Which was one of the aspects I feared most before coming here to Japan.
Somehow this person seems very far to me now. I don't know why, but it really bothers me.
Where are all the problems? All the challenges? Is it a good thing that everything goes so smooth for me (at least from my point of view), or am I missing something really important?
Well, aside from that, things are pretty fun. I spend most of my time at school now, leaving the house at ~7:50 and returning around half past seven in the evening.
On thing that really blows are those damn strong winds this region is known for (hehe, what a stupid pun), especially when you're on your bike and they slow you down to granny-speed although your pushing with all your power. Somehow they always manage to go the exact opposite direction you do. On my way to school, after a bunch of fields, I always pass another high school called "kôkôkô" (国府高校), because the part of Toyokawa is named "Kô" and the word "High School" means "Kôkô"; it's the school my host mother (!) and older brother used to commute to. Some teachers prefer to write it as (ko)³. Whereas we (Mito High) have blue uniforms, theirs are black, so you usually recognize them at once. Also, I heard they're not on good terms with Mito. That aside, I really like Kou itself, because it really looks like a traditional Japanese village to me. Also, there's this bridge named 「南田橋」 (minami-hashi, "southern-field bridge") crossing the 「音羽川」 (otowa-gawa), which offers a really beautiful view of the rather thin river.
Maybe I should shoot a photo of it next time. Arriving at school, you're greeted by teachers standing by the gate who obviously have nothing better to do, just like in anime.
As for lessons, there are currently three types: The ones I like and mostly understand (Modern Japanese Literature, World History), the ones in which I don't understand too much, but still like(Japanese History, Classical Japanese Literature) , and the ones I can't stand(Home Economics). English doesn't count as a subject, the lessons are so simply it's rather like a 50 minutes long break. Apart from those subjects my class usually has, me, Ben and Ari-san (her real name is Allison but everyone calls her that) are having Japanese Language "Classes" with the English Teachers, which are really a waste of time in my opinion. Either we discuss the schedule of school events or other organizational stuff, or we read completely Kanji free children's book. Or the teacher has just no idea what to do with us, which happens quite often.
I'd rather sit in Japanese Classics and listen to Kaniko-sensei drifting off the lesson and telling yet another funny story than that.
Concerning the English classes, I take them as a great opportunity to analyze the Japanese Educational System and its methods to better understand just why students are having so much trouble with the language. One thing I had noticed before but never really thought about is that students are being made translate from Japanese to English and vise versa, which I think is a great way to teach them not thinking in English, one important factor of speaking fluently.
Rather than that, it's like they're learning to put on a "English mask" on their minds, always desperately translating everything they hear into Japanese and their own (Japanese) thoughts into English when responding, using all the complicated grammar they've studied for years.
No wonder it ended in a disaster once the "Current English"-Teacher made them compose a very own text about their opinion on the influence of American culture on Japan, despite the papers we were given to write on only held space for around 50 words. When working on so called "comprehension tasks", I often like to cross out the "please write the answer" and replace it with "please copy the text". What else would you do if all the questions consist of are sentences taken right out of the text with a question mark at the end. Reading out texts and vocabulary loudly is a method I've already doubted back in Germany in my Japanese classes. You just can't remember pronunciations, let alone meanings correctly using them once a week. Ever heard of short-term memory? But I guess I'm just writing stuff that hundreds have written before, so I'll leave it at that.
Walking through the corridors, I often get greeted randomly, and it's very hard for me to remember every face that did so to greet them back another time. But there're also people outside of my class I'm pretty familiar with, like Keisuke-kun and Akira-kun I'm doing the school cleaning with, or the bunch of 3rd grade girls that use to teach me the newest moves and gags from comedians. One really happy moment for me was when I got a Kôhai from my Badminton Club to actually call me "Ankurô-senpai". Also, I didn't expect my rather strict looking club president to be into Kei-on and Shangri-la. You just never know, hu. In my class, the only people I can talk with about Anime, J-Pop and games are girls. There's like Tomoko that always lends me the newest magazines, or Mai, who plays RPGs on the NDS all the time, and then there's that RPG and especially Zelda nerd Hina, from which I just recently borrowed three Zelda manga (Ocarina of Time and Kamigami no Triforce, I think the only ones that even exist).
One thing that's really neat about Japanese schools is that the desk you're using kinda belongs to you, meaning you can leave all your stuff there over night and nobody will say a thing. Also, classrooms are usually always open, so you can spend your free time there talking to friends, learning or doing other stuff. As my club usually finishes training at 7 pm, I often find myself going through almost pitch black hallways when bringing my stuff back to my shelf in front of the classroom, reminding me of all those scenes of students sneaking into school at night and scaring each other.
The other day I went to Toyohashi, a city about 15 min by train from here, to see a Buddhist procession, and I was really shocked by how different it was to my city (Toyokawa). Since I expected this region to be rather rural in general, I didn't really expect to see an accumulation of shopping malls, fashionable young people and cars, and it made me a little bit envious in a way, because all that stuff I believed to be far away seems to exist right around the corner. But I guess that's just one more aspect of the experience I'm going through this year.
Oh yeah, by the way, I finally bought myself a cellphone, and I must say this is something I just have to admit to be pretty complicated. Maybe that's because I'm used to simply buying a phone you like and a prepaid account you like, never having gone through the hassles of contracts. But, seriously, why the fuck do I have to pay 30 bucks a month for doing nothing with it? Where is that money going? Of course that amount isn't set, as it may rise depending on how much I send mails or call people, but they couldn't even tell me how much exactly a call or a message costs. How could something like that develop in a country known for it's high rate of convenience?
I finally got myself to buy it, making a deal with okâ-san that she'd get it after I leave, because hers is pretty old and she gets jealous seeing the ones her friends have, and we shared the cost of the phone itself 50/50. At least I'm one step closer to becoming an average high school student here now.
In about one month there'll be this thing called "English Camp", where, for three days, me, Ameben, Ari-san and the rest of 2-E (my class) will stay over at some youth hostel in Okazaki, and.. well yeah, do a bunch of activities like writing skits and performing them or having speeches and other things. Everyone had to prepare a 1-minute speech for this occasion, and we, the exchange students, are expected to prepare the only speeches in Japanese. The topic pretty much doesn't matter, as long as we have a message that we want to convey. Great... How about "Start doubting the Educational Sytem" or "If you really want to save the environment, stop bathing every evening". One thing that's cunning is that we'll be only allowed to communicate through English. ALL the time. Even if there's no elder around. Some optimistic teachers even romanticized it as to "being poured over by Japanese as if it was a totally strange language after having been isolated from it". Heck, who would believe this. I'd still be doubting it even if it was for a week. Just what are they trying to accomplish by that sort of thing... I mean, I'm not in a position to complain since it's probably gonna be a lot of fun for us; mabye I'm just too worried about the educational part of it. Luckily, since I am going to have the role of a "Language Assistant"-something, the school'll bear my costs of around ten thousand en, so I should just enjoy myself after all.
So.... here are some random pictures I took today on the way to and at school. Wanted to make some more of the school itself, but just when I had the chance to do so because of a free period, I was suddenly invited into Math class by Katô-sensei seeing me pass by the classroom. It wasn't too bad actually, since he talked 45 minutes about random stuff like his sons name, rugby and why penguins own dolphins at aquariums, and 5 minutes about the actual math problems the first graders were supposed to solve.
(I see this thing every day, but I have no idea what it's supposed to mean)
(A n underground passage due to the long time the traffic lights take)
(The view from Minamidahashi that I kinda love)
(What's actually written on that flag is 「交通安全」 [kôtsûanzen, "traffic safety"], almost like a catchphrase you'll see anywhere in safety-obsessed Japan)
("yoi ko wa koko de asobanai"; only the good kids don't play here)
(Some sort of pond)(Hina playing Christal Chronicles x3)
(When our teacher left the room to get something and came back finding that we weren't studying like she had told us to do, she got really pissed, wrote that, told us to copy it into our notebooks with a big pen and left the class; the last bit is my addition, just couldn't help it ^.^)
(Kouta making some weird pose)
(View from Nihonbashi, named it that for fun but now I say it all the time)
(Nihonbashi.)
(I think there was someone wanting to see me in that uniform; here you go~ >.>)
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