小学校｜Elementary School

小学校｜しょうがっこう｜Shougakkou = little school
Primary Objective: Practice Speaking Japanese with Elementary students
Secondary Objective: Teach a bit of English to Elementary students

The teacher's had us start preparing about a week in advance. Everyone got divided up into various groups based on a combo of 取り引き|listening comprehension skills, compatibility, and speaking skills. Surprisingly the younger the kids, the more skill it takes to teach and comprehend whats going on in the classroom, however the younger the students the more necessary it became to use simpler Japanese.

We got a huuuge welcome from the entire school. The band even played the Star Wars theme (can you believe that thing is still being spread throughout the world 20 years later...).

I ended up with a class of mixed ages with various handicaps. The kids were fun, had great senses of humor, and were icons of innocence. They ranged from quiet/silent to outgoing and loud. There was a very cute girl who would do her best to sit next to me; she spoke very little but was eager to hear me speak and instead repeatedly "遊ぼう！" = Asobou = let's play!

I had created flashcards intending to teach them how to play charades but the teacher had prepped some pretty impressive picture herself so we ended up using those instead and reading "The hungry caterpillar" except in Japanese : ). This being no exception, most of the classwork was synced with pictures & music. I'm not sure if thats a common practice in the US, but I was impressed. I hadn't seen a piano in a classroom at any point in my life other than in the "music room" in all 3 of the elementary school's I attended in Florida. The kids seemed to pick things up very quickly that way and surprised me over and over again especially since they knew a few words in English that I had no clue how to say in Japanese. It was nice to learn from the same kids I came to teach.


During lunch time, I spent most of the time talking with an extremely energetic kids that I still feel doubtful as to whether he truly has a handicap. I'm not doctor, but he was a fluent speaker, energetic, had no physical abnormalities, and his kanji was way better than mine... Needless to say he and I sustained a conversation throughout the 30mins or so allotted for lunch.


Leaving was probably the hardest part of that experience. I felt bad after establishing relations with the kids only to quickly run off and leave them feeling a bit abandoned--or at least, I felt like I was abandoning them. The teacher had to help, literally detach a few from me as I departed. In the end, I felt more like a father than a teacher/student.

ホームステイ｜Homestay

Back Row: 菅野｜Sugano --ミント|Minto (dog) -- 志保子｜Shihoko -- 博志｜Hiroshi
Front Row: クラランス｜(me) -- 篤｜Atsushi

The Homestay weekend started right after a very very long day of class. I had stayed up all night craming Kanji then stayed after class to take a 4 page test. After an already long sleepless week, waking up at 7am, by the time Sugano arrived to the classroom @ 3:30 I was beyond exhaustion but there was no time to rest yet. Sugano had a lot of questions and it was my first real chance to converse in Japanese with someone who was neither a classmate, a teacher, nor a bar/club acquaintance. The train ride was looong, and as much as I would have liked to just pass out that was not an option. Sugano kept me entertained by teaching me the names/kanji of the family members, their ages, showing me some pictures, and asking me about my studies. When we reached her stop it was raining a bit and she let me huddle underneath her umbrella with her, though honestly, I never carry an umbrella and really don't mind the rain much, but she insisted. One thing you learn quickly after about 2 or 3 days in Japan is that hospitality and courtesy are infinite. You'll find it difficult if not impossible to turn down an honest offer (i.e. usually if someone asks you if you'd like another drink, its considered polite to say "sure but eh only half" and the offerer will at that point not hesitate to fill your cup).

We reached the house and I stepped through the door and immediately took my shoes off and reversed them so the toes pointed towards the exit, good ol' Japanese etiquette. I was given a pair of slippers for the house and shown to the tatami room where'd I'd get to stay. Removing my house slippers, I stepped barefoot onto the tatami floor. I *love* tatami rooms. (this is a shot from a Ryokan tatami room I stayed at in Hokkaido):
1) They smell wonderful; tatami has such a good smell that you could probably put a dead animal in the room and it would still smell great. 2) Tatami rooms give you the feeling that you are getting a genuine exotic Japanese experience. If you get a chance, stay at a Japanese ryokan because you'll get similar treatment. 3) Real futons are not so bad; makes me wonder why we even bother with springs and mattresses and bed frames...
(Ryokan meal for two...= way too much food; a japanese dinner is usually included with the price)

I had a lot of time to settle in before the rest of the family got home from school/work. I got to meet Minto (Mint) right off the back. Minto is a papillon, which is French for butterfly and if you see one of these dogs, it becomes immediately apparent why...they've got ears that rival the size of their head. Minto was adorable and friendly. In the end I think I spent more time with Minto that weekend than anyone else.

I met Hiroshi next. Hiroshi is a 17yr old high school boy. He seems to be pretty smart, but doesn't really like school. His favorite subject was 体育｜"PE" . He was fairly quite and if he did speak, he spoke at a normal volume but without opening his mouth very much or annunciating clearly, which for me made him impossible to understand.

Soon Shihoko came home and showed me her school uniform after getting somewhat frustrated with my lack of understand the word for uniform. She laughed though and seemed at least amused with me but shy enough that after about 3min she quickly excused herself.

When Atsushi came home I felt very relieved for some reason. He seemed very laid back and looked a lot younger than he possibly could have been. He smiled more than anyone else in the family (well except for Minto), so he always seemed to put me at ease.

When dinner time came, we ate Tempura, Rice with salmon row, and a salad. The food was expectedly great. After dinner I retired to my room and hit up the weekend load of homework. The following day lunch ended up being Japanese fast food burgers (Atsushi said he really wanted to eat a burger, so burger's it was). That evening we went to a Kaiten sushi restaurant (revolving, conveyor belt sushi restaurant) which is always fun since you never know what you'll end up eating. Me and Hiroshi split plates to increase our variety. He was, as I expected, close to silent. If I didn't ask a yes/no question I usually didn't get much of a response, much less eye contact. I still don't understand him at all... then again, maybe he didn't get me? Between the two of us we ate about 50 pieces of sushi and a plate of Anago (similar to eel and taste just as good). The following "last meal" was my lunch of Unagi (eel, my favorite). Unagi like Anago has a kind of sweet taste and a tender texture. Its pretty expensive but if you get a chance don't pass it up. You won't regret it.

After lunch, on our way to the station, we headed out to 亀戸天神社｜Kamedoten Shrine; "Turtle's door to Heaven" Shrine (that's a very literal, debatable translation).

Above is what is called a 鳥居｜とりい｜torii, which is the traditional entrance to a Shinto shrine. The Kanji mean bird and to exist/reside. Doesn't make sense to me so I wouldn't worry about it to much. Below is a picture of the turtles that live in droves in the water that flows around the shrine (hence the 亀｜turtle in the shrine's name).
Sugano & Atsushi explained to me that students come to this shrine to make prayers/wishes regarding academics, i.e. to preform well on finals, to do well on their college entrance exams, etc. So they bought me a plaque in order for me to write my wish down and tie it to the shrine's fences that were already full of what I'd guess to be much more than 5,000 of these plaques.

Well I wished for my Japanese to become fluent one day. Pipe dreams....

Speech styles

First, I'd like to clear up a misconception. The previous entry was not inspired by anger nor do I have anything personal against the Japanese. I love this country, and I love the Japanese people & language (except for the Kanji part, but luckily I can blame the Chinese for that ^_^). I feel like I've learned a lot from their culture so far, but I'll save that bit for another entry.I wanted to continue the previous discussion with a comment on speech styles. If you are already familiar with the difference between direct & distal Japanese speech styles you can probably just skip this paragraph. The short of it is that the Japanese have different verbals as well as endings depending on who they are speaking to and whom they are speaking about. For example to a friend I might say "Sorya hashi da yo" Those are chopsticks. To an adult I'd probably say "Sore wa, ohashi desu" (same meaning), and to a costumer (this is a bad example but just to make one...) "Sore wa, ohashi de gozaimasu" (note same gozaimasu as in Arigatoo gozaimasu). All with the exact same meaning but with different degrees of what is often called "careful" speech style and politeness. The general assumption is that its easy to speech in direct style (it feels natural to a Japanese and they speak only that language amongst family so until they get into school they don't really learn much of the specifics. Even adults will practice usage of polite verbals as part of job training (for females this can extend as far as changing the intonation, tone, pace, and pitch of their voice; once you enter an elevator or listen to an announcement this becomes very obvious). As far as verbals are concerned I'll just give these examples: Da (plain), desu (distal), de gozaimasu (humble; self reference), de irassyaimasu (honorific; reference to a superior). All those mean "is". To go: iku, ikimasu, mairimasu, irassyaimasu. I could do this for ever verb but eh, not point. If you're still curious there is always google.
The issue: When a Japanese walks into a store they are spoken to with language packed full with distal, polite, honorific, and humble verbals. This establishes something equivalent to what resembles the old nobility-servant relationship, however understand its more of a custom than an actual setup of social rank. For example the same type of verbals are used in commercials and advertisement. Now when I walk into the store 50% of the time I receive the same verbals and another 50% of the time I'm spoken to in direct style. I'm at a lost still as to what the individuals are thinking when they switch to direct style since typically you only use this when their is a clear difference in rank or if you are close friends with the person. However, as the Japanese do, if I don't know someone I use distal speech style which is a neutral if not polite way to speak even if you don't use the polite verbals. Thus I'm personally kind of offended when I'm spoken to in direct style rather than the usual distal style they should be using. I've got a few ideas though to what's going on in their head:

1) Direct style is the same forms you find in the dictionary (i.e. when you learn a new word) and it seems natural so perhaps its: "Direct style is easier to understand"

2) "Ah its a foreigner. It won't make a difference either way so no need to go through the effort of using polite speech" (this last one becomes more prominent when I'm followed by a Japanese person into a store or at a hotel reception desk).

3) If its an older shop keeper, "Ah its a youngin' " hence direct speech becomes more appropriate for an older person speaking to me.

4) "Wow this kid speaks Japanese!" at which point in order to be friendly they slip into the comfortable, informal direct style used normally around family and close friends. (This seems more appropriate when you consider that the Japanese also use speech styles to adjust the social distance between the listener and speaker. For example articles and essays are usually written in direct style, my theory, to make the reader feel inherently closer to the author's opinion and viewpoint, rather than placing the author far from the reader hence further from his viewpoint/opinion.

Another interesting point is that contrary to what you may think, in an argument with a friend or significant other it is rude to use distal style/polite verbals. It places the other person further away, as if you've never met them, hence because a useful tool to express contempt or anger towards someone who you would usual speak to in direct casual style. It also can be used to express the "distance"/difference between the speaker's opinion and that of the listener.
I came to Japan over spring break as well as a year and a half ago before I started my Japanese studies. Over spring break I never noticed the differences in speech style nor took any heed to use of direct style, but as you spend more and more time in Japan you start to become more sensitive to the speech styles people are using as well as the verbals and speech styles you yourself choose to use. Even now depending on which sensei I'm speaking with or writing an email to, I use different degrees of polite speech. Sometimes too much pushes the teacher away when she would rather feel like there is a natural student-teacher relationship that blends almost into a friendship [some of the student use direct style when speaking with Morita sensei which I think is crazy but eh, she doesn't protest nor does she use distal either]. I've got another teacher, a strict older lady, who I use the utmost respectful careful polite speech I can come up with. This also means that an email which would take me 1min to write to in english, or about 5 minutes if it were to a Japanese friend, takes around 30min to an hour to write for this specific teacher. In the end, I think its this unavoidable effort or for the Japanese, the extra step, that makes distal and polite verbals inherently courteous speech.

Do Japanese have a problem with Foreigners?

This is definitely not a yes/no answer to that question...

I think its easiest to say "The Japanese love foreigners." They embrace American culture as if it were their own. When an American music artist showcases in Tokyo they can charge easily close to $100 a ticket and still sell out the theather even if its a lesser known or less popular artist. The music culture sometimes makes you wonder, "What happened to the Japanese music?" It seems at some point like it stopped developing held onto its traditional form and from there split off into a booming branch of western style music which ranges from Jazz & hip hop to punk & metal. Honestly the list is massive when it comes to music. One stroll through Shibuya makes this fact immediately obvious. Poke your head into a club and your bound to find Japanese in their 20s-30s decked out with Timbs, cornrows, dreads, the usual baggy ass hangs-out jeans & shirt long enough to cover it--girls are no exception to that wardrobe. That being said, you'll just as easily find goths (increasingly popular goth-girls), punked/rocked out guys, or whatever you can imagine. They embrace American pop culture. This extends further to their movie scene (Johnny Depp is an idol; as well as ブラピ=Burapi aka Brad Pitt), television (24 is huuuge and The O.C. just started its rise), fashion (though to be fair Tokyo has a huge fashion scene and it changes/evolves ***FAST***)... honestly theirs no point in laundry listing all the things the 現代人(modern persons) have come to embrace. Instead let's focus on the strongest example first...

Japanese are convinced that the words they spell in katakana (アイエオウ vs hirigana あいえおう) are Japanese. This results in very annoying situations as well as very amusing situations. I get annoyed when someone proceeds to assume I don't know a words that they use (and is spelled in Katakana) or they go off on a huge explanation when all that would be necessary is saying "its in katakana" that way when you hear someone say "se-o-ri" rather than think "What the hell is seori..." instead, as if it were spanish or french, you do a backwards conversion an realize the word is "Theory." Last spring break I was in Kobe's train station and trying to figure out where I could check my bags between trains while I explored the city. So I proceeded to ask where a place to store my bags was. The response was that the "ロッカー" =
"Rowk-Ka" were "over there." My first thought was what the hell is a Rokka? I had no clue. Eventually after some attempt to explain, I was led by one of the station staff to the ***lockers***.... Rokka = Locker. I laughed to myself and made the mental note...

The list of Katakana words from english or what I'd call Janglish is immense. Adjectives seem to be popular conversions as well as technical words. The surprising this though is that words that exist in Japanese are increasingly converting to english words. Yesterday I heard someone say エンジニア [ ENJINIA ] but last time I checked the word ぎし (GISHI) is the Japanese word for Engineer... I'm all for borrowing words (80% of English active vocabulary comes from French) but sometimes I feel ridiculous saying things like "ii aidea!" = good idea rather than use of the Japanese word "ii kangae." That being said, I've been corrected both ways (aidea <---> kangae) by teachers and Japanese friends to use the other one. I'm not going to lie though; I love the reaction when someone says "What? you know that word?" and I smile and say "Yeah, its from english" and they says "Wow? Reaaally?" almost in disbelief. They don't borrow the words; they assimilate them. I guess its no different than when we speak without realizing that a French person realizes 80% of our active vocabulary was stolen from French.

Sorry a little side tracked... so my point was that a culture that assimilates foreign words into their active vocabulary generally doesn't hold distaste for foreigners.

Well let's take a look at the opposite end. The thought that Japanese *might* have a problem with foreigners never really came to mind until I attempted to walk into Club Heaven in Osaka and promptly received the gesture in Japan for "no" (arms crossed with fist closed forming an X). Then some broken English and a finger pointed towards the door which together amounted to "Foreigners are not allowed here" or "No Gaijin" to quote. I've got two opinions about these type of locations. 1) Its ridiculous and the Japanese version of segregation or Jim-Crow-locations. 2) Japanese sometime need refuge from the crazy college frat boys that terrorize Roppongi doori for example and whose presence encouraged the Yakuza (Japanese gangsta-businessmen = mafia) to start up the cocaine and ecstasy market. Its simply creating a safe area. That being said; that kind of establishment would not be tolerated in America no matter what the excuse is. How many people could easily make the argument that since Jails are proportionally full of minorities, we could decrease crime in an area by simply not allowing minorities in an area... I clearly have some serious problems with that kind of an argument so I'm not one to support these nihonjin only bars.

My other issue involves in the use of the word gaijin. I don't call Japanese "Japs" yet the use of the word Gaijin which was once considered foul language (contraction of the word gaikokujin meaning outside-country-person) has become more and more accepted as a normal word. Conversations include a little kid at a Zoo who refered to my greeting of "konnitiwa" by saying something to his mom about "Its because he's a Gaijin-San" a Mr.Foreigner? WTF? The parents have somehow cultured the kid's mind to completely categorize foreigners.

My second experience was a very short statement by a new acquaintance while she was on the phone asking for recommendations from a friend of hers. Her friend asked something along the lines of "Who needs a recommendation?" and she said "外人なんですよ．” Which means "it's that they are gaijin." Or "they are Gaijin-people." That extra なん (nan) makes a huuuge difference.

The 3rd experience was an odd fellow at a pharmacy who looked at me and says "Hiyakeshita! A, sou ka. gaijin da. gomen nasai... gaijin da. gomen nasai" = "you're sunburnt!" (fyi, I'm
Black). "Oh, I see, you're a foreigner. I'm so sorry! You're a foreigner! I'm soo sorry!" As if he was expressing pity because I was a foreigner as opposed to apologizing for what he said which usually involves a completely different sentence construction. i.e. (間違えて、ごめんなさい・間違えて、すみませんでした．)

There's a 4th much broader set that involves speech styles. For now...

続く - to be continued

Asakusa Class Trip

So the teacher's set us off lose to Asakusa. I went there about a year and a half ago and loved the place. It was sunny and a cool winter day and the streets were still kind of crowded even during midday. Lots of tourists, of course, coming from Korea, China, Australia...just to name a *few*.

This time though, I was there for class and not just touring. Our objective was to practice our "polite" Japanese speech style (here I mean distal with polite verbals) by interviewing at least 3 Japanese people while of course enjoy the scenery, street shops, and temples. We met at a huuuuuge Shinto gates marked by an equally massive latern with "kaminari-mon" written on it (literally lightening gate).

It was lightly drizzling and around 10:30 when we set out. Despite the rain, I'm guessing because it was a Friday, the street-shop lined walk way to the temple was still incredibly crowded. Me and Kendall Rice, my partner for the outing walked the street warming up our Japanese and enjoying a bit of people watching and peeking into shops.

When we hit the end of the road we were under another large gate where people were resting, chatting, putting on make-up, reading newspapers, flipping through guide books, or just sheltering themselves from the rain. After a few nervous laughs we approached our first group of about 6 people--Chinese. I'll spare you from any culturally insensitive jokes, but to be fair the teacher's vouch that they also run across the same problem from time to time. Apparently one group pulled off an interview of a Korean man & woman, a couple, in Japanese. Our next two attempts were met kindly at first but when it came time to avoid using the 2nd person "you" in Japanese [which is considered rude even if you don't know or forget someone's name or even if you have been friends for a long time], after asking for a name the response was a quick (literal translation) "That's already good enough..." or in a 2nd case, "Okay I'm going now." I think for the most part since not all adults have had the experience of conversing with Gaijin they may have simply been intimidated by Rice & I standing at 6ft and speaking fairly poor Japanese (in my opinion). Most of the Japanese elderly woman we came across that day were standing at what I'd estimate to be about 4'8" to 5', so it was inevitable sometimes to cause someone to be a bit nervous. In the end we succeeded in interviewing a group of middle school girls and two female university students.




The name thing:

In comparison with American's, the Japanese put a tremendous amount of value in names, so I think they are sensitive to giving it out to strangers. My personal belief is that the value of a name is why the Japanese see the 2nd person "you" both in its informal "Kimi" from as well as its formal and respectful "Anata." Furthermore in Anime you'll find words like "omae" literally, honorable in front of me, or "Temae" literally, facing me, or "kisama" (just you) all translated as various English expletives.

In the states, and most "western" countries, a baby's name is chosen before birth--at least usually. The Japanese however, will wait until even more than a week after the baby has been born before giving it a name. At this point they want to give a name that is reflected in some trait of the baby or some hope or wish the mother has for the child. As if the pronunciation of the babies name wasn't enough, they then run through various Kanji and verify all possible meanings that the name may be interpreted as. Still not done... the chosen Kanji most then be aesthetically pleasing to read and write. Finally, there are fortuitous or lucky stroke counts, and there are unlucky stroke counts. When all is said and done the name still have to match cultural expectations for a male or female name. This is way often generations have popular name trends--someone figures out a good combo and it permeates from one person to another. The current generation is full of names like: Eriko, Yumiko, Yuriko, Emiko, etc. Popular joke goes that if you forget a girl's name just mumble two syllables and a "ko" and you're usually in the clear....







Rain aside, I had a lot of fun & it was nice to get out and talk to a variety of Japanese children & adults, male & female, young & old. Sure as hell beats drilling honorific verbals in a classroom.

The Sun Academy

Duty calls... I hope someone reads this blog because I probably should be doing homework right now instead of typing a diary... haha.

I've got a lot of blogging catching up to do so I might as well start now. First things first: Hiroo rocks. Its a sick location to have a program and you can walk in 20 min to Roppongi (probably Japan's most popular nightclub/bar scene). Of course, you've got to find the time first.

[tokyo bay]


I'm sure all the light programs can relate to this, but the workload you take on during a summer cram course is intense. MTuWThF I get up at 8PM commute to class by 9:15PM and the "ending at 12:50PM" classes usually get out around 2:00ish and I cross my fingers that there's no after-class one hour explanation of directions or some kind of debriefing (in Japanese of course). Eitherway, enjoying the convenient stores' onigiri (rice ball) and oinarisan (rice in a sweet fried soybean/tofu wrap), eating with the teacher's has become kind of a good habit. After lunch I usually get back to my room around 3:30ish. Despite being tired and mentally taxed I greet myself with a mound of homework and tackle through it until around 10 on an easy night, midnight if I waste time, and 2PM on the difficult days. Either way midnight is always the goal, stopping to cook myself dinner in the rooms kitchenette and eating dinner while watching one or two anime episodes (great for the listening skills) or some Entourage.

[Hokkaido]

That's the daily routine. If you're brave you can finish your homework by 11 or 12 and headout to Roppongi which is always bustling with a large crowd of foreigners, businessmen, and Japanese in the 20-30yr old range. Weekends add the option of going to Shibuya which has a much smaller foreigner mix and a big hip-hop scene though I'm sure whatever your fancy is be it karaoke, dancing, house/techno, or watching hip-hop crews showcase you'll find it.

The Sun Academy has a good mix of teachers. All female and ranging from what I'd guess to be 30 up to 60 years old. The teachers are a mix of characters of course. Some you'll love and some you'll find difficult to get along with. The usual story I guess. No matter what, in the end you can't help but remind yourself that no matter how strict they are, how much homework you get, or how frustrated you get, the teacher's are on your side and are doing everything they can to help improve your Japanese. The program has a heavy focus on speaking ability and improving what you have already learned to a fluency that allows you to use it with ease while expressing an opinion. I feel that as a second year student, these focus points haven't allowed me to pick up enough vocabulary, or new grammar. Of course the former is an opinion since learning more vocab is entirely dependent on the student; write down words you come across that you don't know, the make it your own responsibility to learn them. Its just hard to find the time for free time and non-course-work study time. Half the students seem to grasp this balance by skipping night outings and replacing clubs and bars with karaoke.



To each his own.