and I rarely see her. We have exchanged only a few keitai messages. I thought of her last week on Valentine’s Day. On Valentine’s Day last year, she secretly gave me a little cake that she had made for me. She is so sweet. I caught her totally off guard today and her face turned bright red, but she was smiley we had a small chat. It was very good seeing her.

I actually got a seat on the bus today. Usually the 1:40 bus is jam packed with people going to Nagato-shi, and I end up standing for the ride. The old ladies crack me up, practically fighting each other to see who can get on the bus first and grab a seat. But today we all got seats. One of the old ladies turned around in her seat and started talking to me. I didn’t understand her Japanese at first, and then she said she was from Kansai area. Clearly she was speaking in a different dialect, and when I said I didn’t understand her, she kindly started speaking differently. Of course she asked me the usual questions. And she asked what my impressions about Japan and what I thought the Japanese "image" was before I came to Japan. First time I have gotten that question. Then she started rambling on, saying how she can’t speak English at all and it must be difficult for me to live in the inaka, and it’s great I am here, and she was so happy to be talking to me. I was all smiley again. Another lovely conversation with a person who was delighted by my presence (as opposed to scared, freaked out, upset, nervous, etc.) And the sun is shining and it’s Friday. How could the day get any better??

So I will post photos of Sapporo soon. And I still haven’t posted photos of Nikko from way back in January after the PA Training. Have a lovely weekend!

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

This has been bothering me for days. I don't know why I cannot let it go, but it keeps popping in my head. Maybe I will feel better if I tell someone about it. You, reading this, get to be my venting outlet.

I went to elementary school on Wednesday with my JTE. She teaches the 6th graders there once a week. About every-other week I go with her. I see in the back of the classroom a giant piece of paper with "America" written on it in katakana. We had a few minutes before the class started so I asked her and the kids, "Oh, you've done some sort of project about Amercia? What does it say?" I could read bits and parts of it, such as holidays that are celebrated and sports that are played. One thing that struck me was that American football was not listed as a sport. The the JTE proceeded to tell me what else was said on it that I could't read. She said, "Ah, they listed some differences between Japan and America. Americans eat more food than Japanese. And they really like sweet foods. There are no club activities in schools." Excuse me? Where did they get this information? Where is their source? If we did a report about a country in the States, you'd better believe it would be from a credible book or article. In what source did it say, "Americans love sweet foods"? Of all the things they could pick out about America, they write about that?? In a world here that revolves around omiyage, don't tell me that Americans love sweets anymore than Japanese. And where did they get the information saying that we don't have clubs in American schools? I was angry and had many questions for them. But alas, class had to start and I didn't want to rip apart the kids' project. Hopefully I have been able to get rid of some of their steriotypes by being an American here. I hate that this bothered me so much. But alas, it did. A report should be based on facts from a credible source. Anyhow...

Super Bowl Champions!!

My computer has been acting strange. I’ve more or less been without reliable internet for the past week or so. The computer is running fine but the websites are taking forever to load, timing out before they load. This is not good, and I don’t know how to fix the problem. Urgh. I apologize for not responding to emails in a timely manner on my yahoo address. I haven't been able to update on Blogger or check MySpace.

Also due the faulty internet/computer, I have not been able to make a post about the Colts winning the Super Bowl!! There were a lot of Super Bowl firsts in that game—first time an opening kickoff was run all the way for a touchdown, first time the game was played in the rain, first time an African American coach won, the first time in Indianapolis Colts history that they went to the Super Bowl, first time they won the Super Bowl, and the first major professional sports title for the city.

I was at elementary school when I found out the Colts won. This day was the last time I'll be teaching this 3rd grade class this school year. Sigh...they're a sweet bunch of kids and the teacher and I have a great teaching relationship. It's been a pleasure. Hopefully the teacher doesn't get transferred.

I cannot begin to imagine the insanity in the streets following the game. Monday afternoon there was a Colts parade downtown in freezing (literally) winter temperatures. Wished I could have joined in the excitement with other Colts fans. But in celebration, I skipped Japanese class Monday night and met Laura for sushi and a beer. What an odd (but appropriate for me) way to celebrate a Super Bowl title. Nonetheless, I celebrated. Here is Laura trying to get excited about American football. Great game face, Laura!

Here is a photo of Mya, decked out in her Colts gear, on the phone with my brother Scott. Scott and some friends and in-laws went to Miami. They couldn't afford to attend the game, but they participated in the festivities and tailgated.


Way to go Colts!

It's finally Super Bowl time

Indianapolis Colts vs. Chicago Bears in Miami, Florida. Best of luck to the Blue!

雪!!

Kikugawa was a beautiful sight yesterday morning. Unfortunately I got no photos of the morning snow in town because I left at 7am and things were still very dark. I was suprised and happy that the bus arrived on time. Little did I know the fiasco that would occur after this. To make a long and complaining story short, I spent 3 hours on the bus with only one kleenex to nurse my running nose and desperately needing to relieve my bladder. I was in communication with my supervisor about being late. When I was still on the bus after my one and only class for the day had begun, he said, "Please go to the school." I got to the school 2 hours late, and the teacher said, "Your class has already finished." I said, "Yes, I know. But I was told to come here anyway. Can't I join another class?" She looked at me like I was nuts and replied, "No, sorry. Would you like something hot to drink?" I said, "So I should just go back." And she gave me a crooked, affirmative smile. I emailed my supervisor and said, "I finally arrived to the school. The teachers say they don't need me." "Please come to the office," he replied. Gesh, I wanted to scream. So I was only in the school a total of 10 minutes, which was just enough time to get my coat off, put on slippers, use the restroom, talk to the teacher, get my coat back on, change shoes, and leave.

On the bright side, I was in one of the oldest, most beautiful areas of Shimonoseki, so I took a few minutes to snap some photos and walk by a shrine on my way back to the bus stop.






In front of the office.

This was a learning experience. Things I did right: I wore a long-john shirt and pants; I had a small folding umbrella; I packed an emergency peanut butter sandwich; my cell phone was fully charges; I had a lot of money on my bus card. Things I wish I would have done: brough an extra pair of socks with me (my feet got soaking wet); had a book with me; brough more than one kleenex; worn proper shoes; charged my iPod.