Facing 5 years-olds and Dragons

Monday 5th September

I spend half my life trying to be well behaved and not crack up laughing at the students. The students generally have a set phrase that they recite when they enter the staffroom “Excuse me, I’ve come to see ~ sensei for ~” Today’s incident was when two students entered the staffroom at the same time but through doors at either end of the room and recited the phrase in perfect unison – before looking utterly confused as to why there was an echo.

That morning I had my first trip to the Kindergarten, I had had a number of people warn me about how ‘genki’ (lively) the kids were (Jayden – my predecessor just straight out said that they were crazy). The kids had just finished playing in the paddling pools when I arrived so I walked in to see bunch of 3-5 year olds running around starkers.

I was introduced to the 3 year groups (which meant 60 excitable kids in one room) before the younger ones were herded out and I was left with 20-something 5 year olds to entertain for the next 30 minutes.

I Had a number of games up my sleeve as I had very little faith in the kids’ attention span – my suspicions turned out to be accurate. The kids were  learning colours so I decided to adapt the popular game of “fruit basket” – each kid gets a coloured piece of card, when their colour is called they have to get up from their spot and run to a different spot in the circle that another kid had vacated – last one standing has to stand in the middle and call the next colour. This worked well until the kids decided to dog pile one little girl. The next game involved flashcards for the kids to call out the colours that were held up “but, there are some scary monsters too! So when the scary monster comes up, you have to hide!” in reference to the Halloween flashcards that I had mixed in. This worked well, though my ears were a bit shot afterwards as the kids started screaming when the monsters came up…

I feel that a slight bridge is needed between this and the next paragraph so hopefully this sentence will suffice…

In 2001 there was an incident in Osaka where an armed intruder entered a primary school and 8 children were killed, since then there has been increased awareness of the occurrence of such situations.

Image from: http://inventorspot.com/articles/teachers_expel_
school_intruder_twopronged_people_pusher

The whole staffroom stopped abruptly today when someone called out “There are strange people in the building!” when they saw a group of people enter the school foyer through the CCTV. The male teachers all bolted out of the staffroom, two armed with sasamata – long posts with a “T” joint at the end used to hold off attackers and take their ankles out from under them (or just to bash them with).

Students were hurrying past the staffroom to get to the gym and the remaining teachers in the staffroom were quiet. It was just a drill, but it was eerie.

Afterwards the whole school met in the gym so that the “intruders” who consisted of 3 members of a community safety program and 2 cops could address everyone. They went over general safety stuff, although the whole thing was in Japanese so I not only missed some of it but also switched off as the hall was quite toasty. The students were also taught how to free themselves if someone grabbed their wrist.

While I’m on the subject of unwanted intruders – after the assembly had finished I had my first encounter with the Japanese hornet that we heard so much about during orientation – before the principal stomped on it. Everything here is about double the size it is back home.

I can’t think of anything overly interesting that happened on Tuesday so moving right along…

Wednesday 7^th September

After weeks of after school practices, over accentuation the difference between L and R and trying not to laugh at the students’ various quirks and mistakes, the day of the Speech contest finally rocked around.

We were picked up from school on a bus that also had the students form Kisakata that I had helped out, Sun and Luna (reminder: all students’ names have been changed). We picked up Alyssa and her students from Nikako and continued on to Yurihonjo where the contest was being held.

I don’t know whether the seating was assigned or if my students just chose to sit in the very front row but either way I spent the next 3 hours trying to make it look like I was totally away with the fairies, particularly because our principal is the president of the committee so he was sitting just off to the side of us.

I hate watching speeches almost as much as I hate doing them, because I hate doing them, so I feel sorry and nervous for the people doing them. However, all was well. There were no unsalvageable balls ups and no tears and both of my kids spoke really well (in my not-so humble opinion).

There were two speeches that stood out for me; the first was a boy who had lost his father in the 2011 tsunami. There were a lot of emotions going on, between being nervous about speaking in front of people, and talking about how he and his mother and siblings were coping without him. His speech was in the form of a letter to his late father, and needless to say, moving.

The second was a girl who everyone had eyes on before she had even opened her mouth. The reason: she was “half”. She spoke of the insecurities and trials that she had grown up with, being half American, dealing with the same stares, the same questions about her father’s nationality, and being treated like an outsider even though she had lived here for most of her life. She explained that at a young age, she did not want to draw any more attention to herself, so asked her mother to spek to her only in Japanese. As a result her English was accented, but this bubbly young thing had come to terms with who she was as a person. It highlighted the stigma that is around mixed nationality here.

 If you want some more reading: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/9/hafu-in-japan-mixed-race.html

After the 3 hour spectacle, the ALTs got to scurry off to a tatami room where we were fed bento and coffee and unwound a bit after having to sit there behaving ourselves and looking like teachers. We were a little concerned at the fact that they had let a bunch of gaijin with questionable chopstick skills lose on a tatami floor with nothing to stop us dropping food all over the bamboo.

After lunch was the “cultural” activities that the ALTs had prepared. Alyssa and I had organised tongue twisters to challenge the kids with (and in some cases, ourselves). Dave and Liam had coin rugby going on in their corner – this version of rugby also turned out to be a contact sport when Dave sent a coin smacking into the bridge of Liam’s glasses during a practice round. The game that quietly crapped on all of our planning was Jeff and Katherine’s Pokemon go game. Kids had to through balls into buckets with various pokemon on them to “catch” the pokemon and if they could get a ball into a plastic cup taped to the wall – they got to take home a plushie Raichu.

For each category (recitation and speech) there was a top prize, and four merit prizes. Atsu received a merit award for his speech as did Sun, and Luna received a merit award for her recitation. Both of Liam’s kids got Top prizes in their respective categories so he was looking pretty chuffed – until someone reminded him that this meant another month of late evening practices in order to prepare for the Prefectural competition.

Thursday 8^th September

The struggles of Japanese schooling – when you play a game that involves students “going to sleep” you have to be prepared for the fact that some of them will genuinely conk out in the middle of class. However one of the teachers planted the idea of sneaking their pencil cases away when this happens and making them ask for it back in English…

The new ALT for Kisakata, Justin, arrived this week so my supervisor got me to go with the two of them to get Justin’s phone organised. I was able to help a little when communication lapsed but Justin also had a basic understanding of Japanese and his knowledge of technology and computers left mine in the dust so I pretty much sat in the phone trying to figure out what sort of car insurance I needed vs what I was willing to pay for while they did phone stuff…

Friday 9^th September

Beware the sleeping student….

One unfortunate soul at the very front of the class just couldn’t keep her eyes open. So she got her eraser balanced on her head numerous times, the “creep the hand as close to her face as you can before she wakes up” trick and then the grand finale.

Each class room has a timer/alarm clock in it. I had to bite my fist to stop my giggles as soon as I saw H-sensei setting the timer for 1 second. Just as he was about to hold it next to the girl’s head, she woke up. So of course the entire class (including me standing down the back faking coughing fits to try and cover my escaping giggles) sat there for the next five minutes waiting for the poor girl to fall back to sleep. They were not disappointed.

Saturday 10^th September

In this episode of “Chloe gets driven around places because she doesn’t have a car yet”…..

After I had straddled my futon to try and get string around it to make it more transportable, and nearly taken myself out getting the cricket set off the top shelf in my wardrobe – the items in question were loaded into poor Alyssa’s car and we were once again at the mercy of google maps to get us to East Jesus nowhere.

There were a couple of small tiki tours on the way to the south block welcome party –the google maps voice seems determined to send us through rice paddies and to old baachan’s  (grandma’s) houses.

Lake Tazawa

Finally made it to the barbecue in Yokote and it was an afternoon of relishing in eating food that you hadn’t cooked for yourself (which is such a novelty now). After braving the long drop squat toilet that had no light, natural or electric (I’m going to take a moment here to stress how disconcerting it is not being able to see where you’re peeing…) we stumbled upon an obstacle/ropes course set up in the park and indulged our inner children for a wee bit. Then back to the bbq to indulge in food.

There was  a real mix of ALTs, a few of us were freshies but there were also a couple of “unicorns” who were in their 5^th and final year.

Alyssa then had to go back to Nikaho as she had a part marathon the next day so I swapped my gear into Liam’s car with Dave in tow and we headed into Akita city for Cari’s surprise party. A bunch of us met at Satisfaction Burger (what a name) but not before we had popped into a combini so that Dave could pick up a Smirnoff ice for Cari (explanation re. ALT antics involving smirnoff Ices can be found in a previous post).

We loitered in the parking lot next to the restaurant and waited until we heard Cari and Josh arrive, then went stampeding in after them. If Cari had hoped that Josh was taking her out for a romantic dinner – the notion got shat on pretty quick.

Dave had stashed the Smirnoff in my bag so when Dave gestured frantically for me to beat Cari to the bathroom so that I could plant the Smirnoff I had to scuttle off with my bad like a complete weirdo. The gesture was appreciated though – by everyone except Cari . The restaurant staff were also very good about Cari dropping a knee and downing a bottle – perks of gaijin being a novelty over here).

From there we continued on to Karaoke complete with nomihoudai – all you can drink, so you can imagine the quality of the singing…

Liam and I crashed at Josh and Cari’s that night and were treated to a breakfast of rice and miso (accompanied with the necessary coffee) for breakfast. After only 4 hours sleep, a 7 o’clock wake up to balzing sunshine penetrating the rice paper sliding doors, paired with the school nextdoor having its brass band practice – wasn’t overly great for the head after a night on the booze…

The four of us loaded into the car, picked up Johnny (another ALT who had been there for the festivities on Saturday night) and headed up to Lake Tazawa.

Tazawa is Japan’s deepest lake at 423 metres – which is what all of the locals will remind you of when you say you went swimming there, like we tried to touch the bottom…

The legend of Lake Tazawa is that there was a beautiful girl called Tatsuko, who worried about preserving her beauty. A goddess instructed her to drink from the lake which turned Tatsuko into a dragon and she morbidly slunk into the lake. Hachitaro A man who had also been turned into a dragon in a nearby lake heard of Tatsuko and the two eventually fell in love and Hachitaro abandoned his own lake to be with Tatsuko. Without its master, the second lake grew shallower every year. However, Lake Tazawa would not freeze over, even in the harshest winter, supposedly due to all the ….activity….

We didn’t go around to see the golden statue of Tatsuko, instead found a beach off the beaten track and relished in the fresh water. Best way to brush off the cobwebs. The water was perfectly clear and the scenery absolutely stunning, as jellyfish season starts around mid-August,  you can’t swim in the ocean so this is  definitely the place to be.

Cari was hit with no less than 4 Smirnoff ices that afternoon, the final one being in the car on the way back to Akita city so Josh pulled over as soon as she found it so that She could drop a knee. Another was to follow back at the apartment and the 6^th and final one turned up with Dave’s arrival just as we were about to leave for dinner – we worked out her sugar and calorie intake from all the smirnoffs meant that she didn’t need to eat for a couple of days  she didn’t look impressed.

That evening we met up with the other ALTs again (after everyone placed bets on how late Johnny was going to turn up) at Cosicosi – an Italian restaurant. Decent pizza received a warm welcome, however a mix of food coma and running on 4 hours sleep meant that everyone was pretty shattered afterwards.

 Dave and I hitched a ride back with Liam and back in Konoura I had time for a brief video call before I conked out completely – ecstatic at the notion of having to teach 4 year olds at the kindergarten the next day.