One can be a lonely number

Homogeneous is the word that comes to mind when it comes to discussing Japan’s population. 99% of the people living in Japan are of Japanese decent. Of all the foreigners living in Japan, many of them live in the larger cities such as Tokyo. This does not leave a lot of room for diversity in the more rural populations of Japan. Within the 2 million people living in Fukushima, there are about 12,000 foreigners living in the prefecture – and most of them are of Chinese, Filipino, or Korean decent. When a teacher I work with found out these numbers, she said that she was surprised that there were so many foreigners in Fukushima. She thought that the number would be much lower.

Although I’ve been here for a number of months and am fairly used to the ongoing novelty of my presence, it is still an odd experience for me. In my high school in Vancouver (actually, I live in a suburb called Burnaby) of about 2800 students, I think that the western population was actually a minority in the school. Native westerners still made up the bulk of our school’s population, but there were probably more students that came from other countries.

Within my school here in Japan, I only know of one student who has a Pakistani father – otherwise, for all intents and purposes, I am the only completely non-Japanese in my school of about 1000 teachers and students. This is why Japan has a program that hires people like me to come and work in these schools. As you can imagine, whenever I bring another foreigner to my school, while many students will try to front an appearance of indifference, there is generally nothing but an interest that borders on outright fascination that lingers wherever we go.

As such, I make a point of having them come to my school so that students have an opportunity to speak with other foreigners. Usually what ends up happening at these visits is my guests will come to one of my English Conversation Club meetings. When Janice was here in December, we had a joint Christmas party with the students at Sakura High School, which is just down the road from us. This was also a good opportunity for the students to meet the ALT from that school as well. This past Tuesday, Sean came to our club meeting where we gave a small presentation of the places Sean has been in the world and then had the students give him a tour of the school and its club activities.

Tokyo part III: Shibuya

I took Janice too work again yesterday to Iwaki Koko, my main school so that she could see my office and meet some of the teachers that I work with. She was also to be somewhat of a guest of honor at a Christmas party that me and another ALT from Sakura high school were having. Attending the party, we had 23 students, 2 ALTs, a Japanese English teacher, and Janice. With the exception of myself and the other Japanese English teacher, everyone at the party was of the female gender. While the Japanese English teacher spent his time reading in the foyer of the building, I spent the duration of the party among the 25 sugar-charged girls – Janice being no exception.

Again, Janice seems to be quite popular at this school – more popular than me. Aside from all of the dinner invitations that I’ve been receiving from the other teachers since Janice arrived, the girls from the Conversation Club loved her. They were in awe of the earrings that she wore – the students not being allowed to where them at school, they were eager to share their candy with her, and when I was making my rounds around the snack table, I noticed that many of the students had portraits of themselves with Janice as their profile screen. That’s cool though; I didn’t want my picture taken anyway.

I think that before Janice left Canada, she was looking forward to seeing Japan and hopefully me as well. What she wasn’t prepared for was how excited everyone in Japan was looking forward to seeing her. She told me that being in Japan makes you feel really good about yourself because everyone is so fascinated by everything about you. It’s true; many people in Japan are very isolated from other cultures. Janice has been told many times, “we don’t get much of a chance to meet foreigners.”

Since we arrived back in Iwaki from Tokyo, I’ve settled back into my routine, but I often forget that everything is still very new for Janice. I think she’s settling quite well though – it feels as if she’s been here the whole time with me.

We managed to acquire a bike for Janice last night, from another ALT who’s going back to Hong Kong for a couple of weeks. It’s a typical Mamachati with one gear, fenders, a basket on the front, rack on the back, and a light on the front wheel. I’m still getting used to seeing her ride around in anything other than her black Sunfire, but it’s one more step in adjusting to life in Japan – and Janice seems to like cruising around on two wheels instead of four.

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These photos are from Shibuya. They are the third set of photos from our time in Tokyo.

We all Scream

I was walking to meet my conversation club after school the other day and I had in my hand some English games that I thought we could try together. We had only met a few times so far due to a slow start this year and the numerous exam periods that our school has. As such, I haven’t had much of a chance to figure out what I’m doing in this club.

It was as I was walking to the classroom that I realized this was the last meeting we would have before out Halloween party next Friday. We had planned to get together with Sakura students and their ALT for a Halloween celebration. Because this was the last day that we would all meet, I realized that we should probably do something to prepare. As I approached the door to the room, I tried my best to think of what a good Conversation Club leader would do.

The only thing I could think of was ‘decorations.’ We needed decorations to make this Halloween party seem like authentic. Of course we would need candy and such, but these treats could easily be bought later. We needed decorations that would give us a real cheesy Halloween atmosphere.

“Do we want to make some decorations for the party next week?” I asked. The seven of nine girls that showed up to the meeting looked at me blankly – maybe even a bit scared. “Do you know how to make any Halloween decorations?” The club last year had made some great decorations, which I still had in a box, so I ran quickly to my office to grab these. The students were eager to dive into the two boxes of fabrics, construction paper, threads, and old decorations. Lucky for me, the previous ALT had prepared well. Unlucky for me, I had no idea what to do with it all.

We started sorting and sifting through the material when I came across a piece of fabric that resembled burlap. An image of a scarecrow came to my mind. I suggested we make a scarecrow, but this concept obviously did not translate and no images of scarecrows could form within their minds. With a bit of explaining, and awkward chalk drawings, we realized that Japanese farmers use similar figures to protect their rice crops. Now that I had the fabric for the face, it was time to build a scarecrow.

They all looked at me. I looked at my fabric. I thought of asking if any of them knew how to build a scarecrow, but then I thought better of it. Instead, I wrapped the fabric around my head and marked it off as an appropriate size for a scarecrow head.

Next, I ran back to my office quickly and grabbed some scrap paper to scrunch into fill the head. We had cut the fabric as was marked off, but it appears that although my head is about the right size for a human, it is way too small for a scarecrow’s. Luckily, the piece we had cut our head from was the perfect size. Still, the head needed some shape to it.

I ran back to my office quickly where I remembered there being some sort of cylindrical antenna, which I grabbed and used amidst a ton of paper to form the head. We tied this off and our scarecrow was beginning to take shape. The students started to get excited. I was more excited.

We needed something to put the head on. I ran back to my office quickly where in a closet, I remembered there were two brooms. We tried to tie these two brooms together in a makeshift crucifix in order to create a spine with two arms, but this was difficult. We needed something to keep the angles.

So… I ran back to my office quickly where I remembered I saw some plastic cups sitting under the sink. I cut a hole in the bottom of the cup and slit it up one side. I put the vertical broomstick through the bottom of the cup and then rested the perpendicular broom across the top of the rim. We taped it all together and we had our torso. Once this came together, the students got to work cutting out a face and some clothes for our scarecrow and the energy in the room grew. Meanwhile, I grew uneasy at the thought of how we could stand this makeshift concoction in a decent and presentable manner.

I ran back to my office quickly where I remembered I had an extra wooden chair. The vertical broomstick slipped nicely between the seat and the back of the chair, which took care of one axis, while the floor took care of another. I now only had to worry about the lateral movement of the apparatus.

I ran back to my office quickly, where I remembered one more box of crafts that I hoped might contain something that I could use to fix our new friend in the making. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much help here. Instead, I found some twine in another box and began tying a few knots together with little success. It was at this point that the girls took over. They tied strand after strand from one leg to the next until finally, only a knife could release the poor fellow.

It is good to know that my club members, if needed, can securely tie someone to a chair.

Everything came together after this. The only thing missing was a hat. I asked if anybody knew how to make an origami hat, which they all got excited about, but didn’t know how to do. I grabbed some black paper from the box, which looked suitable, and decided that I should know how to make a hat out of paper. After a couple of experimental folds, my mate had a cap.

We took name suggestions and then held a vote, and Mr. Scream was born. The good Conversation Club leader felt good.

Pumkin Karving Japan

As an activity for my English conversation club this week, another ALT in Iwaki suggested that we put our clubs together and have a pumpkin carving in preparation for Halloween. It was a chance for our club members to meet new people, speak some English, and participate in a cultural activity.

It is my understanding that Japanese people don’t celebrate Halloween. I’m interested to see what, if anything happens on the 31st. It’s difficult enough trying to find a decent pumpkin to carve in this city. The one I bought for myself was fairly small – about the size of a small cantaloupe, and it was green. Some of the students managed to find orange pumpkins, and one set of students found a giant of a pumpkin – maybe the largest I’ve ever seen?

It’s an odd thing, carving up a pumpkin to resemble some kind of monster face – or is this what we try to create? I realized very quickly that I am no expert in the tradition of old Hallow’s Eve – I’m not even sure if this term is appropriately applicable to the holiday. Maybe holiday isn’t even the right word – maybe we should call it a celebration of sorts? As for the origins of the day (for lack of a better word), I’m not sure anyone really knows. People have explained the history of Halloween to me, only to have other people discredit these explanations in favour of other ones, who in turn are discredited by others. It’s been explained as a day associated with Christianity; a day celebrating the dead, or the dying, or the raising of the dead; there are witches associated with Halloween as well.

Some questions that I wasn’t quite sure how to answer: what is my jack-o-lantern supposed to look like? Do eat lots of pumpkin in Canada? Why don’t you eat very much pumpkin in Canada?

The students did well carving their pumpkins and they looked really good when we lit the candles. Although a vice principle got a bit concerned when he say us playing with fire outside. For some reason knives weren’t a problem though.

Carve a pumpkin in a foreign country: check that off of life’s to-do list.