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.