The Final Goodbye

I sit on the second floor of the Starbucks overlooking Shibuya crossing. The seating here is always closely coveted and hard to capture, especially on a night like tonight. I stare down at the people below, perpetually moving, the lights bright and flickering from all directions, the sounds muted by the glass but still present in my memory as I watch. I came here to watch, having arrived at Shibuya with no destination, just an ache to SEE. After two years, I still feel blind and empty; I want more; to see more, to experience more, to fill myself full with memories. My eyes flicker toward every movement with a sort of desperate fascination. A peculiar longing fills me, a hunger I can never sate. I watch with a desire that just by watching I can soak it up through my skin, that the experience with permeate throughout me and thus, somehow, last...

I can't let it go, I can't leave, the hunger filling me still, still so unsated... and yet my fingers cannot grasp the threads of time, the red silk fabric of it slipping slowly through my fingers like kimono threads...

Even just writing this, I feel a little less empty... That even this is some proof of my existence here.

It's time to go.

Inside English Education

For any of you wondering if I fell off the edge of the Earth: I'm still here! I have a few blogs on the back burner to finish up and post.

Meanwhile, I was just catching up on The Japan Times, when I found this article. It discusses how Japan, fallen way behind other countries in terms of English literacy, is slowly (tortoise and the hare slowly) attempting to make changes. It's pretty interesting to read if you are an ALT or a former ALT; in my experience, we ALTs have a pretty strong opinions about the current English system. You might find it interesting if you'd like to know a bit about my job, or at least, the debates that swirl around my job. For the rest of you who clicked that link, saw two pages of small print and quickly closed the window, let me summarize it in one perfect quote:

"The forthcoming system is not aimed at teaching children English themselves. Teachers will be required to nurture children's willingness to communicate in English. So, they will be able to teach English with the help of ALTs. If the teachers try hard to communicate with ALTs in English and demonstrate this to children, then their willingness to communicate will be nurtured."

So, basically, the idea is to encourage students to want to learn English, but not actually teach them anything remotely useful to learning English, like grammar, structure, reading, or writing. If you want a realistic idea of what this actually looks like in practice in the classroom (at least in elementary school), imagine this: an entire year of curriculum from two pages of one of those tiny pocket travel phrases books. In song. If you just drew a giant question mark in your head, then we're all on the same page.

I do like how in the article, they mention at least a few times how "we shouldn't blame the ALTs".

How magnanimous.

Cheers,

spectacle Baer

God of Kendo

Yesterday was a lot of fun.

After school was over, I decided to make my rounds and visit the different club activities. I went looking for the art club, remembering last time how relaxed the eager to talk the students were outside of the classroom. Unfortunately, they either weren't meeting that day or had hidden themselves in some nook that I have yet to discover.

I peered down from the third floor balcony to watch the baseball and soccer clubs prepare for their workouts. The soccer boys had dragged the goals into the shade of the trees in attempt to make the heat a little more bearable, and I could see the baseball boys unloading under the shade of a big tree. I contemplated going down and making my presence known, but the dirt and heat of the playground were discouraging.

Instead, I went to the gym. I was surprised to see there were no basketball players. Instead, a thin net across the middle of the gym divided the badminton practice from the volleyball practice. There wasn't much for me to do there other than watch idly. I had been looking forward to talking to the new volleyball coach, one of the new teachers who has been very friendly with me since his arrival. Sadly, he was not there. I overheard one of the volleyball girls talking to another visitor, and I think she said that usually he doesn't come. Bah. Disappointing. I watched some students I know well practice serves and ball play. Practice is serious, however, and I am terrible at volleyball, so I didn't try to join in.

Oddly enough, I didn't particularly feel like visiting the kendo club, although it is my favorite. I used to visit often last year, and the captain always made me feel welcome. However, the new captain is very strict about training. Kendo, as a sport, is very serious, disciplined, and ritualized, and so too is the practice. Although I am very familiar and comfortable with the new captain, him being probably the best English student in the whole school, I got the feeling he didn't particularly like the distraction I posed; last time I watched, I heard him tell two of the kendo players not to talk to me while they waited for their turn to fight. I didn't take it personally; I know he just wanted them to retain their focus. However, I did feel guilty that I was responsible for depriving them of that focus in the first place; so, I haven't been back

Despite this, I decided it was silly to visit all the other clubs and not visit the kendo club too. A little peak couldn't hurt. When I entered the "dojo" (it's not actually a dojo - they laughed at me when I called it that - but I'm afraid I don't remember what it is called), I was surprised to see the room full of many students, all laughing and playing around with their shinai, practice swords. It was a very relaxed, playful atmosphere, and no one was wearing the heavy plastic/bamboo armor and uniform. I nearly bumped right into the captain as he was headed out the door with his back pack, clearly headed home. He saw me and sighed heavily, "I have to leave, and [then] Lindsay comes." I have to admit his disappointment pleased me; maybe I wasn't such a bothersome distraction after all.

After he left, the other members greeted me. I was surprised but very happy to see how many new members there were from the 1st year (7th grade) students. Unfortunately, their vocabulary is such that regular conversation is pretty much not possible; one of the boys likes English and talking to me very much, so, just to find something to say, he would come up to me and ask me to spell random words like "brown" and "fox". All the students are very friendly with me. Two of the girls are very silly and say strange things, so we always end up having the most entertaining conversations. Today, one of the girls said "I am God". With her hair uncharacteristically down and flowing around her shoulders, she actually did look like a painting of a Japanese god. I asked her what she was the god of, kendo? She said no, "all, all, all god". "Ah," I replied, well versed in the translation of 2nd year English, "You are THE God, huh? Well, then I will be the God of Kendo."

And so it was, more or less, that I ended up joining the kendo practice. A shinai ended up in my hands, and one of the girls showed me how to hold it. Then the captain's 2nd in command showed me how to place my feet. The captain's 2nd is a great kid with the wonderful but very rare quality of always using English in my presence, even if he's talking to someone else on the opposite end of the room. His English isn't very good (as one of the girls whispered to me), but he simply never gives up. Before "practice" began, he showed me how to swing the sword (from directly above your head, straight down), and place my feet. The club coach came in and laughed when he saw me, but was happy to indulge my interest. We got in a big circle and did stretches, everyone taking a turn counting each stretch. I, of course, counted in English; I do love how happy such a simple act makes the people around me.

After that, we started practice. It was a very basic practice; we did suburi, sword swinging practice. Basically, we just stood in a square and swung the sword in a specific way to the rhythm of the count, then changed the method of the swing and started again.

It was quite a workout for my arms! However, I really enjoyed it. I was also amused because members of other sports clubs would walk by the building, glance through the open floor windows/doors (no air conditioning, remember?), and suddenly stop in surprise, clustering around the opening and whisper, "Lindsay's doing kendo!"

Yes! Yes I was!

Afterward, quite in the spirit of the relaxed captain-free-semi-practice, they showed me how to play "Darumasan ga Koronda", which is similar to Red Light Green Light. If you remember from an earlier post, a Daruma doll is a round red doll with big eyes; it is weighted at the bottom so that if you nudge it, it rocks around in a circle instead of falling over. So, while "Darumasan ga Koronda" means "Daruma fell down", you have to imagine a ball rocking back and forth, gradually turning around until it's looking at you. To play, the "it" person (oni) hides their face against the wall on the opposite end of the room from everyone else and says "Darumasan ga KoronDA!" and turns around quickly on the "da". Everyone on the other side of the room sprints towards the "it" person as soon as they start speaking, but on the "da", they have to freeze in place; anyone that moves, loses. When someone manages to reach and touch the "it" person, everybody runs away until "it" says "STOP!" From there I didn't quite understand the rules; it seemed that a player gave the "it" person a certain number of steps they could take, and if they managed to reach and touch a player within those steps, that person became "it".

It was fun, but I lost interest pretty quickly after the second game. I like kendo better.

Cheers!

God of Kendo Baer

Time for a break - Spring Break, that is.

The last few days I stopped reading the news. I am already exhausted of the suspense.

It was only through my family grapevine that I heard about Taylor Anderson, a JET in Miyagi, who marked the first US casualty. It's creepy to look at her photos; they are so like mine. While the disaster obviously had a much more devastating effect on the Japanese residence, I can't help but feel the most disturbed by her death; our places could have so easily been exchanged.

I am not as worried as was reflected in my previous post. I am still trying to stay mostly indoors and out of rain as much as possible. Mostly, I am concerned about food and water contamination. I threw out my lettuce after spinach was banned, but I eye the milk and cucumbers in my fridge and wonder if I shouldn't just do without vegetables for the next four months. I get updates from the Gunma JET community periodically, but I noticed that news from abroad is much more alarmist than that which is circling Japan. I've decided to stick to getting my news from The Japan Times, which I feel does a better job of staying on topic.

The Governor of Gunma gave a press release, which you might possibly find interesting.

Anyway... it is now the end of the school year. Tomorrow is closing ceremonies, marking the beginning of spring break.

I have never been so happy for spring break in my life.

Months ago, Chingyi and I made plans to spend spring break, 7 blissful days, in the Kansai regions, visiting Hiroshima, Osaka, and Nara. Now, quite by coincidence, that area just happens to be the safest possible place for us to be. This will be a fabulous vacation if only for the fact that, for 7 days, we don't have to even THINK about radiation, contamination, blackouts, or messed up train schedules. Honestly, I never thought that would be a motivator in my lifetime.

I wish we could stay for a month.

goin' south Baer

Umm... Can I go home now?

I have to admit, I'm getting genuinely worried about the state of things here. I'm only getting the news in bits and pieces, but everything new I hear just makes me feel worse. This Friday, Akemi and I were supposed to go out to dinner together, but last night I got a text message from her that we couldn't go.

Me: Oh? Are you busy?
Akemi: No, it's the gas...
Me: Gas?
Akemi: ...oh, that's right, you can't listen to the news. The gas stations are running out of gas, and what gas they have, they won't sell.


I asked my teacher who lives in Midori City (30 minutes away), but she seems, for the moment, unconcerned about the gas shortage. There was apparently some report that gas was being brought over from Tokyo to fill the gap.


Today we had our first blackout. It didn't affect me at all because I had four classes in the morning, and worked right through the entire thing. Other than a little extra darkness in the classroom, things were normal. In the teacher's room, however, I heard that things pretty much came to a stand-still. One of my English teachers was kind enough to print me out a schedule of the intended blackout periods. I've already been doing my best to conserve energy; I sitting in the dark with nothing turned on except my computer.


I was pretty shocked when, after lunch, the Vice-Principal stood up to make an annoucement: he had just received word from the Board of Education that, due to fear of the radiation leak in Fukushima, all the students were being sent home. Radiation leak? What radiation leak? I looked at my teacher blankly when she told me. Last I heard, they were spouting poetic about how there was no radiation leak.


How quickly things change.

Explosions Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and now Tuesday... doesn't bode well for tomorrow. Officially they were only warning people 19 miles/30 kilometers from the plant; I live at least 200 km away. However, I also read that radiation in Saitama, only 50km away, is already up 40%. The mere fact that, by the end of the day, the BoE decided to cancel school for tomorrow so kids could be kept inside at home freaks me out. Of course, the teachers still have to go.


The thing that scared me the most was going to the grocery store. Apparently they made some comments on the news about stocking up on certain items. When I got there, the entire sections for rice, bread, instant noodles, milk, water, and toilet paper were just gone.


[If instant Star-Trek-like trasportation were possible] I'd really like to tap my heels and head home for a little while.


worried Baer

EDIT: I got a ton of worried emails and messages after posting this blog. I'm sorry for worrying all of you. Just to be clear, I have no immediate plans to come home unless things get a lot more dangerous. Leaving Japan has huge complications attached to it, so it is truly a last resort. As I mentioned above, we are still technically safe in Gunma. Nobody in my office even seems worried except me! So... yeah, I'm stressed out but... I'm still OK.

What's going on?

I asked this question so many times today, I decided to just stop asking. On a normal day, it is extremely frustrating that nobody tells me anything; right now? It's just feels blatantly malicious. Case in point: I somehow managed to be the only person in the entire school (including students) that was not notified that there would be no school lunch today. Oops? Guess I should have figured that one out on my own.

As far as the blackout I mentioned previously: it seems that news of the impending blackout was enough to scare people into efficiency. Enough energy was saved that today's blackout was postponed and/or cancelled. To quickly douse that suspiciously positive note, I also heard that the energy rationing may last as long as the end of April.

Also,

the Miyavi fanclub trip was canceled.

...

*...sigh* Baer

Aftermath: English news is slow

It's very frustrating that, although I live here, I have to receive my news at the same time as my friends and family in California and Texas via online [and mostly foreign] news sources. I flick through the TV channels, which still largely display disaster information, but it is useless to me. Thus, I doubt I have anything to tell that you, my friends, don't already know. I'm hoping to hear more tomorrow from the teachers at work.

It's Sunday night now, and even as I write this, I can feel an aftershock shaking the floor. I've continued to feel aftershocks all weekend but with much less frequency and intensity. It is possible that the general intensity of the aftershocks have lowered to a degree that I don't even know they are happening; laying silently on my couch with my computer, the only indicator I had of the last few aftershocks before this one was the quiet humming rattle of the sliding doors in my apartment. None were strong enough to wake me during the night.

Although I feel quite removed from the disasters of the quake and tsunami, I read on The Japan Times that Gunma will soon also be feeling its effects. Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Co.), whom is my electricity provider, is planning to enact rolling blackouts throughout the Kanto area, including Gunma, in order to save on electricity. There don't seem to be a ton of details available yet, but the article says to expect 3 hour periods of blackout for at least a week, starting Monday. I really wonder what affect this will have at work; tomorrow should be interesting.

There is also a fledgling effort on Facebook among the Gunma JETs to organize volunteer relief workers. I have responded with tentative interest, as have many people I know. Everything is still so unknown that no one seems sure what needs to be done just yet. I must admit that I am a little concerned about going to an area that might be getting increasingly radioactive, despite government approved assurances that there are "no signs of a Chernobyl-type catastrophe". Let's hope not, but be cautious, eh?

Cheers,

loopless Baer

Earthquakes: 137 and counting

It was a wild night last night.

I've always thought that one of the small little earthquakes we usually have around here are not a bad way to wake up in the morning: like a strong gust of wind swaying my hammock.

Last night, however, my hammock was assaulted by tropical storm force winds. Earthquakes woke me up at least 4 or 5 times during the night, and I could hear the obnoxious "Emergency- Earthquake!" warning going off on my phone over and over (what a useless feature: like I don't already KNOW there is an earthquake?).

I checked the USGS website, and it shows there have been something like 137 earthquakes in the last day! I surely believe it! I can hardly spend 20 minutes in my apartment without feeling it move. I feel pretty safe here though, so I'm not worried.

...you know what is really scary? When I applied to JET, I asked to be placed in Sendai. Good thing after all that that didn't happen. I don't think I'd be here to write this blog if it had.

Cheers,

shakin' Baer

Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay!! Rollercoaster Japan

Wow, today was just PACKED with excitement.

Today was junior high school graduation. It was a nice ceremony, with lot of speeches and singing. They take graduation very seriously. I didn't realize just how serious until during the ceremony, one of the student suddenly collapsed, just SMACK! hit the floor... and only 5 people ran over to carry her out. Nobody else even moved; the speaker just kept speaking, the teachers didn't twitch, and even the students didn't even look in her direction. Bunch of robots! It was really kind of freaky...
Afterwards, we waved goodbye to the graduating 3rd year students and took lots of pictures. When they had gone, the parents came and gave all the teachers bags of bakery goods as a thank-you-for-your-hard-work present. As there were no students, no classes, and it was a day of celebration, the principal gave us permission to leave work by 3 PM (2 hours early for teachers, ~1 hour early for me).

At 2:45 PM, I was working on my computer and watching the clock. Suddenly the desks started shaking just a little bit, and the teachers kind of glanced up at each other with an excited, "Did you feel that?" It was just a little shake, nothing to worry about. We sat and waiting for it to end, as they usually finish quickly. After a few moments, when the desks were still shaking, people started remarking "This is a long one!" ... a few moments later the shakes grew more intense, "Wow, really a long one!"... and more intense, "It's still going!"... Suddenly, the shakes started getting much stronger, and the exclamations grew worried. The teachers next to me glanced up at the overhanging air conditioner with trepidation, "This is dangerous..." The shakes got stronger and stronger, past anything we'd ever felt before. Everyone watched the ceiling-mounted TV shaking violently, yelling now to be careful. We could feel the whole building moving, swaying unnaturally. The vice principal ordered everyone out of the building, and we ran for the door, not even bothering to stop and change to our outdoor shoes.

Outside in the parking lot, we watched the windows of the gym shudder and the tall cedar trees shake as the ground rolled beneath our feet. Remembering what day it was, someone said, "Thank god this didn't happen during graduation!" and the others groaned in agreement (though whether it was over the possible chaos or a ruined ceremony, I can't be sure). Several people had their cell phones out and were trying to get through but to no avail. One of the teachers exclaimed loudly and ran toward one end of the parking lot, pointing, "Look! Look!" Across the street, the old-style embellishments on someone's roof had partially collapsed.


We stood outside until the shaking subsided to a low trembling. By then, 15 minutes had passed since the first tremors. Like frightened deer, we made our way cautiously back into the building. Besides a few messy desks, there was nothing amiss. The teachers jumped onto their computers and immediately started looking for info on the quake, while someone else grabbed the school's land line to start checking on loved ones. The rest of us watched the news on TV, which was already saturated with quake coverage.

Screen-capped from the JMA website

We found out it hit Miyagi/Fukushima/Ibaraki at a level 7 quake. By the time it made it all the way over to us in Ota, Gunma, it was a weak level 5. Even as we stood around watching the TV, we felt the aftershocks, "It's still going, it's still going!" One of the aftershocks was strong enough to send everyone back outside to the relative safety of the parking lot. There were no students in the building, but some were outside practicing sports on the playground; the vice-principal got on the intercom and told them all to sit down on the ground where they stood.


When it was finally calm enough to go back inside, we were all ordered to go check the building for damage. All the fire doors had closed, a basket of ping-pong balls was overturned, and there was some minor ceiling damaged in the annex walk-over, but everything looked pretty good. By then it was 3:30 PM, so I decided to head home.


The minute I opened my apartment door, I could see the place was a mess. Everything that had been on top of the fridge, cabinets, and shelves was on the floor. Even my convection oven had flipped off the microwave and lay upside-down on the floor. The space around the kitchen desk was a sea of papers. In the TV room, my books lay skewed but still mostly in place. Everything on top of the bookshelves had fallen off though; most interesting was my "fake" plant, which had somehow managed to land 3 feet feet away, without rolling, from its original location. I spent the extra time I got off work cleaning.


For me, the whole experience was pretty exciting and fun, since there was no real damage to speak of. I ran into some of my students on the way home, and we got into a shouting battle as we rode side-by-side on our bikes, with them yelling "Scary!" and me yelling "Exciting!"


For northern Japan, though, things look a lot more "scary" than "exciting". I'm watching TV right now and it's pretty amazing the damage that has been felt all over. The newscasters on TV are all wearing hard hats. In Sendai, a tsunami hit and washed in 10 meters of water, washing away cars, homes, and farmland. In many places, homes partially collapsed. In Chiba (above Tokyo), an oil refinery exploded. In Tokyo, a parking garage collapsed, and buildings were shaking hard enough to break windows, collapse walls, and knock off paint and brick siding. Inside buildings, people cling to desks and hold their computer upright, TVs fall off shelves and from the ceilings, cabinets tip over, and anything not nailed down spill their contents everywhere.


Even now, it's 7:50 PM, and I can still feel significant aftershocks.
Yuki told me that the news said to expect aftershocks to continue for a month, and that another large earthquake should be expected within the month as well.
Wow... what a a day.


Cheers,


earthquake Baer