"famous"

I've started to realize that the term "famous" has a completely different meaning in Japan. Only a handful of places in Japan are famous like the Grand Canyon or Eiffle Tower are famous. There's Mt Fuji, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, and several temples that you could all probably recognize in a picture because they are truly famous. But now I'm starting to realize that famous should really be described in three different categories: locally famous, nationally famous, and globally famous. I now think that most things, symbols, and places that I'm told are famous in Japan, are really just locally famous. Some of the people I teach with seem to think everywhere is famous for something, since that's how Japan works. Once one of the teachers asked me what my hometown, Germantown, was famous for and I honestly couldn't think of anything but fake German architecture (which it isn't actually famous for)! Wisconsin is famous for cheese, and Milwaukee is famous for beer, but not every individual town in Wisconsin is famous for something like every town in Japan seems to be famous for something.

Anyways, I've come to realize this about Japan because of omiyage. An omiyage is a gift that is traditionally given to co-workers and family after one returns from a trip. Whenever I travel I always bring something back for the office of the school that I teach at the first day that I'm back. I was told at orientation to do so because I may offend the office if I don't. Just before I leave another prefecture I always pick up one of the "famous" treats of that prefecture, but after I hand it out nobody can guess where I was, based on what I brought back. If that prefecture was actually famous for that treat on the national level, people would recognize that right away right? Plus, I have received odd omiyage from other people and I seriously hope that Tokyo is famous for something other than a banana-shaped cake filled with red bean paste, which I have received from a couple different people. Sometimes I think all these places are famous for things just so that people have a convenient omiyage to bring back to everyone in the office. It's not just little keychains and magnets either. It's like miniaturized versions of the locally famous equivalent of the Boston cream pie in a 9, 12, or 16 pack.

Once a teacher had me verbally conduct a true/false quiz about the differences between US and Japanese traditions. She had written it, and one of the statements was "Americans give omiyage." Yes omiyage, not gift, the English word for omiyage. She had it marked as false. But I changed the answer because Americans usually DO bring their families and friends gifts from vacations. It's just not as expected as it in Japan, especially in the office.

Last weekend Christine, Erin, and I went on a mini-roadtrip to Matsuyama (on the other side of Shikoku). The expressways on Shikoku are really expensive. They really do save you a lot of time, but we were on the road for about 1.5 hours in Christine's little lawnmower-engine car and the toll was $25! We stayed in the same capsule hotel that I stayed in in October. We went to two onsens while we were there. We went to the jungle onsen (locally famous), and the Dogo Onsen (nationally famous because it is the oldest onsen in Japan and was mentioned in a famous Japanese book). Both onsen were made of sulfer baths from the same natural hot spring. Both were super cheap at $4! The jungle onsen had several different baths: regular hot, medicinal, orange (four oranges were submerged in the tub which was a little weird), cold, and a hot one outdoors. They were all in a big warehouse, but you only noticed that part if you looked at the ceiling because there were palm trees and other plants surrounding most of the baths. The Dogo onsen was really small and had only one bath. It was really old and traditional, which was nice too. You can pay to do the tea ceremony after your bath, which is unusual for most onsen. Here we are outside the Dogo onsen. The Jungle onsen wasn't as nice looking.




In other news...

It's suppose to snow tomorrow. All the 9th graders are worried because they have to go take their entrance exams at their chosen high school tomorrow. The news said that the high tomorrow is 7C and the low is 2C, so I'm guessing nothing will accumulate even if anything falls in the first place. But snow is rare here so just the possibility of it falling is a big deal. As for the entrance exams into high school, one kid was so stressed out today that he ran away from home! His homeroom teacher left school to go find him. It turns out, the kid was sitting next to the ocean.

The birthday deal with Japan Airlines is ending Aprils 1st, so we can't go to Hokkaido for cheap anymore. Plus we, and everyone else in Japan, cannot book domestic flights any earlier than two months before the departure date. So the Hokkaido trip still might happen, but it's really up in the air.

planning and reading

My job isn't terribly intellectually stimulating, however I've spent a lot of my time planning and reading lately. The trip planning has gotten me very excited and the books have satisfied my brain. I've read 5 books in the last couple weeks, all of which my aunts and uncles sent me! I read a trilogy about the life of Josephine Bonaparte (Napoleon's wife), a James Patterson mystery, and Running With Scissors. Now I really want to watch the movies Marie Antoinette and Running With Scissors! I think they are coming to Japan soon.

Anyways, here are my future trips:

Tomorrow I'm going to the Dogo Onsen, the oldest onsen in Japan, in Matsuyama with friends. We're probably going to stay in a capsule hotel again.

My parents are visiting for two weeks at the end of March. This will be Spring vacation/the end of the school year for students in Japan, so I will have time to travel to Kyoto and Osaka with my parents.

During Golden week, a big holiday at the beginning of May in Japan, I'm going to return to Boston and visit my parents, Mary and Matt (sister and brother-in-law), Eddie, and Wellesley friends (小沢先生を訪問したいと思います！）Other than lots of catching up with friends and hugs and kissing with family, I have big plans for movie watching, restaurant frequenting, and shopping!!!!

About five days after I return from Boston, Matt and Mary are coming to visit for 2.5 weeks! Mary is heading up the planning for that trip. I know that we will definitely go to many onsens and make ramen at the instant ramen museum.

For my birthday in June, two of my friends that I met here and one of my Wellesley friends, who will be visiting at the time, and I will go to Hokkaido for a long weekend. Japan Airlines has a birthday special where you and three of your friends can fly anywhere within Japan for only $100 each, within one or two weeks of your birthday.


So there's going to be a lull in exciting posts during February, but I'll have silly and beautiful pictures back up again before you know it. Have a good weekend!

substitute teachers

There's no such thing as a substitute teacher in Japan. If a teacher takes a vacation, all the classes are rescheduled so that his or her classes are made up ahead of time. If a teacher gets sick, they rearrange all their classes' schedules so that the classes can be made up when they get back. Needless to say, teachers don't take sick days and instead come to school sick. This prolongs the sickness and gets everyone else sick too. The lack of heat in the classrooms doesn't help either. I think substitute teachers would help lower the stress level of these teachers and the scheduler! However, it takes the students forever to warm up to new people, so perhaps the substitute teacher's job would be difficult. But then again, substitute teachers have a difficult job no matter what. I think new teachers in Japan or teachers in training would do it though.

I snuck into the unused counselor's room yesterday and took a nap for 15 minutes! heh heh heh It's the only room with a couch and the counselor only comes a couple afternoons a month. Afterwards, I tap danced in all of the classes at this school since I promised them I would several months ago. It was the first time all of the students and teachers had seen American tap dancing. They thought my tap shoes were crazy looking.

Public Drunkenness

Last week Eddie and I went out for lunch at a really cute restaurant where we enjoyed omelet and rice meals. The meal came with a rather shocking sideshow though. There was a large, drunk Japanese man trying to eat lunch nearby. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. [Don't read this if you're eating]

First, he stood up, undid his pants, tried to pull them up over his big stomach, redid them, and sat back down. Then his food came and he started eating it while swaying back and forth from side to side. Whenever he put salad in his mouth, he choked a little and spit most of it back out. There were a couple times when Eddie and I just stared at him to make sure he could still breathe on his own. While he drank his soup, he kept coughing it back out all over his shirt. He wasn't cleaning himself up and he didn't seem embarassed at all. Meanwhile, the people sitting at three other tables in the restaurant, acted as if nothing was going on, even when the man (very loudly!) came very close to needing the Heimlich. Nobody called the police, nobody asked if he needed help, nobody kicked him out, nobody called an ambulance. It's possible that we didn't stick around long enough to witness a response, but after 30 minutes, we couldn't take it any longer and left.

I've put off writing about this topic because the generalizations I'm making are really big and most likely don't include all Japanese people. However, after being here for six months and talking about it with other foreigners, I feel as though I should still mention it on my blog.... with this big disclaimer.

As most foreigners living in Japan will most likely agree, alcoholism isn't really acknowledged here. I'm not sure if it is acknowledged as a disease here, but I have noticed that as long as someone is legally old enough to drink, nobody is looked down upon for really heavy drinking. Nobody is really ashamed of it either.... not that they should be. I was really surprised (when I first got here) when I noticed that a well respected woman that I know always mentioned "drinking alcohol" as one of her hobbies. All other Japanese people in the room usually just smile as if she had just said knitting was her hobby. I just wanted to make this observation since many cultures do in fact look down upon it.

I've heard a lot of stories from other ALTs about going out to parties with Japanese people. It is not uncommon that a foreigner goes out for a couple drinks with Japanese co-workers, and no matter WHAT happens, the next day everyone acts as if nothing happened.

I should mention that drunk driving is very taboo. The legal blood-alcohol level for driving is zero, so driving seems to be the only reason that Japanese people accept for refraining from refilling your cup. Japan, or at least Shikoku, has a service called daiko. It's a taxi service that brings two drivers when you call. One taxi driver drives your car home with you in it and the other taxi driver follows to take the first taxi driver back once you're home. It costs just about the same, if not less than a taxi so there's no reason not to use it. I wish the US had something similar. I wonder how many lives it would save.

the vacation is over

I said goodbye to Eddie this morning before he got on a bus that went straight to the airport. I've become accustom to long-term goodbyes for two reasons: my extended family has always been more than 3 hours away and I attended college out of state. However this goodbye was a lot harder for me to deal with. I think I've made it this long without homesickness because I've had so many interesting and crazy distractions. Eddie was a little reminder of home and now that he has gone, along with the fact that the newness of Japan has worn off, I've got a small case of homesickness. I have a lot to look forward to this week with friends and work, so I'll be okay. I know it will pass.

Eddie had some interesting observations that I'll post about later this week.

Osaka, New Years, and Eddie

I've had such a wonderful time since Eddie got here. He recovered from jetlag pretty quickly. We stayed in Osaka for a week at my friends' apartment. Unfortunately it got very cold the day after he got here, so it wasn't as much fun walking around the city. We still managed to see a lot of the city though! Here we are in the Dotomburi district. That night we went on a small boat river cruise.

Here I am posing at the Tennoji Zoo.

Here's Eddie in a market near Namba. It was really funny how he could see over everyone's head.

Here's Eddie using chopsticks like a pro. He learned in three days!

Here we are in Kobe. We spent a day there. We met up with one of my friends from Wellesley. She and her family treated us to a delicious sushi lunch. We also went on a sake brewery tour in the Nada section of Kobe.

We went to Osaka's aquarium called the Kaiyukan. It was pretty cool. We saw a whale shark, porcupine fish, sting rays, dolphins, giant crabs and a bunch of jellyfish. I took a video of the big tank. The link is on the right.




Many places were closing because of New Years. Unfortunately I got mixed up about when the instant ramen museum was open. So we went all the way out to Ikeda, a suburb of Osaka, and the doors to the museum were locked. We still took this picture though!!