Tanabata

It's July 7th - the seventh day of the seventh month - which means it's Tanabata.

Tanabata is a Japanese version of an old Chinese myth. A weaver princess named Orihime and a cow herder Hikoboshi fell in love but they never got any of their work done so they were banished to opposite sides of the Amanogawa (Milky Way.) They are only allowed to meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month.

To celebrate Tanabata people write their wishes on long strips of colorful paper and then hang them on bamboo poles. The poles are also decorated with streamers and other ornaments. In Tahara lining the Hanatoki-dori there are bamboo poles filled with wishes. The tables at Centfaire where the high schoolers hang out in the evening also have decorations.

I wrote my wish last week at Takamatsu Elementary. The teachers wouldn't let me write it in English so I had to do my best in Japanese. I wrote it in pencil first, then Suzue-sensei corrected it for me and then I wrote in pen. You can see it below. It says raigetsu america ni kaerimasu kedo mata nihon ni modoritai desu. That translates to "Next month I'm going home to America but someday I hope to come back to Japan."

The only thing is that if it rains then they can't meet and they have to wait an entire year for another chance. I'm afraid poor Orihime and Hikoboshi won't meet this year since it was pouring buckets the last time I looked out the window. I hope that doesn't affect my wish because I really do want to come back to Tahara someday. Either way, Happy Tanabata everyone!

BBQ Party

Happy Independence Day! I celebrated with a BBQ in the park. Actually it was a sayonara party for me thrown by the Tahara International Association but we fixed hamburgers, hot dogs, and threw water balloons so I could almost pretend it was a real 4th of July party.

They advertised the party in the paper and with a flier to the schools so quite a few of my students showed up. I'll see some of them again in the last two weeks of school but the students from Tobu Elementary already had their last class with me so today was our last-last goodbye. I'm really glad we had one last chance to have some fun together.

I think my friend Emiko had more of a structured plan at the beginning but it ended up being low key and relaxed. The water balloons for the water balloon toss ended up being broken before we could play any games with them but with most of the kids soaked they didn't really care. Some of us played the shingo game (also known as Red Light, Green Light) which I taught them how to play in school last year. After hamburgers and hot dogs we made s'mores. At the end they gave me a present, I sang My Old Kentucky Home one last time, and we took a group photo. I had a great time. Throw in an afternoon nap and this could be the perfect Sunday.


Some of my 3rd graders (and 1 kindergartener)


We were supposed to do a water balloon toss but the kids broke them all before we could. We had fun anyway.


Some TIA members cooking up our lunch.


Eri and Mina making s'mores


Daichi eating his s'more. Everyone said they were really sweet but delicious.


Everyone had a great time!

Tanjoubi Omedetou!

Me and surprise parties just don't go together. Two years ago my friend Marie tried to plan a surprise birthday party for me but she scheduled it on a Tuesday - the same day as my choir practices at the time - so when she asked if I wanted to go to dinner with her I told her I was busy.

"Oh well I'm planning a party for you and I already booked the place so can you skip chorus?"

The answer of course was yes. I can always skip choir practice for a party. Especially if it's for me!

This year she almost got away with it. I thought we were having lunch and then going to have a bath today but I had music practice with our mutual friend Masako yesterday and she gave away the secret. Just as we were leaving Masako said she would see tomorrow at Marie's house party.

Huh???

Aaaaand surprise ruined.

Masako felt really bad about it and emailed Marie right away to apologize. But I don't really care. I just love that Marie tries to throw me surprise parties and that she cares enough to convince me to stay in Japan longer so we can take one last weekend trip together (to my dad's chagrin.) I'm going to miss all my friends in Japan but Marie most of all.

O saki ni shitsure shimasu

As you may or may not know the Japanese have a lot of set phrases that are polite to say throughout the day. Living alone, I don't get to use the ones for leaving and coming home but I do have to say the ones at work. For example, I say a loud "Good morning!" or "Ohayogozaimus" to everyone in the teacher's room every day.

When I leave I say just as loudly but somewhat apologetically, "I'm sorry for leaving before you" (osaki ni shitsure shimasu) Then they respond with "Wow you worked hard today!" (O-tsukaresama deshita) Or sometimes they just say sayonara. I actually get kind of offended when I don't get an o-tsukaresama deshita when I leave. I mean I know I'm just part time and leaving before it gets dark but still I taught 4-5 classes so I deserve a "you worked hard today" goodbye.

They say o-tsukaresama at other times too. When a train arrives somewhere they thank you for your hard work sitting there patiently while the conductor drove the train. The hair stylist tells me thanks for your hard work after she has washed my hair, which always confuses me because shouldn't I be saying it to her instead? And a teacher told me that after I finished washing my hands the other day. She was waiting for her turn at the sink so it's possible she was being sarcastic about how long it takes me to wash my hands but I couldn't be sure. I've encountered very little sarcasm here that I'm unsure it even exists. But who says thanks for your hard work after washing their hands? I mean really.

Anyway, I was explaining all of this to my dad the other day - the ins and outs of Japanese greetings in the workplace and how they don't say things like "Have a good weekend!" on a Friday evening when they leave work because they know they will all be back on Saturday morning. They don't even say "Have a good night" because apparently no one should want to be anywhere other than at work. My dad pointed out that we would never apologize for leaving early in the US. We're much more likely to say "See ya later suckers!" as we waltz out the door at 4:59 on Friday afternoon.

He asked me if I ever smiled when I said "sorry for leaving before you."

"Oh no," I told him. "You have to look like you feel awful about leaving them behind to do all the work. You can't look happy about it."

There is no "See ya later suckers!" in Japanese although if you did translate it it would be something like "O-saki ni suckas!" which for some reason makes me laugh. Maybe it's the thought of my uber-polite coworkers shouting the word suckers and looking happy to be going home that is ridiculous enough to put a smile on my face. The only problem now is that since this conversation I have a mental picture of me shouting O-saki ni suckers! as I leave the teacher's room everyday to go home. It makes looking apologetic hard.

For the record, just because I can swim 1200 meters doesn't mean that I can run around for two classes playing tag without feeling like my legs are going to fall off. Which is exactly what I've done the last two days and exactly how I feel at the moment.

Told my elementary students that I'm leaving at the end of July and we only have two more classes left together. Most of them didn't seem that sad but maybe that's because they're 10 and they don't really think about the future. The teachers have been really sweet though and I know I'll be crying buckets when it's time to say goodbye.

Back at junior high school tomorrow. We have exchange students from Indiana and Kentucky visiting so it will be nice to have someone to speak English with. And two weeks from now a delegation from Georgetown is coming to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the sister city relationship with Tahara. As the year-round representative of G-town I am not only going to the ceremony/reception but I'm also singing a solo. (Amazing Grace - because that's symbolic of international cooperation...)

People from the same delegation are coming around to watch me teach at Takamatsu-sho. That means I'll have to dress up to go to elementary school, which sucks because this time of year I try to wear clothes I don't mind getting dirty and sweaty since just standing around is hot and my teaching style usually includes a lot of me jumping around and acting like a clown and then playing games that have me running until my legs feel like they're going to fall off.

With any luck they'll actually replace me with another Georgetown College graduate and I won't be the last of my kind. No one tells me anything though.

Now my main concern is convincing the Board of Education that they shouldn't charge me to haul away everything in my apartment but that it should be left to the next ALT (unlike me who had to buy everything new.) I'm trying to appeal to the Japanese dislike of wasting things. I've used the word waste at least twice in every conversation regarding this topic. So far all I've gotten is that they have to talk about it and they'll let me know. I can't decide if they are really talking about it or if this is their way of saying no. It will be nice to be back in the land of yes means yes and no means no and by that I mean America.

Only six more weeks to go!

Japanese medicine

There is a reason I have my mom ship me my allergy meds from the States and that is because I don't like taking things when I don't know what's in them. But sometimes I go with convenience over complete understanding. Especially here in Japan.

I ran out of both zyrtec and benadryl two weeks ago. My mom had just sent me a package so I didn't feel like bothering her for another one so soon so I went around the corner and asked the little old lady at the pharmacy to give me something for itchy eyes and throat. She picked up a box and very kindly read it for me to confirm that was what I needed and then she even threw in a free vitamin drink that tasted a lot like cough syrup.

I called home afterward and tried to sound out the ingredients on the back of the box while my mom translated them into real words. If you've ever tried to read words written in katakana then you will understand what this conversation sounded like.

"Pu...so...fu...e...do...ri...n?"

"Pseudoephedrine. That's a decongestant."

There's also belladonna in there along with some caffeine. Yesterday I started noticing I was having vertigo and dizziness. I'm sitting on the couch and suddenly the room will spin. At first I thought it was because my ears have been stuffy. It still could be that. It's happened before when I haven't consistently taken my decongestant. Fluid builds up in my ears and my balance goes out the window.

But I took two sudafed this morning and I'm still dizzy. I also took another one of my allergy pills. I'm starting to think I'm having an adverse reaction to the belladonna alkaloid in the allergy medicine. Actually another call home to Nurse!mom brought that out as a possibility. Either way I stayed home from school. Riding my bike and teaching 5 classes didn't seem like a good idea when every 10 minutes or so the room shifts position. At least I don't have hallucinations...that's another side effect of belladonna. Although that one might be more fun that this.

Hamamatsu Kite Festival

On Monday May 3rd my friend Marie (Mah-ree-ay) and I headed to Hamamatsu to see their famous kite festival. It was Golden Week so it was packed. The line for the shuttle bus from the station to the festival was over an hour long and wound around two blocks! Marie is much more patient than I am and when I complained she just said, "It's Golden Week. You have to wait everywhere now." But it turned out to be worth the wait.

It was the perfect opportunity for people watching. Almost everyone was wearing hoppi - the jackets worn during festivals. Most people had the pants and split toe shoes on as well. And almost every girl I saw looked like she had been to the salon that morning to have her hair done. This is no small festival! It's really billed as the Hamamatsu Festival rather than the "Kite" festival per say but the kites really are the biggest draw. Even so we also saw some taiko drummers and nearer the station we saw some floats that I imagine are carried around town in much the same way they are in Tahara.

But we were there for the kites. They weren't battling that day but instead each neighborhood kite association would gather around one of their enormous paper kites. Each kite had the name of any new babies born in the last year emblazoned in the corner. Those same babies were hoisted up on the shoulders of one of the men and then a small band of elementary school children toting trumpets would play and the adults would cheer. It was really cool to see each group welcoming the new child to the community. And because Hamamatsu is a large city there were lots of bands and lots of babies and lots of kites.

Once the ritual welcome was performed then the kites were ready to fly. The wind wasn't being very cooperative at first but eventually the sky was filled with hand-painted paper kites. Marie tested my Japanese reading skills by making me translate the kanji (or hirigana) on each. After some festival food and a nice time watching the kites we stood in line again for the bus ride back to the station. We spent more time getting to the kite festival than we did at the kite festival!


Marie and I pose in hoppi.



These cute old ladies are taiko drummers. They were so nice to let me snap their picture.


Everyone was wearing their festival clothes.


They are big kites.


They took several people to move.


You can see the baby just under the flag. The adults are dancing around him.




There were bands of children everywhere playing their instruments.


Getting the kite ready to fly.


A view from a small hill.


These guys had a better vantage point though I think.