Brian's Japan Adventure

December 15^th, 2007 

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town! 

I wouldn’t exactly call last night a case of Kinderphobia, but it was certainly a close relative. But I set the alarm for 6:15, got up and did “The Hiroshima Run” about 40 minutes earlier than usual. They said get there a half hour early, so I did. Now I know which trains to take (or not to take) that time of morning, so I need never cut it so close again. 

Mr. Kindergarten explained the outline of the party. He literally had an outline written on paper, although it was entirely in Japanese. It all went exactly according to plan and schedule as all things Japanese do.

At 10:20 He showed me to a backstage place where I could put on Santa’s Clothes. I brought my own Santa hat, since it was far nicer than the ones they had. Everyone was impressed with my Santa’s hat. All I can say is Christmas here is kinda weak, so anything the feels like an “authentic Western Christmas” is fun for them.

At 10:30, they turned off the lights and I went up on stage in the dark. They gave me a “cracker” to pull the tab and make a bright flash. Then the lights turned on and I would “magically” be there. I’m not sure who was surprised more, the children or me. I have never seen so many children in one room, much less expecting a performance from me. There must have been 150-200 of them, and many parents with cameras as well.

I then said a few words to the children and Mr. Kindergarten translated. After this, the children asked me questions: How old I am, what’s my favorite color, what’s my favorite food. You know, the usual. (Santa is 140 years old, his favorite color is red, and his favorite food is Christmas Cake; I made all this official today). Then some of the children held up toy animals and asked me which one I liked best, an elephant, pig, or monkey. I picked the elephant because we don’t have those at the North Pole. 

Then it was music time. They told me before the thing started that now I would be singing “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” alone, and they would do backup. Cowards! I picked “We Wish…” because it was short and simple and I wanted to make it easy for them to learn it. f I had known I was doing a solo, I would have picked something more complicated or fun. But yes, I sang it, and then did it again, since they wanted more. Then all the teachers played “Here comes Santa Claus” on their instruments. Since I don’t play anything, they gave me jingle bells to rattle. Lastly, it was time for the “Rudolph Dance” that we all did multiple times last Wednesday.  At this time, the party broke up and the children all went to their classrooms. 

But Santa wasn’t quite done yet.  I picked up a sack full of toys and headed off to the various rooms. This was a full and quite HEAVY sack; I am so glad the bottom didn’t rip out! Each age group got something different, and they were all wrapped, so I don’t know what most of them were. The littlest ones got a bag full of sand toys, with a bucket, shovel, and other assorted things to get dirty with. While I was handing out presents, the parents and teachers took umpteen gigazillion photos of me with the children. Then I really was done, and Mr. Kindergarten led me back to the office where I turned back into Brian-Sensei. Throughout the whole thing, they had been calling me Brian-Santa, so I have to assume the children knew it was really me, but I am not sure about their logic with the whole thing. Maybe because I didn’t speak Japanese they didn’t want to call me the real Santa, but if that’s the case, why the pretense at all? I don’t know, but everybody had a good time. 

Then Mr. Kindergarten asked if I wanted to go to lunch with them all. I said sure, and waited. Since there was no hurry for me to leave, and they weren’t ready yet, they had e ride the little kindergarten bus with the children and wave at them as they got off. Not as Santa, but just as myself. That was cute; they all came back individually to where I was sitting and said, “See you!” and then waved as they got off. Finally the little bus took me back to the school where the others were waiting and ready. 

The woman all rode in their car, and Mr. Kindergarten took me in his. We all met up at a little okonomiaki restaurant at the base of the mountain.  Yes, the Kindergarten is on a mountain too. Pretty much everything outside of downtown Hiroshima is on a mountain.  He explained that the building used to be a samurai’s house about 200 years ago, and most of the wood and sandstone walls were original. Yes, I have pictures. The tables were very low to the floor, and there were no chairs. I thought we’d have to sit on our knees like they do in all the classical art, but no, there were big holes in the floor under the tables to put your legs. The tables only looked old-style. It was as comfortable as any other restaurant seating. 

The metal-topped tables were heated by gas, and they brought out food in bowls that we cooked ourselves right there on the table. I had meat, cabbage, sprouts, and some kind of red vegetable chopped into little strips, as well as raw eggs and spices. I cooked the meat by itself and when it was done, I mixed everything up in a bowl and then poured the mixture onto the table to cook. It’s a lot like a vegetable pancake or maybe omelet. It was fantastic! The okonomiaki I had the other time was full of noodles and mystery meat, but this was all real food, and tasted great. 

Meanwhile, they all had questions for me that they had never had time to ask before. What did I do before coming to Japan, why did I decide to be a teacher after owning a store for so long, and what would I do after this? They all wanted to know whether or not I was married and when I said no, they all wanted to know why. Then they all explained who was single and who wasn’t in the group. It’s too bad we weren’t all able to talk like this in the beginning; things would have been so much more comfortable in the previous months. As it stands, I think Kinderphobia is now a thing of the past forever.

Eventually, it was time to finish up, and Mr. Kindergarten dropped me off at the bus stop, where I took the bus back to the Hiroshima station and then the next train to Okayama. My original plan was to maybe go see Miyajima in the afternoon, but I like the way it worked out just as well, if not better, than just more sightseeing.

Tomorrow is the Rotaru (?) Club anniversary ceremony in Takahashi. It’s going to be an all-day event, and although it may not be awful, it’s not going to be particularly fun either.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 8:32 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.