There's a Difference

Just have to get this off my chest really quick:

I had a crappy week last week. I was at my two rough schools (the School That Shall Not Be Named and the uppity one...sorry, I can't think of a clever name for it) and they were running me into the ground with five or six out of six classes a day and new lessons for each every day. On top of that, the kids are over the school year hump and can see light at the end of the tunnel, so their give-a-damns are...no more.

(That one's for you, Elysia.)

As for the teachers, they're all aware now that I'm leaving in March. And generally they've been cool about it. No one's up in arms or shutting down around me. But there are some "lost in translation" ways that they've tried talking about it with me.

At the School That Shall Not Be Named, the head English teacher asked, "If it's okay,...eh to...can I ask...why are you leaving?" I'm not being rude, he paused that much because he was trying to choose his words pragmatically. However, the implication I got was that he wanted to know if I was leaving because of his school.

I assured him I wasn't.

At Uppity Junior High School, one of the English teachers said, "So I hear you're quitting."

Full stop. Maybe he chose the wrong word or maybe he doesn't quite understand that my company only lets us work on one year contracts which we either end or renew each spring. I explained that and he understood. I was just taken aback: the idea of "quitting" has negative connotations! I don't want to be viewed as a quitter in Japan...especially not after the stress of last week!

I don't quit. I just move on to the next thing. There's a difference.

Dear God, Let the Third Graders Pass This Test

In Japan, enkai are office drinking parties, but they're performed with some pomp and ceremony so it's not just an excuse to get drunk. Not that I blame them: the Japanese workers are very industrious, especially the teachers, and need to cut loose once in a while.

It's the end of the school year now, and for the past month or so, the third grade junior high schoolers are taking entrance exams for their high schools. If you want to go to a prestigious high school, it's basically a fast track to university. Naturally, the tests are very difficult. If the students don't want to be public officials, teachers, engineers, etc., they can elect to go to a local high school where the tests are less difficult or they can enter a tech school.

Of course, the students are encouraged to aim high, so all the students take a few different tests and study their asses off to pass them. The teachers are naturally very supportive of the kids and do everything in their power to help them pass. Sometimes, that includes praying for the students.

I told the teachers at 南中 a month ago that I'm leaving Japan. Just as they including my welcoming ceremony into their "Start of the School Year" enkai, they added my goodbye party to their "Pray for the Third Grade" enkai earlier this month.

On the night of the party, I ran into another of the teachers at Kitakami Station. She doesn't speak English, but we were able to chat a little in Japanese about the sudden snowy weather we were having, living in Kitakami, and my plans for travel after Japan. Apparently, she's been to Milan and France and highly recommended Paris, though she'd only been there for a day.

We met Auntie sensei in Hanamaki and drove together to the restaurant. I never knew Auntie had such particular tastes: before we went to the party, she stopped at a few konbini stores to pick up some non-alcoholic beers (drinking and driving is MEGA illegal in Japan, and of course, she was our chauffeur). However, she came out of both stores empty handed.

"Wow," I said. "That's surprising that they don't have any alcohol-free for you!"

"Oh they do," she said. "Just not my brand." This woman is serious about her "free."

The restaurant was very traditional Japanese style: a small parlor on the ground floor that looked like someone's breakfast nook in their house and connected to the kitchen. Through a curtain and after leaving your shoes on some shelves, you climb the very steep and someone dingy carpeted steps. Upstairs, shoji screens are opened wide on a large tatami room with a few low tables and several floor cushions.

Auntie talked to me discreetly as we paid our way. "We've been here before. The first time, we all thought,'This place looks very old,'...maybe you think it's not so nice...but the food is very very good!"

I wasn't sure if she was just going through the humble motions of apologizing for not being in a hotel banquet hall (very Japanese) or being sincere. I assured her I was impressed and loved the look of the room. I love traditional Japanese style and she knows it, so I remained a little mystified. They put me in the place of honor next to the principal and in front of the tokonoma-- a beauty alcove with a few encased dolls, a calligraphy scroll and sprig of plant.

Suddenly, I was very aware of a large, low table to one side of the room against the wall. On the table were some sake bottles, cups, vases and other Shinto accessories like paper talismans and laurel branches.

After a few minutes, once everyone had arrived, Auntie sensei gestured for me to get up from the table and join the rest of the teachers in front of the table. We knelt on the tatami mats in neat rows, formally folding our hands on our laps...or the ladies did, anyway. I looked around and noticed the men all assume a "samurai" style of holding their hands on their thighs, elbows out to the sides.

One of the teachers pushed a button on the CD player by the table. Shinto flutes and drums played slowly from the speakers. The shoji screen door behind us opened and two teachers came into the room dressed in Shinto shrine acolyte clothes. The woman read from a paper, what I assumed were the formal prayers. The young man, one of the new teachers, stood at the table and performed the clapping and waved a paper wand as she prayed.

Once cued, the rest of us stood, clapped and bowed our heads. Then in turn, the principal, vice principal, and third year class head teachers took their turns receiving the laurel branches from the female teacher performing the rites. They each places the branches on the altar, clapped, bowed, and went back to their places in the crowd.

When the ceremony was over, it was like I was at a completely different party: from solemnity to frivolity in .02 seconds flat! We all sat down as the beer and "free" arrived and we began pouring for each other.

There were the traditional speeches, a few announcements about the upcoming tests, and then the food arrived. For the time we ate, we abandoned all school decorum and just enjoyed the meal. Auntie sat across from me. When the tuna and salmon sashimi arrived, she asked if I liked salmon. I told her yes and suddenly, her portion was in my dish!

She was like that all evening, handing me extra portions of shrimp, onion and lemon fry, pouring more beer for me and giving me her servings of sake.

I was astounded at the variety! She was right, the food was delicious...but so varied and not at all consistent in style: we started with sashimi, then had a fried shrimp and lemon dish, tempura, then a HUGE dish of kombu, hard-boiled egg, tofu, fish cake and a chunk of daikon the size of a roll of Duct Tape all soaked in a thin soy broth. After that, several large dishes of salad and pork tonkatsu came to the table. I love the family style of dining here...that's something I can't wait to take back home with me. Instead of saving "family style" for Italian or Chinese restaurants or holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, I'd like to start doing this communal dining style more often!

It just feels more loving.

Anyway, towards the end of the evening, we hit the part of the party where I was recognized. Auntie gave a small speech in Japanese and told the teachers my plans to go back to America and pursue a career in publishing or writing. I had told her I'd be living with roommates (well, one anyway. Heads up, Nate!) and she presented me with a gift. I stood and opened it for the room to see.

It's a beautiful noren, those panel curtains with the famous "Great Wave" painting from the series of views of Mt. Fuji! I thanked her over and over. Then I was asked to give a speech. In some rough Japanese, I thanked them, told them I have many happy memories from my time there and that I will always remember the spirit and kindness they showed me.

Next week will be my last visit to that school. Already, one student came to me and told me in beautiful English, "I'm sad to hear that you are leaving" and reduced me to a quivering puddle of emotion. It's going to be rough when I have to stand onstage and give a speech to them. It would be so much easier if I could treat it like the enkai where everyone's a little glassy-eyed from beer and giggling in mirth.

Of course, I'll still be an employee so getting drunk pre-speech is probably not a good idea. Maybe I can spike the school's water system with some gin...

New Challenge!

I'm going on an adventure!

Well, a new one anyway, and much more grand in comparison than the day trips I take on occasion to the coast or down to Sendai.

No, no. I'm stepping out into the wide world completely solo. As a teacher for Interac, I had a company to rely on. It was like taking a trip with a ginormous, corporate parent who could handle all the messy bureau-crazy and remind me to file a form or eight every now and then. They found housing for me and set up my schedule so all I had to do was show up for work and plan my own free time.

But now that I'm leaving Japan, I have a great opportunity to try and do all that messy business for myself. I anticipate falling flat on my face quite a bit, but oh, what a wonder the Internet is and all it's helpful users and their guiding hands! Every day, I do a little research on another aspect of solo travel: interesting things to do, how to pack light, where to get the best cup of coffee, how to successfully evade assault...the vital things.

Oh, what's that? Where am I going? Funny you should ask. I'm still ironing out the little creases, but the general plan goes like this:

Late March: Southern Japan including Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Sasebo to do some more hard-hitting research about my grandmother.

First 2 weeks of April: A couple days in Bangkok, 1 week in the north working at an elephant reservation, 1 week in Chiang Mai enjoying the wats (temples) and Songkran (New Year's/World's Biggest Water Fight)

Mid-April: A few days in Paris and some outer edge cities

Last week of April and First week of May: Amsterdam!!!

Details to follow!

Out With Devils

Out with devils, In with fortune! Happy Setsubun! On the old lunar calendar, today is the official first day of spring.

You could have fooled me: these past couple of days have been crazy cold. Parts of Japan have seen ridiculous amounts of snow. Kitakami was hit hard last weekend, but most of that snow has since settled or melted again.

Good thing, too, because last weekend was Kitakami's yuki matsuri, or snow festival. The snow was slushy and heavy, so most people stayed inside the Sakurano Department store, but we clever and adventurous few ventured outside for two reasons:

1. Taiko and Onikenbai demonstrations
2. Tuna Butchering Demonstration

I caught some of the taiko performance. A local group of men were beating away at drums big and small, shouting and jumping in time to the music. I adore the sound of a taiko group: it is just quintessential Japanese! You instantly imagine old war lords, samurai, katana, banners, long wooden ships diving through the sea.

Across the street in the Sakurano parking lot, there were a few food stands set up selling minestrone soup, croquettes, and mochi. At the far end of the lot, a small sledding hill was full of children and neon toboggans which of course was why I was there.

No, not really. My main objective was the Tuna Butchering Demonstration!

In a large wooden crate filled with ice, a very large tuna gazed up at the sky. It had given its life and I wonder if it ever imagined it would be sitting in a snowy parking lot, waiting to be broken down into small, immaculate little cubes. I wonder if it ever thought it would leave the sea. I wonder if it thought.

Anyway, zen Senn is done. Back to the carnage.

There was a team of three men behind three tables under an awning. The first man made a big show of picking up the enormous fish and showing us the girth and announcing proudly how much it weighed and were it was caught.

He then carefully laid the fish on his table and brought out his knife. In a smooth and quick motion, he sliced right behind the gill. He flipped the leviathan over and then made another slice. Et voila! Fish head is removed and set on display!

While he continued to slice along one side, the fish's head stood watch over its own butchery.

With one large, fat filet removed, the second man stepped in. He took the tuna onto his station and began to clean off the skin and cut the meat into long rectangles. After cleaning and thinning out a few portions, he had about seven long slabs in a bin.

The bin was passed to the third man just as another filet was set before the second man. The third man's job was the most exacting: the slice perfectly even and matching pieces of the freshest sashimi you've ever seen. I was amazed at how fast and focused these men were!

And the tuna! The taste! The smell! It was incredible! People in the crowd gathered around another table, grabbed wooden chopsticks and dove into the sample plates. It was a small group so you could go back and get a few plates if you wanted. I had three and then I was starting to feel guilty for indulging so much, so I went back to the first table.

The first butcher was actually scraping tuna from the fish's ribs, ever little ounce, and piling it like tartare on plates. Here, children were just diving into the communal plates with their waribashi, just going to town. And I went right along with them.

Put that on the top of my list of things I'll miss about Japan: fish butchery demos.