Exhibit A.
Exhibit B. I want to make clear that this is the only picture Rosetta Stone uses of this man. It's not part of a story "Japanese Language Man Goes to Work!" or anything. It's just a middle-aged man riding the bus...
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Rosetta Stone wackiness
This isn't an official update. It's just something amused me so I'm going to share it. I (Brian) have been using Rosetta Stone to try to learn enough Japanese so that I can communicate and actually know enough Japanese so I can maybe learn Japanese from talking to Japanese people. It's a good software program as far as introducing you to language and giving you an opportunity to hear and speak a new languages. Sometimes though, I wonder a bit about it... The following examples come from the transportation section.
Exhibit A.
The text translates to, "We are standing at a bus stop." I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out where that phrase is going to be useful while going through Japan. Also, what gets me about it is that he's not talking to the "language learner", instead he seems to be addressing the pair of women to his left, and they seem pretty engaged with the conversation they're having. Apparently, you can use Japanese to make pointless observations to total strangers. Or something.
Exhibit B. I want to make clear that this is the only picture Rosetta Stone uses of this man. It's not part of a story "Japanese Language Man Goes to Work!" or anything. It's just a middle-aged man riding the bus...
..while wearing a superhero costume. The text translates simply as "He is riding the bus." That's it. No explanation whatsoever. It has nothing to do with Halloween. This picture raises so many questions for me, I don't even know where to start. I admit I like the touch that absolutely NO ONE is sitting next to him. Would you sit next to the guy in the superhero costume on the bus? I know I'd be a touch leery of him. Maybe I should be more understanding, perhaps his super-flight power is in the shop, and that's why he has to take the bus to work. Anyone think they know his story? Post a comment if you do.
Exhibit A.
Exhibit B. I want to make clear that this is the only picture Rosetta Stone uses of this man. It's not part of a story "Japanese Language Man Goes to Work!" or anything. It's just a middle-aged man riding the bus...
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Silver Week in Tokyo
Quick disclaimer: these pictures are NOT ours. I discovered after e-mailing myself photos off of my camera, our (estimated) phone bill shot up ¥800 (a little more than $8 with exchange rates right now, I think). So we're going to have to connect our camera to a Japanese computer and the software to get pictures off of it, it's google image search. Sorry!
A bit since the last update, it's my turn to fill people in. Last Saturday (the 19th), we went to Tokyo for Maria's Silver Week, three successive holidays in a row. I cannot recall what the three holidays are, and neither could any of the Japanese people we asked. We might have figured it out eventually, I don't really remember.
Anyway, we left incredibly early, the first of our 3 straight days of waking up at or before 6:30 on vacation. We took the shinkansen from Niigata City to Tokyo, and we were surprised that we had to pay nearly ¥20,000 for our tickets! Luckily, it wasn't a problem, just a huge and slightly unpleasant surprise. Once we got into Tokyo, we met up with Meghan, another ALT from Murakami, and her boyfriend Yuya and went to Outback Steakhouse for some real American food. It's pretty much impossible to get anything in Murakami that's REAL American food. Okay, yeah, McDonald's exists down the street from us, and not to be snobby, but calling the stuff from McDonald's food is a stretch. It's just as bad here as in the U.S. with a few different menu items. Other places don't believe hamburgers require buns, or seem to have understanding of what a proper sausage is, and forget about bratwurst. I definitely didn't get enough bratwurst before leaving this summer.
Anyway, Outback was good, but I feel set there for a year, the food seems designed to give you an immediate coronary, but it was nice to have something familiar. That evening we went to our hostel, in the Asakusa -ward or neighborhood or something. We eventually found it because the neighborhood was filled with gaijin (foreigners) more than Tokyo usually is. That was another weird thing, in Murakami there's no foreigners that we don't know (okay, maybe two), but in Tokyo there's foreigners EVERYWHERE, and it was almost jarring to see them everywhere. It felt like we should know them, because in Murakami we do know them! Anyway, the hostel room was small and cramped, so we felt like we had to get out quickly.
Maria wants me to add that the hostel room was REALLY ridiculously small, and she's definitely right. Basically, the room had enough space for the twin sized bunk beds and that was it. We only got sheets, which was fine since they said they had blankets for free if you asked. Except, they were out when we asked. So we slept in the same bed to try to have enough heat. It wasn't completely effective, but it was a place to sleep and for cheap.
Despite still being stuffed from Outback we still explored Asakusa on foot. We found a famous temple, Sensoji, which was next door to a Shinto shrine, the Asakusa shrine. You'll have to look up the relationship between them. Here are some pictures, thanks to wikipedia.
Feel free to browse through them. The rest of the Asakusa area was very busy but there were some interesting things. We walked through "The Edo-era Craftware Museum" as well and saw some interesting recreations of Edo-era everyday items.
We went to bed and woke up early because we had to get to see bunraku theater the following day. They used great big puppets controlled by 3 performers, with narrators providing voices in a sorta sing-song way with musical accompaniment on shamisens, which is something like 3-stringed guitars. The way the narrators sang they had to switch out every half-hour or so. The puppet work was really incredible, though I wish i had understand more of the language since periods without action tended to drag on and really get boring. You could almost think of it as opera with nothing but recitative, but that's only partly right. Nonetheless, it was exciting to see and we only almost fell asleep once apiece.
Some bunraku puppets and how 3 people operate each puppet. The head puppeteer controls the head and the right hand, another assistant gets the left hand, and the third puppeteer does the legs.
More bunraku information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunraku
After briefly walking past the Diet (the Japanese capital building) and headed out for Machida, where lots of our Oberlin friends are now living in Japan. Actually, all of them were people that Maria knew from Oberlin, theoretically I saw some of them around campus, but I couldn't really remember any. We had some good food Unfortunately not American food, as was our goal in Tokyo, where you can actually get American food. Those other Obies don't realize how good they have it in Tokyo! Afterwards we went to karaoke and had some good time singing great songs. One guy seemed to have a real desire to become an Enrique Iglesias impersonator, and I wish him luck, though I don't know if it has the demand of Elvis impersonators.
The next morning, we again woke up early and met up with Meghan, Yuya, and two of their friends and rode back to Murakami. Tokyo was really pretty great, but there's a lot of people there, and it was nice to return to the quiet of Murakami, I have to admit. That's the update for now, keep tuned for another one.
A bit since the last update, it's my turn to fill people in. Last Saturday (the 19th), we went to Tokyo for Maria's Silver Week, three successive holidays in a row. I cannot recall what the three holidays are, and neither could any of the Japanese people we asked. We might have figured it out eventually, I don't really remember.
Anyway, we left incredibly early, the first of our 3 straight days of waking up at or before 6:30 on vacation. We took the shinkansen from Niigata City to Tokyo, and we were surprised that we had to pay nearly ¥20,000 for our tickets! Luckily, it wasn't a problem, just a huge and slightly unpleasant surprise. Once we got into Tokyo, we met up with Meghan, another ALT from Murakami, and her boyfriend Yuya and went to Outback Steakhouse for some real American food. It's pretty much impossible to get anything in Murakami that's REAL American food. Okay, yeah, McDonald's exists down the street from us, and not to be snobby, but calling the stuff from McDonald's food is a stretch. It's just as bad here as in the U.S. with a few different menu items. Other places don't believe hamburgers require buns, or seem to have understanding of what a proper sausage is, and forget about bratwurst. I definitely didn't get enough bratwurst before leaving this summer.
Anyway, Outback was good, but I feel set there for a year, the food seems designed to give you an immediate coronary, but it was nice to have something familiar. That evening we went to our hostel, in the Asakusa -ward or neighborhood or something. We eventually found it because the neighborhood was filled with gaijin (foreigners) more than Tokyo usually is. That was another weird thing, in Murakami there's no foreigners that we don't know (okay, maybe two), but in Tokyo there's foreigners EVERYWHERE, and it was almost jarring to see them everywhere. It felt like we should know them, because in Murakami we do know them! Anyway, the hostel room was small and cramped, so we felt like we had to get out quickly.
Maria wants me to add that the hostel room was REALLY ridiculously small, and she's definitely right. Basically, the room had enough space for the twin sized bunk beds and that was it. We only got sheets, which was fine since they said they had blankets for free if you asked. Except, they were out when we asked. So we slept in the same bed to try to have enough heat. It wasn't completely effective, but it was a place to sleep and for cheap.
Despite still being stuffed from Outback we still explored Asakusa on foot. We found a famous temple, Sensoji, which was next door to a Shinto shrine, the Asakusa shrine. You'll have to look up the relationship between them. Here are some pictures, thanks to wikipedia.
We went to bed and woke up early because we had to get to see bunraku theater the following day. They used great big puppets controlled by 3 performers, with narrators providing voices in a sorta sing-song way with musical accompaniment on shamisens, which is something like 3-stringed guitars. The way the narrators sang they had to switch out every half-hour or so. The puppet work was really incredible, though I wish i had understand more of the language since periods without action tended to drag on and really get boring. You could almost think of it as opera with nothing but recitative, but that's only partly right. Nonetheless, it was exciting to see and we only almost fell asleep once apiece.
Some bunraku puppets and how 3 people operate each puppet. The head puppeteer controls the head and the right hand, another assistant gets the left hand, and the third puppeteer does the legs.
More bunraku information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunraku
After briefly walking past the Diet (the Japanese capital building) and headed out for Machida, where lots of our Oberlin friends are now living in Japan. Actually, all of them were people that Maria knew from Oberlin, theoretically I saw some of them around campus, but I couldn't really remember any. We had some good food Unfortunately not American food, as was our goal in Tokyo, where you can actually get American food. Those other Obies don't realize how good they have it in Tokyo! Afterwards we went to karaoke and had some good time singing great songs. One guy seemed to have a real desire to become an Enrique Iglesias impersonator, and I wish him luck, though I don't know if it has the demand of Elvis impersonators.
The next morning, we again woke up early and met up with Meghan, Yuya, and two of their friends and rode back to Murakami. Tokyo was really pretty great, but there's a lot of people there, and it was nice to return to the quiet of Murakami, I have to admit. That's the update for now, keep tuned for another one.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Murakami castle, Family Visits and some other stuff relating to education
Since the Sekikawa Snake festival life has been fairly normal. I've started settling into a routine, and Brian is researching every day. Sports day was very interesting (and long), we started before 8:00 with set up, and it went until 4:00pm. We had a huge boxed lunch, that was more expensive than our normal meals when we go out to eat, and afterwards we had the enkai or work party. We went to a really nice hotel on the beach where we went to an onsen, which is a group bath, but you basically have to shower and bathe before you get into the bath part, and really we spend a lot less time in the bath than I thought. It was very nice to shower after a long day, and it wasn't nearly as embarrassing as I thought to have a shower or bath in an open place with my coworkers.
After the onsen, we went up to the party. The teachers on each team (Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue) sat together at a table. There were many different foods, such as sashimi, chrysanthemum, and many types of fried foods. We also had a lot of Asahi beer. I tried every type of food on my plate and realized that I'm not a big fan of sashimi. I got a bit tipsy, and they had me give a speech, as well as participate in some games, such as "put these teachers in order by age," and "Guess what subject these teachers taught." I decided not to be honest on the second one since I felt so bad being honest on the first one... After the party there was an "after party" at a snack bar. Snack bars are kind of like hostess bars where you pay to be accompanied by a lady. The reason we went was to sing karaoke, but it ended up being very expensive. Thankfully, I only had one drink and I paid about $10 for it.
Unlike my coworkers, I had to work the next day at my favorite little elementary school on the ocean. The teachers there are really close and they go out to parties all the time. Unfortunately, I ended up with a hangover, and started feeling really sick on the ride up. (I hadn't had a hangover in years!) Thankfully, I got some medicine and with a good attitude I was soon over it. I spent my "planning" period talking with the assistant principal who is incredibly funny. All the kids there were very cute and well behaved.
That evening Dad came to visit us. Unfortunately, he had a difficult time with the train systems since the further you get from Tokyo the less English people know, so he got in a bit later than expected. We went to our favorite Indian/Nepalese restaurant that night and crashed since dad had been up about 24 hours. My Board of Education was nice enough to give me Tuesday off to spend with him since I worked Sports Day on Sunday. We spend Tuesday morning being lazy hanging out, and then went to find a restaurant for lunch. It was a very quiet day in the town and almost all of the restaurants were closed. We ended up going to a kind of diner for lunch. It wasn't very good, but it was at least open and a reasonable price. Afterwards we climbed Oshiroyama which has castle ruins on the top. The view was incredibly beautiful and you can see all the way to the ocean from the ruins. The climb isn't very difficult, but it is very steep. Thankfully it only takes about 20 minutes to climb and there are very nice steps all the way up. Afterwards we went home via a very weedy route, and after another rest we went to dinner.
Brian edits: Two views from Oshiroyama
I had to go back to work the next day and dad left very early so he could make the train to Tokyo Airport. The rest of the week passed by rather slowly with only a few interesting incidents. On Wednesday I played tag with the kids at school after lunch. Thursday was very rainy for my long bicycle ride to Iwafune Elementary so I arrived very wet. Thankfully they have a nice changing room so I can bring nice clothes to wear. On Friday I had my last self-introduction in front of the school. I also had one class where the teacher did not come to class, so I had to do the whole class with a part-time teacher after not knowing the lesson very well.
On Saturday we got up early and went to Niigata city for Musical auditions. The auditions started at 9:00 so we had to leave by 6:50 from the house to get to the train. The auditions went fine, but we don't know if we will be able to go since the rehearsals are every other weekend and they are all over the prefecture. It makes for a very expensive traveling experience. I think I would like singing in it, but I don't know about all the financial aspects since we are trying to save as much as we can. Brian finished the audition early and went to soccer practice, where his knee complained a bit, so he doesn't know about competing in the soccer tournament either. I went shopping while he was at soccer, but didn't get much. I got two shirts that are a new type of long underwear for winter, and a GARLIC PRESS!!!!! I had a very hard time finding one in Murakami so I finally got one and it should greatly decrease my cooking times.
On Sunday I decided to buckle down and start writing my graduate school applications. I'm applying to Duke for a master's in East Asian Studies and NC State for International Studies. I wrote requests to professors for recommendations and have spent the first two days of this week communicating back and forth about further things I need to provide. Thankfully I feel like I sent everything out early enough, so I hope it won't be too burdensome. On Monday I was able to write a draft essay for Duke. I sent it off to my mom to get a couple revisions and then I plan on reworking it for NC State. I'm going to have everything in by early November so I can get a discount on Duke's application fee and get the process moving. Hopefully I will be able to get some kind of fellowship or grant. I know I won't be able to afford Duke without it.
This week has been going by kind of slowly as well. At the junior high school the students are taking exams all day today, so they have just been reviewing for them, so I haven't been asked to attend too many classes. I have been grading some papers though. I'm at an elementary school today and I only get to teach 2 classes, which are now over, so I have the rest of the day to prepare for the rest of the week.
We are going to Tokyo this weekend and we are going to see Bunraku! We will let you know about it when we get back!
I hope you are all having a wonderful week!
-Maria
After the onsen, we went up to the party. The teachers on each team (Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue) sat together at a table. There were many different foods, such as sashimi, chrysanthemum, and many types of fried foods. We also had a lot of Asahi beer. I tried every type of food on my plate and realized that I'm not a big fan of sashimi. I got a bit tipsy, and they had me give a speech, as well as participate in some games, such as "put these teachers in order by age," and "Guess what subject these teachers taught." I decided not to be honest on the second one since I felt so bad being honest on the first one... After the party there was an "after party" at a snack bar. Snack bars are kind of like hostess bars where you pay to be accompanied by a lady. The reason we went was to sing karaoke, but it ended up being very expensive. Thankfully, I only had one drink and I paid about $10 for it.
Unlike my coworkers, I had to work the next day at my favorite little elementary school on the ocean. The teachers there are really close and they go out to parties all the time. Unfortunately, I ended up with a hangover, and started feeling really sick on the ride up. (I hadn't had a hangover in years!) Thankfully, I got some medicine and with a good attitude I was soon over it. I spent my "planning" period talking with the assistant principal who is incredibly funny. All the kids there were very cute and well behaved.
That evening Dad came to visit us. Unfortunately, he had a difficult time with the train systems since the further you get from Tokyo the less English people know, so he got in a bit later than expected. We went to our favorite Indian/Nepalese restaurant that night and crashed since dad had been up about 24 hours. My Board of Education was nice enough to give me Tuesday off to spend with him since I worked Sports Day on Sunday. We spend Tuesday morning being lazy hanging out, and then went to find a restaurant for lunch. It was a very quiet day in the town and almost all of the restaurants were closed. We ended up going to a kind of diner for lunch. It wasn't very good, but it was at least open and a reasonable price. Afterwards we climbed Oshiroyama which has castle ruins on the top. The view was incredibly beautiful and you can see all the way to the ocean from the ruins. The climb isn't very difficult, but it is very steep. Thankfully it only takes about 20 minutes to climb and there are very nice steps all the way up. Afterwards we went home via a very weedy route, and after another rest we went to dinner.
Brian edits: Two views from Oshiroyama
I had to go back to work the next day and dad left very early so he could make the train to Tokyo Airport. The rest of the week passed by rather slowly with only a few interesting incidents. On Wednesday I played tag with the kids at school after lunch. Thursday was very rainy for my long bicycle ride to Iwafune Elementary so I arrived very wet. Thankfully they have a nice changing room so I can bring nice clothes to wear. On Friday I had my last self-introduction in front of the school. I also had one class where the teacher did not come to class, so I had to do the whole class with a part-time teacher after not knowing the lesson very well.
On Saturday we got up early and went to Niigata city for Musical auditions. The auditions started at 9:00 so we had to leave by 6:50 from the house to get to the train. The auditions went fine, but we don't know if we will be able to go since the rehearsals are every other weekend and they are all over the prefecture. It makes for a very expensive traveling experience. I think I would like singing in it, but I don't know about all the financial aspects since we are trying to save as much as we can. Brian finished the audition early and went to soccer practice, where his knee complained a bit, so he doesn't know about competing in the soccer tournament either. I went shopping while he was at soccer, but didn't get much. I got two shirts that are a new type of long underwear for winter, and a GARLIC PRESS!!!!! I had a very hard time finding one in Murakami so I finally got one and it should greatly decrease my cooking times.
On Sunday I decided to buckle down and start writing my graduate school applications. I'm applying to Duke for a master's in East Asian Studies and NC State for International Studies. I wrote requests to professors for recommendations and have spent the first two days of this week communicating back and forth about further things I need to provide. Thankfully I feel like I sent everything out early enough, so I hope it won't be too burdensome. On Monday I was able to write a draft essay for Duke. I sent it off to my mom to get a couple revisions and then I plan on reworking it for NC State. I'm going to have everything in by early November so I can get a discount on Duke's application fee and get the process moving. Hopefully I will be able to get some kind of fellowship or grant. I know I won't be able to afford Duke without it.
This week has been going by kind of slowly as well. At the junior high school the students are taking exams all day today, so they have just been reviewing for them, so I haven't been asked to attend too many classes. I have been grading some papers though. I'm at an elementary school today and I only get to teach 2 classes, which are now over, so I have the rest of the day to prepare for the rest of the week.
We are going to Tokyo this weekend and we are going to see Bunraku! We will let you know about it when we get back!
I hope you are all having a wonderful week!
-Maria
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Recent Adventures
Now with picture updates from Brian!
I apologize for being so bad at blogging. Here is a run-down of our latest adventures.
Last Saturday we went to the Sekikawa
snake festival. Aimee, another married ALT lives in Sekikawa, and invited us to go. The villagers walk through the
entire village carrying a HUGE bamboo snake on their shoulders. We tried carrying it a couple times, since people take turns and there is a whole group that follows the parade. The fun part was
when they made the snake “slither.” We got thrown around on the street, but it was so much fun! I thought I was really strong when I was carrying it, but I guess I didn’t realize how heavy it really since Brian was so tall he had
most of the weight on his shoulders! The one time I tried carrying without Brian I definitely felt some weight! They started carrying the snake at 9:30am and ended around 12:30pm. We hung out at A
my’s house after the festival and then returned to Murakami.
Brian Edit: Here's our first views of the snake.
Finally, after the end of the ceremony, the snake becomes a playground:
Murakami has 5 JET teachers. We went out lunch after the festival with Liz. Her apartment building has a restaurant below it and on the weekends they serve Mexican food! Brian and Liz got the Mexican platter, but I got their Margarita pizza with fresh basil to mix things up. The food was amazing and it was nice to find a place that we could go when we desperately need some familiar food.
On Sunday Brian and I spent most of the day resting, and I graded papers from my first week of school. I had all the 8th graders summer vacation homework. They were required to write ten sentences for three days about what they did over summer vacation. Some of them were really good and some made absolutely no sense. It took me quite a while to get through all of them. We also listened to a Terry Prachett book on tape. We are just that cool!
I was at my base school Monday through Wednesday. We’ve been having cheerleading practice everyday after lunch in preparation for Sports Day, which is this Sunday. All the students are required to learn their team’s cheers. There are four teams: Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue, and I’m on the Green team. Our cheers are very interesting and there are even some dances with them. They base the cheers on popular Japanese songs. On Wednesday we didn’t have classes, so instead we spent all morning and afternoon outside rehearsing for Sports Day. Each grade has special activities they participate in. They have the 100m dash, relays, and slightly more unconventional sports where they all race into a circle and grab tires and the team with the most tires wins. They also have tug-of-war and a race where four people are on two skis and they are required to work together to race around the track. Many of the students seem to have fun, but it was very hot on Wednesday, and they were quite tired from being out in the sun all day.
I have very interesting students at my base school. There are quite a few (about 10-15) who have no respect for the teachers, principals, or rules, and wear their hair crazy and uniforms unbuttoned town to the chest. These students find it really amusing to ask me dirty questions in both English and Japanese. They say the worst things in Japanese because they think I won’t understand them. It’s been getting kind of annoying since the kids will follow me after cheering practice and say ridiculous things to me.
Most of the kids are very nice and shy. I have Yutaro’s sister (the boy we went to karaoke with), who is really nice and talks to me everyday after lunch. There is also a really popular boy who always comes into the teacher’s room and talks to all the teachers. He says he really wants to learn English, and he’s very nice, but I think he might be a bit of a brown-noser. Most of the students seemed to enjoy the Bingo game I made (it took me ages since I made different ones for each grade, and photo-shopped pictures of real things for it). Overall I know they aren’t huge fans of learning English, but it’s fun while I’m in class.
Yesterday I rode my bike to Iwafune Elementary School. The ride doesn’t take very long, about 20-30 minutes, and the kids were so cute! I worked with the 3rd, 5th, and 6th graders. I got to play with the students after lunch and I picked weeds with them. They are very patient with me when I can’t understand what they say, and they use a lot of gestures. We played Tag and Stuck in the Mud. The teachers all thought what I wore to ride to the school was really cute too, and they all cried out “wakai” which means “so young!.” I’ve been getting that a lot recently. Most Japanese tend to get married in their late 20’s early 30’s so I’m a bit ahead of the curve.
Today I’m at my largest school, Murakami Minami Elementary which has over 430 students! I only get to work with the 6th graders today, but I will also work with the 5th graders.
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