Brian's Japan Adventure

Today we went to the Dayton Peace Museum.  This is situated inside a 19th century house located on Monument Ave. in Dayton. The house was moved to this location in 1977, and their website has pictures of the house being moved along the downtown city streets. Pretty neat!

They had little exhibits with signs & placards with pictures of Nobel Prize winners and displays about various peace efforts and things of that nature. For the most part, the students did not seem very interested, as there was little to actually do there, just lots of stuff to read. Most of the people with signs and pictures were unknown to the students. One of them pointed to a picture of the Dalai Lama and asked who he was. I realize the Dalai Lama is from Tibet, but Buddhism is big in Japan, so I had just assumed they would recognize him.  Several of the students read the display about Martin Luther King Jr. and I think several of them did in fact recognize him, but for the most part, the displays were not of much interest to the students.

Except for one. They had a set of rooms devoted to Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and the students spent the majority of their time studying these displays. One of the students is from Hiroshima and he was able to point out on a huge display of devastated Hiroshima where his house is today. They have rebuilt the entire city over the old one with the exception of one building which is now a memorial. Just for this part of the museum, I’d say the trip was worth it.

Afterwards, we all went to see a movie in an American movie theater, which was something they were all looing forward to doing. We saw Rush Hour 3, with Jackie Chan, and they all seemed to have a good time. I’m not sure that anything surprised them orif they actually learned anything new at the theater, but it was a nice break for them.

After the film, we went back to the university and met up with a group of American students just to talk and eat pizza. Up until this point, the Japanese had really only been exposed to a handful of people associated with the exchange program, and they wanted to talk to “regular” American students. They got their chance tonight, and they really enjoyed it, too. Eventually the building closed and the cleaning crew threw us out, but I bet if they hadn’t we all would have gone on for another hour or two.

Here are some photos from this evening:

And lastly, a picture of the entire group. The photo was taken by the Japanese Advisor, who always insists that it’s his job whenever there is a big group photo to be taken.

Today after class we went to the Underground Railroad museum, also called the Freedom Center.

I’ll be honest; I really thought that the history of slavery in America would bore them half to death, but they really surprised me. At one point in the afternoon one of the girls said it “makes my heart hurt” and another said it made her feel sad. I guess they understood it pretty well after all. They don’t allow flashbulbs inside, so my indoor pictures were somewhat limited. Here’s one that I was able to get that I thought was interesting:

One of the students just didn’t understand it until I explained that slaves were sold in a market “just like a cow or a chicken.” He understood that just fine.

Despite all the hurting hearts, sadness, and depressing mood, they had a great time. So did I. Check this out: I’m not sure, but I think they made me an honorary slave-trader!

Just so nobody thinks I’m a bad guy for associating with slave traders, here I am with Ghandi too. Anyone who poses with Ghandi can’t be bad, right?

The view from the outside balcony is an excellent overlook of the Ohio river and nearby Kentucky. Notice the riverboats:

And here’s the whole gang in front of the best view:

I didn’t go on any of the field trips today; I did something even scarier. I taught in the classroom while the regular classroom teacher went on the field trip.

If you’ve been reading here long, you are familiar with what training I have. I’ve done plenty of classroom presentations and done plenty of lesson plans, but this was my FIRST TIME in a classroom alone and in charge. I was pretty freaked this morning.

You know what?  It went flawlessly!

I used a couple of the lessons I had developed earlier in the summer related to Hollywood movies, and they had no trouble doing them. We talked about movies and our preferences and the differences in theaters between here and Japan. I was concerned about having enough for them to do for two and a half hours, and in fact we did come in about ten minutes short, but it was close enough.

OK, now I can call myself a teacher without any “buts” because now I’ve really actually done it for real.

Today after English class, we all went to the Ohio Caverns, about an hour drive from here. It was something like 70 feet underground at the deepest part, and the tour took about 45 minutes. The students thought it was cool. It was in fact literally very cool; it’s a constant 54 degree year-round down there. They all picked up a few items in the gift shop, which I have to say was the economically priced gift shop I ever remember seeing. They have some really nice things very inexpensively priced. Before we left, we all took a break outside. The caverns are located near the top of a very scenic hill, and they got plenty of pictures of American farms. This was also the first day we have had cool, breezy weather, and everyone just wanted to sit under the trees outside for a while in the American countryside. They thought it was nice, and a few of them even rolled down the hill like much younger children do.

Afterwards, it was Pizza Hut and shopping at The Greene, a new upscale shopping area. It’s a really safe area, so everyone split up and went off on their own, really for about the first time. The girls went off to buy jewelry while the guys spent a small fortune on what I would consider dirty, worn-out pants at American Eagle Outfitters. That’s just my opinion, they seemed to like it an knew the name from home, so they wanted to try it. We finished and returned home around 9pm and called it a night.

This was my morning off. I was able to work a little more on my final Master’s paper, and it’s coming along nicely. I can say I’m finally back on schedule with it.

The plan for the day was the other teacher would take them to the Dayton Blues Fest, then to lunch, and then I would take them to the Dayton German Fest. They got bored with the Blues fest, although they seemed to like the performance in class the other day. I guess it was too much of a strange thing. Anyway, they left the Blues early and went to the German fest without me. That really depressed me because I really, REALLY wanted to get a picture of them doing the “Chicken Dance Polka.” Heh-heh.

When they finished the German Fest, I met up with them and they all decided they wanted to go bowling. They flew 7000 miles to visit here and they wanted to go bowling. That was easy enough to work out, so we all went bowling. The other American English teacher and myself hadn’t bowled in years, the students kicked our butts easily. Out of twelve players, she and I were both in the bottom three scores in both games. They must bowl a LOT over there.

Here’s a picture of “my” team:

Afterwards, we went to one of those hot-wings places. I have to admit it was so loud that I had very hard time understanding what was being said, which was doubly frustrating considering the usual language problems. But as usual, we survived. Here are a few of us waiting to be seated:

And lastly, here’s the whole group. I’m wayyyyy back in the back.

They all had a lot of fun, and it is clear they are starting to relax and get into it a little more. They were all over the place in the restaurant, and everyone had a great time all around tonight.

Tomorrow, more interesting Ohio landmarks. Report to follow!