August

For the last month, I’ve been living a life of two extremes, filled with intense planning and socializing on the one hand, and mind-numbing boredom on the other.

Intense…
August was the month of new JET arrivals. As a second-year JET, I was appointed to the role of RPA (Regional Prefectural Advisor) in April. Usually there are only PAs, not special regional ones as well, but since Gifu is such a big prefecture, it’s necessary to have representatives for each of the five regions. There are two of us for each region, so I’m working with another JET to help the new people settle in. So during August, much of my time was taken up with the following tasks, some of which were pretty tanoshii (fun), others which were more of a drag, and kind of scary, to be honest:

-Contacting new JETs at their schools, the week they arrived. This sounded easy enough. Simply dial a number, use super-polite, rehearsed Japanese phrase to inquire as to whether a certain ALT is available, speak to said ALT in English. And it was fairly simple, although I fear that I scared most of the JETs, who were a) not expecting a phone call at work, and b) had no clue who I was. From the first tentative ‘moshi moshi’, or ‘hello?’, I became all-to-aware of the trepidation and bewilderment in their voices. No doubt most of them were somewhat dazed, partly as a result of the fact that only days before, they had been teleported from a five-star hotel in Tokyo to a shack/apartment in the middle of some rice-fields. I tried to explain that I was calling just to “see how things were going”, but still I could sense that most didn’t feel comfortable enough to answer honestly. I’m sure calling them helped at least a little in their adjustment to life in Gifu, though.

-Making a video about Gifu. This appeared to be an overwhelming task, which me and the other RPA avoided doing for quite awhile. The aim was to introduce ourselves and our region via video to the new JETs, some of whom we will probably never meet in person. Eventually, we borrowed a camera on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year (around 40 and humid)… a trek around Gifu city was required, and overall, we did really well considering the conditions! We also ‘voluntold’ my visiting Australian friend to play camerawoman and director. We really didn’t have much of a plan, so we used our improv comedy ‘skills’ to liven up the video. Uh, yes…it was hilarious…?

-Writing a guide about Gifu. Still working on this one… another endeavor to make this place more accessible to the newbies. Maybe once we’re done, I can finally grant the people at Lonely Planet their wish and write that book for them- I’ve been in demand there for a few years now, you know. *sigh*

-Organizing presentations for Orientation: another task we successfully managed to avoid until close to D-Day. Ultimately, the orientation went well, but not without a bit of anxiety. Especially since I hardly feel qualified to tell other people (some of whom are trained teachers) how to teach English to Japanese kids. One cool thing we RPAs got out of orientation was brand spanking new Gifu T-shirts (limited edition, of course). With ぎふ (Gifu) on the back, and a map of it on the shoulder (MY idea!), we were looking pretty snazzy. The best part was, one stroke of the ぎ was drawn as an ayu fish, and the ふ was made to look like a cormorant. You really have to be Japanese or a Gifu JET to get the reference- but cormorant fishing (ukai) is Gifu’s claim to fame. Check it out:




-Organizing welcome events. One of the more fun jobs. Lots of meet-and-greets, bringing out the ‘social butterfly’ in me… actually, probably more like a ‘social caterpillar’. It was exciting to meet some fresh faces for a change. Plenty of drinking and eating and sweating under the hot summer sun (during the walking tour of Gifu, conveniently conducted on the other hottest day of the year).

In between being a busy little RPA and dealing with the summer heat, I also squeezed in a quick getaway to the US to visit my Grandma. My August schedule was so full that I had to book my trip for the day after the orientation. Once I arrived, it was so much the complete opposite of everything I’d experienced for the past month and year that I was a little dazed. Not only was I in the US - radically different from Japan in every way - but I had nothing I had to do… except bond with Grandma. I have to admit I spend many quality hours in front of the TV, absorbing all the English I could and rejoicing in being able to understand everything! Unfortunately, my trip was so short (6 days) that I didn’t get a chance to venture into Chicago or enjoy much of the outside world, except a couple of restaurants and the optometrist’s clinic. But no matter; in many ways, the trip recharged me for my next 11 months in Japan. In other ways though, it made me a little more fed up with some aspects of living here that I will explain in the next post.

Mind-numbing…
So as a foil to my RPA persona, my alter-ego was bored ALT. It was the usual scenario, which I don’t believe I’ve described here before. Probably because it’s so boring, even writing about it is boring. Basically, in Japan, teachers have no official holiday periods. Well, aside from a week in August (Obon-week) when many Japanese return to their hometowns to pay homage to their ancestors and dance in a circle- yes, really. But there are no school holidays for teachers, not in the way there are in Western countries. The situation is confusing, and I’m no expert, because no one has ever explained it properly to me, but many teachers have to be at their desks all summer in case a student comes with questions about their school work. Yes. In summer. Summer ‘break’ is only about a month here anyway, and for the first part of the break there are ‘supplementary classes’. (Don’t ask me, I don’t know why they’re necessary either.) A LOT of students continue to come to school, in their uniform, all through summer. They come to prepare for the school culture and sports festivals, which are held during the second week back. Their dedication is unbelievable, but to me, as much sad as admirable. In my first classes back with students I ask them, ‘Did you enjoy summer vacation?’. To which they invariably reply, ‘No.’ Why? Because they spent every day either at school, studying, in sports training, or traveling to some obscure part of the country to participate in a compulsory sports match. In Japan, the emphasis on just doing what you’re supposed to do is reflected in the fact that there is no phrase (that I’m aware of anyway) equivalent to ‘Have fun!’. Only がんばって (Gambatte), which roughly means ‘try your best’. But, some students managed to go to Disneyland – the height of adolescent pleasure in Japan. And a few went on a study trip to Australia. How could anyone not enjoy Australia??

Needless to say, I got a lot of my planning and RPA work done at school each day. Along with a whole lot of web-surfing, emailing, reading, and some Japanese study. My other free moments were filled with staring across the empty staffroom, gazing wistfully out the window, and marveling at the tasks my colleagues had managed to accomplish during a summer spent at their desks. Like making a model ship out of paper. Or cutting their toe nails. (Seriously.)

And now, to demonstrate a typical summer’s day in the staffroom, here’s snippet of a blog entry I wrote a few weeks ago, but never finished, since 35 degrees doesn’t lend itself to being thoughtful- or coherent for that matter…

It’s so hot I can’t think properly. And I’m at work. What about air conditioning, you say? Well, it seems our school or our prefecture is close to bankruptcy, because even though it is over 30 degrees in the staff room right now, the air conditioning is off. I am baffled as to why it is sometimes on and sometimes off. There seems to be no rhyme or reason regarding the on/off schedule. At first, I was told it had to be over 28 degrees in the staffroom, and after the date of July 1, for the air conditioning to be on. But now, those two requirements have been filled. And yet I am sweating like a pig.

This is summer in Japan. Occasionally, a bug or two enters the staffroom. Sometimes it’s a wasp, sometimes a mosquito, sometimes a fly, sometimes a bumblebee. Heck, we’ve even had a bird. Other times, I am so cold from the air conditioning blasting right at me (due to my unfortunate seating position) that I need to put on a sweater even though it’s 30 degrees outside. But mostly, I’m just hot. And my mind is fuzzy.

Token 'deep' post

It has hit me recently that I really need to be aware of not falling into a kind of ‘rut’ here in Japan . I'm only here for a short time- initially I thought one year, but now that has been lengthened to two, because the more I see the more I feel the need to see. By ‘rut’ I mean taking things for granted, and feeling like you’re going through the same routine week after week. It might seem like it would be hard to fall into a monotonous routine being on the JET Programme, being challenged every day in a foreign culture, traveling all over the country on weekends… and yes, it is an exciting life in many respects. In fact, up until now (and certainly before I arrived in Japan ) I myself thought that my life for the next year would be a whirlwind of anxiety, excitement and exhilaration. But even traveling can get to be a bit of ‘same old, same old’. I guess it’s human nature. We adapt to anything. The alien becomes foreign, the foreign becomes normal, and eventually, some of the normal becomes boring. The thing is, as much as I enjoy my weekend trips to places like Nara , Tokyo , Kyoto , Hida, Hiroshima etc., and as much as I look forward to the next Japanese seasonal matsuri (festival), since the beginning of this year, I’ve become aware that some of the ‘spark’ has gone from these otherwise strong feelings of enjoyment.

I know it’s a result of just getting used to how things are here- even, or especially, the little details. Now each experience here is tinged with a little bit of sadness/regret that nothing will ever be completely novel or surprising to me here from now on, at least not in the way that it was a few months ago. I guess it can be compared to growing up, becoming an ‘adult’ and losing that childhood innocence people are always talking about. I don’t think I can ever look upon anything in Japan- from the temples to the landscapes, to the people, to the kids, to the food, to the crazy fashions - again the same way I did when I first arrived here.
Ah, that’s life, and I think the Japanese have it right with their concept of wabi-sabi.

Then again, maybe instead of looking at all this like I’ve reached the end of some kind of journey of discovery, I should realize that I’m moving into a different phase of appreciating Japan… maybe less focused on the superficial.

Maiden Blog Voyage

So, the first blog entry for my living/working/travelling in Japan experience. Where to start? I'm sitting in my tatami room with the laptop on (where else), my lap, having finally mustered up the courage to write about the not-so-momentous accumulation of events that is my life in Gifu, Japan. I guess I've avoided starting because I've felt like I needed something outrageous to happen before I could justify broadcasting it on the internet. But, having been here for over a month, I think I see a pattern emerging. And it's safe to say there that just like my life in Australia, there won't be many dramas to report. But my friends here (fellow JETs, ie. people on the JET Programme), they're another story. Just a sample:

-One JET jumped off a bridge into the river and did not execute the water-entry properly, fracturing his collar bone and bruising his kidneys (according to the japanese doctors);

-Another was involved in a small car accident in which paint was scraped off her car, after which she spent hours at the police station and hours more being berated by her supervisors for bringing shame upon herself, the school, all teachers, all JETs, all fellow Canadians, the prefecture, her students, the principal, the Board of Education, and probably the local monkey population too;

-Another is taking 3 kinds of medication, following the appearance of mysterious insect bites all over her body, ongoing digestion problems, and the swelling up of her lip to 4 times the size, which occured spontaneously at 4am one morning; -Yet another has returned home after only 1 month... apparently the JET Programme wasn't for her... a conclusion she conveniently reached immediately after the conclusion of all the new JET welcome events, parties and organized tours.

Anyway, I guess I can thank my lucky stars none of these calamities have befallen me. Still, maybe a minor disaster would be preferable to the rather predictable routine I have fallen into. An example of my day:Alarm goes off at 7:30; snooze til 7:40. Eat cereal from miniature box of 'genmai flakes' (I dont know what genmai is). Select work outfit from the 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants I currently own. Get dressed. Pack bag with 5 English textbooks I meant to use for lesson-planning last night. Leave apartment; get on bike. Ride bike one of two routes to school: down the main street, where I'm stared at by the driver of every single passing car, or through the rice paddies, where I invariably take the wrong route and end up entering the driveway of a factory. Arrive at school 8:20. Pass soccer players changing shirts; get stared down. Park bike, walk to shoe sheds to change from 'outdoor' to 'indoor' shoes. Walk 20 meters on filthy concrete in 'indoor' shoes to get to school entrance. Enter school; greet fellow teachers chirpily. Enter staffroom; feel guilty for not bowing low enough to vice principal. Reach desk; greet different teachers. Put bag down, sit there fanning myself for 5 minutes because air conditioner has not been turned on- again. Wait for teachers' meeting to begin... will it? won't it? (it seems to occur on randomly chosen days and at 8:25 precisely). Sit, pretending to look interested even though everyone knows I can't understand what they're saying.I think that's enough of a taste for now. Next entry I'll lift the veil on the events of 9am to 4pm.

P.S. Don't think I'm not enjoying my time here; I AM. I'm just trying to demonstrate that my life here is not one big backpacking trip, but has the potential to be just as monotonous as life anywhere else... except at least it's an INTERESTING monotony!