Only in Japan

On Friday afternoon, I decided to hang out with the computer club members. They were in 3-1's classroom, busy drawing storyboards for their animated pics. They hope to design on a computer some day. For now, they are sharing one laptop because our makeshift school doesn't have a computer room.

Anyways, I ended up having a good talk with M-sensei, who runs the club. He's one of the friendlier faces in the staff room. He doesn't mind speaking Japanese and broken English with me, so that we can have some decent conversation. On Friday, he went around the computer club and told me the meaning behind each kid's name. He also told me R-kun has been dubbed "Fantastic Boy," because he manages to be late for school every morning. Fantastic. I told him my last name means something like "new town" in Spanish. Oh, internationalization.

I'll always remember M-sensei, because he was one of the first teachers to introduce himself to me in the staff room almost three years ago. He spewed random words he associates with Canada, such as: white bear, Anne of Green Gables and maple syrup. (He told me he loves maple syrup, so he only gives his kids a little bit when they have pancakes at home.)

Friday's chat with M-sensei included comparing and contrasting Canadian and Japanese culture. I told him I was really surprised about the differences between school life in Canada and Japan. I could write reams and reams of paper on this topic, but I'll just jot down a few notes for now:

School Life
Some differences I've seen:
- Kids in Japan have to wear uniforms. They basically wear them every day, even on the weekends and when they're out doing errands with their parents after school. I've only seen them in their civvies at rare opportunities like shopping on the weekends or the town festivals. They do wear them with pride, but I do wonder how many school tees they own.
- School lunch is delivered every day. Everyone eats the same meal. In elementary school, you are expected to eat everything.
- They don't sing the Japanese anthem in the mornings.
- When you ask a student to answer a question in class, it's OK to give them a moment to discuss the answer with their peers.
- Club activities are extremely important.
- All of the kids bike or walk to school. We don't get any yellow school buses!
- In general, the kids are pretty obedient. In my school, at least, you won't see a kid talk back to a teacher.
- It's OK to sleep during lessons.
- Indoor and outdoor shoes are required
- Kids are responsible for cleaning the school, including the toilets. Dang. When I help, I usually just grab a broom and sweep a classroom.
- School hours are vastly different. My kids spend most of their day at school, and even show up on weekends/holidays. It's a place where they can easily meet up with friends. We don't have nearby luxuries like the mall or movie theaters.
- Teachers work overtime, and will even report to school on weekends to run practices.
- At my school, the teachers will drive around neighbourhoods and creep on their homeroom students' homes. They want to make sure everything is on point. Sometimes, they have difficulty finding the homes, because addresses here are sometimes unclear.

Some similarities I've seen in Japanese and Canadian school environments
- Recess and P.E. are perennial favourites
- The peers in your homeroom are probably destined to become your best friends
- Passing notes in class is a popular pass time.
- There is still a divide between girls and boys
- There are cliques (in the staff room and in the classrooms)
- It's a treat to watch a movie in class. (It was funny to watch my kids watching the E.T. movie. They kept yelling "Kimoiiiiii...." ("Ugly!!!!") whenever E.T. popped up on screen.)
- If you act up in class, the teacher will ream you out.
- The principal appears to have a pretty sweet job. (Last week, he tried to join in a dodgeball game with the boys during lunch recess).
- School pride is a given.
- The most popular kids are the ones with cool haircuts.
- etc.

More observations on the uniqueness of Japan:
- Central heating is considered a luxury. Everyone lives in houses or apartments with thin walls lacking insulation. Using a kerosene heater indoors is the most common method to heat up your home during those chilly winter days. In Fuku, it is absolutely miserable from December to March when you're indoors. But you learn to deal, by running up your heating bills and staying warm with umeshu.

-Alcohol is readily available on the shelves of local convenience stores, grocery stores and some vending machines. 

- Most countryside kids help out on the farm. Te-chan, who happens to be one of my favourite students, was telling me about his family's two rice fields near the school. I also saw his family weeding our neighbourhood over the summer.

- During domestic flights, people use overhead bins on planes to stock their tell-tale paper bags of omiyage (R-chan and I had a chuckle over this when we were flying back from Fukuoka).

- Omiyage is the social lubricant that holds people together. Souvenirs, preferably individually-wrapped food, is distributed to colleagues after a trip that has taken you out of the office. The tradition gets expensive, but I don't mind doing it because it's been an ice breaker with my teachers. I think I was most touched when my JTE said that his daughter sleeps with the polar bear stuffed toy that I gave her last year. She calls him "Marron" (Japanese word for "Chestnut"), since his dark brown noise bears a striking ressemblance to the nut. I also can't forget how A-sensei remembered a year later that I handed out flavoured seaweed after my trip to Seoul. (That's right, people like seaweed as a snack.)

- Upon graduation from junior high school, most of my students cannot string together a proper sentence in English. Sure, they have English lessons starting in their first year at JHS. But the education system is so flawed, they don't learn any real communicative skills. Bless their little hearts, though.

- Students bring in their parents' empties for the school's recycling program.

- Drinks at izakayas and karaoke keep flowing.

- The mama-san (lady who owns a snack bar) prepared a banner, birthday cake and presents for my 26th birthday bash. I was never friends with bar owners before...

- It is highly suggested that I wear a surgical mask around illin' elementary school kids. People often wear them when they are coming down with a cold or flu. My JHS students also wear them to mask unsightly blemishes or to avoid being called upon during lessons.

- it's not strange to sing old classics from the Backstreet Boys with your students' mother. (It happened last year. She approached me at the see-saw, and started running through various BSB hits. Cutest thing ever.)