I have been remiss in posting these past few weeks, and for that I apologize. I would say "the weeks have been crazy" as my excuse (which they have been), but as that seems to be grown-up life in general, I suppose that is not a very good excuse.
In any case, let's stop stalling and get on to the good stuff, yes?
This is what I have been up to:
Weekends
My weekends...HAVE BEEN CRAZY. Quite literally non-stop, action-packed, (mostly)-out-of-town weekends. I've actually been around Amakusa itself very little. But I have been doing pretty awesome things.Week Two
First, I'll talk about my second week...since it was basically all a weekend. The WEDNESDAY of my second week, when I had first started working at my middle school, I had a Karaoke night of eating and drinking with the English teachers. The next day, THURDAY, I had a welcome party with the other ALTs and the staff at the board of education. It was another YakiNiku party (meat grilling party place), followed by a 二次会 - a second party, with the same people, at a different place. We went to a karaoke bar.
Then, FRIDAY, I was invited to the birthday party of Japanese person I didn't know, at the restaurant of this man who is famous for cooking starfish. It's a small sushi place, but it was very intimate and fun. I met a lot of people, and the owner, quite the character, made an amazing array of octopus, noodles, sushi, and then grilled some starfish specifically for me and the other new ALT! This same man also lent us an ice chest for our beach barbeque the following weekend, including a bag of ice and icecream.
SATURDAY of this same week, I went with the other ALTs on a day-long journey to the biggest mall near Kumamoto city. There, I was able to buy some clothes (surprisingly) for work, and also some french mustard and a stovetop cover so I can make espresso on my gas stove.
SUNDAY - MUD VOLLEYBALL. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not sports-inclined. Though I've become more interested in them over the years, the truth is that I am generally uncoordinated and plain bad at them. My elementary school days of getting perpetually hit in the face attest to those facts. Yet, somehow, I was convinced to go to Minami Aso, a very small, rural area near Kumamoto City, to play Volleyball with three ALTs and a bunch of Japanese locals that I had never met. Oh, yeah, and did I mention it was volleyball IN A GIAN PIT OF MUD? I had thought to only watch, but someone I got dragged in, and it was all downhill from there.
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Minami Aso, on a beautiful day. Words cannot express how beautiful Japan really is!
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| The Hike to the Mud Pit |
In reality, it was one of the funnest and most humbling experiences of my life. Almost all of the locals had two or three kids, between the ages of 2 and 6, and to them this simple way of spending the day - running around in the mud, throwing grass at each other, running to the freezing river and cleaning off, only to do it again - was the funnest thing in the world. After a long day in the sun, we went to the nearby hot spring and washed off, then returned to the large country home for a barbeque.
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| The Mud Pit: Playing Field |
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| Len: Recently washed. Colin: Recently dirtied. |
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| The River (we cleaned off on the platform). |
When I first saw this place, I was a bit skeptical. It was messy, cluttered, not quite clean but not quite dirty -- very much an old country home, with no AC, a wood shack-of-a-shed in the back, and a rickety pig pen filled with ducks and chickens. But ultimately, the curiosity of the children, the ease with which all the locals took us in and made us feel included an invited amongst their families, made this possibly one of the best experiences I've had so far in Japan.
It's really easy to forget just how good and privileged we live sometimes, and to forget that there is a life beyond that, that a lot of the things we have are convenient, but unnecessary. A simple life can also be a good one.
Week(end) Three
On my third weekend, the first following the start of school,had the official Amakusa ALT Welcome Beach Party. We went to a beach in Amakusa-machi, a small village-type place that is 45 minutes up winding roads from where I live. The beach, Tokohama Beach, faced the sea of Japan and was surrounded by lush green mountains. Truly an amazing sight! |
| Tokohama Beach, Amakusa-machi |
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| Footsteps |
The water was surprisingly warm, as I thought water would be much colder in the pacific, but...well, things are different here I guess! The only other thing that really surprised me was that the beach was empty except for us - Japanese people do not go swimming after the Obon (Ancestral) holiday, apparently - and that the beach was ocassionaly littered with trash :( Cigarettes I expected (Japanese people smoke like crazy!), but there were also plastic bottles and such. It wasn't a landfill, don't get me wrong, but since these beaches are mostly taken care of by small families and the like, I suppose they don't have the same resources as Miami Beach to keep the area clean. It also doesn't help that public trash bins are barely existent in Japan as it is, except maybe at convenience stores.
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| Interesting wave lines on the shore |
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| MY FIRST EVER SEA CUCUMBER!!! |
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| Shoreline |
Well, we couldn't barbeque at this beach, so after a pleasant swim, we moved to another, nearby beach to barbeque into the dark of the night. Then we went to the resident ALT's home to play games before driving home.
Week(end) Four
The school week was pretty normal, unsurprising. But this weekend, there was a Beach Party in Ashikita, an area south east of Kumamoto City on the mainland, for all of the Kumamoto ALTs. It's about a 3-4 hour drive from Amakusa, so I went with three other Amakusa ALTs. This beach was also warm, and great! We ran into some Japanese locals at the beach, and invited them to join our barbeque. It was a Bring Your Own Food and Spirits type of deal, so everyone brought food and there was plenty to go around. We grilled at the camp site, and slept in these giant tents that were provided for us. it was about $20 per person only, so it was a pretty good deal, considering that the next day the park officials gave us free Onsen (hotspring) passes! Sunday we all felt gross after picking up, so it was nice to shower and bathe before heading back to Amakusa -- tired as heck for school the next day, but it was so worth it!Those have mostly been my recreational activities thus far. Now, for those more interested in Japanese Social practices...
School Officially in Session
Japanese life in general has been going pretty well. The thing that I'm most getting used to and trying to understand is the Japanese school system.
School life in Japan is incredibly interesting. A week before school is even really in session, students show up to school to turn in summer homework and the like. Also, whenever students come to school, even after school hours, they are required to wear their school uniforms, making them identifiable. Not that they have much time outside of school, as they do部活（bukatsu, aka club activities） from the time that they get out of school (approx. 4:00) until about 6-6:30 pm. Clubs in Japanese schools also practice on the weekends. Also, once you join a club, you are resigned to that ONE club for basically the rest of your education at that school.
Now, people think, "these poor children!" I did too, and still do, to an extent. But I suppose it gives them something to focus on, to become good at, the way many kids take private lessons. I was mostly busy after school with one thing or another, but not quite as intensely as these kids.
The thing that really gets me is the TEACHERS. These are the people that sponsor these clubs, and I don't mean that high school sponsor who signed a paper but never showed up to club unless there was a dispute. These teachers are here every day at Bukatsu - After school, on the weekends, sometimes even before school. They do this until about 6:30. Then, when all the kids leave, they stay at school. Doing work. Presumably. Some until about 9:00 at night. I actually had a teacher confess to me that she was so into her work that, when she looked up and realized she was the only teacher left, it was midnight!
Of course, as an ALT and a foreigner, these things aren't quite so required of me. Also, I have a lot less work to do than these teachers. However, it's a bit rude to leave right when the bell rings, unless you've got a reason. Though school ends at 4:00, I'll usually leave around 4:45, yet more and more I find myself staying until 6:00 or 6:30, helping out with the English Club.
While Japanese schooling is compulsory only through middle school、most students go on to high school. High schools require an entrance exam, and since my middle school is the biggest, newest school in Amakusa, it also has to be the best -- with means the third years (equivalent to our 9th graders in the States), are burdened with the stress of hard studies in every subject.
They're constantly taking tests in English, at least there hasn't been a week since the beginning where they haven't had one. Yet for some reason, kids can't fail in Japan. And when I say "can't", I mean "CANNOT." Perhaps a remnant of post-war mentality, but it seems more important to keep a class together than to actually fail a student. When I was checking the grammar on papers that my teacher had graded for completeness - a 5 sentence description of their school, mind you - there was a student who wrote one word...and got a C-. That would have been a "zero" for me at home, and let's not mention the wrath of the parents, much less what I would do were that my kid. Yet there was another student who wrote nothing...AND ALSO GOT A C-.
It's those kinds of things things that have happened that have started to change the preconceptions I had of Japan, perhaps the preconceptions most of us do. They're also part of the small frustrations, like the way some teachers use more English in the first year class than the third year class. But it's the way things are done -- the way things have been done for years. There's been a shift in education practices, and now it's being introduced in elementary rather than middle school. All I can do is work hard at my elementary and hope that I can inspire students to learn more English on their own...
