Sunday, August 24, 2008
I see black people
I went to Morioka over the weekend and we went to a club called Faces. So I was chilling with Janine and I turned around and the DJ was black!!! I freaked. I ran over and introduced myself. Turns out that he's also a JET. He's from Akita, thew prefecture to the west of us. Then lo and behold another black guy appears. Bryan tells me he's the club owner. Way cool. I went over to say hi and he runs over and gives me a hug. Who knows when's the last time he saw a black person. I haven't seen one since my predecessor left 3 weeks ago.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Japanese Language
The Japanese language is good, bad and ugly. In and of itself it isn't a bad thing. In fact I think that universally speaking, it's a pretty easy language to learn, but I think that that knowing English may be my biggest obstacle to learning Japanese. In the Japanese language the verbs come at the end of the sentence so for instance, "I a cat have." There are no articles or singular and plurals so it would be " I cat have" but then they usually leave out the subject if it's been mentioned already or is obvious so it would be "Cat have." Lol!
Not conjugating verbs means I don't have to add to the million verb endings I already know between English, French, Spanish and Italian. They only things the do to verbs is make them negative and put them into past tense. So a verb has 4 forms: non-past affirmative, non-past negative, past affirmative, past negative. But there are also different ways of speaking, for different levels of politeness, so there a four endings in each of the forms (plain, polite, and business are all that I know of).
The adjectives also have similar "conjugations", and there are a lot of rules of what you need to do with adjectives. There are even two types of adjectives and the rule differs according to type. You can't usually tell the type right off, you just have to memorise them.
Then there are the counters. In Japanese the suffix you use for counting depends on what you are counting, so for floors you'd use one, for people another, animals another, Long thin things another, round things another, etc. Counters suck!
Something else I guess most people know about Japanese is the way the language is written, the Kanji. Apart from the Kanji there are two syllabic writing systems, the Hiragana and the Katakana. The Hiragana is used for Japanese words and to fill in any spaces that the Kanji don't cover and the Katakana is used to imitate foreign loan words. The Katakana is hilarious as hell. Most of the words come from English and those that don't generally come from Spanish or French, which I speak, yet I can never figure out Katakana words. The problem is that the Katakana only uses syllables that are represented in Japanese. The only consonant that can come next to another in Japanese is n. So any other consonant ends up getting a vowel stuck onto it which is why ice cream is "aa-su-ku-ri-mu." Then there are the letters that don't exist like v, f (although there is fu), and l (although hthe Japanese r sounds like an l anyway so really it's the r that doesn't exist). You can't get "si" or "je" in Japanese either so you get stuff like shi-ru-wa-zo-n. Alex laughed at me for not being able to figure it out. It's Silver Zone. It's the old people crossing. Yes we have an old people crossing. That should tell you something about my town's demographic.
Despite all this, my Japanese is still making some progress.Although I need to get in 25 hours thoretical study time every week to pass the exam I want to do in December. Lol! I'll get there because I am me, and languages and I have an understanding. (I hope!) Anyhow as I just said, I have a lot to cover so I need to get to some studying.
This weekend I head down to Morioka for yet another orientation. Who knows when I'll be online next. Janine and I are staying over in Morioka on Friday night to head out to Akita on Saturday for the most competitive, impressive and biggest fireworks festival in Japan, so I probably won't get back to Ichinohe until some time Sunday evening.
Not conjugating verbs means I don't have to add to the million verb endings I already know between English, French, Spanish and Italian. They only things the do to verbs is make them negative and put them into past tense. So a verb has 4 forms: non-past affirmative, non-past negative, past affirmative, past negative. But there are also different ways of speaking, for different levels of politeness, so there a four endings in each of the forms (plain, polite, and business are all that I know of).
The adjectives also have similar "conjugations", and there are a lot of rules of what you need to do with adjectives. There are even two types of adjectives and the rule differs according to type. You can't usually tell the type right off, you just have to memorise them.
Then there are the counters. In Japanese the suffix you use for counting depends on what you are counting, so for floors you'd use one, for people another, animals another, Long thin things another, round things another, etc. Counters suck!
Something else I guess most people know about Japanese is the way the language is written, the Kanji. Apart from the Kanji there are two syllabic writing systems, the Hiragana and the Katakana. The Hiragana is used for Japanese words and to fill in any spaces that the Kanji don't cover and the Katakana is used to imitate foreign loan words. The Katakana is hilarious as hell. Most of the words come from English and those that don't generally come from Spanish or French, which I speak, yet I can never figure out Katakana words. The problem is that the Katakana only uses syllables that are represented in Japanese. The only consonant that can come next to another in Japanese is n. So any other consonant ends up getting a vowel stuck onto it which is why ice cream is "aa-su-ku-ri-mu." Then there are the letters that don't exist like v, f (although there is fu), and l (although hthe Japanese r sounds like an l anyway so really it's the r that doesn't exist). You can't get "si" or "je" in Japanese either so you get stuff like shi-ru-wa-zo-n. Alex laughed at me for not being able to figure it out. It's Silver Zone. It's the old people crossing. Yes we have an old people crossing. That should tell you something about my town's demographic.
Despite all this, my Japanese is still making some progress.Although I need to get in 25 hours thoretical study time every week to pass the exam I want to do in December. Lol! I'll get there because I am me, and languages and I have an understanding. (I hope!) Anyhow as I just said, I have a lot to cover so I need to get to some studying.
This weekend I head down to Morioka for yet another orientation. Who knows when I'll be online next. Janine and I are staying over in Morioka on Friday night to head out to Akita on Saturday for the most competitive, impressive and biggest fireworks festival in Japan, so I probably won't get back to Ichinohe until some time Sunday evening.
Small triumphs
Whoever first said it's the little things that count is one of the most brilliant minds the world has ever seen. Yesterday I had two little things happen that just made me smile. First off, we continued on our school tour. We were at Ichinohe Shougakkou, which is one of my elementary schools, and the principal asked my supervisor if we spoke Japanese. He replied Alex san speaks fluently and Claire san speaks a little!!! Yay!!! Japanese fluency, here I come.
After work I went to the itty-bitty store around the corner from me. I am out of juice and don't feel like walking all the way to ICO, the plaza where JOIS, the grocery store, is. The lady in the shop is under 4 feet tall. She is so cute. She said to me "Kaminoke wa kawaii desu", which for those of you who speak less Japanese than me means "Your hair is cute." Triumph 1: the fact that I understood what the hell she was saying. Triumph 2: the cutesy little old lady around the corner thinks my hair is cute!!! I am buying everything I possibly can in her shop from now on. In fact, I'm going there this afternoon for tomatoes.
After work I went to the itty-bitty store around the corner from me. I am out of juice and don't feel like walking all the way to ICO, the plaza where JOIS, the grocery store, is. The lady in the shop is under 4 feet tall. She is so cute. She said to me "Kaminoke wa kawaii desu", which for those of you who speak less Japanese than me means "Your hair is cute." Triumph 1: the fact that I understood what the hell she was saying. Triumph 2: the cutesy little old lady around the corner thinks my hair is cute!!! I am buying everything I possibly can in her shop from now on. In fact, I'm going there this afternoon for tomatoes.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Olympics in Japan
Yes I know the olympics is in China, but I am in Japan, which means I have the Japanese perspective on the Olympics. At home in Barbados, we get our Olympic coverage from a US or Canadian network and we always laugh about how streamlined the coverage is toward their own country's athletes. Generally coverage is of track, swimming, or gymnastics. If none of these is on, they just pick a random sport or somethign. Here in Japan, I have been seeing the stragnest sports. For the first time in my life, I have seen Olympic Soccer, Olympic Baseball, Olympic Field Hockey, Women's Archery, Judo, Freesytle Wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling. AND I discovered that Trampoline is an Olympic Sport (funnily translated into Japanese as "jumping").
SO I have all sorts of new revelations. For one, all the top women's archers are Asian. Secondly, Freestlye wrestling is cool beans. Trampoline is harder than it look. I blight a woman. After about 4 participants I wondered aloud what was so hard about trampoline. The woman promptly land on her mouth. I laughed at the way Japan got beat in baseball by Korea (the national sport here is Baseball) and then beat Canada. Japan is apparently really good in Woman's Softball. They beat Canada, but were defeated by USA. Soccer has been fun too, Japan got beat in every single one of their men's matches, even by Holland, who only managed to draw against the USA and and Nigeria. The Japan women's team is really good too. They beat everybody but the US on their way onto the semifinals. Then they had to play the US in the semifinal. They lost 4-2. Well, at least I think they should beat Germany. In the other semifinal which I watched Brazil rinse out Germany. 4-1. Funnily enough both of the losing teams scored first. Women's soccer is funny. But there are occasionally some women who are great. The funniest thing of it all is the Japanese woman with an afro! She and her hairdresser deserve a Nobel Hair Prize or something.
SO I have all sorts of new revelations. For one, all the top women's archers are Asian. Secondly, Freestlye wrestling is cool beans. Trampoline is harder than it look. I blight a woman. After about 4 participants I wondered aloud what was so hard about trampoline. The woman promptly land on her mouth. I laughed at the way Japan got beat in baseball by Korea (the national sport here is Baseball) and then beat Canada. Japan is apparently really good in Woman's Softball. They beat Canada, but were defeated by USA. Soccer has been fun too, Japan got beat in every single one of their men's matches, even by Holland, who only managed to draw against the USA and and Nigeria. The Japan women's team is really good too. They beat everybody but the US on their way onto the semifinals. Then they had to play the US in the semifinal. They lost 4-2. Well, at least I think they should beat Germany. In the other semifinal which I watched Brazil rinse out Germany. 4-1. Funnily enough both of the losing teams scored first. Women's soccer is funny. But there are occasionally some women who are great. The funniest thing of it all is the Japanese woman with an afro! She and her hairdresser deserve a Nobel Hair Prize or something.
School- It's why we're here
Sometimes I think my town is really small, then something happens to remind me that it isn't, like when Janine comes through and goes "Blimey, you've got a mall!" at the half a shopping centre. (Smaller than Dacosta's Mall.) Yesterday we went out into the Netherworld of Ichinohe. See, I live in Central Ichinohe, where all the life of Ichinohe is (lol). The "mall" is here, the fire station, the police station is here, most of the shops are here. So we went out Okunakayama, which is like 30 minutes drive away from where we work to visit two of Alex's schools and get introduced to the Principal and staff, then we went to Ichinohe Minami, another of Alex's schools which is here in town at the edge. Then we went up to Chokkain Elementary, in the valley up the mountain I started to run up the other day. (Imagine that there is life up there.) And the village there has literally nothing to do. Except for joining the Self Defence Force which is Japan's version of an army. Apparently after World War 2, America wrote Japan a Constitution which does not allow them a standing army. Sound familiar. 50 plus years later nothing has changed. Anyhow, after Chokkai we went to Torigoe, (Tori-go-ey) which is one of my schools. It's a bit far and I am supposed to catch the bus but it'll only be like 10 minuttes.I think it's only about a 40-50 minute walk, and I think the bus is expensive although I haven't checked, but I am seriously considering hoofing it. One thing that was common throughout, the kids seem really nice (but then they always do). In case you're wondering why the kids are even at school, it appears that the Japanese hyperactive, overworking attitude starts from young and in the summer the kids go to their clubs at school.
We just got back from more school tours. We went back up to Chokkai for Dan's Junior High, then we came down to my two Ichinohe Schools. My schools are big as hell!!! They're the biggest of all the schools we've seen, but then they're the down town schools. The Ichinohe schools will be my main schools 4 days a week, every other week. I am only at Torigoe twice a month. After we went to Kozuya to Dan's 2 remaining schools, one of which is under construction. It seems nobody speaks English at Kozuya Sho-gakko- (elementary) so Dan is a bit worried. No one speaks English at Torigoe either, but I am not at all worried. My Japanese is coming along slowly. I actually understood all of what my Supervisor was saying in our introductions today!!! For some strange reason there is an English teacher at Ichinohe Elementary (normally there are only English teachers from Junior High and up) and my other school is Junior High so I only really need to worrry about Japanese twice a month anyhow.
We just got back from more school tours. We went back up to Chokkai for Dan's Junior High, then we came down to my two Ichinohe Schools. My schools are big as hell!!! They're the biggest of all the schools we've seen, but then they're the down town schools. The Ichinohe schools will be my main schools 4 days a week, every other week. I am only at Torigoe twice a month. After we went to Kozuya to Dan's 2 remaining schools, one of which is under construction. It seems nobody speaks English at Kozuya Sho-gakko- (elementary) so Dan is a bit worried. No one speaks English at Torigoe either, but I am not at all worried. My Japanese is coming along slowly. I actually understood all of what my Supervisor was saying in our introductions today!!! For some strange reason there is an English teacher at Ichinohe Elementary (normally there are only English teachers from Junior High and up) and my other school is Junior High so I only really need to worrry about Japanese twice a month anyhow.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Chronicles of Farnia- The Temple, the Mayor and the Cave
Well, yesterday I started to write out my Saturday adventures but somehow I erased it all. So here goes nothing again. I went touring with Janine on Saturday. Her coworker, Fumiko drove us down to the south of the prefecture to a town whose name I have already totally forgotten. Fumiko's son, Hiroki also came with us. We had to leave my town at 7 a.m. But it paid off to be there early.
On the way down south, we passed Iwate san, which is a mountain in the centre of the prefecture of Iwate. I assume that's where the prefecturee got its name. It's funny to me that they call the mountains san, which is the respectful title you add after someone's name.
It took about 2 and a half hours to get to Chusonji Temple. There we had to trek up a mountain (seems like everything around here is up a mountain. The first house we passed was Benkeido, where Benkei lived. Benkei was like 6 ft tall, gargantuan for a Japanese. He had a master he served who was stronger than he was. Between the two of them they supposedly defeated entire armies. Benkei died when he stood in front of his master and flexed and took a bunch of arrows to protect him. His master died young. There was a little box in front of the house. You could throw in a coin and take off your shoes and go up the stps and pray. There was also a little machine fortune teller. Hiroki got an excellent fortune. When Janine did hers, the lady came back without a fortune, then she got a fortune and it wouldn't drop in the box. Then when she finally got it, it was not a good fortune. It was like the little machine lady was trying to stop her from getting it. Anyhow, when you get a bd fortune, you're supposed to tie it on a nearby line.
There was also a big hall where you could also pray and pull fortunes from a box. I pulled a fortune from one of the box ones. It was a good one. It told me that the man I am thinking of is the right one, but not to marry him this year. Lol! There were also water fountains that were supposed to purify the body as well as an incense well, the smoke from which was supposed to be healing. We passed several more temples before we got to the Golden Temple. You had to pay an 800 yen fee to get in. Apparently the temple used to be all gold, but it isn't now. It seems Iwate used to have so much gold that Tokyo went to war with them over it. Then we went to this other temple where there was a bell to ring which would rid you of guilt. There were also little bells for each of the signs of the Chinese horoscope. I am a Rooster. After that we went to a museum of sorts and saw all manner of things from the 12 century.
When we left there we went over to the Geibi Gorge (after a short lunch intermission with the saltiest ramen I have ever tasted). At the Geibi Gorge, you get in these gondola-esque boats that hold about 25 people and this guide pushes it with a stick thing while explaining what you are seeing all the way. When we were coming back we saw a guy on a nother boat in a tie. I turned to Janine, laughing, and asks who goes on these little boats in a tie. Turns out he was the mayor!
Afterwords we had icecream because Fumiko had coupons for a discount. Then she had to look for Hiroki again, who spent the large majority of his day disappearing. Then we headed out to Yugenda Cave. It was a walk through cave. It's not that impressive to me, because Barbados has one of the most well-developed and famous cave attractions in the world. The only thing that put it up on Harrison's Cave was that there were some fossils in it. That plus the amazing number of times you can nearly decapitate yourself on stalactites.
It was only 3 o clock when we finished but we decided to head back up North because we were exhausted. We stopped at the smaller Aeon Mall in Morioka so that Hiroki could play video games. There is a Gap, Sports Authority, Starbucks and Tower Records there. The Sports Authority has some of the sexiest Adidas I've ever seen. I also found some Kanji flsh cards in the Bookstore. The Bookstore by the way, claims to have an English section. It consists of one rotary kiosk, about 20 titles. Lol! But they have Tolkien and Sophia Kinsell so I am a very happy camper. I am trying to figure out who I need to off to get to move down to Morioka. Love it! Lol!
We got back to Ichinohe at about 7. I gave Fumiko a Mount Gay miniature and some guava cheese as a thank you. Both she and Janine were amazed at my house. It's great having some of the best houses on JET.
I was so fuzzed when I got back, I just ate, showered and jumped into bed.
On the way down south, we passed Iwate san, which is a mountain in the centre of the prefecture of Iwate. I assume that's where the prefecturee got its name. It's funny to me that they call the mountains san, which is the respectful title you add after someone's name.
It took about 2 and a half hours to get to Chusonji Temple. There we had to trek up a mountain (seems like everything around here is up a mountain. The first house we passed was Benkeido, where Benkei lived. Benkei was like 6 ft tall, gargantuan for a Japanese. He had a master he served who was stronger than he was. Between the two of them they supposedly defeated entire armies. Benkei died when he stood in front of his master and flexed and took a bunch of arrows to protect him. His master died young. There was a little box in front of the house. You could throw in a coin and take off your shoes and go up the stps and pray. There was also a little machine fortune teller. Hiroki got an excellent fortune. When Janine did hers, the lady came back without a fortune, then she got a fortune and it wouldn't drop in the box. Then when she finally got it, it was not a good fortune. It was like the little machine lady was trying to stop her from getting it. Anyhow, when you get a bd fortune, you're supposed to tie it on a nearby line.
There was also a big hall where you could also pray and pull fortunes from a box. I pulled a fortune from one of the box ones. It was a good one. It told me that the man I am thinking of is the right one, but not to marry him this year. Lol! There were also water fountains that were supposed to purify the body as well as an incense well, the smoke from which was supposed to be healing. We passed several more temples before we got to the Golden Temple. You had to pay an 800 yen fee to get in. Apparently the temple used to be all gold, but it isn't now. It seems Iwate used to have so much gold that Tokyo went to war with them over it. Then we went to this other temple where there was a bell to ring which would rid you of guilt. There were also little bells for each of the signs of the Chinese horoscope. I am a Rooster. After that we went to a museum of sorts and saw all manner of things from the 12 century.
When we left there we went over to the Geibi Gorge (after a short lunch intermission with the saltiest ramen I have ever tasted). At the Geibi Gorge, you get in these gondola-esque boats that hold about 25 people and this guide pushes it with a stick thing while explaining what you are seeing all the way. When we were coming back we saw a guy on a nother boat in a tie. I turned to Janine, laughing, and asks who goes on these little boats in a tie. Turns out he was the mayor!
Afterwords we had icecream because Fumiko had coupons for a discount. Then she had to look for Hiroki again, who spent the large majority of his day disappearing. Then we headed out to Yugenda Cave. It was a walk through cave. It's not that impressive to me, because Barbados has one of the most well-developed and famous cave attractions in the world. The only thing that put it up on Harrison's Cave was that there were some fossils in it. That plus the amazing number of times you can nearly decapitate yourself on stalactites.
It was only 3 o clock when we finished but we decided to head back up North because we were exhausted. We stopped at the smaller Aeon Mall in Morioka so that Hiroki could play video games. There is a Gap, Sports Authority, Starbucks and Tower Records there. The Sports Authority has some of the sexiest Adidas I've ever seen. I also found some Kanji flsh cards in the Bookstore. The Bookstore by the way, claims to have an English section. It consists of one rotary kiosk, about 20 titles. Lol! But they have Tolkien and Sophia Kinsell so I am a very happy camper. I am trying to figure out who I need to off to get to move down to Morioka. Love it! Lol!
We got back to Ichinohe at about 7. I gave Fumiko a Mount Gay miniature and some guava cheese as a thank you. Both she and Janine were amazed at my house. It's great having some of the best houses on JET.
I was so fuzzed when I got back, I just ate, showered and jumped into bed.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Mourning
I just got word that someone clsoe to one of my best friends has died. And I can`t be there! This is one of the few reasons I hate being on the other side of the world!