Joe is BACK!

Report for the month of February

I could use a long vacation.

February was a very long month for me, mostly because of school. I began practicing kendo at school three days a week but eventually the practices came to be pointless because the school's kendo club lost half of its low membership when the third-year students, the seniors, finished their exams. So, for the last few weeks, there haven't been enough people to hold a proper practice.

Oh well. The 14th was, of course, Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day in Japan is nice if you're male because the girls do all the work. Girls give the guys candy on February 14th and the guys give the girls that gave them candy on March 14th. It's great to get candy from people and then forget them for 29 days.

On a cold Sunday I went with my family to the Arima Onsen spa up in the mountains outside Kobe. It was an incredible experience. My only experience with Japanese public bathing was going to a pretty normal bath house with my last host family a couple of times, but this place was absolutelyunbelievable. It sits near the top of Mt. Rokko, the tallest mountain inthis part of Japan, and one of the baths sits on the side of the mountain and has just a glass canopy over it so it looks out into a valley. I worried about perverts in the valley with telescopes, but the water was so hot andthe scenery so beautiful and my washcloth so big that most of my problems seemed to disappear.

Another nice thing about the spa was that the air was clean. Now that theweather is cold, Osaka's pollution seems far worse for some reason. I suffered from it firsthand when we were running 3 K's twice a week. I had the energy to run, thanks to my Japanese diet that's claimed 25 pounds of Joe, but breathing the air while running felt like smoking something, and about a kilometer and a half in I would usually be coughing like crazy.

Now the running is over and I have finals to look forward to. I've sat through the Japanese midterm exams already but these are the first Japanese exams that I'm actually taking. They're not too hard if you understand written Japanese well, which I still don't. Out of the 2000 normal-use characters, I know maybe four or five hundred, which is a start but far from enough to understand many things, especially in my science classes. The school lets me use my character dictionary which is a big help.

We had a nice Rotex trip to Kyoto where we painted T-shirts in this old Japanese style (I think it's old... there wasn't much of an explanation) that uses stencils and thick paint sort of smeared through the stencils layer by layer to create a picture. My picture of a city street and a geisha came out sort of okay but my concentration broke when I was writing a title over it so I had to cover the mistake by filling the sky with smoke and making the temple in the background burn. So much for simple Japanese aesthetics.

On March 1 (I'm breaking from February here but this has to be included), two interesting things happened. First was graduation day. I expected the graduation ceremony to be much different than it was. All the students in the school came, and so did many parents although there didn't seem to be as many parents as graduating seniors. The ceremony took an hour and a half and was kicked off by the national anthem. Everybody stood when the song began, and then somebody sat down, and a few more people sat down, and eventually about half the people in

the back of the room, where I was sitting, figured it was okay to sit down, so I guessed that I could sit down as well, but then the song ended and the principal called for everyone to bow, so it was pretty clear that everyone was supposed to be standing. There were a few speeches (including one for about half an hour by a girl who I took to be a class president), a calling of names, some songs, and then it was over and the graduating people left and the principal yelled at everyone for screwing up the national anthem and we were free for the day.

The other interesting thing was that I had a dream in Japanese that morning. The fact didn't hit me until I had been awake for about fifteen minutes thinking about the dream--it was very weird--and then BAM I realized what was weird about it. I don't know why I had a dream now because my Japanese doesn't feel like it's getting too much better. But still, it's a good omen.

Special events aside, my normal life here is becoming more interesting now that I'm getting closer to being fluent in Japanese. School isn't that boring any more. One day, the English reading teacher was absent, so I spent a day teaching English profanity to my friends. For some reason, now that they know how to curse, their normal English has gotten really, really good, although I insist that they use profane terms if they speak to me.

e.g.:

Japanese guy: "It's cold."

Me (in Japanese): "What kind of 'cold?'"

Japanese guy: "It's f***ing cold."

Me (in Japanese): "Very good." (I pat him on the head)

Japanese guy: "Thank you."

Me (in English): "You're f***ing welcome."

I kind of like the fact that I'm helping people here to learn English because English education here is so awful, especially as far as verbal communication goes. Japanese students spend their whole lives on grammar and often the emphasis on grammar makes them miss a lot of the things that makes English so neat, like the word "f**k." Actually, I have to admit that I saw Japanese the same way while I was learning it at school in both America and Japan, and quite a few people I know here gave up on it because it just seemed to be a nightmare. In reality, though, it's like a fine art, and it somehow seems to convey so much more than English does.

The only problem I still have is with the Japanese society, because the vast majority of Japanese people can't talk to foreign people in Japanese. I still don't know why this is. What's even more aggravating is that most people here are rude to foreigners. Although every single person in my class is always called as "Mr. Y" or "Miss X," I'm always just "Joe," and it's been the same way in both of my host families, and when anyone addresses me with the sole exception of store clerks and barbers. I also recall a time at an orientation session when a Rotarian said in Japanese "We're going to be going to the next room, so please take your belongings and please move quickly" and then added in English "Over there, come on, let's MOVE!!!"

People in my Rotary club who are wonderfully well-spoken and indirect in Japanese come to me in English and say things like "So, your family's rrrrich?" or "Why do foreign people lie so much?" or "You have problems with the language? Baaaah!" The best reason I can guess for this is that Japanese people don't understand that politeness exists in the rest of the world as well.

Well, I'll stop my report here and leave some material for next month. Until then, ki o tsukete (take care) and yoku kaite (write often)!

-joe, in japan



	Report for the month of February I could use a long vacation. February was a very long month for me, mostly because of school. I began practicing kendo at school three days a week but eventually the practices came to be pointless because the school's kendo club lost half of its low membership when the third-year students, the seniors, finished their exams. So, for the last few weeks, there haven't been enough people to hold a proper practice. Oh well. The 14th was, of course, Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day in Japan is nice if you're male because the girls do all the work. Girls give the guys candy on February 14th and the guys give the girls that gave them candy on March 14th. It's great to get candy from people and then forget them for 29 days. On a cold Sunday I went with my family to the Arima Onsen spa up in the mountains outside Kobe. It was an incredible experience. My only experience with Japanese public bathing was going to a pretty normal bath house with my last host family a couple of times, but this place was absolutelyunbelievable. It sits near the top of Mt. Rokko, the tallest mountain inthis part of Japan, and one of the baths sits on the side of the mountain and has just a glass canopy over it so it looks out into a valley. I worried about perverts in the valley with telescopes, but the water was so hot andthe scenery so beautiful and my washcloth so big that most of my problems seemed to disappear. Another nice thing about the spa was that the air was clean. Now that theweather is cold, Osaka's pollution seems far worse for some reason. I suffered from it firsthand when we were running 3 K's twice a week. I had the energy to run, thanks to my Japanese diet that's claimed 25 pounds of Joe, but breathing the air while running felt like smoking something, and about a kilometer and a half in I would usually be coughing like crazy. Now the running is over and I have finals to look forward to. I've sat through the Japanese midterm exams already but these are the first Japanese exams that I'm actually taking. They're not too hard if you understand written Japanese well, which I still don't. Out of the 2000 normal-use characters, I know maybe four or five hundred, which is a start but far from enough to understand many things, especially in my science classes. The school lets me use my character dictionary which is a big help. We had a nice Rotex trip to Kyoto where we painted T-shirts in this old Japanese style (I think it's old... there wasn't much of an explanation) that uses stencils and thick paint sort of smeared through the stencils layer by layer to create a picture. My picture of a city street and a geisha came out sort of okay but my concentration broke when I was writing a title over it so I had to cover the mistake by filling the sky with smoke and making the temple in the background burn. So much for simple Japanese aesthetics. On March 1 (I'm breaking from February here but this has to be included), two interesting things happened. First was graduation day. I expected the graduation ceremony to be much different than it was. All the students in the school came, and so did many parents although there didn't seem to be as many parents as graduating seniors. The ceremony took an hour and a half and was kicked off by the national anthem. Everybody stood when the song began, and then somebody sat down, and a few more people sat down, and eventually about half the people in the back of the room, where I was sitting, figured it was okay to sit down, so I guessed that I could sit down as well, but then the song ended and the principal called for everyone to bow, so it was pretty clear that everyone was supposed to be standing. There were a few speeches (including one for about half an hour by a girl who I took to be a class president), a calling of names, some songs, and then it was over and the graduating people left and the principal yelled at everyone for screwing up the national anthem and we were free for the day. The other interesting thing was that I had a dream in Japanese that morning. The fact didn't hit me until I had been awake for about fifteen minutes thinking about the dream--it was very weird--and then BAM I realized what was weird about it. I don't know why I had a dream now because my Japanese doesn't feel like it's getting too much better. But still, it's a good omen. Special events aside, my normal life here is becoming more interesting now that I'm getting closer to being fluent in Japanese. School isn't that boring any more. One day, the English reading teacher was absent, so I spent a day teaching English profanity to my friends. For some reason, now that they know how to curse, their normal English has gotten really, really good, although I insist that they use profane terms if they speak to me. e.g.: Japanese guy: "It's cold." Me (in Japanese): "What kind of 'cold?'" Japanese guy: "It's fing cold."* Me (in Japanese): "Very good." (I pat him on the head) Japanese guy: "Thank you." Me (in English): "You're fing welcome."* I kind of like the fact that I'm helping people here to learn English because English education here is so awful, especially as far as verbal communication goes. Japanese students spend their whole lives on grammar and often the emphasis on grammar makes them miss a lot of the things that makes English so neat, like the word "fk." Actually, I have to admit that I saw Japanese the same way while I was learning it at school in both America and Japan, and quite a few people I know here gave up on it because it just seemed to be a nightmare. In reality, though, it's like a fine art, and it somehow seems to convey so much more than English does. The only problem I still have is with the Japanese society, because the vast majority of Japanese people can't talk to foreign people in Japanese. I still don't know why this is. What's even more aggravating is that most people here are rude to foreigners. Although every single person in my class is always called as "Mr. Y" or "Miss X," I'm always just "Joe," and it's been the same way in both of my host families, and when anyone addresses me with the sole exception of store clerks and barbers. I also recall a time at an orientation session when a Rotarian said in Japanese "We're going to be going to the next room, so please take your belongings and please move quickly" and then added in English "Over there, come on, let's MOVE!!!" People in my Rotary club who are wonderfully well-spoken and indirect in Japanese come to me in English and say things like "So, your family's rrrrich?" or "Why do foreign people lie so much?" or "You have problems with the language? Baaaah!" The best reason I can guess for this is that Japanese people don't understand that politeness exists in the rest of the world as well. Well, I'll stop my report here and leave some material for next month. Until then, ki o tsukete (take care) and yoku kaite (write often)! -joe, in japan**