Fame and giant tunafish

Christmas is nearly upon us and this will be my last update before then. I've noticed that the Japanese either seem to ignore Christmas altogether or pick the parts that they think are cute and go overboard. One example being the epilepsy-inducing Christmas light displays on some houses. They also believe that in the west we eat chicken and a white cream Christmas cake on the 25th. Though honestly, the Japanese Christmas cake is definitely tastier than the stodgy traditional Christmas pudding that we have in the UK. Some of the kids blew me away when they met my mention of Jesus with completely blank stares and hadn't even heard of him. But then, I'm the worst "Catholic" ever, so I'm not going to judge.

The Japanese Christmas cake that I tried

Despite the lack of emphasis on Christmas here, I have been getting somewhat into the Christmas spirit. I have been dressing up in a little Santa dress and hat for my Christmas lessons at school. Usually the kids just yell "Santa-san!" at me and try and steal my hat, but I think they appreciate the effort. Ironically, I felt most Christmassy at the ALTs' Thanksgiving party last month. I donned my kilt for the occasion, since we had the dinner on the 30th, which also happens to be St Andrews day, the patron saint of Scotland. It's safe to say that this is multicultural exchange as it's best: wearing a kilt for a Thanksgiving dinner in Japan. The dinner itself was amazing! The girl hosting it was lucky enough to be one of the few people to own an oven in Japan, so we had a turkey, enough potato to feed an army and more pies than a pie shop, as well as all the other dishes that people brought. Pretty sure I've never been as full in my life as I was that night. We ended the night with a giant sleepover!

Whilst I haven't done any travelling to other prefectures in the past month, I have spent a fair bit of Matsuyama, the biggest city in Ehime.

Dogo Onsen, the inspiration for the onsen in Spirited Away

As above

A chairlift up to Matsuyama castle

View of Matsuyama

After that visit I went back again for the ALT skills conference. The evening of the first day, most of the ALTs had a giant enkai. Shots of sake were done out of giant soup spoons, and to make a long story short, I woke up the next day still drunk, feeling like I would rather not exist and trying not to remember the embarrassing fragments of the night before. To make matters worse, I still had another day of the skills conference to go. But I'm of the opinion that a hangover is self-inflicted so I don't have the right to whine about it that much.

That evening, pure chance would have it that me and my friends get bombarded by a TV camera crew whilst sitting in a sushi restaurant because they had brought in a giant tuna fish and wanted to film it being cut up and turned into sushi. Of course, being a table full of foreigners, they simply had to film us eating it and going "Mmm oishii!" in unison. This is clearly the beginning of a brilliant film career for me.

And if that wasn't enough fame for me, I was also recently made to pose in a mikan farm for a New Year's edition of the local magazine, whilst they asked the usual Japanese questions of "What type of man do you like?" That's right, you better start forming a queue for my autograph.

My next visit to Matsuyama was actually a visit to an orphanage organised by the local ALTs. Although I signed up to the event too late to actually be able to buy a present for a kid, I did get to dress up in my Mrs Claus outfit again and give out sweets to the kids, whilst helping with the Christmas activities that had been set up. And my most recent visit to Matsuyama involved a giant buffet, making friends with both foreigners and Japanese at the local gaijin bar and the typical giant sleepover that seems to be a common part of social events in the JET community.

Life is pretty damn cold here. It's around the same temperature as Scotland right now, but it feels so much colder because you can never fully escape the cold. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in the 50s, as central heating is basically an unheard of concept, insulation in buildings is non-existent and the girls in my junior high schools are not allowed to wear tights under their skirts. I feel awful for them whenever I see them shivering in the hallways. In the evenings I'm either hiding in my bed with my glorious electric blanket or hugging my space heater. I find it difficult to believe that this is the same country as 3 months ago, when it was nearly 40 degrees and so much humidity that clothing just became a nuisance.

But alas, I'm not going to complain about that because I feel like I have been really starting to find my feet this past month. I definitely feel more of a connection with my students these days and last week I felt like even the JTE (Japanese teacher) who I usually consider to be quite frosty towards me was starting to warm up. The only sad part is that I won't see much of my junior high 3rd years after Christmas because they will be on exam leave and then heading off to high school in April.

I feel more like a part of the local community as I'm being invited out to more things by Japanese people. I think a big part of this is the shorinji class (a type of martial art) that I take. Despite the fact that I'm pretty damn terrible at it, lots of the members have been making an effort to invite me out to things and get to know me. One of the kids who is only about 4 or 5 years old started wanting to learn English after I joined and has since been shouting out random English vocab at me whenever he sees me. Ridiculously cute and very impressive considering his age.

At my shorinji enkai I was made to do karaoke for the first time, much to my reluctance. I have attended karaoke before, but always managed to get away with never singing. Singing in front of a roomful of people is as appealing to me as going to the dentist, but they still cheered appreciatively even after I butchered Twist and Shout. This was then followed up with "Challenge! Challenge!" as they thrust cups full of sake at me and gawped in amazement as I downed them. The woman who worked in the karaoke bar then followed this up by giving me a palm reading in which she claimed I will be happy in May, but very unhappy in August and that I must fight through it. Hmm... I don't tend to believe these things but I can't help but feel a little nervous.

All in all, after a bit of a rough start and not quite being used to living in a small town, I feel like it's all starting to fall into place. My Japanese is still terrible but gradually getting better. I recently cycled out by myself a few miles to the end of the peninsula. The beauty and peace I have encountered and continue to encounter every week in Ehime has given me a new appreciation for living closer to nature.

 

The end of the peninsula

And just because it's Ehime, here's a giant mikan made out of mikans

It's clear from all the stares I get that Shikoku may not be the most obvious of Japan's four islands for a foreigner to be, but this is part of the Shikoku charm. I really feel like I am living in authentic Japan. My presence here definitely gets noticed, and I hope that perhaps it makes a difference to the people around me too, particularly my students.

That's it for now, but over Christmas and New Year I will be doing a great deal of travelling, so you can be sure that I'll have way more stories to tell then.

The so-called "Stage 2", naked Japanese men and too much alcohol

Dum dum dum.... The Dreaded "Stage 2" of "Culture Shock"!

It's very nearly been 4 months now, and needless to say there have been ups and downs. It was drilled into us at orientation time and time again "You will experience culture shock!", "Many people arrive at their apartment and swiftly burst into tears at the thought of being along in a foreign country". Now I can definitely say that the second thing did not happen to me, and it's hard to pinpoint whether or not the first thing did happen to me. I never thought at any point "Oh, wow this is just so different I don't know how I'm going to cope!", but there have been many times when I have simply rolled my eyes and thought "Well this is extremely Japanese and kind of frustrating...".

We were told there is Stage 1 of culture shock which involves basically being a hyperactive child and being amazed at everything new around you. This is followed by the dreaded Stage 2, when you begin to criticise everything about the new culture and even resent a lot of things. If you manage to pull through Stage 2, then there is Stage 3 where you become adjusted and stop acting like a hormonal teenager. And if you're lucky there is Stage 4, when you become some zenlike God and balance the best aspects of both cultures.

Honestly, I can't say I went through a distinct Stage 1, which maybe is kind of depressing since surely everyone wants to live in a bubble of amazement for a little while. I definitely didn't dive straight into Stage 2 though, I just think I'm quite a realistic person and maybe I think too much. I think (the irony) this goes with the territory of being a Scot with a good dose of sarcasm.

However, I can pinpoint a time when I went through Stage 2. Perhaps it was around October when the season rapidly changed from sweltering heat to a normal temperature. But to me this sudden change made the normal temperature feel like the dead of winter, and I went through a bout of always having a cold, thus making me feel miserable and resent the Japanese to a certain extent when I wasn't able to understand why on earth they insist on doing certain things. I'm certain that this feeling will never go away entirely (why don't you shut the windows at school when it's freezing cold??), but at least it has and will continue to lessen over time.

For those of you who know me even a bit, I am sure you must be well aware of the fact that I did a year abroad in Italy from my constant "Well, this one time in Italy..." . The same thing happened in Italy! It got cold and I got depressed. I even got upset and ran back home on the spur of the moment one time, but this is definitely not an option now that I'm in Japan.

Now let's talk about how I probably have an alcohol problem :)

Anyway, let me tell you about my fun and alcohol-fuelled past weekends, the things that made me pull through all this so-called Stage 2 stuff. The weekend that really made me lighten up and go through a temporary delirium of "OMGJAPANISSOCOOLPIKACHUETC" was when I went mikan picking (the fruit that Ehime is famous for, basically a mandarin) and to put it delicately, got absolutely shitfaced (not from the mikans just to clear that up...).

How it all came about was rather strange, as it involved a chance encounter in the street, with a Japanese woman who now lives in America, but comes back every year to help out her family during mikan season. There was a big group of us gaijin in the street in Yawatahama after a meal, which is an EXTREMELY rare occurence here, so she was obviously curious and came up to speak to us since her English is really good. It turned out that her brother is a teacher at one of the primary schools I teach at once a month, and so the other Yawatahama ALTs and I were invited to pick mikans on their mikan farm.

Now, I was somewhat hungover and tired after a late night in Ozu with some ALTs the night before, but being taken up to their mikan farm was somehow life changing for me. We were riding in the open back of a truck, which is definitely a first for me since I'm a city girl. We were going up higher and higher into the mountains with this amazing view of the sea right behind us, and I think it just hit me how in love with Japan I am. I was literally bouncing around like I was 5 years old, but I had never felt happier.

After picking some mikans on their very high up mikan farm, we were taken to this gigantic dome thing on the top of the mountain. We had to climb up a very high ladder, a bit dubious considering the lack of ropes or anything to stop us falling, but once we were up there it was literally like being on top of the world. I don't think any picture will do it justice.

Then we dug up sweet potatoes and then went fishing. That is probably the most farm girl day of my life that I've ever had... And when we were fishing, as the sun was setting it turned into this huge bright red disk like the flag of Japan, the same way it did that time I did a roadtrip to the shimanami kaido bridges. Again, this photo is like some crappy shadow of the real thing. But that was it, I was hooked and I was in love with Japan.

After that we went back to the house of the family and had the most traditional Japanese meal I think I have ever seen on a fireplace that the family built themselves. You can see it here:

The whole family was so warm and hospitable, and even though I couldn't communicate properly with anyone in the family apart from the woman, I had a really great time. I was sitting next to the grandfather, who is seen as somewhat of a legendary Crocodile Dundee figure by everyone in Yawatahama. Apparently he is completely crazy and will do absolutely any challenge that anyone sets for him. Even though he was aware that I didn't understand much, he was quite content to babble away to me in Japanese and smile and laugh and do sake shots with me. I don't think I have ever felt that much warmth from someone who is practically a stranger to me and doesn't speak the same language. And I was really blown away by the generosity of that family, as we each came away with around 50 mikans and a bag of sweet potatoes, as well as all the amazing food and alcohol that we had that night.

The next day, surprisingly hangover free, I went on a trip with another Japanese person who speaks a little bit of English. We managed to converse to some extent with my limited Japanese and her limited English. She took me up to the mountains to the most staggeringly beautiful place, where the leaves were turning bright red. Japan is very well known for its beautiful autumn colours and this place was no exception. There was this one bridge in particular crossing a river that had no proper rails, just a small bit of wire on one side that was slightly terrifying to cross, but had one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen.

The bridge, which is actually really scary when you're crossing it

The weekend after that I went on a girl's trip to Beppu, famous for its many onsen (aka. where you get naked in a hot pool with strangers). We decided to go an onsen that had a mudbath. Onsen are divided by gender, and this was true for this onsen, but only to a certain extent! Even walking into the onsen, we were all very much aware of the fact that in the distance we could see naked Japanese men walking around, even if they were covering themselves with the tiny towel they give you at onsen.

It was bizarre... the girls mudbath was outside, but obviously the water was so murky from mud that you couldn't actually see anything when someone was submerged in the water. Meanwhile, the mens part of the onsen seemed to have a path that literally went right past the female mudbath. Some of them sheepishly ran past clutching their towel, while some of the more brave ones actually gave us a "Hello!". There was even a mixed part of the onsen which was advertised as having a waterfall, but in actual fact was essentially a leaky pipe. False advertising to lure in the foreign girls methinks..? I ventured into this part for maybe a minute or two, but with my towel round me. Lots of the other girls in my group were in this section, but the Japanese men seemed so split between curiosity and fear that the atmosphere was just uncomfortable and I left, even if I somehow managed to accidentally flash my ass to a couple of Japanese guys in the process. Oh well, I doubt I'll ever see them again.

That night we went to a Japanese Elvis night with a huge buffet and unlimited booze. The other girls said that the staff were rather racist towards us lovely gaijin, but if I'm honest, I was so drunk that I have no recollection of the night. I just remember throwing up in the sink of the hostel we were staying in, which is a pretty big deal for me since I broke my 5 year no throwing up streak! Ugh...

The next morning, in my severely dehydrated state, unable to even comprehend the notion of going to a hot onsen, we decided to hit the "hells" of Beppu: basically lots of different types of geysers. Some were pools of mud, some were beautiful blue pools able to boil eggs and some had crocodiles in them. Nothing really surprises me in Japan anymore.

So that's it, my last few weeks in Japan in a nutshell plus a bit of whining at the beginning :)

"So if you're Scottish, does that mean you speak Latin?" and other interesting occurences

Admittedly it has been a fair while since I last updated this blog, but rather a lot has happened: The Hiroshima sake festival, the Yawatahama Teya Teya festival, the Halloween party in my town and my school Culture Festival. 

So starting with Hiroshima, let me just begin by saying that Japanese people do not hold their alcohol well. Not at all. This is reflected in the early ending time of the festival, as to my surprise it ended at 8pm. I initially thought such an early closing time was insane, but by the time 7pm rolled around, Japanese people were completely red in the face, rolling around on the ground, getting into fights and *gasp*, speaking English to me. Despite the fact that 99% of Japanese people will adamantly state that they do not speak English, get a few beers in them and the truth comes out. I myself was a nice level of drunkenness, with no embarrassing antics occurring. The whole premise of the festival is that you pay a set amount to enter, are given a small sake cup (think shot glass size) and get to wander up to every sake booth and have a shot of any sake you choose until they run out. Such a thing would most likely be banned in the UK, since we are all alcoholics after all, but it was definitely fun. My alcohol tolerance has admittedly gone down, as I definitely drink less here than I do back in Scotland, home to Braveheart and drunks. There isn't a whole lot to say other than Japanese men definitely lose their inhibitions when drunk, actually to the point of outright hitting on me (Japanese men are usually far too shy for this). The one thing that surprised me at the sake festival and Hiroshima in general was the huge amount of foreigners I saw. Being in a small town, I hardly ever see any foreigners apart from us ALTs, so I was practically awestruck at the amount of foreigners wandering around. Perhaps this is a sign I'm turning Japanese?

Me with a couple of drunk Japanese guys... haha!

Since it finished so early, we all headed out to a "gaijin bar", which was full of American marines. This was actually my first time dancing since being in Japan, so it was definitely nice to let loose. One highlight was when one not-so-intelligent marine said to me "So you're from Scotland… does that mean you speak Latin?". Nope, I didn't mishear, he actually said that. Well, he certainly wasn't doing anything to prove the "Americans are stupid" stereotype wrong. Though if it makes what he said any better, I panicked that a member of the yakuza was hitting on me since a Japanese guy with a tattoo was trying to dance with me (and badly at that). It turns out that you don't have to be yakuza in Japan to have a tattoo. Though who knows... 

The next day in Hiroshima was spent doing all the must-see touristy things. The first thing we did was hit the Hiroshima Peace Park and museum. It was definitely powerful to say the least. I left the museum feeling depressed and like I was somehow guilty for the atomic bombing. However, it is something that you absolutely must do if you are ever in Hiroshima. This is the peace park:

The Genbaku Dome - still as it was the day the bomb fell

The children's memorial

The flame (although you can't see it here) that will never be extinguished until all nuclear weapons have been destroyed.

In need of a good cheer up, we headed out to Miyajima, a beautiful red gate or shrine type thing that is actually in the sea, so that it appears to almost be floating. This illusion was even greater since we took heed of the advice in the guidebook and went around sunset. Needless to say, it was beautiful. The scene felt rather surreal, added to by the fact that I was still shocked by the amount of foreign people strolling around and also by the deer casually strolling in and out the crowds, trying to steal food from tourists and licking small children. Some people say that Miyajima is Japan's most iconic view. I haven't seen enough of Japan to make a judgement on that, but it was certainly iconic.

Miyajima Shrine

2 deer in a loving embrace

After an exhausting day of sightseeing we headed back into the city and went out for the famous Hiroshima style okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is essentially a savoury Japanese pancake with layers of cabbage, egg, squid, meat and basically whatever you want to throw in. Hiroshima style is different from the more typical Osaka style as it also has noodles in it. A truly scrumptious calorific meal! We went to Okonomimura, which is a building with 4 floors consisting of only okonomiyaki vendors. The choice was overwhelming, and quite frankly we had no idea how to choose, but we eventually settled on a place and sat watching the veteran okonomiyaki chefs do their thing. The way they made the okonomiyaki so effortlessly was almost like a work of art. It's the same feeling as watching an extremely talented cocktail mixer make a cocktail. They threw around the ingredients with perfect ease, making it look so easy when I really knew that it would all go balls up if I tried.

The okonomiyaki stall where I ate and the beginnings of my meal

The layers

The finished deal

So that was the main gist of Hiroshima. A very spacious and open city and somewhere that I have to return to at some point.

Hiroshima by night

Just a curious looking building

Next on the agenda is the Yawatahama Teya Teya festival. What exactly it is that we were celebrating, I'm not sure, but it was fun so who cares! I was part of the City Office dancing troupe (troupe? I'm not sure what to call it, we just kind of danced in a group). In very Japanese fashion, they had several practices for a dance that was just 3 very simple moves repeated over and over until we grew sick to death of it. On the night we got to wear a traditional Japanese happi and were treated to lots of beer and food before the actual event. We even got to meet Hamapon, our city's mascot! Everyone was already merry and drunk by 6pm before we even set off.

Me in a happi holding the mikan mascot of the prefecture

Hamapon!

Unfortunately it was raining, so the little sock things I had to dance in got soaked within 2 minutes, but it was all in the name of good fun and a truly Japanese experience. In front of our dance troupe the men carried a mikoshi, which is an extremely heavy portable shrine. Though to me it more looked like a boat with lots of tinsel and sparkles on it. We danced for 45 minutes, gradually making our way around the town centre. My students and other people waved at me excitedly, probably in awe at seeing a white girl in a traditional Japanese get up. I don't know how many strangers have pictures of me, but I'm sure that it must be a significant number. I even "won" a medal for my "excellent dancing". By that I mean that they gave me a medal because I'm foreign. Yep seriously, this is Japan. Whilst the downside is people may stare a lot, the perk is that 95% of the time you get given first class treatment.

We also did a second revolution round the town, and this time I got grabbed, put into the mikoshi that was being hoisted up on the shoulders of about 20 men and bounced around in it for a few minutes. I'm pretty sure being bounced around in a shrine is one of those once in a lifetime things that can only happen in Japan. I definitely felt blessed to be given the opportunity to experience being at the centre of a Japanese community. Whilst I may be a city person at heart, there is something special about living in a small place because it is so much easier to get right into the heart of the community and experience the real Japan.

The night was rounded off with a party at the city office which involved a lot of beer and some very drunk Japanese men. One man who I have never talked to in my life actually stopped dead in the corridor and hugged me. Believe me when I say that this is an extremely rare thing for a Japanese person to do, so it's safe to say that he was probably hammered beyond belief. Eventually we all ended up at a snack bar, where everyone drank more and I saw to my complete awe, a Japanese woman eating ice cream with chopsticks. Yes, that's right! And no one else was blinking an eye at her. It was as if she was a living caricature of a Japanese stereotype that I had never actually seriously thought to be true.

I'm afraid that this is getting quite long, but there is a lot less to say about Halloween (which I am aware has not actually occurred yet, but this happened to be when the party was) and the Culture Festival. For Halloween, I finally found myself at an actual bar in Yawatahama. And it was full of foreigners! I am aware of the fact that this was a special event just for Halloween and many of them live in a different town, but I never realised that so many people from the Phillipines live in Yawatahama. It was great to dance, drink cocktails and talk to strangers in English! I dressed up as a witch from MacBeth for the occasion, the MacBeth part being that I was wearing a tartan kilt I found in a second hand shop. I'm probably now going to be all keen and force my friendship on these people simply because they speak English. But such is the way of life in the Japanese inaka.

The next day was my school Culture Festival. I have to admit that I was feeling rather rough, but this was more due to an actual cold rather than alcohol consumption. To my relief I wasn't actually expected to do anything other than sit and watch. The kids put on some pretty amusing plays (that I couldn't understand, but they seemed funny) and sang some songs together as a class. But the best part was the dances that the kids came up with themselves. My particular favourite was a boy dressed as a girl seducing all these dancing old men (14 year old boys with bald caps, don't worry), and then the girl whipped off her (his?) wig and it turned out he was actually an old man in disguise (also with a bald cap, don't worry). It was a great day, and I really do wish I had had more energy, but c'est la vie.

I've certainly nattered on enough so I am going to leave you here. Till next time!

"Hey, let's eat a pregnant fish" and other adventures

I’m afraid that these blog updates are becoming less prompt as time goes on, but I will try to keep up with doing them every couple of weeks. This may be due in part to the vast variety of Japanese hobbies that I seem to have taken on. So far this includes Japanese cooking classes, ikebana (flower arranging), karate and next week I will be giving tea ceremony a try! This doesn’t even include the yoga that I do and the various JET meet ups and so on…

Karate is the newest addition to my “hobbies”. I just tried it out properly a few weeks ago. My style of karate is called Shorinji Kempo. Never actually having done “normal karate” (does that even exist?), I’m not actually sure how they differ, but my supervisor told me it is more theatrical in style and more like a performance. This seems more like my type of thing than the judo I witnessed at Sports Day when I saw some tough looking boys literally hurling each other to the ground without even uttering a sound. That certainly killed my curiosity to try out judo since I’m a rather dainty girl.

Not really knowing what to expect, I went along to karate. It turned out that the majority of the class consisted of children. Some even as young as three! The warm-up was tough, but after the copious amounts of fried food and noodles I’ve been eating here, I certainly need that extra shove. I was slightly embarrassed when a 10 year old girl managed to beat me in the one of the warm up races when we had to crawl along the floor worm style. Though in my defence, it’s been years since I’ve done anything like that! I also couldn’t manage to get my legs into the zen style (crossed legs but with feet up on the opposite knee), when all the little kids and all the adults seemed to be able to do it. Oh well, they say practice makes perfect.

After the warm up and various back and forths across the room kicking and punching the air saying “Hya!” (I swear, it’s more organised and impressive than I make it sound) we were put into groups. Much to both my relief and slight embarrassment I was put into the white belt group, which obviously was made up entirely of young kids. Still, it was fun and I will be returning. The children were literally having a field day at the sight of a white gaijin girl desperately trying to keep up with everyone else.

When Japanese people say they have a hobby, they don’t quite mean it in the same sense as you or I. When we have a hobby it’s something we do for fun every now and then when we’re in the mood, but for the Japanese a hobby is to be taken almost as seriously as a job. Which explains why everyone else at karate is miles better than me since they are pretty damn dedicated to the sport. Still, I intend to stick with karate at least for the duration of my stay in Japan as long as it’s feasible. It’s even tougher for kids and their after school clubs, which run every single day after school, even on Saturday mornings. Sometimes I wonder how much the kids really do enjoy their “hobbies”…

Anyway, onto more light-hearted topics! A couple of weeks ago I went to an overnight beach party in Niihama, organised by a subsection of JET who run events in Ehime for us English teachers. To put it briefly, this involved a lot of alcohol, barbequed food and night time stealth-swimming. What is stealth swimming you ask? Well for some bizarre reason, despite it still being the middle of September and around the 30 degrees mark, the beach had decreed that swimming was “out of season”. So naturally we just waited until it was dark so that they couldn’t see us. Though it honestly gets dark here around 6pm so we didn’t have to wait long. Much to everyone’s relief, no one got stung by jellyfish, unlike the year before, so luckily there were no conundrums of, “Okay, so who’s going to pee on the sting then?”. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves greatly and have a very merry time, probably aided by beer, tequila, Strong Zero, wine and whatever else happened to be on offer. By the way, Strong Zero is lethal! It’s essentially an alcopop that tastes lemonadey and positively harmless, but for some reason just one is enough to get my head spinning. Be careful, or as the Japanese say “Ki o tsukete!”.

The next day, I went on a mini road trip along with two other ALTs. The first stop was at a highly refreshing waterfall which was definitely a good shout for getting rid of the hangover. That was, until I saw a water snake and suddenly didn’t want to be in the water anymore… We later made our way to the Shimanami Kaido bridges, spanning 70km from Imabari on Shikoku, where I live, all the way to Hiroshima on the mainland. The bridges were, simply put, absolutely stunning. The bridges all connect a series of islands, and when the sun begins to set and the haze sets in, it creates a mystically beautiful view. Unfortunately my computer won’t let me post a picture, but you just have to trust me. This may sound odd, but Japanese hills are a different shape from any hills I’ve ever seen. They seem more defined and dramatic somehow, rising up from the surrounding landscape very deliberately. The next view I saw was also absolutely amazing. As the sun was setting, it literally turned blood red and huge, to the point where the sky actually looked like the Japanese flag. The land of the rising - or in this case setting – sun indeed. I should write travel brochures or something. After such breath taking sights we were back in the hustle and bustle of Matsuyama city and I got to eat my first proper Indian curry here, which by the way, was considerably spicier than I had expected, given that Japanese food is never spicy. Still delicious though. After all, I am a good British girl that can never turn down a great curry.

Despite being very tired, I can never resist travelling to a new place, so the next day I set off for a town quite close to me called Uchiko, home to another JET. Uchiko is a very quaint town and still very much preserved in the Japanese traditional style with lots of listed buildings. We originally went to watch a kids sumo wrestling tournament, which quite honestly was brutal at times. Japanese children are tough! Several times a scrawny little boy was put up against a huge fat kid, who simply flung him out the ring as if he were just a rag. Though I have to say, some of the scrawny little boys did put up a good fight. Sometimes I feel like the Japanese can be rather masochistic at times! What with all the excessive sport and lack of regard for injuries.

Whilst in Uchiko we also tried out some rather exotic ice cream flavours ranging from pumpkin, to sesame seed, to sweet potato to green tea. Green tea ice cream has become a new obsession of mine! Sweet, but still very refreshing.

Just the past weekend I was in the neighbouring town of Ozu, having a movie and pizza night at the house of another fellow ALT (I know, I know, I should probably try to hang out with more Japanese people but the language barrier is a bit of an issue..). We were literally fed until we were stuffed and sleepy. To say that pizzas are small in Japan is a massive understatement, but despite this we were still full from the sheer number of pizzas. And just to top it off, the next day we had homemade waffles with syrup and yoghurt before setting off for a girly shopping trip to Matsuyama, which involved more food and ice cream. Food is kind of becoming a common theme here, I’m beginning to think I should go on a diet..

But food is a very important thing to the Japanese, similar to the Italian take on food. Food should be enjoyed fully and in the form of a proper sit-down meal, rather than us Brits who like to rush around stuffing sandwiches into our faces. However, the Japanese are sticklers for never wasting food, and this is evident in the school lunches when kids simply have no choice to force whatever horror may be on the plate before them, even if this is a pregnant fish. And yes, that is a food that exists in Japan. It's called shishamo, look it up if you don't believe me ;) Yes, I was confronted with it the other day during a school lunch, but I managed to slyly give it away to some students who were more enthusiastic about eating it.

Anyway, that’s all for now. My next blog update will most likely entail my adventures to the sake festival in Hiroshima, so stay tuned kids!

From school life to Sport's Day to giant penis statues

I’ve now been teaching at school for a couple of weeks now. A typical school day at a Japanese junior high school is certainly very different from high school back in Scotland. Probably one of the biggest differences is the fact that the kids and the teachers actually clean the school themselves. There is usually a period of about 15-20 minutes each day known as cleaning time where everyone will get out the brushes, dustpans, mops and hoovers and will each clean a small section of the school. I literally couldn’t believe it the first time it happened; the kids were so working hard at cleaning, barely even talking to one another due to their complete concentration to the task at hand.

Similiarly, the kids also each the same lunch, known as kyushokuu, in their respective classrooms. Each kid has a job at lunchtime to carry up all the food and trays and arrange them out on the desks. They even don aprons and those white masks that you will undoubtedly have seen Asian tourists wearing. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t wear these because they are scared of “Western germs”, but because they are thoughtful enough to prevent the spread of their own germs when they have a cold. Kyushokuu differs greatly from typical Western school lunch in that it is exactly uniform, everyone has the same and everyone has to eat what they are given. Usually it consists of a soup or curry of some sort, a small bit of salad with something else that changes each day, a carton of milk and a gigantic bowl of rice. I am amazed at the fact that the kids always finish everything since first of all, it is quite a lot, and secondly, whenever I ask them if they like it they generally reply with “So so”. This just makes me realise how spoilt for choice we are in the west, and how we don’t even give a second thought about the notion of wasting food.

Another huge difference is that the kids all stay on after school until at least 5.30 doing their club activities. EVERYONE does a club activity and they usually involve something sporty. These past 2 weeks the kids have been practicing for their sports day, which is definitely a very big deal here. This has meant that they have been practicing literally all day out in the hot sun some days from 8am until 5pm (even though school ends at 4). And not only that, but they have then been doing their club activities afterwards until 6.30pm. Now I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t actually managed to stick around until that late since I’ve been too tired or had things to do after work. I honestly applaud these kids because I don’t know how they do it. On Friday though I did notice that quite a lot of the kids were injured or just overly exhausted from all the extra practice, so perhaps it is too much for a lot of them. I know it would be too much for me. I’ve barely been joining in with much of the sports day and I’m tired, but by the end of the day the kids are sweaty and covered in dirt. The sports field isn’t exactly the most pleasant thing to practice on, since it’s just made of dirt, which by the way, is absolutely blinding when the sun shines on it since it’s far too white.

Sports Day itself was another spectacle. Japanese sports day seems to be pretty uniform at least around Ehime from what I’ve heard. To me, it basically epitomises Japanese culture as it’s a strange mix of precise, military style marches and then some of the wackiest (and downright dangerous) team games I’ve ever seen. One example is when kids makes groups of four, with three kids on the bottom forming a support for the fourth person who climbs on tops. They run forward towards a metal box on a table. The person on top swings a big rope that is weighted at the end and the aim is to knock the metal box off the table. Of course I’ve seen many of the teams collapse on top of each other mid run, people getting the rope wrapped round them, being hit in the head with the rope and all sorts. Needless to say it’s not a game that namby pamby overprotective Western parents would approve of.

Another game that seems to result in a lot of injury is the appropriately named “mukade”. A mukade is a poisonous centipede that lives in Japan. Although I have yet to come across one (tap wood), they are the bane of JETs’ lives since a bite from them can cause a lot of pain and even hospitalise you. Anyway, the game is basically just a gigantic three-legged race in which around 15 kids are tied together by the legs and have to race to the finish line. Hilarity ensues (at least for me) when the kids all topple on top of one another, but it has actually resulted in some pretty bad injuries.

At Sports Day I was able to join in the girls wavey scarf dance thing and do the folk dance. A lot of the 13 year old boys seemed both thrilled and terrified at the idea of dancing with a foreign white girl. Some of them held me quite literally about a metre away from them in case they caught cooties or whatever the Japanese equivalent is, while others threw me all over the place. The boys also had to do this performance thing were they got into groups and climbed on top of each other to form shapes such as pyramids and planes. I stood terrified with bated breath watching this performance as the shapes were sometimes 3 tiers tall (standing up), with only the dirt ground to break the fall if the top boy was to lose his balance. Luckily I never witnessed any such accidents.

In Japan, cheerleading is seen as a boys sport, however for the purposes of Sports Day all students joined in. The school was divided into two teams, with the third year students actually making up some rather elaborate dances and cheers themselves. The kids worked on these dances every single day since it was a competition between the two teams. I’m not sure if the kids actually won anything apart from their own sense of pride, but it was a really big deal. The cheerleading itself is different from Western style, in that it is much more traditional and Japanese looking. There was no music, but instead the students move along to the beat of the Taiko drum.

For me, Japanese Sports Day and school in general really allows me to see how Japanese society works and how the Japanese mind set comes about in the first place. The kids put their all into absolutely everything. There is none of this crap about trying to skive that is so prevalent back home. Everything is based on respect and community, from the cleaning to the school lunches to all the team games during Sports Day (I didn’t witness any game that didn’t involve teamwork in some way). The teachers base their whole life around school, coming in early and staying until God knows what time. I even heard from some other JETs that their teachers apparently stay until as late as 10pm. How they manage to make time for their family is beyond me… While the work ethic in Japan is certainly refreshing, it is definitely something that I’m glad I never grew up with since the students and teachers alike seem to be under an enormous amount of pressure. As a Westerner, I am exempt from this extremely tough work ethic to some extent, as I’m sure I would never be expected to stay anywhere near as late as 10pm!

Actually teaching the classes has been fun so far due to the strange questions and comments I have received from all the students. So far I have only been doing my self-introduction, which involves showing a lot of pictures of Edinburgh and Scottish things. So far most classes like to ask if I have a boyfriend, and I even had a 9 year old girl ask what my “type” is. I also often have 13 and 14 year old boys following me around proclaiming their love for me, while the girls walk behind me and shout “Kawaii”, giggling non-stop. It’s great that they show so much interest in a foreigner as I doubt back home anyone would really bat an eyelid at a new foreign language teacher.

One day school was cancelled due to a typhoon. I ended up basically walking up a waterfall to get to school that morning, only to receive a call as soon as I arrived saying that I didn’t actually have to go in. Luckily the rain subsided and the teachers said I could go home as the students wouldn’t be in until after lunch that day and I didn’t have any classes scheduled for that weekend anyway. Rain during a typhoon is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. 10 seconds in that rain was enough to give me a shower. I doubt I’ll be complaining about Scottish rain again any time soon.

In my time outside school I have tried ikebana, traditional Japanese flower arranging. The class was held in a temple by an 80 year old Japanese woman, who is the youngest looking 80 year old I have ever met. She was able to sit in the seiza position for a long time, while I could only do it for around 15 minutes before my legs became utterly dead and I was in pain. This just involves sitting on your knees with your feet tucked under your bum. It doesn’t sound difficult, but believe me, when you try to stand up again after 15 minutes and the blood starts returning to your legs, then yes it is very difficult! We were able to look around the temple and even take pictures, which I will post later when my laptop stops being so crap.

Yesterday I also went on a daytrip to Uwajima, a bigger town in Ehime. We visited the castle, but more interestingly we also visited a fertility shrine complete with a giant 9 foot stone penis and a sex museum. Don’t worry, there are lots of pictures of the giant penis on my Facebook. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures in the sex shop, but let’s just say I saw some creative uses of the phallic form, such as being incorporated into Pinocchio’s face and the animal form, as I saw some rather interesting elephant and camel statues. And this is only for starters. Where they managed to acquire this amazing range of penis statues is beyond me. It was certainly a once in a lifetime thing… I’m not sure how many other giant 9 foot stone penises there are in the world.

And on that thought, I’m going to leave you here. 

Japan: A Country of Baffling Paradoxes

I just had my first day at school! However, I’m not going to write about that until I’ve finished my first week, instead I’m going to be writing about my super duper Japanese weekend involving onsen, karaoke and yakiniku, as well as a few other things that have cropped up in the meantime.

Since my last blog I have done loads of nursery visits, each time being surprised by the fact that the children already seem to know a small amount of English, despite the fact that they are 5 and under. I’m jealous of the fact that the Japanese now get to learn a foreign language right from the beginning of elementary school, a chance that I never got.

One of the nursery visits was particularly memorable as a couple of little boys were yelling out “Kirei” (beautiful) and actually grabbing our hands and kissing them. Well, they’re certainly starting out young. Finishing the nursery visits was rather sad, as they are so young that they are full of curiosity and self-consciousness is a foreign concept to them.

Other highlights in the past week or two include the Uwa lantern festival: a beautiful festival in a small town, with different kinds of lanterns being lit up all around the streets. This included lamps being arranged in the shape of a bear face from a bird’s eye point of view and lamps being hung from a play park.

Another highlight was the cooking class I took. Or rather, that I observed since everyone else seemed to know what they were doing and I would have been a hindrance as the clumsy gaijin. It seemed to be less a cooking class and more like a cooking club for people who already know what they’re doing. One embarrassing moment occurred when everyone in the room started cutting onions at once. My eyes happen to have a very strong reaction to onions, so I basically looked like I was bawling my eyes out for about an hour. Some of the people in the class looked a tad concerned, despite my reassurances that it was just the onions.

I even made actual Japanese friends in the cooking class! (Hannah nae mates) One of them messaged me, saying that her friend who speaks some English is in town and I just have to meet them. So I was taken out to an Indian restaurant (interesting experience, a really small but tasty bowl of curry accompanied by the biggest piece of nan bread I’ve ever seen) and they rather enthusiastically got me to pencil in dates until the end of 2013 as to when they are going to take me to various places around Japan. And when the Japanese make plans, they sure do stick to them, weather permitting of course.

This brings me to the non-existent typhoon that everyone had been fussing over all week. Or rather, the typhoon appeared in the form of lots and lots of rain. Which is nice, because it’s significantly less hot and sweaty. I am typing this without the fan on or without windows open which is a nice change! However, when it rains in Japan, well, it RAINS! So a couple of beach parties had to be cancelled during the last two weekends.

The main thing I want to talk about is my extremely Japanese weekend, and more specifically the onsen part of it, since it’s something that foreigners generally tend to worry and wonder over upon coming to Japan. For those of you who don’t know what an onsen is, it’s basically a Japanese hot spring, also with cold pools that you can jump into. With one catch: you’re completely naked, along with everyone else at the onsen. However, the onsen are at least divided by sex, so if you're a girl there won't be any creepy Japanese men leering at you and vice versa, since I've heard many Japanese girls have a thing for Western boys. 

Now I’m quite a shy girl, so the idea of this did completely freak me out at first, particularly when I thought about the fact that Japanese people stare at me walking down the street and I’m actually fully clothed when this happens. It still freaks me out a little even after having done it, but I suppose the feeling will subside the more I do it. What happens is that you go through a curtain to your changing room and get undressed and put everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) in a locker. Then you walk out (naked) into the room with the hot springs. You then go to the side of the room where they have showers and sit on the little stool and make sure you’re completely clean. Then (still naked) you actually get into the onsen and try to ignore the old Japanese women staring at you. Though once in the water it’s easier to relax since you’re covered up, not to mention the fact that you’re in a traditional Japanese hot spring.

It is very relaxing since you are essentially completely free, but that feeling can shatter for a moment when an old Japanese woman walks towards you stark naked while you’re sitting down in the water so that you just happen to be right at eye level with parts of her that you really don’t want to be eye level with… I suppose Japanese people of this age have been onsening their whole life and don’t really think anything of it, or think about the fact that it might freak the poor Western girl out. However, I have heard stories from both Western males and females about Japanese people commenting on “how big” particular parts of their anatomy are. I have to say, it completely baffles me how a society that is generally seen as very modest and shy has no issue with walking around naked in a hot spring full of strangers. Of course, you just have to keep in mind that everyone else is also naked, and you can bet a lot of the foreigners also feel the same way as you do and so aren’t going to be staring at you. Then there’s the fact that, hey, we were born naked!

Despite various anatomy being alarmingly close to my face at times (and I’ve heard this is a lot worse coming from the men’s side), it was relaxing and I would do it again. Besides, it’s not so scary once you’ve taken the plunge once. It's just a little odd to meet someone for the first time and then them basically say "So hey, wanna get naked together in a hot spring?" Only in Japan... the country of strange paradoxes.

That weekend, before the onsen we (all the JETs from the Nanyo area) took over the café of one very enthusiastic Japanese guy with a great music collection. This resulted in a sweaty midday dance sesh in the middle of the café. Then we all drove to Nametoko Gorge and went “hiking” (a small stroll) amongst some lovely scenery and went paddling in the river. We were even greeted by the sight of a red-faced monkey in the car park. Yep, just a casual monkey in the car park.

This was followed by the aforementioned onsen, which was really great after such a sweaty day. That night we had nomitabehodai yakiniku (all you can drink and all you can eat grilled meat, a combination that would be absolutely lethal in the UK). The spin on yakiniku is that you actually grill the meat yourself on a little grill in the middle of the table. I’ve found that barbeques always seem to bring out that caveman instinct in men (MEAT! FIRE! OOH!), and yakiniku is no different.

We then headed out to karaoke, which is another decidedly Japanese past time. In Japan, you are always given your own private room to do karaoke. I’m not much of a singer myself, and I do prefer dancing in a club, but I did enjoy garbling unintelligibly down the microphone along with everyone else. There were of course actually one or two decent singers who put the rest of us to shame. Just like onsen, karaoke is another Japanese pastime which doesn’t quite fit in my opinion. I also thought it was strange that the Japanese aren’t too self-conscious to sing in front of others since they never seem to like to draw attention to themselves in everyday life, but someone pointed out to me that perhaps karaoke is the only time in Japanese society when it is fully acceptable for someone to be completely self-centered and have all the attention focused on them for a moment.

I’ve waffled enough now, but I hope that sheds a bit of light on onsen for those who are considering doing it for the first time. Next installment will be about my first week at school!

Week 2 in Yawatahama

So this is my second week living in Ehime. Ehime is a rather inaka (countryside) prefecture by most Japanese people’s standards, so being a city girl, this is quite a big adjustment, even if Yawatahama is considered to be a “city” by those south of us in Seiyo and Ikata. However, I definitely am warming to the small town mind-set. Whether it’s a simple “Konnichiwa” on the street from a stranger, which definitely doesn’t happen in Edinburgh, or meeting the mayor and ending up in the local paper, it’s safe to say that people are a lot friendlier in small towns.

Yes, I actually did meet the mayor. Luckily for me I was dressed smartly in a suit since some photographers in the local paper had come along for the occasion. Though unluckily for me, Japan is a rather humid place, so sweaty-faced me is going to end up in the paper, scaring away all the locals from integrating with foreigners. Well, I hope not. The paper still hasn’t come out yet, so I still have the joy of seeing what picture they choose. Despite the fact that the mayor spoke barely more English than I speak Japanese, he seemed like a very lovely man. In fact he gave us omiyage of the famous Yawatahama Chanpon t-shirts that everyone working in the city office and board of education seems to wear. I feel like a bit of a fraud wearing it since 1) I haven’t actually tried chanpon (in fact I’m a little bit vague as to what exactly it is, I’ve just been told it’s a “mix of everything”) and 2) the t-shirt is too big since I foolishly said I was a medium since Japanese sizes are notoriously small.

Actually, that brings me to the fact that my feet are a size large here. What? I feel like a giant! And I’m actually pretty small, so that’s saying something. Any Westerners above average size probably will really struggle to find clothes or shoes here. Luckily I’m fairly Japanese sized, apart from my massive clown feet of course.

Anyway, so the mayor then invited us to watch the fireworks with him and another journalist rushed up to us at the end and asked us to give him a quote about the fireworks. Needless to say, the quote ended up in the paper just a few days later. I guess I’m famous! Better get my autographing signature ready for when my picture comes out in the paper… Though I suppose it’s reassuring to some extent that they have to fill up the paper with quotes from foreign girls about the fireworks, since it means there is literally no crime to report. In fact, I even accidentally left my bike unlocked for 2 days and nothing happened to it. Japan is known for having extremely low crime rates and this is even more true in the country. It’s definitely a refreshing change
from British city life.

There is a definite sense of community spirit, and this is evident from the various festivals that have been going on in the last week, where everyone gathers to talk, eat carnival food and watch the fireworks. Whether it’s because we’re foreign and therefore automatically more intriguing, or because country folk are generally nicer, we ended up with a load of free food after one festival. This included candy floss, a bag of frozen chips, fried chicken and some ice slushy things, all in one night. Warning: being foreign may make you fat, as everyone wants you to try their food.

Going back to community spirit, at one festival a Japanese woman who spoke the most perfect English I had ever heard, probably better than a lot of Scots, came up to us and immediately wanted to strike up a friendship. Surprisingly she had never lived outside Japan, so it baffles me as to how she speaks so well. She ended up inviting us to her house for coffee another day, during which we were surrounded by her family. Her youngest son was really intrigued and kept peeking in, then bursting out laughing at the sight of such pale people.

I can’t get over the utter politeness of everyone, yet at the same time there are such big cultural differences. For instance, people here find it normal to eat fish heads (with eyes and everything!), while I struggle to even eat a single prawn. But that’s just me being a wimp. I will overcome my fear! At one of the festivals they were actually getting random people from the crowd to ride a pig and see how long they could stay on for. Yes, there was a pig rodeo. An actual pig rodeo. Everyone seemed to find it hilarious, but honestly, I found it rather cruel with all the squealing of the pig. I suppose this is why the Japanese can’t really seem to fathom the idea of vegetarians.

However, the community spirit even extends to the nursery children. This week we’ve been doing nursery visits. This means singing things like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, one of my childhood favourites. I think the word kawaii was invented for this very event! The children can barely speak Japanese, yet they manage to sing all the songs and some of them can even say a small self-introduction in English. Impressed didn’t cover it, and it still didn’t cover it when the kids started doing taiko drumming IN TIME WITH ONE ANOTHER AND WITHOUT HITTING EACH OTHER WITH THE STICKS. Seriously, even I can’t manage to do this nowadays. I’m rather proud of myself for the fact that I managed to resist stealing one of them. Will people get the wrong impression if I post this online? But that being said, a bunch of little Japanese children all waving and say “Bye bye! Nice to meet you!” is quite possibly the cutest thing ever.

Of course, I did manage to escape briefly back to city life for a couple of days when I went to Matsuyama a week or so ago for the Ehime Orientation. This one was much less sleep inducing and much more useful than the Tokyo Orientation in my opinion. On the first night we actually went to an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink restaurant. A Scottish girl + all you can drink = carnage. Such a formula would never work in the UK. It was really hilarious to see the amount of hungover people at orientation the next day.  Of course, I was one of them, but that’s nothing a Maccy Ds can’t sort out.

Japan continues to surprise me, just as it did last week. For instance, I headed out with some of the other local Nanyo JETs to a jazz bar in Ozu to find some of the smoothest jazz I’ve ever heard. Japan never really struck me as being a hub for jazz. However, the most amazing thing this week for me has to be what I call “the noodle river”. Today the head of the BOE drove us up precariously high into the mountains to a noodle restaurant. But it wasn’t just your usual noodles in a bowl.While some Japanese bars have conveyor belts with food, this restaurant had a little stream going round the table. And in the stream the chefs would send out little clumps of noodles at random intervals that we had to catch with our chopsticks. Yes, I was literally fishing for noodles! Isn’t this just the most amazing thing ever?? Maybe it’s just me… This, combined with being in a sort of tree house deep in the beauty of the mountains made it such a strange, yet exhilarating experience. Sadly it can’t be a regular occurrence, since it’s nestled so deep that you need a car to get there. But alas, that is where the magic comes from.

Hmm, it seems Japan might be rubbing the sharp sarcastic Scottish edges off of me… Time for me to go I suppose before I become too mushy and stop recognising myself.