A Pear, Chocolate, Coffee Kind of Monday

I woke up realizing that the dreaded Monday had come and a wave of panic cascaded upon me. Yes, I had a serious case of the Mondays. I forced myself against my will to power through my morning run. I'm proud of myself for doing so, though I wore a pained expression and refused to greet my fellow runners. 

Yes, that is how my day began. However, things made a quick turn around when I arrived at work. One e immediately and handed me a piece of dark chocolate. I'm not sure if he could just read my emotions that well and I looked like I needed it like a car accident victim needs a blood transfusion or if that is his cure all for everyone's Monday blues, but whatever the case he quickly became my saving angel of the day.

It gets better. I finally realized the degree to which good coffee trumps crappy instant coffee. Last Friday, I bought some origami coffee (because everything in this country has to be origami) which is really high quality coffee in a bag that you place in a cup with this little paper contraption holding it to the sides. Then, you pour hot water over it and let it seep through for a few minutes. Sounds a bit time extensive, but totally worth it. So, I had the delicious, bitterness of dark chocolate and the unparalleled taste of truly good coffee intermingling in a sensational symphony of taste in my tummy. How could things possibly improve?

As I sat down, marinating in the bliss that had overcome me, a really shy older teacher with whom I work bashfully said "excuse me" and handed me a bag. "This is pear," he said. "From my own garden. "I could not suppress my over-the-top grin." For ... me? "I said, surprised." Yes, yes, please enjoy! "This may seem a strange gift, but it is not in Japan. Receiving fruit is like receiving gold. At the supermarket, Asian pears sell for over a dollar a piece. That is expensive for one piece of fruit! I might also add that I am the only one whom he gave a pear. I felt pretty darn special

!

Dead Elephants at a Speech Contest

Yesterday, after hours slaving away practicing and practicing, it was show time. The speech contest had begun. I gave my student, with whom I had spent so much free time preparing for the big day, as best of a pep talk as I could muster. I told her to pretend that the rest of the audience was not there, and that she was just speaking to me. She was ready. I was probably more nervous than she was. 

I'll spare you from hearing about the extreme amount of blah, blah, blah welcoming remarks from teachers and big wigs in the education system here. Let's fast-forward, shall we? The first student in the contest approached the microphone and as she began to speak, I instantly knew I need not worry, since her gestures were beyond over the top. Sorry, dear, but no one in the English-speaking world does an interpretive dance to accompany their speech. I became more and more relaxed as the speakers presented, some of the poor kids forgetting lines here and there and others making the same mistake of accompanying their dialogue with spazzy, unnatural gestures. 

Then, my face grew cold and I broke into a sweat. My student was about to present the speech which I had spent so much time editing. It was show time. I froze to the spot, rooted in suspense as she spoke each line, unable to relax until the last word of her perfectly-memorized speech left her mouth. 

I Beamed as She walked Offstage, Knowing That She Blew the Other Contestants out of the Water.  Relief WAS My short-lived, However, WHEN the Next contestant Began to Speak with Hardly any accent About an Extremely personal and Emotional topic. Uh-oh . The last student also had me worried, as the content of his speech was extremely pertinent and entertaining and he delivered it with natural ease and gestures.

Following the section with students reciting speeches that they themselves had penned came the recitation section where students chose a speech or story written by someone else. Most of these speeches were light-hearted versions of princess stories like Cinderella and Snow White. However, there were a Couple of sad ones Sprinkled in, like The Happy Prince , My favorite Bittersweet Tale Written by Oscar Wilde The speech contest Concluded with literally one of the MOST depressing Stories I've ever heard;. a true Tale About three Elephants That Were Starved to Intentionally death at a Tokyo Zoo. BECAUSE of the war, Bombs Were Being dropped on Tokyo daily, and the Government did not Want to Risk Dangerous Animals escaping. Read the full Story, Faithful Elephants, by Clicking here . It IS a Serious Tearjerker. Wow, and here I thought they would conclude the speeches with an upper, not a speech that made ​​me want to get a Zoloft prescription. 

NOT THE ELEPHANTS !!

So, fast forward to the results. I could feel my heart racing in my chest as the woman stepped up to read the results. First she announced the 5th, 4th, and 3rd place winners. My student was not mentioned. I knew at that moment that she had to be in the top two. The runner up was not my student either. She WON first place, and I could not suppress my squeal of delight. I finally knew what it was like to be so amazingly proud as a teacher . Afterwards, her family thanked me profusely and took some photos of me with their daughter. Back at school, one of her other teachers bowed at me and told me it was because of me that she won.

Now on to the next contest!

Kids Love Meth

So lots of rather comical things happened in school today, many of them only comical after the fact. I somehow came in possession of a newfound and completely invalid sense of confidence in my Japanese abilities to the point where I decided to test them out in class . I'm sure many of you can sense where this is going. I wrote a sentence that said "when I went to India, I ate a lot of curry" and completely confused the words for "when" and "where" in Japanese and ended up writing the word for "where" underneath the English word "when." Whoops. So, due to misplaced overconfidence I ended up confusing the kids instead of educating them.

In another class, I just had to laugh at the ridiculously long time it takes to say the shortest sentence in English. I said "Mario went to Italy to eat pizza" and the kid translating it in Japanese sounded like he was reciting a Tolstoy novel or the Gettysburg Address. Actually, the Gettysburg Address is not so long as I now well know since a student is memorizing it for the upcoming speech contest.

Last hilarious, and I mean seriously hilarious moment was in one of my classes where the students were learning to write about what someone else likes or does not like. So the activity instructed that they talk to the other students and ask them what they do and do not like and then write three sentences with the results. So, as I paced up and down the room checking students' work as they wrote, I noticed a frequent recurrent mistake. When students meant to write "I like math," they often wrote "I like meth." It took every ounce of my self control not to make a horrendously unattractive snort laugh noise and politely correct them instead.  

Lost In Translation

Sorry to those who thought they were about to read a review about one of the best movies ever made, but this post is about how much is literally lost in translation here in Japan. The language barrier is thicker than a brick wall reinforced on both sides with a steel titanium alloy. This means, of course, that I am out of the loop on basically all topics when it comes to discussions in the teacher's room. For example, one day I slaved away all morning in preparation for my level three classes only to discover once I got to my first one that it was a different schedule that day. The English teachers all seemed shocked that no one told me, and I realized that they probably did, but in Japanese.

Most moment of best movie ever

 Being out of the loop is better sometimes, however. During the sports day at school where the students participate in relay races and other games, I was told shortly before one relay that I would be participating as a runner. Had I known about that ahead of time, I may have backed out due to anxiety from anticipation. The same goes for when I found out that I would be judging an English speech contest. I suppose, to be fair, I had pretty ample notice on that one- about one week. But, when I was told about it, it was in a tone expressing shock that I was unaware of it before.

Sometimes the attempted translations are just plain hilarious. The other day, I went to an electronic store to find out about getting a phone here. The whole process was just ridiculous as the representative did not speak a word of English and we took turns using his iPad translation app to communicate. My favorite was at the end, before I left after trying to explain that I would have to think about it, he told me to wait and typed something into his translator. He turned it to me and it said "I would like to be your partner." I almost burst out laughing on the spot. I'm not sure if he was trying to ask if we could meet up and practice English because he seemed all excited when he noticed that I was an instructor on my ID card, or if he was saying he wanted to be my salesperson if I returned, or if he was just plain being creepy and wanted to be my partner.

I've also realized that sometimes, teachers express understanding when I explain an activity to them, and once we get to class and attempt to execute said activity, it is clear that there was no understanding whatsoever. 

Honestly, some days I want to crumble in to a heap of hopeless sadness on the floor because I just so desperately want to get a point across and be able to communicate with some really cool people. But then I realize that there is absolutely no point in doing so, so I gather myself up, hold my chin high and embrace the challenges posed by cultural differences One thing is for sure:. being thrown into a new country makes learning the language a heck of a lot quicker.

The way to cause that wall preventing communication to come crumbling down? Put everyone in a room together and get a drink in their hands. And then after that drink, refill their glasses and repeat, until fluency is achieved. It works like a magic charm. 

WTF is Gluten?

Japanese people simply cannot wrap their heads around the idea that some people in America do not eat meat. That some don’t even eat FISH is even more baffling to them since they essentially equate fish to vegetables. So, imagine their complete shock when I try to explain what a vegan is. Saying that some people do not consume ANYTHING that comes from an animal astounds them. And I will never forget the way my teacher friend’s face went completely expressionless and blank with a lack of comprehension when I tried to explain gluten. Gluten free will never be something that will make sense here, so I don’t even try to tell people about that anymore.

Yes, the Japanese diet is pretty great sometimes. Sushi, sashimi, delicious fish and miso soups among other things… but sometimes, I must admit, it is a bit of a challenge. For example, Japanese people eat the skin of everything. If a fish is small enough, they will eat the ENTIRE thing, head and all. And perhaps this is normal, but they eat chicken skin as well. Not my thing.

Searching for whole wheat bread and brown rice is one that is generally in vain. I found brown rice once, and it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. They are a little behind jumping on the health food bandwagon. One of the things they do right here is drinking soup from bowls. I hate that in America we have to use our stupid spoons for broth.

This kid knows what's up

Doodles and Mouses

How is it possible that EVERY child in Japan is a perfect artist?? Seriously, they can all draw amazing anime characters in mere minutes. I feel like they must all have a gene enabling them to do so. I graded papers today covered in mindless doodles of Disney characters that would have taken me hours to draw even half as well. 

This takes kids in Japan 30 seconds to draw perfectly

Speaking of Disney characters, I love that it is acceptable here for people of ANY age to have cute cartoon characters on EVERYTHING they own. Grown men and women have Winnie the Pooh coffee mugs, Snoopy pencil cases…anything cute is totally fine. I have embraced this wholeheartedly with my Mickey Mouse water bottle and my Moominvalley planner.

This would be totally normal for me to have here, and that is awesome

Speaking of Mickey Mouse, I realized today the ways that English can be befuddling to say the least for those learning it. When my students were writing about a famous cat character named Doraemon today as per my assignment, one girl wrote “Doraemon is a cat. He doesn’t like mouses.” When I explained that the plural for mouse is mice, her mind was instantly blown, her reaction like the one below:

Believe it or not, people ACTUALLY make that sound to express their state of surprise. It is hilarious.

Because they write cute sentences like “Doraemon is a cat. He doesn’t like mouses,” I end up keeping a substantial amount of the assignments I have the students do. For one activity, I made sentences, printed them out and cut them in half, and the students had to match the two halves of the sentences. One of the sentences was: If you get 70,000 yen, you should buy Miss Marisa many presents. Another was: If you are hungry, you should eat Indian curry. One group of students got really creative and wrote: If you get 70,000 yen, you should eat Indian curry. I let that one slide because, let’s be honest, I would DEFINITELY do just that if I got 70,000 yen.

From 17 to 39

Well, I sure aged fast just from moving to Japan. It did not don on me that the fact that most Asians grow older astonishingly well with little signs of age on their faces until much later in life than for other races would mean that, in comparison, I would look far older than I am. In the same way that being asked if I was 14 when I was, in fact, 19 felt like a huge blow to my gut, a Japanese child guessing me to be 39 years old incited instant astonishment (not in a good way). I was just beginning to accept and embrace my baby face, and now it seems I need to do the opposite: relish in looking far older than I am. That will be hard to do.

The little five-year-old assuming me to be 39 instantly landed on my bad side. Yes, I realize that he was five, and most five-year-olds see anyone older than 15 as completely ancient. Still, not cool, kid. I was just beginning to embrace my alleged baby face. A mere month ago, I was a 17-year-old juvenile and now I need to prepare myself for my inevitable midlife crisis. How is that fair? With a simple overseas flight, I lost 22 years of my life. Dang youthful Japanese genes! It is true, though- a 27-year-old teacher at my school literally looks 18 at best. No wrinkles, gorgeous skin... it's so enviable.

Japanese people do spend a lot of time and money on their appearances, however. Before going outside, even on a cloudy day, they wear SPF 1 billion sunscreen as well as huge visors that cast an enormous shadow over their bodies and 5 feet radii around them. So, I suppose their youthful faces are well-earned.