Let's ~

Long time no blog post!

This is going to be a mish-mash of various topics, each beginning with the contraction "let's" which is ubiquitous in Japanese English learning, speaking, and writing. So without further ado, let's begin. Oh dang, see what I did there?

Let's Talking About Love!

February 14th was Valentine's day in Japan, and believe it or not, it's actually quite a common practice adopted in Japan. There are some MAJOR differences, however, to what you think Valentine's day means, and what a Japanese person thinks Valentine's day means. For starters, in Japan, Valentine's day is all about women showing their affection (or rather obligation) to men. What do I mean?

Well, in Japan, on Valentine's day, the expectation is that a woman will give chocolate to men. The types of chocolate is broken into two kinds. The first, called "Giri-choco" basically means obligation chocolate. This is given to coworkers and other male acquaintances to whom the girl has no love interest in. It is usually cheap, ordinary chocolate which simply means "I acknowledge our friendship or working relationship." The other kind (the kind that every man wants to get), is called "Honmei choco" and that basically means love chocolate. Lot's of girls go through meticulous hours of baking and decorating their own sweets, candies, chocolates, and cakes for their love interest(s). If they don't decide to make something, they usually buy a really nice gift box costing an absurd amount of money. While I don't know for sure, I would guess that most girls only give this kind of chocolate to one or two guys at most.

On the guys end of things, you pretty just have to sit back and watch the chocolate come at you. There is no expectation or obligation that you will give anything on Valentine's day. Moreover, gifts, dates, and other related things that you would normally associate to Valentine's day are not widely popular here. It's all about giving chocolate to men if you're a woman, and getting chocolate from women if you're a man.

(Unless you're me. I was hoping to at least get some giri-choco from select teachers and students, and deep down, of course I was hoping for some Honmei-choco from a certain someone or two... but alas, I received not even a single piece of chocolate.)

Next, we jump forward to a date which means nothing to the Western world: March 14th. This day is called "White Day" and it is the day on which men are to return the favor to the women that they received chocolate from. If he received Giri-choco, a simple offering of basic chocolate is a sufficient return gift. However, when receiving Honmei-choco, the man is (according to the general consensus) supposed to return a gift which he estimates to be around 3 times the value of the gift that he originally received. His return gift can be chocolate, but depending on the level of the relationship, it can also be other things such as: jewelry, a date, and even lingerie.

(And, on the grass-is-always-greener side of life, because I didn't receive any chocolates in the the first place, I have none to return! Yippie! Although, there is a small chance that I might give something to someone anyway, as I honestly have nothing to lose.)

Before we go on to the next "Let's" topic... I should mention that I think Japan's view towards Valentine's day is slowing approaching to what we think Valentine's day is in America. It's still rare, but not totally out of the picture, for men to give chocolate to women, singles to ask another out on a date, etc.

Finally, I will leave you with 2 videos. The first is the most popular singing group in Japan performing the most popular Valentine's day song in Japan (they are called AKB 48, and the song is called "Valentine Kiss"), and the second is a commercial for my local grocery store (it's advertising a cooking show for women on making Valentine's goodies - with who is quite arguably the hottest mom in town):

Let's Eating School Lunch!

Because I'm a municipal JET (meaning I'm hired directly by my Board of Education), I get the joys of a little thing called School Lunch. Other JETs (who are hired by the Prefecture [or state]) generally don't get such a luxury.

You may be thinking, "Ew! School lunch! That stuff is nasty!" Not so in Japan my friend, not so. In fact, school lunch in Japan is everything you want it to be: amazingly delicious, incredibly nutritious, satisfyingly filling, and fantastically inexpensive. Each meal consists of 4 dishes and some sort of milk or yogurt to compliment. The four dishes, quite generally, are:

1. Rice (replaced by bread on Wednesdays)
2. Some sort of meat or pasta dish (For the meats: fish and chicken are common - pork and beef on occasion; for the pasta: think ramen, udon, or western spaghetti type foods)
3. A vegetable or fruit dish
4. A soup dish (usually a variant on the traditional miso soup)

All this, for under ~$3... amazing! I truely look forward to it everyday, and it's one thing that I already know that I'm going to sorely miss when I leave my job here.

Well, that's enough TALKING about school lunch, so now, let me show you the magic that is Japanese school lunch:

Let's Taking a Bus Ride!

Out of the five workdays, on three of them I stay at one school the entire day. This happens at my big Elementary School and both my Junior Highs. In total, I teach at 7 schools (2 JHS and 5 ES), and because I go to every school every week, this leaves 4 schools for the remaning two days. What ends up happening on these days is: I go to one school in the morning and teach the 5th and 6th graders, then I eat my sacred school lunch, and then I hop on a bus to get to the next school (at which I also teach the 5th and 6th grade).

This is annoying at times, but it's really not that bad. What it ends up doing is giving me free time to kind of do whatever I want, because all that really matters is that I make it to the next school by the start of the next period. Nobody really cares what I do in between, so long as I'm where I'm supposed to be when class starts and as long as I have a lesson planned. Anyway, I digress.

This transfer happens every Tuesday and Friday. On Fridays (today), the bus ride is gorgeous. The bus drives through an EXTREMELY set of narrow streets in a town that is locked between the ocean and a mountain (unfortunately, I didn't capture this harrowing part in the video below). When it emerges from the town (about where this video starts), it ends up on a road which is basically at ocean level, with the ocean on one side of the road and a giant mountain on the other. There is very little else (save for a few houses and shops sprinkled here and there) along this road which is sometimes barely big enough for two cars to pass on. In fact, in this video, there are occasions when the bus stops or slows dramatically in order to allow oncoming traffic to pass. There are even one or two times when the bus honks once to thank the other driver.

Also, it is not uncommon for the driver of a moving vehicle to BOW in the car WHILE DRIVING.

Here is a map of the route the bus takes in the video:

Point A on the map is where the bus starts (at an ES called Hikimoto) and the destination is Point B (an ES called Yaguchi). Hikimoto has about 50 students, and Yaguchi has about 30; at Yaguchi, my 5th grade class has a whopping 2 students - 1 boy and 1 girl.

Also, around the area with all the stars and the train station called Aiga is my town. The Pacific Ocean pretty much starts right below point A, so as you can see, my town is right on the water (although we are surrounded almost exclusively by mountains).

Okay, here's the bus ride video: 

(CHALLENGE: See if you can hear the bus announce that the next stop is Yaguchi a short bit before I push the button to stop!)

Let's Learning the Tea Ceremony!

I recently went to a Tea Ceremony event held by my local international society. The tea ceremony leader also happens to be an English tutor in the town about 25 minutes north of me, so she switched back and forth throughout the entire presentation.

I had no idea the press would be there, but as it turns out I ended up being in the newspaper and on the local TV station again. In the interview, I talking about something called Seiza (pronounced say-za), which is basically sitting on top of both your legs with your feet being pushed in underneath your rear end (like you see everyone doing in the video). Any more than 5 minutes of it is torture. We did it for about 30 minutes during the Tea Ceremony presentation, and by the time I had to stand up.... well, I couldn't. It was unlike any other sensation I've experience before - I was paralyzed from the waste down. After hitting my legs really hard (so hard, that it normally would have hurt) for about a minute, I attempted to stand, only to immediately collapse and fall on my side. It was quite comical.

Anyway, you get the idea. Here is the video:

Let's Finishing!

Okay, I'm getting tired of typing. Soooo, that'll wrap up this blog! I hope you enjoyed, and I hope to write another one soon! Have a great day in your corner of the world!

JJ

PS: Please forgive what I'm sure are numerous spelling/grammar mistakes. I will go back and correct them later... (and using the structure "Let's  ~____ing" as each section's header was not a mistake...)