I learned something important last week. Although it is tempting to buy cute notebooks to use: DON’T do it. Most likely you will end up with the same notebooks the students turn into the teachers for homework. They will probably have shopped at the same dollar store as you. Also important, DON’T leave your cute notebook on the desk when other notebooks are being graded. Most likely, your notebook will end up in the pile of student notebooks and be distributed to a class. Which, unfortunately, is exactly what happened to me. My Japanese practice notebook with crazy looking kids on it happened to look exactly like one of my student’s notebooks, and because I left it on my desk it got swept up in the frantic grading and redistribution of notebooks. So, everyone got to see exactly what phrases I was writing down in my notebook.
Here is what happened:
I was sitting at my desk minding my own business, when my teacher turns to me and says, “Oh, Adriene what does your notebook look like?” She wasn’t wondering what my notebook looked like, by the way, she knew and was introducing the story to follow.
Me: “Well, sensei my notebook looks like the student’s notebooks and has children with party hats on it.”
Sensei: “Oh, really, I think that your notebook got mixed up in the students notebooks.”
Me: “What? Really, but my notebook has been here on my desk the whole time.”
Sensei: “Well, your notebook got mixed up in the second year notebooks last week….”
Me: “Oh?”
Sensei: “And the second year teacher kept trying to figure out which student’s notebook it was. He kept asking, ‘Is this yours, is this yours?’ So he finally opened up the notebook to read what was inside….”
Oh, no heart pounding at this point trying to remember exactly what I had written. WHAT HAD I WRITTEN???
Sensei: “The sentences were very strange and he realized it was your notebook. And you wrote some things that I have never heard in Japanese.”
OH NO!
Sensei: “I was very surprised by the phrases. You wrote, ‘Sensei ga unko wo fumu.’”
Dang it! Now I have to turn my example, “The teacher steps in poop,” into a positive. How to do this, and highlight a difference between ‘fumu’ (to step on/in) in English in Japanese?
Me: “Hahahaha. I am so sorry, but can remember grammar better when it is strange or funny.”
Sensei: “I have never heard that said phrase in Japanese before. This is the first time. And when the second year teacher saw it he laughed a lot, and then he shared it with all of us in the staff room and we all laughed. No one had heard this before.” (she laughed, don’t worry she thought this was hilarious)
Grrrreat. ONE WEEK AGO! ONE WEEK AGO the entire staff room laughed about my ridiculous examples in the notebook and then silently put the notebook back on my desk like nothing had happened. Then waited to tell me the story!
Me: “I am sure that they haven’t! I chose the strange example to remember the grammar for ‘fumu’. In English, you step ‘in’ soft or mushy things but step ‘on’ hard things. So in English we say ‘Step in poop,’ but Japanese always is ‘wo’ not ‘ni’. If I use a funny phrase like, ‘Sensei ga unko wo fumu,’ is easy to remember.”
And the conversation went on for a while. But, oh-my-goodness gracious was I embarrassed! So, I learned not to write things you might be embarrassed about people reading, write your name on your notebook in extremely big letters (my wasn’t on my notebook), DON’T buy a notebook a student has, and most of all DON’T leave your notebook on your desk. I still can’t believe that they put it on my desk and didn’t tell me about it! And when I confronted the second year teacher who had read my notebook to the staff room, he denied it at first. Then, after he saw I thought it was funny he suddenly remembered that he had read, “The teacher steps in poo.”
*Okay, so addendum to the story. Apparently it was read aloud to the kids too. I wasn’t told this but when I went to lunch today a kid taunted me!!!! He kept saying, “Unko, unko, unko.” Meaning “poop, poop, poop.” Great. Just great. Now the second years (the loudest and most misbehaved year) will say poop to me. Granted, the kid who taunted me is a part of the table tennis team (ping pong), and those kids tend to be at the bottom of the social ladder so I doubt he will ignite a “poop” greeting among the second years. If it is him alone, I think I will be able to handle it.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
My best friend
Winter puts everything on hold. I felt like I couldn’t even wash a dish without tremendous effort, or maybe I didn’t think it was worth climbing out from under my kotatsu. So, you ask, what exactly is a kotatsu? It is a heated table. A heated table (coffee table size) that allows you to remove the top panel lay down a blanket, to prevent heat escaping, put the top panel back, and voila! You have a heated excuse for not getting up to do any chores around the house. Laundry, forget it! Dust, I can live with a little. No groceries, do I really need to eat? Garden, weeds make things more green and naturalistic. So with my house reaching subzero temperatures (no heating, no insulation) my kotatsu was my best friend. Subzero temperatures (no heating, no insulation) forced me to fabricate a more intimate relationship with my kotatsu. My kotatsu was my best friend. Shivering and miserable from relentless cold in the teachers room, classrooms with open windows, outside, in my house, in the gym, everywhere, the kotatsu welcomed me every day with a warm and comforting embrace. An offering of relief. My toes began to have feeling, then my legs, and finally my fingers. And with every visible steamy breath I exhaled, my dependence on my kotatsu grew so strong I would abstain from sleeping in my bed where my toes were forever frozen. Finally, I cheated on my kotatsu. I gave in and bought an electric blanket.
In the end, metaphorically creating friends from heating devices I admit sounds a bit farfetched. So I have to apologize. But, IT GETS SO COLD HERE. I think it is being on an island that makes it this way. We get lots of wind and lots of exposure to the elements. A drafty day in Nagasaki means that we are getting hit with forceful winds that rattle the windows and fling my scooter around like a play thing. I wish I were exaggerating about the cold. Really I do. And if you were to compare the data (temperatures, humidity, and wind speed) it might even look warmer than some cold places in America. But there is a key difference. American houses and buildings use central heat and the houses are often insulated preventing inside temperatures from being the same as the outside. Japanese houses and schools (from what I have experienced) do not use central heating and generally do not have insulation. Furthermore, schools tend to open windows in the dead of winter (ironically for the children’s health, because lowering immunity help prevent colds?) which forces everyone to wear several layers a thick winter jacket. Funny enough, people then will talk about how cold it is. “Samu ne?” “Hai, Samui desu yo” “It’s cold right?” “Yeah, it’s definitely cold”. Okay, stop talking and do something about it! And it took the official start of winter to put gas heaters in the staff rooms. God forbid that any heaters are used before the official start of winter even if the temperature dances around freezing.
Spring is just around the corner, and I cannot wait! Spring will be short lived for sure, I mean, there wasn’t really a “fall” to speak of. “Fall” was a weekend. Literally, just a weekend (and, unfortunately I was in America for this) where the leaves turned golden and only light sweaters had to be worn. Then, winter. Cold, harsh, relentless, horrible, debilitating winter set in. So, I hope, spring doesn’t repeat the same pattern. I want a warm temperate spring that transitions into summer. I do not want a sharp jump up to extreme humidity and scorching temperatures. But, I do welcome hot because it means that I can start going to the beach again.
Recently I have been keen on exploring Arikawa (my home town) a little more, and have found some really cool things. But, first a side note about living in Arikawa. I joined a volleyball group that meets once a week, and the women are very cheerful and like to laugh a lot. Sometimes, the laughing ends up being about me. For example, someone asked me, “Doko no hito?” Which means roughly, “Where do you come from?” And I took it to mean “where did you come from.” And I made a big mistake in responding with, “Arikawa.”Everyone erupted in laughter immediately. I thought they meant here in Japan where do you live. But, since I am foreign the implied message was “what are you origins/ original place of birth?” It is so funny because there is no way I could have come from Arikawa. I have to admit I was a bit offended because I didn’t really answer the question incorrectly, but I missed a key implied note. Implicitly (and very obviously too) I am not Japanese, so I have to answer, “America.” It is outrageous to imagine that I could have come from Arikawa. Anyways, I expect things like this to happen, but I don’t usually join in on the laughter. I don’t because I want them to see that they should treat me like they would treat anyone else. I am not a play thing to be laughed at, poked at, prodded at, or played with. Contrary to some Japanese people’s beliefs, I am real, not so different in feelings (they think we like everything black and white) and I am not always happy. The other day a woman running the Aokata pool asked me the standard question, “Have you gotten used to Japanese culture?” The answer I give to most people is, “Yes.” But, in the case of this lady who was actually curious as to my acclimation, I told her that although I am used to the culture, I am not used to how people treat me sometimes. I feel like it is easy to prepare for extremes. You go in expecting crazy differences, and so the strangeness of some foods, art, dance, social customs (arenas that usually define a culture) isn’t a shock. But what you can’t prepare yourself for how people react to you. Sometimes it is “GOOD MORNING!” followed by a laugh, sometimes it is long stares and no response after you greet them in Japanese, sometimes it is blatantly saying in front of you, “Oh she doesn’t understand” when I do, but most of all it is being ostracized because they don’t see me as real and they think that because I am happy all the time they don’t need to reach out. And that is what I told this lady. It is easy to get used to “cultural” oddities, but not being included, forgotten, or treated like a subhuman plaything makes it difficult. Just once in a while I share my honest feelings about how I feel. Because no one has anything better to do on this island, I am relying on the power of gossip (if they run into me, I am sure they talk) to spread my feelings. Not everyone will understand, some people might not care, but I feel like I am here to expand people’s minds and foster cultural acceptance. If I didn’t say anything, I don’t think I would be doing my job.
In the end, metaphorically creating friends from heating devices I admit sounds a bit farfetched. So I have to apologize. But, IT GETS SO COLD HERE. I think it is being on an island that makes it this way. We get lots of wind and lots of exposure to the elements. A drafty day in Nagasaki means that we are getting hit with forceful winds that rattle the windows and fling my scooter around like a play thing. I wish I were exaggerating about the cold. Really I do. And if you were to compare the data (temperatures, humidity, and wind speed) it might even look warmer than some cold places in America. But there is a key difference. American houses and buildings use central heat and the houses are often insulated preventing inside temperatures from being the same as the outside. Japanese houses and schools (from what I have experienced) do not use central heating and generally do not have insulation. Furthermore, schools tend to open windows in the dead of winter (ironically for the children’s health, because lowering immunity help prevent colds?) which forces everyone to wear several layers a thick winter jacket. Funny enough, people then will talk about how cold it is. “Samu ne?” “Hai, Samui desu yo” “It’s cold right?” “Yeah, it’s definitely cold”. Okay, stop talking and do something about it! And it took the official start of winter to put gas heaters in the staff rooms. God forbid that any heaters are used before the official start of winter even if the temperature dances around freezing.
Spring is just around the corner, and I cannot wait! Spring will be short lived for sure, I mean, there wasn’t really a “fall” to speak of. “Fall” was a weekend. Literally, just a weekend (and, unfortunately I was in America for this) where the leaves turned golden and only light sweaters had to be worn. Then, winter. Cold, harsh, relentless, horrible, debilitating winter set in. So, I hope, spring doesn’t repeat the same pattern. I want a warm temperate spring that transitions into summer. I do not want a sharp jump up to extreme humidity and scorching temperatures. But, I do welcome hot because it means that I can start going to the beach again.
Recently I have been keen on exploring Arikawa (my home town) a little more, and have found some really cool things. But, first a side note about living in Arikawa. I joined a volleyball group that meets once a week, and the women are very cheerful and like to laugh a lot. Sometimes, the laughing ends up being about me. For example, someone asked me, “Doko no hito?” Which means roughly, “Where do you come from?” And I took it to mean “where did you come from.” And I made a big mistake in responding with, “Arikawa.”Everyone erupted in laughter immediately. I thought they meant here in Japan where do you live. But, since I am foreign the implied message was “what are you origins/ original place of birth?” It is so funny because there is no way I could have come from Arikawa. I have to admit I was a bit offended because I didn’t really answer the question incorrectly, but I missed a key implied note. Implicitly (and very obviously too) I am not Japanese, so I have to answer, “America.” It is outrageous to imagine that I could have come from Arikawa. Anyways, I expect things like this to happen, but I don’t usually join in on the laughter. I don’t because I want them to see that they should treat me like they would treat anyone else. I am not a play thing to be laughed at, poked at, prodded at, or played with. Contrary to some Japanese people’s beliefs, I am real, not so different in feelings (they think we like everything black and white) and I am not always happy. The other day a woman running the Aokata pool asked me the standard question, “Have you gotten used to Japanese culture?” The answer I give to most people is, “Yes.” But, in the case of this lady who was actually curious as to my acclimation, I told her that although I am used to the culture, I am not used to how people treat me sometimes. I feel like it is easy to prepare for extremes. You go in expecting crazy differences, and so the strangeness of some foods, art, dance, social customs (arenas that usually define a culture) isn’t a shock. But what you can’t prepare yourself for how people react to you. Sometimes it is “GOOD MORNING!” followed by a laugh, sometimes it is long stares and no response after you greet them in Japanese, sometimes it is blatantly saying in front of you, “Oh she doesn’t understand” when I do, but most of all it is being ostracized because they don’t see me as real and they think that because I am happy all the time they don’t need to reach out. And that is what I told this lady. It is easy to get used to “cultural” oddities, but not being included, forgotten, or treated like a subhuman plaything makes it difficult. Just once in a while I share my honest feelings about how I feel. Because no one has anything better to do on this island, I am relying on the power of gossip (if they run into me, I am sure they talk) to spread my feelings. Not everyone will understand, some people might not care, but I feel like I am here to expand people’s minds and foster cultural acceptance. If I didn’t say anything, I don’t think I would be doing my job.
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