Life, oh life....

The life of an ALT is one of interest and intrigue, inclusion and exclusion, hopefulness and humility. It’s also a life of pure joy (and I mean that in both an honest way and a sarcastic way).

I walked into school yesterday morning to a greeting from the 2^nd floor (3^rd floor if you’re American or Japanese) window. ‘Layween sensei, gudo mooooningu’. One of the Junior High 3^rd Grade (aka 15 year old) boys has taken to waiting at the window and greeting me from the window every day. It’s really fun and makes my day because at least he is trying to speak to me, even if it is only a couple of words and it makes me feel loved.

Since I took off to Tokyo that weekend I’ve done very little but work and read. I even woke up in the middle of the night the other night randomly, turned on my light, read the last 50 pages of ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’ by Haruki Murakami, then tried to go back to sleep for whatever hour was left of my night. My life has consisted of preparing for Christmas lessons and trying not to think about next year because that’s why I plan to do for the next week while I sit at my desk waiting for the day that Japan will effectively shut down for New Year so that I don’t have to use my precious annual leave.

Even though, that sounds boring, it’s actually been really fun! Haruki Murakami is a really random author but he writes well and by all accounts is just a little on the crazy side. School has been remarkably fun too. My students have been teasing me lots about stuff that only kids would dwell on for ages (I have been linked to at least 3 men lately by my own students and the students of a couple of friends of mine, haha) and one of the 6^th graders at elementary school told me that the inside my handbag looks like a fridge yesterday. Haha, that kid is always funny. But what was he doing looking inside my ‘picnic basket’ (as I call it)?

Another student said to me in the corridor yesterday at elementary ‘Rae sensei, terebi o mitta, kazoku wa “oooo sugugoi Rae sensei!” ’ (Rae sensei, I saw you on TV, my family said ‘wow, it’s Rae sensei’). I love it when they say things like that, it makes me feel like somehow somewhere I am making an impression on them. My junior high kids have been mentioning it too but not directly to me. One of them asked my colleague why I’m always on the TV or in the paper. She of course relayed this to me and I told her to tell them that it’s because I’m so beautiful, hehehehehe.

FYI, recently, us ALTs have been on TV and in the newspaper lots. First there was the International BBQ in Namerikawa, then there was carol singing outside Takaoka Daiwa department store and it appears as though there is a replay occurring of the Manyo Shuu reading in the park on Cable because one girl mentioned it to the aforementioned English teacher.

I feel like the days slip by like a leaf on a river sometimes. Maybe it’s because I am actually really enjoying myself, or maybe it’s because I really appreciate where I am, or maybe it’s because time doesn’t stop for anyone, not even those who wish it would stand still for a second. Whatever the reason, I don’t like the idea that time seems to disappear before my eyes, there’s so much I want to achieve in Japan and I feel like in the last 4 months I’ve barely made a dent.

But I have worked out how to put photos into the blog and I know you appreciate that. ;)

Hontto ni Samui! (Crap it's cold!)

Haro Everybody!

So, this weekend it has snowed, it has rained and it has sunned/been sunny.

I claim this is because I managed to miss my friends' graduations from Medical School and Dental School and the wedding of a friend. All of which was in Dunedin New Zealand this weekend.

However, all is not lost, I sat the 3rd Grade (ie 2nd from the bottom) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test and was finished the grammar section so early I had time to have a 20 minute nap (I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing but we shall see in February when I either get a certificate saying that I know stuff or not).

The snow was big and pretty and fun and a pain in the bum. I loved it but I am kind of glad that it's gone also because it means I don't have to confine myself to my apartment. Not that I actually did confine myself to my apartment.

On Saturday, when I should have been doing ye olde day before cramming, I went to a "Mochi Tsuki" at one of the elementary schools I work at and pounded the stuffing out of some rice. And then got to eat said pounded rice in cake form. I was soooo happy, especially when I got given one that was still hot! :)

So yeah, I am really enjoying myself at the moment but am also sad that I missed stuff back home. Oh well, no regrets right?

I hope all is well with you and that I can make this thing work to add some photos shortly.

Raewyn

Ohisashiburi (Long time no see)!

So, it's been a while since I last updated this thing.
That's because I have been flat out doing stuff.

Japan is quite the busy place. There's so much to do, so many people to see and something going on at every turn if you go looking for it.

In the last 3 months I have gone from not being able to ride a bike to cycling to the station and home again and all around Takaoka. It has been quite the successful exercise of late and it's fun too.

I have also taken part in a world famous in Japan festival where I read a verse or two of an extremely famous anthology of poems, called the Manyo Shuu, 4000 verses long, read in it's entirety over 3 days in Takaoka annually. The other city employed ALTs and the CIR (co-ordinator of international relations) and I got dressed in traditional clothes and read a verse or two of ancient Japanese. It was sooooo much fun.

I ran a couple of laps of a relay marathon recently and felt like I was going to die. It reminded me that I need to go for runs more regularly.

What else have I done? I have been to Nara, climbed Mt Fuji, attended a massive Halloween Party and just generally have been having a blast.

Will write more about stuff later when I don't have work to do. I don't love bringing work home with me but this weekend it had to be done.

I hope all is well with everybody.

Love to all,

Rae

Formidable Mt Fuji

Hey all,

This is the email I just sent my family about my weekend on Mt Fuji.... minus a few expletives. There's no pictures because, well, it'll become clear soon.

Kiaora Whanau!!!

I made it off Fuji san alive!! By the grace of God, Oh my God!!! OMFG Fuji threw her toys, not quite out of the crater but the weather was enough for me be really really really scared.

We had a 7 hour bus ride from Toyama Station (the central meeting point, almost always for Toyama JETs) to Station 5, Mt Fuji, our starting point. Where we waited for a couple of hours to see the sunset... what friggin sunset, there's too much fog!!! "A" (who's done it before) assures us the we will be above the clouds in no time and that it will be clear skies all the way to the top from there. We all believed him because he actually believed himself. For about 2/3 of the way up we could see patches of sky and stars etc and we thought that "A" was right. Until we got to one of the stations further up and the wind picked up and I started getting scared and angry. Basically the weather turned nasty which induced panic attacks because we were climbing at night through fog with wind and my headlight was reflecting off the water, I could only see less than a metre in front of my darn face. But I ended up climbing that stretch with 5 others who totally got me through. They were great!!! I was climbing most of the way with "W" and "A" then we were joined by "R", "M" and "E". After my second panic attack "R"kept saying you're grand pet your absolutely grand we're here don't worry' and "M" and "E" put me between them (despite wanting to climb together because they are married) and kept up with the encouragement and stuff. It was just really fantastic. All 6 of us nearly ended up with hypothermia after we summitted at 0130 and the small shops at the top didn't open until 0330. But we all survived. Then I had another panic attack about going down in the wind and fog. The wind was horizontal the rain was horizontal, I am pretty sure the wind was gale force and I was shit scared dig.

On the way down 14 of us started down together and we all helped each other down. I just wanted to get off that f***ing mountain so when I realised that there was compacted scoria on the edges of the road as opposed to loose scoria in the middle and that I could walk faster there, I hightailed it down to the bottom followed (largely) by "KR" who treated it as a game to keep with my pace (the Aucklander on a mission speed usually accompanied by 'I can smell food get me to the food asap').

18 of us summitted yesterday, 4 didn't make it because they either got too cold or it was too dangerous. We were stupid to do it but once you are past the point of no return you just have to keep going right. We climbed up there with a good couple of thousand Japanese and damn it even if we didn't make it to the top we gave it our all. Fuji freaking beat the poo out of us and I am proud of everyone who at least tried. If you can make it to the top of FujiSan in bad weather (or even make it past Station 7) then you deserve a huge medal!

She's a beast and a half when she's angry and we climbed her in third worst scenario (2nd being snow and 3rd being eruption). Big respect to Mount Fuji and I am never ever underestimating a mountain again!

My legs hurt and my back hurts a little but I think the ice I put on my knees before I went to bed last night has helped them.

Darn it, Japan, you keep giving me amazing experiences!!

Umm I think that's it from me for now. My brain is fried from Fuji and it still thinks I'm on the darn mountain. I went in search of hot coffee this morning only to realise that it was iced coffee that I needed... hehehe. It was bloomin' -12 degrees celcius including wind chill on that mountain yesterday morning so I'm not surprised my brain is still thinking coldness.

I love you all and I am glad to be alive, OMG imagine if I had got hypothermia and died... shit I need to stop thinking about that because I didn't and I survived Fuji in bad weather!

Raewyn

No pictures because not enough were taken, hardly any in fact. I will look through it again and possibly if there's some good ones I will put them up.

Photos!

Above are some photos of Japan and me in Japan and, of course, mini max the monkey. They're of Mt Tate, the third holiest mountain in Japan; the Takaoka Daibutsu and my dear friend Kung Fu Panda.

If you haven't read yesterday's post please do!

Tough Topic...

Dear All,

To fully understand the Japanese psyche you must first understand where they have been historically and the place they want to hold in this world.

As England and the West celebrates VJ Day, Japan has its festival of the dead, Obon. And it's through no fault of their own that Obon falls when it does, it just happened that surrender happened when the spirits of the ancestors were believed to be returning.

I asked the vice principal of one of the elementary schools that I teach at about Obon today because I wanted to hear it from the perspective of someone not from my generation. Talking about it made her cry and in the process made me cry. I wonder, nay, realise that anything connected with World War II touches a nerve here. It's intense, it's difficult but I think it's important for me, as an alien in their world, from a military background, to understand how these people think and the strength of feeling here about that war and indeed about war in general.

On VJ day, we, the west, won everything; they, Japan, lost everything. We won freedom and the chance to live in a world free from contstraints or fears, we gained a sense of infallibility and power. Japan is acutely aware of its fallibility and of it's mistakes, misjudgements, past, whatever you want to call it and its reputation. The people here want to remedy that and restore their reputation in the world. It's a country that wants to forget but can't. We claim to not want to forget but do. It's a strange kind of opposite that I hope I will one day understand.

To my Chinese and Korean friends. You get angry because Japan does not teach the war and its atrocities and stuff that would rather be forgotten in its schools. I think now I see the reasons for it not teaching them. It hurts, it hurts like nothing I can imagine. It brought a grown woman, who is incredibly professional and composed usually, to tears in the staff room. I wouldn't want to teach it either. As we all know too well, I cry like a baby when I think about the reasons for certain events that occurred in said war, right now my essay about the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that I wrote for Pols 308 last year is all too fresh in my mind and the tears I shed writing that thing may come down on my polka dot skirt at anytime, its haunting me big time today!

I feel like God, the universe, fate, whatever you might call it, has a plan for me in this country (being Japan if you didn't already work it out) and it's causing me to feel, really feel, the Western impact on this beautiful place.... and I'm not entirely sure that I like it. The Japanese are such a lovely people and I really hope that certain elements of the Western psyche don't find their way in.

Let us not forget what went on 63 years ago this month. Let's never let it happen again either.
The day we let it happen again is that day that humanity puts itself to shame.

I never want to forget what I learned this morning. I never want to lose hope in humanity and I sure as heck don't want to not learn while I am here.

The day I cease to learn from the people who have gone before me is the day I die.

I pray that these people continue to educate me about themselves and about the world at large.

I hope all are good back home and around the world and that somehow some way something that I've just said sinks in because it's moments like that of this morning that are why I came to Japan in the first place.

Peace, Love and Penguins!
~Rae

My Birthday!

Hi All!!!

I shall have to write more when I get the internet at home or when I have wireless internet at the hotel I am staying at in nara next week. But in the meantime....

I am still in stage 1 culture shock, everything is going well and I love Japan.... euphoria!

Arrived last wednesday into Takaoka and have been going non-stop since. Everyone is wonderful and the town is really nice.

Yesterday was my birthday and in true Raewyn fashion I decided to let a few people know and see what happens.... beer garden.... mentioned its's my birthday... uhoh.... next thing, one of the returning JETs starts off a happy birthday song and about 200 Japanese people get in on the action too... how embarrassing but considering that the chuhai at the beer garden was bad and the food was also bad it might just have made my night, that and the girls deciding that Karaoke was in order.

So yeah, loving Japan and about to go to Kanazawa for the day so better trot off.

Ciao for now!!!