And now, the Christmas/pre-Y2K report... Last I wrote was near the end of November/beginning of December so I'll cover the events of this month. Of course, it's high holiday season, and I've been to four Christmas parties so far. The first was the Tsurumi Rotary Club's party, which was set up on the 23rd floor of the Imperial Hotel, overlooking nighttime Osaka which looks sort of like L.A. from "Blade Runner" without the explosions everywhere. I met my third host family, and the host father there is... get ready for this one... an attorney. Yes, there are attorneys in Japan, and I thought everyone in my Rotary club was a dentist. Then came a party at my school, which brought in 22 foreign teachers and at least a hundred students, all in a tiny classroom converted to a party hall. I pulled English MC duty, which was very fun because I got to say "Ladies and gentlemen, boys, girls, and foreign people of all ages, these games have ended!" which I ad-libbed when nobody would shut up. Next came a party whose purpose I never figured out, but which involved lots of sushi, lots of crab, lots of wine, and all three of my host families trying to out-sake` each other. Then came the Rotex party for the exchange students where I attempted to play an organ (the best they could do for a keyboarded instrument) and failed horribly. After the Rotex party I went with seven other exchange students to an event at Hibarigaoka, a very expensive private school that one exchange student from our district is attending plus two more from the next district over. The event was to help the students study English before going on a one-month homestay in New Zealand, and our duty was to play natives in role-playing so the students would know what to do in emergencies. The fun part for me was when I took the role of a serial killer trying to seduce young ladies into going to my home so I could rip their heads off and put them in my garage... I successfully got two girls. I also played an armed robber, and a playboy trying to pick people up (that was also very fun... "Would you like to see a New Zealand house? I own one...") Earlier today (Wednesday the 22nd) I went to an elementary school on the east side of town to meet my family over a teleconference link. This was set up between me, a teacher at the school, and a teacher at Nova S.E., all of whom I owe a lot of thanks to. The meeting went wonderfully and I got to see Mrs. Kling and a woman from Channel 10 whose name I now forget. ("How could I *not* know her?" I lied when she was introduced.) Then, this afternoon, came a miracle. It snowed. I was so weirded out by the entire idea that it was snowing that my host mother thought I had gone into some form of shock. The snow fell for about fifteen minutes and then disappeared, but because it was 36 degrees or so outside nothing turned white. I sat in my bedroom listening to the radio, reading the newspaper, watching the snow come down, and it felt sort of Christmas-y. Christmas is kind of weird here because it's purely a commercial holiday. Everyone has a Christmas tree and gives Christmas gifts and eats Christmas dinner even though almost nobody is Christian. (My host sister is, and I wasn't aware of the fact until one of my friends met her at church..."What? She goes to CHURCH?") My report ends here, so I'll talk to everyone in the supposed New Millennium, and I encourage everyone out there to write or e-mail, even if you have nothing to say, just to let me know that you're alive and well and can still read English well enough to get through my reports. My next host family's address follows: c/o Orita family Matsu-no-uchi-cho 9-16 Ashiya-shi Hyogo-ken 659 Japan Wa & ai, -joe |
Another report from Joe! |
