On the campaign trail

Note: The following blog is quite sappy.

In my prefecture, we have a group that acts as the social lubricant that hopes to bring all Fukushima JETs together. That’s FuJET.

Spring’s just around the corner, so we’re faced with elections to choose next year’s FuJET executives.

Enter YoVilla. I’m running for the vice president position; my friend, Matt, is running for the presidential spot. Coining our last names, we’re YoVilla.

Campaigning has been interesting. It has involved lots of videos, in the hopes of reaching the Fukushima JETs throughout our prefecture. I seriously have to give MAD props to Matt, who is most definitely the creative genius behind all that is funny in our videos. (And I’m sorry for being cranky during the last shoot – but it was freakin’ cold! All of my Iwane kids know that we were prancing around the park in ridiculous summer clothes on a chilly winter’s day. I heard them gossiping about it during my last school visit. That’s awkward). Anyways、おつかれさまでした。

FuJET has been such an important part of my amazing experiences here in Japan. What has it done for me? With the current FuJET execs, I spent my last Tokyo Orientation night partying in Shibuya until 4 or 5 a.m. And then I woke up couple hours later, taking a long bus ride to meet my supervisor. I’ve cheered on the picturesque soccer fields in Nagano while the Fukushima Akabekos struggled to reach the ball. I’ve actually been to major sumo tournament in Tokyo. And I’ve endured the ridiculously long ferry (cruise ship?) rides to Hokkaido and back for the Sapporo Snow Festival.

Most of all, I value the friendships that I’ve made through FuJET. We’ve only met each other eight months ago, but I’ve found some people (both FuJETs and non-FuJETs) who have provided me with great laughs and have always looked out for me. I have this back home, too. But it’s nice to immediately find good people in a foreign place. Aw, shucks.

卒業式 - Graduation

This blog was written during the last week of February

Obedience

I stood shivering at the back of the school gym with my eyes slightly welling up with tears. Not once, but twice this week.The school band was tucked away in the back corner, playing “Pomp and Circumstance.”

It is graduation season, meaning students across Japan are now in the midst of graduation rehearsals. My school has often cancelled the last period of the day to hold these school-wide practices.

Anyways, that song reminds me of all the good and bad times from high school and university. It’s also a reminder that I’d like to be there when my brother graduates from good ol’ Carleton.

To tell you the truth, I don’t remember my middle school graduation. I know it was held in our own school gym. I wore a long black dress with ugly cream flowers, along with a crochet shawl. Fashionable, fashionable people. My kids will wear their formal uniforms.

Graduation rehearsals?!

After cleaning time, all of the Nichu students have been changing back into their formal winter uniforms. It’s a familiar sight to see them clutching their wooden chairs as they walk to the school gym for assemblies.

Walking two by two, they enter the gym and know where exactly they should be seated. The san-nensei (third-years) students are neatly seated in the front. The girls are on the left; the boys are the right. There’s a slight empty space; then, the ichi-nensei and ni-nensei students (first- and second-years) place their seats in similar fashion.

The assistant to the vice-principal is usually responsible for leading the “exercises.” Students bow when he says “Ichido - rei!” And when I say bow, it is deep bowing is involved. He’ll go over their process many times. Teachers walk around, and try to see which chairs are the creakiest. It’s a sight. Students’ posture is also scrutinized. If they’re caught slouching, one of the teachers will run over and straighten them up. The boys are taught to sit with their fists clenched, while the girls sit with their hands clasped in the laps. Such behaviour totally brings a new meaning to the importance of maintaining one's appearances.

My favorite part is the clapping practices. If you know me, I enjoy laughing. When I realized they were trying out different claps, I had to do my utmost to contain my laughter. Honestly?! HONESTLY!!

Left, right, left

Back at home, graduands just show up the morning of the ceremony. There’s an experienced team of people who are there to throw on your robe, neatly fold your hood, tell you where to sit and stand and even confirm the pronunciation of your name.

I am most surprised by the san-nensei students in their procession. The homeroom teacher majestically walks at the helm, while his/her third-years meekly follow in two lines divided between boys and girls. They snake their way to the back of the gym.

The music switches, and they use the middle aisle to walk back to their seats located near the front of the stage. It’s usually a boy-girl pairing that walk down the aisle together. First, the pair steps up from the genkan. Their eyes are glued to the floor, as they are staring at the feet of the couple in front of them. When that first pair steps across the painted green line on the gym floor, the new pair takes their first step. With their respective left feet. I’m serious.
Sing your heart out

Music is an important of any school assembly. For graduation, the school band plays a variety of songs. The entire student body sings the Japanese national anthem, and the school song. (My JTE is thoughtful, and wrote out both songs in romaji for me. I can read!)

I had jokingly asked my kocho-sensei (principal) to teach me the school song – he chuckled, and pointed at the kanji written on a large board near the gym’s stage. Thanks, kocho-sensei… he knows I can’t read kanji!

Parting thoughts

These rehearsals simply reinforced the notion that everything adheres to certain traditions in this country. Even in my elementary schools, all of the students have been practicing the school song and twirling their batons.

But what I don’t understand is the number of hours we’ve spent in the freezing cold gym, watching the students perfecting to their bows. I mean, they’ve been doing this for years. They probably learned to how to bow before they could walk. Those kids were shivering in the gym. I even started wearing a scarf to practices, because it was that cold.

In Japan, graduation is a major milestone for junior high school students. They’ve spent years growing up together. It’s often said that many students become attached not only to their peers, but also their homeroom teachers.

I’m not all that surprised, seeing as how they seem to spend every waking hour at school. On the weekends, I see some of them as they bike home from their various club activities. That’s dedication.

The following blog was written on March 12

Preparation for graduation
“Gum tape, gum tape… Gemma-sensei, gum tape, please!”

The ni-nensei students (second-years) and I were busy decorating the homeroom classes for the graduating students. It was the day before the actual graduation ceremony, so the graduands were resting at home… while the rest of the school spent the afternoon putting everything in its place.

The whole decorating process was interesting in itself. The students descended upon the gym. They put out the chairs, the banners and the tables. But it was unusual, in that they had to replicate photos that illustrated the graduation ceremony from previous years. They knew the piano had to be placed at an exact 30 degree angle at a certain spot, because they were provided with a photo. They knew each table needed to be draped with freshly-pressed white tablecloths, as illustrated by the model photo. You get the picture.

Same deal for the decorating of the san-nensei homerooms. We knew where to hang the paper chains, tissue flowers and blackboard display; model photos were always provided. I thought it was cute how the second-year girls were very particular in their tissue flower selection. The 3-1 class got pink flowers; 3-24 got orange; and 3-3 got red. All of these colours matched the headbands they wore during their sports festivals.

The following blog was written on March 13

The actual day - 卒業式

And so, the day of the real deal finally arrived. I spent the morning visiting each homeroom, and snapped photos with some of the students. They were so cute, with a little flower pinned to their chest pocket. The girls were eager to take photos, while the boys had to be coaxed into hamming up for the camera. Typical?

I was slightly late that morning, due to parking inconveniences. Every day, I drive my little kei-car to school. I'm spoiled, in that it only takes a minute to drive from my pink apartment to my designated parking spot in the lot. So, I drove to the parking lot as per usual. And it was completely empty. I was thrown off, because I'm always the last teacher to arrive. I finally noticed the cars were all parked in the soccer field. So, I had to make a detour so that I could drive on a road cutting through rice fields... and then I could reach the soccer field like everyone else. Thanks for the head's up. Typical!

Mariko-sensei, my Japanese Teacher of English, was gorgeous in her kimono. She said it took a full hour to get dressed that morning. The rest of the staff was dressed in black suits. (The day before, one of my JTEs told me: “You do have a black suit, right?! Right?!” As usual, I always receive last-minute notice… but luckily, I brought a black suit from home). Kocho-sensei was rocking a cool penguin jacket.

The ceremony was pretty standard. The parents filed in, and took their seats. We sang the national anthem and the school song. (I had the lyrics to both tucked inside my program, so I was able to sing along). At precisely 10 a.m., as it was on the schedule, the graduates started proceeding up to the stage to get their diplomas. There was even a little projection screen on stage left, so that you could see the students’ faces as they bowed in front of kocho-sensei (principal). He had to bow at least 97 times to present each graduand with their diploma. That doesn’t count all the additional bowing we had to do throughout the ceremony. So much bowing.

Oh! One of the ni-nensei boys fainted in the second-last row. As kocho-sensei was reading out the names, we heard a loud thud coming from the back. Some of the teachers and the school nurse quickly rushed over to help him. I guess he was fine, because I saw him walking around after the grad ceremony. My sempai has explained that it's common for kids to faint during assemblies. I'm not surprised - they have to sit in a rigid position for hours! And the gym is not heated well. We have two huge orange heaters that are supposed to emit lots of heat. But I never feel it! So wack.

There were speeches, too. I don’t know who they were, and I don’t what they were saying. I did notice each speaker unfolded his/her notes from a special envelope. And when they finished, they slipped their speaking text back into the envelop and placed it in a basket on the table. One of the speakers included the kind gray-haired, bespectacled fellow from the Board of Education. He’s the one who I saw in his drawers that night we all went to a traditional Japanese inn for our bonenkai (end-of-the-year bonenkai).

For the bajillionth time, the students sang Auld Lang Syne in Japanese. The students sang a song to the graduating class. Then, the third-years sang “Tegami,” their touching farewell song. (Find it on Youtube!) This is when a lot of the girls started bawling. And I mean, bawling! It was so sad. (Not gonna lie – my eyes welled up with tears during “Pomp and Circumstance" yet again. When the graduates did their final procession down the aisle, I started tearing up again. I didn’t think I was so attached to these kiddos!)

After the ceremony, the students congregated outside. Each graduate proudly clutched a yellow flower, the Nichu diploma and their old pair of indoor Nichu shoes with the trademark red stripes. And then, they were gone.

The Villanuevas Visit Japan... Part II

Dec. 25 – Christmas Day

Back home, Christmas is filled with tons of celebratory hallmarks. Most shops and restaurants are closed for the day. But in Japan, it is pretty much business as usual. I was able to show my brother Motomiya’s downtown core. That is, the one quaint main drag.

For Christmas lunch, we went out for kaiten sushi in Nihonmatsu. In such restaurants, fresh sushi travels throughout the restaurant on a conveyor belt. I think my family thought it was interesting how you’re expected to order in Japanese restaurants. Basically, you yell “Sumimasen!” (Excuse me!) – and someone will rush over to get your order. I’m still getting used to the idea.

We went to Genki Sushi, which is simply your run-of-the-mill kaiten sushi, but I wanted to show my family where I spend many Tuesday night dinners. (I often go to “gossip sushi” on Tuesday nights with B., B., Hezza and G. It’s a nice time where they like to poke fun at me for not snowboarding. Apparently, I’m lame. Thanks). There was another gaijin (ie. foreigner) who kept smiling broadly in our direction. I wished him a Merry Christmas, since we’re both gaijin and all.

We also explored Koriyama. We ended up eating “shabu shabu” for Christmas dinner at the Big-I shopping centre. It was delicious, as per usual. And once again, we ran into the gaijin who ate by himself in Nihonmatsu. Turns out that he has lived in Japan for almost 10 years, and was originally from New Zealand. I wondered why he ate all by himself?

Dec. 26 – “It’s one of the three most beautiful views in Japan”

We hopped on the shinkansen for Sendai and Matsushima. The former is a city located about 30 minutes away on the shinkansen. It was also my first time there, so I really enjoyed seeing the hustle and bustle of such an urban city.

But we first headed to nearby Matsushima, which is known as “one of the three most beautiful views in Japan.” I forced my family to get on a ferry boat, despite the heavy snows that were pelting down on us.

It was ridiculously cold, but I wanted to see the Matsushima islands that peppered the oceanic landscape. We grabbed a quick lunch while sitting on traditional tatami floors. We then ventured back into the cold, where we walked to the Zuigan-ji. It was cold. That was all.

Dec. 27 – Ernest got his hair did

That day, we got kaiten sushi once again. We went to the restaurant tucked away in Eight Town, which is the convenient shopping complex near my apartment. (The local grocery store is called “Benimaru,” where everybody and their mother go after school. By now, many of my students have seen me roll into the store with my grubby ol’ Roots sweatpants. My bad.)
Anyways, Ernest’s birthday was coming. So, I got him what he wanted – a hair cut in Japan. With lots of gestures and terrible Japanese, I got him an appointment at a trendy hair salon in Koriyama. Mad skillz.

He came out looking pretty happy – phew! So, we got some pretty sweet purikura to commemorate the moment. One of my students was surprised to see my brother and I at the mall.

Dec. 28 – Tokyo-bound: Harajuku, Shibuya

For the first time in my recent memory, Motomiya received its first lasting snow. Clearly, it coincided with my family’s departure. I called for two cabs; we got the two female taxi cab drivers! I’ve never seen that back home.

It’s not really fun dragging your heavy luggage up from train to train, fyi. We finally made it to Tokyo, where we stayed in Ryogoku. It is the sumo area of Tokyo! Since we got there on a Sunday, we first explored Harajuku. That’s when all the Harajuku kids sit on the bridge near the entrance of the Meiji Jingu Shrine.

That night, we checked out tons of shops in Harajuku. RAWDRIP, the Ice Cream Store, SUPREME – we were there. I think that we grabbed some dinner at Pizza Express, the usual pizza join that my friends and I eat lunch when in Harajuku. To cap off the night, we enjoyed some coffee at the Starbucks that overlooks the infamous Shibuya crosswalk.

Dec. 29 – Eating like a sumo wrestler; Asakusa shrine.

As I’ve mentioned before, our hotel was in Ryogoku. There are tons of sumo stables in the area, where wrestlers are expected to eat, sleep, live and practice. My online research suggested that people have watched their early morning practices. I asked our hotel clerk to give them a ring – he refused. I tried calling myself to get an invite, but my Japanese is terrible. “Uh… watashi wa gaikokujin desu” was my opening remark (I am a foreigner.). Dude chatted with me in Japanese. When I asked for permission to watch a morning practice, he used his English skills to say: “No.” Rejected.

Ernest still wanted to eat Mos Burger, but I decided to take advantage of our location. We grabbed some lunch at a quaint little restaurant across the street from the train station. They served us chanko nabe, a stew that is commonly eaten by sumo wrestlers. It was aite. Mmm, let’s enjoy getting fat.

We spent the afternoon checking out the shrine in Asakusa. I was committed to getting my shuin-jo (a book…) stamped at every shrine. I think we ate lunch at Elephant Castle in Harajuku – it’s that Thai place where they play techno/house music

Dec. 30 – YO HO HO! Omedetou tanjobi, ototo! (Happy Birthday, Ernest!)

Ernest turned 21 when we were in Tokyo! Obviously, I set aside loads of time to further explore Harajuku for him – I believe that’s his favorite part of Tokyo. It’s where we found all types of shops. (BAPE, RAWDRIP, the Ice Cream Store, Supreme, etnies, etc.)

But we kicked off the day getting lost in Ueno. That was my first time in the area, and I didn’t understand the station manager’s directions. We stopped for lunch at McD’s, where I ordered my brother a “McPork.” It was McNasty.

We eventually explored some of the shrines and temples in Ueno, and even dropped by the infamous park. We also made our way to Akihabara, the electronics hotspot of Tokyo. No ridiculous purchases – just some blank CDs and new speakers for my laptop. Ernest continued his search for Calpis water, but none of the Akihabara vending machines could tempt his palate.

We made our way to Harajuku, and did more shopping. (Who knew I could get tired of Harajuku?! Ha.)

Birthday boy wanted sushi for dinner. So, we hit up a restaurant in the 109 shopping area of Shibuya. We split a platter of sushi. We saw the chef take a fish out of one the restaurants fish tanks.

We ended the night with some delicious birthday ice cream from Coldstone Creamery. Those ice cream makers always make me smile – they are super genki (enthusiastic), and enjoy singing. We heard them sing their version of the Snow White song: “Yo, ho, ho! It’s off to work we go!” I regret not asking them to sing Happy Birthday for Ernest – he would’ve been ridiculously embarrassed, haha.

Dec. 31 – Kicking off the New Year in Tokyo (TO BE CONTINUED)

Jan. 1 – Jan. 3 – Kyoto and Nara (TO BE CONTINUED)

The Kansai area (Kyoto, Nara) was the last leg of our trip. We checked out: Kinkaku-ji, Ryoan-ji and the Kiyomizudera. And the deer in Nara.


Jan. 4 -- All good things must come to an end (at the Keio Plaza). TO BE CONTINUED