Brian’s Japan Adventure

October 30, 2007 

Takahashi Today 

I got up way before I should have this morning and had a lot of time to kill before leaving for class.  I skimmed through one of the books I brought with me, Japanese Step-by-Step, and have come to the conclusion that it’s no so good.  The author is completely infatuated with the “system” he has designed, talking all about V3 verbs, V2 verbs, flow charts, and so forth, and it’s all completely unique to that author. It has a lot of vocabulary words in it that I can memorize, but as far as learning grammar and usage, just forget it. 

Eventually it was time to leave. I shifted my schedule a half-hour early just like I described last week. I don’t have anything else to do in the morning anyway, so why not make the long walk up the mountain easier by arriving early?  I arrived early as planned, made some copies of certain pages of the Business English book that one of the students loaned me, since I figure I can explain the vocabulary listed in that book and keep everyone happy. 

The second class had asked last week to learn about Halloween, so I was prepared for that, too.  I took a plastic mask that was on our bookshelf, a candle that had pictures of jack-o-lanterns, spiders and bats on it, and a squishy rubber skull that when you squeeze it, the eye pops out and messy blood drips in the eyeball. Ha!  I also made up a list of twenty or so “Halloween Vocabulary” words that was ready to go. 

When they arrived, they immediately noticed the “toys” and I had to demonstrate. One of the Cambodian girls screamed at first sight of the bloody skull and then had to carry it around the study center showing it to everyone in the place. That was interesting.  We worked through the list of words, and it seems that pretty much every culture has a word for ghost, ghoul, and vampire. Werewolves, however, were new to all of them.  The word I had the hardest time explaining believe it or not, was “witches.”  We talked about spells and magic, and they just didn’t quite get it until I mentioned Harry Potter, and then the discussion was over since they all knew about that. 

We then got on to real work, including the business English, we finished reading about the volcano Vesuvius from last week, and one or two other items.  When we finished all the serious stuff, we talked about our weekends, and one of the Cambodians mentioned that she went to the Hiroshima Peace Park this past weekend, and I told her that I had been there twice now.  Then she asked me “Why did that war start?” Twenty-five minutes of very careful explanation later, the class was over and everyone left happy.  There aren’t actually any Japanese students in the class, so I didn’t have to whitewash things too much.

Then the second class started. Or at least the bell rang. Nobody came. Uh-oh.  I only have two students in this class on a good day. Week before last, one of them skipped, and last week the other skipped. This week they both skipped. I like a day off as much as anyone, but this probably doesn’t look good for me. If I was keeping them interested, they would be showing up right?  I waited about twenty minutes and then told my “keeper” there about the situation, and she said to go on home.  I wonder what will come of it next week if anything? 

And speaking of my keeper, she also told me about the party that Marc hinted at.  It really actually is for the Rotary Club. It’s way off though; December 16^th. The 16^th falls on a Sunday too, and Takahashi is an hour’s ride each way IF you catch the trains at the right time.  She also added that there would be a student party afterwards as well. Oh joy.  Maybe I can arrange to have something else to do that day?

A Town about Nothing
 
Since I was able to leave over an hour early, I wandered around Takahashi a little bit, and I have come to the conclusion that there really isn’t anything worthwhile in that town, not even shopping. There are a lot of historical places situation on the periphery of town, but nothing of any interest at all in town. Bo-ring! 

Then I caught the 4:09 train back to Okayama, and at just about exactly 5:00 I got off that train and switched to the 5:27 train to Hokaiin, which dropped me off at the little station around 5:31. Yup; just about an hour and a half. Sigh. I picked up the “sampler plate” from the carryout, the same thing I had last time, and rode my bike home.  I ate it in front of the TV, but all that was on was the news and an anime that makes no sense to me.  I then flipped through the same Japanese book from this morning just to see if my opinion had changed on it. It didn’t. Next up was blog time, and here I am now, at 7:40. 

I guess the next thing will be to get in some more of reading “The Best Buddhist Writings” which I expect to finish probably Friday or Saturday. My book pile is getting short again; maybe I’ll have to get something from the library soon. Why not, it’s not like I don’t get there every week anyway. 

Suck-Up or Just Smart?

Tomorrow of course, is a little unusual for a Wednesday. The two afternoon adult classes are cancelled because the community center is closed. That means I go to the kindergarten only, and then my day is free.  I have a couple of options. I can come home when the kindergarten classes are done and have a half a day off. I can go downtown to Hiroshima and sightsee or something. Or for a third option, I have come up with something a little bit insane. I had Mrs. Y translate a note from me to Mr. Principal, explaining that I had the afternoon off and that if he wants, I could help out around there.  I figure there are two possible outcomes; first, he gives me a “No, but thanks for your offer” which at least will give me goodwill points with him. The second possibility is that he actually comes up with something for me to do, which gets me the same goodwill points, plus I might even learn something from the work. The only thing I have to lose is maybe some sightseeing time. Win-Win.  This is the plan unless some reason not to do it presents itself.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Japan, Teaching, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.