給食 ("Kyuushoku" - School lunch!)

Loving lunch

When I first arrived in Japan, eating lunch at school made me feel nervous. It wasn’t the food itself, but rather my impending company. At my schools, I’m assigned to eat with a different homeroom each day. Don’t get me wrong – I love my kids! But I was superbly anxious about making small talk whilst gracefully slurping ramen noodles in front of my students.

The lunch lady arranges the beige lunch trays every day, and dishes out the staff’s food in the teachers’ room. She ladles out soup into one bowl, while another is filled with rice. We usually get some medley of vegetables, along with a serving of fish or chicken. You wash down this hearty meal with a glass bottle of cold milk. (I’m still getting used to the milk – it's heavier than the one per cent I drink back home). Selected students don blue aprons and cover their hair with a white cloth. They dish out food for their homeroom.

So, every day I walk into a different classroom and get ushered to a desk. The students usually clump their desks together, so that they eat in lunch groups of six. I usually try to shovel down my food, so that I can ask them some simple questions which they can hopefully answer in English. Do you like natto? When is your birthday? How many brothers do you have? What music do you like? Etc.

These conversations can get monotonous, so my love for kyuushoku has its ups and downs. But this morning, one of my third-years jotted down his poem describing school life… and it made me smile.

Lunchtime

Eating lunch
Happy faces
Time passes quickly
Wonderful

It’s simple. And it's a small reminder that the third-years are going to be parting ways with Nichu a couple months. (Graduation occurs in the spring. In March, I believe). I hollered “Jouzu!” (“You’ve got skills!”) when I corrected it in front of him.

Elementary school kids are even funnier and increasingly talkative at lunch. They’re only learning basic greetings and such in English right now, so our conversations are mostly in simple Japanese. I still can’t speak Japanese, but I am slowly starting to understand simple yes/no questions.

I had lunch with the first-graders yesterday, and they asked typical questions: Do you like sushi? Do you like natto? Are you married? How old are you? 24?!!!!!! Do you like Canada or Japan better? Do you live in Motomiya?!

They are so darling...

On another note, Barack Obama made his inaugural address this morning. The video's not loading properly on my computer, so I've only viewed part of it. It's amazing how his words are felt all over the world. I told some of my junior high school students that it was Obama's first official day on the job... and they grinned while saying, "Obama!! Yes, we can!!"

Hmm... I'll write soon about my travels with the fam. :)