More little fish and something about a tree

Today I went to one of my elementary schools that I hadn't been to in a while. I got out of my car and realized this was my first time being there since the hot weather died down and the cold weather began.

As I was walking up to the school, I thought about the desktop picture on the computer that I usually sit at. It is a picture of a tree in the schoolyard. The leaves in the picture were yellow because the picture was taken in fall/winter. I thought it was funny that the picture was on the desktop because it was the exact angle and view of that part of the schoolyard that someone using the computer could see if they just looked over the screen and out the door. So, as I changed into my indoor shoes, I was thinking that because the leaves had probably changed colors again, the image on my screen and the real life one would be really similar.

What I didn't realize is that because it is no longer hot out and it is actually becoming very cold each day, they don't leave the door open anymore. So, they can't see the real life tree from the computer at all except for glances when people go in and out.

Is that why that picture was used for the desktop???????

:)

It turns out that I am okay with eating small fish whole with school lunch if it's served on rice. I figure that's because if it's on rice, it's easier to pretend it is something else I eat on rice. Plus, these small fish taste better than the other small fish.

I shot hoops (basketball) with some elementary school students today. It was fun.

Japanese study, the lack of travel bugs, rain...etc.

Ew, so much for forcing myself to update weekly, right? I am not entirely sure what happened last week because I had time to post and I knew I hadn't yet, I just didn't. Maybe I didn't feel like I was quite in the right state of mind. Anyway, this will be last weeks very tardy entry.

People are often asking me where in this island, Kyushu, I have traveled to since moving here. Seeing as how I've been only to Kanoya for a week with the other new ALTs and to Kagoshima for shopping trips and parties, I don't really have an awful lot to tell people. I look at the experience of other JETs and I realize that they are really traveling around- not just in Kyushu, but other places in Japan, too.

For me, though, at least at the moment I don't feel myself being particularly bit by the travel bug. I kind of think just living here is enough adventure for now. I've done the touristy thing in Japan a few times and now I just want to experience living here. I am, of course, not saying that I won't travel- I have every intention to, but I don't and probably won't as much as other people do.

If anything, I feel like I -should- be wanting to travel because everyone else does.

Either way, I am going to Tokyo next month for Christmas and New Years. I am way more excited though, about going to see people like my friends in Tokyo and my former host family than doing any sort of sightseeing. I guess what I really prefer at the moment is to be places where I have connections.

By the way, I started private Japanese lessons about two weeks ago. The teacher is really nice. I always forget when I am not taking Japanese lessons that I really truly do enjoy them. Of course, we're reviewing right now, so I get to feel really smart. (haha) Of course, since I started learning Japanese over 5 years ago, there are a lot of really basic things that I have forgotten, so really it's great to be reviewing.

Winter came. This morning it was raining really hard. Here's something I don't understand. Apparently around June-July is the rainy season, July-August is typhoon season. Okay, so, with that established, what IS all of this extra rain? Does it ever stop raining here?

I found a dead bird yesterday. I thought immediately of how in the US one should report dead birds immediately because of the threat of West Nile Virus, so I told someone in Japanese. They told someone else, who called the building owners, who had the bird removed. No idea what came of it because I don't know what the standard procedures are around here, but I feel like I did the right thing.

Samurai and Ijuin Town

About a month or so ago, I was in the teacher`s room of one of my middle schools. Throughout the day, there was an ongoing discussion about a poster that a couple of the students made to put up in the halls.

I could tell that the teachers were trying to figure out whether it was appropriate, but I could not figure out exactly what was so controversial about it.

The poster had a man who appeared to be a samurai on it and I heard the word samurai used a lot. So, I figured that maybe the problem with the poster was that it was disrespectful to the samurai in the local history.

It made sense when I thought about it. There is a big statue of a samurai warrior in front of the train station, a giant samurai statue-type-thing that you pass to get to the train platform, the sewer covers here have samurai helmet designs on them, many of my schools have some sort of samurai suit of armor or something on display, and part of the town`s biggest festival is a procession of people in samurai armor who walk to this town from Kagoshima city.

It would make sense that the people in this town might get offended if there was something insulting samurai posted.

I asked and BOY was my thinking wrong.

The Japanese teacher of English I asked, Mr. Matsumoto, told me that many students who go to the school`s ancestors were the poor peasants back in the samurai era, and to them the samurai poster would be offensive because it refers to the old class system where their families were at the bottom and warlords were at the top.

It makes sense that descendants of people who were at the unfortunate end of social hierarchy to think a little less of samurai symbolism. However, I was surprised that the town seems to still really hang onto it`s samurai history while there are such negative sentiments and concerns about that going around town.

In the end, the students were allowed to use their poster after the word "samurai" was erased.

Clearly there are so many things that I do not understand.

Colds, stoves, ringshaped lightbulbs, and videos!

So I'm recovering now from a fairly vicious cold. It was vicious because usually I don't really get sick, instead I just feel miserable in the "fighting off a cold" stage for a freakishly long time.

I mentioned the fact I had a cold to the leader of the English Conversation class for adults and he started sending me several emails asking me if I am okay, if need to go to the hospital, if I have been eating, if I was sick in bed, if I needed one of the female members of the class to come see me. It was really... umm... overwhelming.

It's not unusual in this country to go to the hospital just for a cold. By this, it doesn't mean being admitted to the hospital, but getting medicines from the doctor. Still, to my foreign ears "do you need to go to the hospital?" is still a bit shocking to hear.

My stove in my apartment has been broken for about two weeks or so now. I have a free used stove lined up for me which I have to pay the installation fee for, but I am still kind of waiting for something to happen there. No one has even come by to see if there's anything easy to fix on there. I couldn't be more unfamiliar with this kind of stove, so if I accidentally jiggled it in a way that made the gas pipe loose, I wouldn't know. It would be kind of embarrassing if some installation guy came and found something simple like that with my old stove. Of course, in my situation, it looks like if that's the problem, there's no way around finding out that way.

Today I went out and bought a new lightbulb for the lamp in my room. I suppose it's not appropriate to call it a lightbulb because technically it's a ring shaped lightbulb. At first when I saw these lamps that have them in my apartment, I didn't think to consider that they were very different from lamps I had in the US. On top of that, I noticed those light... rings in the store when buying a regular lightbulb before, but for some reason it didn't dawn on me that I would end up buying one. Nothing struck me as odd until the moment I realized I had to go buy a light...ring.

Holding the burned out one in my hand, I almost wanted to throw it like a frisbee because of it's shape and size. I took pictures of the lightbulb... ring... thing and I'll post them sometime.

There's a lightning storm going on outside. I don't really know what the "what not to do during lightning storm" rules are given where I am from, but I remember hearing YEARS ago that it is unsafe to be on the computer when there is lightning. I don't know if this is still true, but I do intend to get off of this computer if I hear it coming closer.

I don't have a terrible lot more to say right now anyway, either, I think.

I missed a big festival on Monday because of my cold.

Here are some videos I've taken--

Here's a broadcasting van. Source of lots of noise pollution in this country. I have no idea what this one is saying, but they do everything from advertise to telling citizens to clear the path (emergency vehicles.) There are A LOT of vehicles that have much to say around here.


This next video is a procession of performers going from one part of the festival I mentioned in the last blog, to another part which is across the street from my house. I filmed this from my balcony (as I did the last video).


Yes, I did wander down to the festival eventually. Here are some more performers-


This is proof that you can be a Japanese major and take Japanese culture classes, but still find aspects of Japan's culture that you find, well, REALLY hard to comprehend and several shades of hilarious. Watching men stand in line to hit a bunch of sticks with another stick while screaming their heads off taught me this. A faaaar more informed person commented this video saying that this is called "Yakumaru Jigen Ryu".


Last video-
I never thought I'd see people performing taiko drumming dressed as samurai warriors. Now, I know I was truly a person limited in imagination. :D

Actually, to make matters worse, for some reason I think of the ninja turtles whenever I watch this video. I actually thought of that while I was filming too. I imagined the ninja turtles doing taiko. (haha) I dare you to tell me you didn't!