The Dentist in Japan

Japan is far enough away from the world that we Westerners know that everything is an experience out of the norm. So on Friday I had my first trip to the Japanese dentist.

First off I noticed that there were inside shoes in a shelf. Japanese tradition is that you don’t wear your outside shoes any further than the genkan (entrance- usually one step up). But that is traditional and not practical in a world where you have people coming and going in stores and train stations and the like. So some places don’t observe it. Now I noticed it, and thought “Damn, I wore my outside shoes inside when I came to make the appointment.” They must have thought I was barbaric or maybe they chalked it up to being gaijin (foreigner).

I had to go to the bathroom. Now the dentist down the hill from me has two doors, an outer and an inner door, and the bathroom is just inside the genkan, between the two doors. So I go in, only to discover it’s a squatter. I’ve been in Japan long enough that squatters are no longer reason for a deep sigh and waiting til I get home. This particular squatter was a step-up one. I have never figured out if you’re supposed to back these and squat, step up and squat, or kneel. Stupse.

Anyhow, I went in to the receptionist and gave her my details ad my insurance card. Thank God for Japanese National Insurance- which covers ALL government employees for 70% of anything, officially making my root canal way cheaper here. We spent a while debating which was my last name and first name. Yes, I should know the difference, but it’s confusing here. Because Japanese use their last names pretty much all the time and I end up getting called Ms. Claire.

So a lady came and called me (Ms. Claire), and directed me to a seat. The office reminded me of an industrial garage. One where there are several bays next to one another and lots of mechanics working side by side. I was in the second cubicle. The cubicles were long enough and high enough that all you could see of your neighbour was their toes.

The assistant asked me what my problem was and I showed her my x-ray, my Japanese paper with root canal that Miyuki printed for me and pointed to the tooth. She looked at it, and took me in for an x-ray. Then she put a funny looking plastic frame in my mouth to hold it open and took pictures of my teeth. Another frame and pics of the inside.

Then she called the dentist. He smiled and asked in Japanese if I was spoke Japanese. “Sukoshi” – a little. And then he spoke to me in English anyways. He dug out a book with dental translations in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Korean, Chinese, Russian and God only knows what else. He looked at the tooth. Explained root canal in English (more than my dentist at home did). And then he injected me with the magic needle. I call it magic because I saw the vial of anaesthetic and I know he injected several different places but I haven’t seen nor felt a needle yet. He proceeded to dig out the inside of my tooth, warning me that if I started to choke raise my left hand. It seemed a strange thing to say. Or at least a strange way to say it, but it wouldn’t be in Japanese. Japanese doesn’t beat about the bush with euphemisms where English does, yet, where English is direct, Japanese is round-about.

Eventually, I did feel a pain and I get another magic needle. Another thing about the magic needle, is that whatever in the vial is immediate. Back home you had to go sit in the waiting room and wait for the effects for a minute or two. All this time the dentist is talking to me in English, which I was really impressed with. Before him, the assistant and the receptionist were speaking Japanese.

He stuffed my tooth with what I figure is gauze and told me (as the book said) “That’s all for today. This procedure will take about 5 visits.” The assistant told me not to eat gum or caramel and to chew on the next side of my mouth (in Japanese)- I know I’m gaijin but I ain’t stupid. Then I went back to the waiting room. The receptionist called me a while after. 2400 Yen, about 24 USD. Cheapest dentist visit ever. Loving my insurance right now. She asked me when I’d like to make another appointment. I told her next Saturday. I’d rather dread a Saturday than have to take time off work. So I wondered off and had some PFC for dinner as a treat for being a good girl. Hope next time goes as well as the first.

Of buses, new students and PFC

So yesterday I went to my faraway school and I had to take the bus. Japan declared a recession 2 weeks ago, and already the bus fare has gone up. For my trip (3 bus stops) the fare is now 240 yen as opposed to its previous fare of 170 yen. In USD that is about $2.40. The bus fare is about 75c US at home in Barbados. Sigh! But of course I made about half as much doing the same job so it evens out.

On my way back into town we saw a woman about 200m from the bus stop running towards it. Now the JR (Japan Rail) buses are not supposed to stop anywhere but bus stops. So the driver went down to the lowest speed he could possibly go to, dragging the bus to the bus stop. Then the man that was actually at the bus stop watch the woman running and take like 2 minutes to get on to give the woman time. And when the woman get in she apologise about 60 times. The niceties of Japan!

This morning at Junior High we got a new student. On a Tuesday. In the second last week of school. His whole family came to the morning meeting and he had to do a little speech with his name, age, and stuff. I have already forgotten it all, and what he looks like :) Anyhow, I asked a teacher, he told me that the boy's father had been transfred to our town for his job, but then he added "Maybe he had problems at his old school." Flashing red lights! Japanese always say everything 10 million times softer than they mean. For example if a Japanese tells you you "should" go to the school festival, that translates to "absolutely do not miss it, if you in hospital catch an ambulance, if you dead hitch a hearse." SO for him to say that must mean the boy has somethign dubious about him. Looking forward to the upcoming excitement.

I walked home via the main street tonight, which is somethign I don't normally do. I think the top road is a little shorter. Plus if you walk the main road, you have to climb a fairly steep hill right at the end, as opposed to coming downhill from the top road. So I went to the ho store. The name of the store is maruho but the ho is in a circle by itself. Clearly it is the ho store. Dying with laughter!

Anyhow after the ho store I walked down the road and saw the PFC truck parked outside the lady's house. PFC is Ponta's Fried Chicken. It is sooooo yummy and way healthier than KFC. I can not resist PFC so even though I know I had food in my fridge. I bought 2 PFC fillets, and the lady threw one in for free.

And while we on random acts of kindness, Japanese have this way of randomly bring stuff to work and giving some to every body in the office. Little indivually wrapped chocolated, sweets, cakes, whatever. Lately I find myself in the supermarket picking out snacks for my teachers. I wonder how I will readjust to Western life! Any how last week I was walking to my main elementary school and I passed a lady at the bus stop and told her "Ohayou Gozaimasu" (Good morning ) and the lady flex out two sweeties and give me. I tried to take one and she insist I take both. That would so not be kosher in the West, but out here is all good. I love Japan!

A day at JHS: laugh til ya cry

I don’t know what happened today. Maybe it’s just the mood that I’ve been in for the last few days. But today was the most hilarious day ever. There wasn’t much to do this morning. But when I got to school I found Crazy Pink Shirt (the gym teacher whose name I don’t know and even if I did, would still call him Crazy Pink Shirt) in a fluorescent (I kid you not) orange pants, a lighter orange sweatshirt and a bright yellow shirt underneath. So just for today, Crazy Pink Shirt was Crazy Orange Pants.

After lunch it all went downhill. I had class in 1.1 with Sawada-sensei. The students had to write their answers on the board. Now the spacing between words in Japanese is no different from the spacing between characters, so Japanese kids don’t get how important spacing is in English. So this boy walks up to the board and writes:
Whose penis this? –It’s mine.

I’m in the back choking, coughing, spluttering and all but dying in an attempt not to cackle.
Later on in class the same boy asks me if I went to Osaka last night and I am like (to myself) Are you a goat, Osaka is like 8 hours train ride from here (on a bullet train!). So I reply no, and he is like I saw you. Then I realise he meant Osaka the restaurant in my town and not Osaka prefecture, which I unfortunately said out loud and caused all my students to laugh at me.
Then it was off to 3.2 with Baba sensei. 3.2 is the form with the Nothing-kid. He does NOTHING! Well, occasionally he will make a dart board and play darts on the floor, and he is apparently in the band, but obviously neither of these things affect his grades. He seems like he’s pretty smart if he half-tries, but he doesn’t. He’s just the sort of person who ent doing it if he ent interested. Of course, that don’t fly by me and I go and stand over him and make him do the work while his friends giggle. Baba-sensei might let him get away with it, but on my watch he will at least pretend to work.

Anyhow Baba-sensei asks Mr. Nothing in Japanese (because if you’re going to ask him a question you might as well ask him the only question that requires no knowledge of Japanese).

“Kansetsu no hantai wa?”
English: What is the opposite of kansetsu?

He looks back at Baba-sensei and with a complete deadpan face, replies:
“Kansetsu ja nai.”
English: not kansetsu.

So it wasn’t just me. The whole class erupted. And Claire gagged, spluttered and choked her way through the rest of the day. Apart from all the laughs today was a good day. I did some studying and I managed to explain stuff to my kids in Japanese. But I did the head thing that bugs me about how they teach English here. I explained to the kids in Japanese before I tried them English. Will try to be a better foreigner next time.

Torigoe Olympics

On Monday, I went to my Monday school. I know it sounds obvious, but I call it my Monday school because most JETs are at their offices on Monday and not teaching, and because my other two schools I am at for four days a week, as opposed to just the one at Torigoe.

Anyhow, the English Activity Coordinator told me that something was happening in 3rd period and I should come. She explained it in English, so I had no clue what she said. Seriously there are some people out here that I understand so much better in Japanese. Lol!

So I go to the gym at 3rd period, like I am supposed to, and lo and behold, it’s the Torigoe Olympics or “oh-ree-n-pee-ku” as they say in Japanese. And I left my camera in the staff room! So the whole school (all like 36 students-lol) are in teams, and they all have bands around their heads to represent the colour of their team. Now the Torigoe Olympics is not like a Sports Day, they already had Sports last term. The Olympics is just some random madness. But the thing is that in every event in the Olympics, is team competition.
There were four events. In the first event, it was a janken (rock-paper-scissors) relay. You had to run cross the gym, janken against a teacher. If you win, you run back and tag the next body in line, if you lose the whole team gotta run cross the gym, before the next body could start. The men put me as one of the teachers to play Janken. I am the worst: I lost to every student except the very last. (Embarassment!) The yellow team, which I went up against came second in that game. Red won.
The next event was Team skip. Two people from the team turned a skipping rope while the entire rest of the team skipped tp see what number they could get to. Red won again, amassing an incredible 35 jumps in a row. (I can not even get 35 by myself, but then I just suck at skipping.
After that, there was the three-legged race, hilarity in any culture, this time I think Green won, and red cam dead last. The final event was the most hilarious thing I ever see in Sports History. They broke the school into seniors and juniors. Grades 1 to 3 compete together as did 4 to 6. You had to take the band off your head and hang it out the back of your pants, like a tail. Then you had a minute to run around inside the area of the basketball court, trying to steal as many tails as you could! If your tail got stolen, you had to go off the court and sit down. At the end of the two rounds, every single time had 6 points.
The final score: Red won, Yellow second, Green third and then Blue. That works for me since Red and Yellow were my primary school and secondary school houses.
I hope this is an annual event and not every 4 years like the real Olympics, really need to get pictures of it!

Correcting the Japanese on Japanese!

It always amazes my kids, elementary or JHS, when I do something with Japanese, like speak it or write it. I think my Ichinohe Elementary School kids are used to me writing in Hiragana, since I teach them on my own . They were amazed the first few times, but now it’s set in that I know hiragana and some Kanji. Unfortunately, it means they often assume that I speak Japanese, which I really don’t. So they’ll rattle on and on about God only knows what.
Since I have a JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) always with me when I am at Junior High, I never need to write on the board or explain anything in Japanese so they are still shocked when I do. Anyhow at the front of all the classrooms is a board where they write up which subject is in which period (the schedule is not constant) and any notes. So I have a part-time JTE at my JHS, and so when she is coming to class they write that up in the notes. Since I have so much time when I am not doing anything in class, I read (attempt to read) all the stuff on the walls. So I glanced at the board today. First I was surprised that they had written “Sensei” (master/teacher) in hiragana (syllables) instead of Kanji (先生). As far as I concerned, if I know it, 3rd grade JHS students (15/16 years old) should also know it. But to top it off they had written せんせ-, which was wrong for two reasons, first off the dash is used to represent a double vowel sound, making it sensee, secondly, the dash is only used in katakana (the alphabet used to represent foreign words), in hiragana, the letter is just added so it should have been せんせえ, even if it was a double e. So I quietly took up a piece of chalk, erased the dash and wroteい , while the JTE was teaching. The students near me all gasped in amazement, and the other JTE who had just showed up with a video camera laughed.
Way to teach the J-kids how to spell in their own language. Yatta!
P.s. afterwards it occurred to me that it could have been the form teacher that wrote it. Then I would feel bad for showing him up. He’s a cool guy and he got married on Sunday.

Bunkasai (School festival)

So it's been a while since my last post. ( a month and a day to be exact, I am so ashamed). I've pretty much settles in and there are so many other ways to keep entertained other than blogging and I've been neglecting it. But I am back now.

So this weekend is my school's festival. Actually both of my main schools, an elementary and a junior high, have their festivals this weekend. Saturday I will be at the Junior High and Sunday at the elementary. So I am basically working all weekend, but I don't mind. Because I get to take 2 weekdays off! And weekdays are so much more useful.

anyhow today was spent in preparation for the school festival and there were no actual classes all day. My English teacher told me to come to the gym at 2.20 to help the English recitation speakers and then ran off. So a day of nothing to do, but you get used to them here in Japan.

Earlier in the week I got to prepare two huge sheets of card about Barbados (yay!) so that now half of Ichinohe will know where my country is and a bit about it. The poor Japanese don't have a clue about anything in the Caribbean other than Jamaica, but then neither does half of America! AT least they are interested though.

Anyhow, I am really looking forward to school festival. I feel like I hit the jackpot with my job and my placement. I love my town, my schools, my kids, my teachers. Happy, happy!!!

Enkai!!!

The enkai is a drinking party with your workmates. It is a traditional and apparently unavoidable part of Japanese life. One does not neccessarily have to drink at an enkai and there is no pressure to. There will always be other people who are not drinking, since in Japan, there is a 0 tolerance for drunk driving. By this I mean that if you have one drop of alcohol in your blood you are not legal to drive.

Anyhow on Friday I had my welcome enkai. It was also the farewell enkai for an assistant teacher who was doing an internship at the school. She is still in university. They sat me next to Yamamoto-sensai and Tairo-sensai was accross from him. These are the school's two best English speakers (supposedly, although I know that Chiba-sensai, the female six grade teacher and the third grade teacher always understand everything I say). The principal sat across from me and the teacher that was leaving was next to me. I guess these were the seats of honour. They made a bunch of speeches. Tairo-sensai had to make one since his swimming team did well recently and the Tashikawa-sensai ( the teacher leaving) had to make one, and the teacher she works with had to make one. All this time, the table laden down with food that calling my name. Japan is bare formalities. Can't touch the food til the toast. So then, the toast. Yay!

The spread included fried chicken, fried pork, salad with some really nice sauce, Japanese pizza (aka salad quesadilla), steak and sashimi. Sashimi is raw fish. The difference between sashimi and sushi is that sushi has been prepared- i.e. is raw fish with maybe lime on it, stuck onto rice. Sashimi is just a slice of raw fish. I had octupus, salmon and tuna. I actually tried the tuna and the salmon. The principal saved me from having to finish them. Afterwards, I realise thta you're not actually supposed to bite them. Maybe I will try again, or maybe not. I know I am not touching any octopus!

As for drinks, I had beer, which is not as weak as American beer and sake (which I love) and reggae punch, which is iced tea and lemon and some alcohol, and is the only way I like iced tea.

It's like the song says, "after the party, is the after-party". Of course I was completely pooped and ready to go home. Yamamoto-sensai was sending me home with Hayashida-sensai, but Chiba-sensai grabbed my arm and next thing I know I am on the way to another restaurant. It was way past my bed time. They ordered some food and I ordered an Apple Juice IN JAPANESE!!! Of course they got me steak. Never make the mistake of telling a Japanese that you like something. They will give it to you at every available chance! lol! At 11.40 Tashikawa-sensai said she had to leave (Yay- I was so about to fall into the plate with the sleep!) and she took me home.

It was an enjoyable experience!