All I want for Christmas is better music

I really enjoy having my kids sing English songs. I think it’s a great learning opportunity and a lot more fun than a lot of other activities we do in class. Also, its living language, which means that it isn’t always 100% correct English, but it IS how people actually use the language. And that’s incredibly important for the students to experience.

So when Christmas time rolls around you’d think I would be excited. There are so many great Christmas songs! Unfortunately three songs here seem to have a monopoly on English class singing. One of them is "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey, and I don’t mind that one so much. It isn’t a bad song and has a cute message. It isn’t exactly what I would call a classic or traditional Christmas song, but it has a good beat and it’s fun to sing. The other two however I really don’t like. Let’s break them down and see why, shall we?


Happy Xmas (War is Over)
By John Lennon and Yoko Ono

I HATE this song. This is not a song I want to hear at Christmas time. I’m not going to go through every line, just the ones that really bother me and make me hate this song. Also, I refuse to type out Xmas like it says in the lyrics because that’s not how you say Christmas.

The song doesn’t waste any time in sinking into a melancholy.

And so this is Christmas
And what have you done?

Well… not much I guess. I mean my life is a rather small one and I haven’t really done anything to alter the face of the world this year. I’m sure I did a few things for people, but is that enough? Have a wasted this past year and am I doomed to waste the next one as well? Wow, I’m really feeling in the Christmas spirit now.

And so this is Christmas
I hope you had fun

No you don’t. Your tone suggests that you’re being incredibly sarcastic and implying that I better have had fun with my wasted life because it didn’t do any good. This is not a wish of goodwill, it’s a taunt.

And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For the rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong

Well that started out okay. I thought we were going for the message that this is Christmas for everyone and that it doesn’t matter if your strong or weak or rich or poor, it’s still Christmas. But then we throw out that next line, which seems to be implying that the world is wrong for having weak and strong ones and poor and rich ones. How does that work? Should we all be rich and strong? I mean, that’s a nice thought, but it can’t work that way. Should we all be of average strength and moderate income?

But next comes the biggest reason I hate singing this song here in Japan.

And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For the yellow and red ones
Let’s stop all the fight

He did not just say that! Black and white are terms that we use to indentify ourselves by race, this is true, but yellow and red are RACIAL SLURS! When my teacher was going over the lyrics of this song with the kids I just had to stand there uncomfortably while he informed them that red people were Native Americans and yellow people were Asians. One of my students looked down at her skin and said rather distraughtly, “I’m not yellow.” Awk-ward!

And so this is Christmas
And what have you done?

I’ve written a self righteous Christmas song!

The final nail in the coffin for me is the background vocals toward the end.

War is over!
If you want it
War is over!
Now!

OH! That’s the problem! We just haven’t wanted it hard enough. Hear that all you people who have loved ones fighting for our country? You haven’t wanted the war to be over badly enough. You must not really want your loved ones to come home or you would want it enough that it would be over now. It’s not like there are any complicated political matters involved here, it’s just a matter of YOU wanting it enough and you have failed. This seriously reminds me of that speech from the Superman 4 movie where he says that he’s sure we’ll have peace once we want it badly enough. I get that this song was a protest to the Vietnam War, but saying war is over if we want it to be is incredibly shallow and shows a lack of understanding of the bigger picture.

Why do we still sing this song?!?! It’s not only that I hate the song’s message, I just don’t think it’s much of a song. There just isn’t a lot there. There isn’t anything wrong with being simple, but I don’t even like the beat all that much.


Last Christmas
By Wham!

I honestly didn’t dislike this song at first. It wasn’t until multiple listenings that I really started to notice some problems in the lyrics. The chorus sets the stage and on its own sends a pretty good message.

Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special

Sounds pretty good right? He’s moved on from his broken heart and gives a pretty subtle burn to his old love by saying that this time he’ll give his heart to someone special which SHE is not. Ouch. It also fits the Christmas theme of gift giving in a cute way with the giving of your heart. If the rest of this song supported the chorus I don’t think I’d have any problem with it. A song about heartbreak isn’t ideal for a Christmas song, but if it’s hopeful and about finding love this year I can give it a pass.

The song moves into the first verse and we get to a party where he sees the girl again and can’t help but be drawn to her. I can give him a pass for this, she was clearly attractive to him the first time, so there is bound to be a little lingering emotion there. But then the song starts to get confused.

Now I know what a fool I’ve been
But if you kissed me now I know you’d fool me again

Wait, what? That first part suggests that he got over her, that he moved on. Or at least realized that giving her his heart in the first place was doomed to fail because she sucks. But the next line turns it around and makes me think that he’s still in love with her. After a year of sulking over her betrayal of his affections he’s still willing to be fooled by a simple kiss? What is wrong with this guy? Surely no one is that good of a kisser. I mean, I understand having lingering feelings after being rejected, but that doesn’t mean you forget all the pain someone caused you with a single kiss.

The next verse doesn’t really add much, just goes on about how badly she broke his heart while he avoids her at the party.

I’m hiding from you
And your soul of ice

Okay, we seem to be back on track here. He's realized again that this girl is a cold hearted person who couldn’t really love him and is avoiding her. This puts us back in the right direction.

A face of a lover with a fire in his heart
A man undercover but you tore me apart

Uh, what? This part just confuses me.  A man undercover as what? Were you undercover as someone who loved her? But if you were undercover then that would mean you didn’t really love her in the first place but were just pretending. Or are you saying that you seem like a total wuss, but underneath all that you’re really a tough man who then got torn apart by this girl? That doesn’t really work either...

Now I’ve found a real love
You’ll never fool me again

You know what this song has been missing? References to this new love he has. The chorus doesn’t even spell out that he has a new love; just that he’s going to find someone special to give his heart to. This is the first mention we’ve had of this girl existing. I’ve got an idea, instead of focusing on how miserable the old girl makes you, why not look at how happy this new girl has apparently made you? Why hasn’t she come up before in this whole song? Why aren’t you at the party with her? And wait, last verse you said you could be fooled again if the old flame kissed you. Now you’re all assertive that she’s never going to fool you again? All right, that was fast but okay.

Then the kicker in the last few lines.

Maybe next year I’ll give it to someone
I’ll give it to someone special

WHAT?! Now I’m really confused. Not a moment ago he was talking about his “real love.” Did he break up with her during the last chorus? Is he getting together with the old girl again for no reason stated? Is he just so overwhelmed by the memories of the past that he isn’t going to give anyone his heart this year or is he explicitly going to give it to someone who he doesn’t feel is special? He sounded so confident a moment ago, what happened?

This song is kind of a mess. It flip flops back and forth without seeming to really understand where it’s going. The chorus suggests movement and growth but the verses just keep pulling it down and contradicting it. The only real message I can pull out of this song is that the singer is a mess. If the song was supposed to make me confused I guess it succeeded.

That isn’t to say that I hate everything about this song. The melody is catchy and fun (who doesn’t love whispering the echo of “special”?) and the music has enough variation to keep me interested. As long as I don’t think about it very hard I can enjoy this song a bit, but once you think about the lyrics it’s not as much fun to sing.


I probably wouldn’t hate these songs if we sang other songs besides these on a regular basis. But after three years of these songs being just about the only ones my JTEs want to sing in class (and I’ve worked with four different teachers in this time), and the fact that they are played in all the stores and commercials during this time, they have just worn me down. If I had it all to do over again I would really have invested in some good classic Christmas carols and suggested them early and often. But as things stand I’ll probably never be able to hear these two songs again without grinding my teeth a little in frustration.

I forgot to mention…

I’ve been horrible about updating for the past two months, and I apologize. Things have been a little crazy. So now I will attempt to give a quick update on some things that I have neglected to mention.

Eric already did a post about it, but we won first place in a costume contest at an ALT Halloween Party. Our friend Emily suggested we do a group costume and came up with the brilliant idea of being Tetris pieces. The costumes were a pain to make, but in the end totally worth it. They looked amazing (and totally all linked together)! We got pretty good at putting them together too. After the first long day of work we had them all mostly assembled, another day and then some was required for paint, and a final day for the outline tape and cutting our face holes. We were quite proud of them. Then we went to load them into the car, which was an ordeal in itself (see the linked blogs for highly amusing pictures). I’m proud of the work we did and really enjoyed our costumes. When we walked into the party everyone started taking our pictures. It was like being a celebrity for a brief moment.  I encourage everyone to take a look at Emily's livejournal as she has a fantastic making of entry with tons of great pictures!

We literally had just walked in

Next in November I presented at our Mid Year Seminar. All of the ALTs in Kumamoto and many of the JTEs gather together to talk about teaching English, living in Japan, and other related things. It’s a time to share ideas and help us all to be reenergized in the classroom. My presentation was on Japanese Pop Culture and it was EPIC! But you don’t have to take my word for it! It’s available online here. I had a ton of fun working on the project and it’s something I’m passionate about. Our goals were to make the attendees of our workshop familiar with many pop culture icons that their students are likely obsessed with (so that they have a good conversation starter to talk with the students) and to give some examples of ways to integrate pop culture knowledge into English lessons. I also hoped to help people find something that they could really enjoy while in Japan, some band or TV show that they could really look forward to. I was really worried about having enough time since we had a massive 54 slides to get through and just over an hour to do it. But we got through everything with time for questions and I think most everyone enjoyed the workshop.


My mouth is open entirely too wide in this picture...

 For my birthday we went to a restaurant with a group of friends. The restaurant is called Ninja, and it is amazing (so amazing in fact that I have written a whole entry about it that you can look forward to seeing tomorrow). I got some celebratory ice cream with a sparkler in it and a bunch of ninjas sang happy birthday to me. How many people can say that?


There are actually 8 ninjas in this photo.  Can you find them?  Of course not.  They're ninjas.

 Other than those major events things have been carrying on more or less as normal. I attended my school’s culture festivals but that probably deserves its own post so I won’t dwell on it here. The weather is getting rather cold and miserable at the moment, but I know it will get worse before it gets better. I’m a bit bummed that we won’t be returning to the states for Christmas (although at least I get to avoid crazy airport security) but we’re going to Tokyo for the holidays and that should be a lot of fun.

I’ll do my best to update a bit more regularly. I’ve still got a ton of posts written up on my computer that just need to be put up on the blog. It’s not like I have a shortage of things to talk about! I get more excited about posting when people leave comments, so keep that in mind (you don't have to be a member to comment). Also, don’t forget to check out Eric’s blog as well (there is now a handy link in the sidebar so you can always find it). We are in the same basic area, but we talk about very different things.

That about wraps it up for this overdue update. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoys the holiday season. Also, if you send me a Christmas card I will love you forever.

Epic Stories

This is the 50th post I have made to this blog! Yay! First of all, thank you to everyone who has been reading this blog up till now, and a super big thank you to everyone who has commented. It really means a lot to me that people take the time to see what I’m up to over here (and helps me to not feel completely detached and forgotten). I’m happy that I can share my experiences with my friends and family, as well as people I have never met! I have a lot of posts written up and will try to be a bit more regular about posting them in the future. But enough about me. You’re all really here because I promised something epic for this post, and I aim to deliver.

During my first year on the JET program I had some amazing junior high third grade (9th grade) students. My time with them was far too short, but they certainly made an impression on me. And after this post I’m sure you will see why. For Bunkasai, or Culture Festival which will likely get its own lengthy post later, one of the elective classes did small projects in English. Most students translated Japanese songs or poems into English. But one group of three boys (who all lived in the neighborhood of Arakuchi) decided to write some stories of their own in English.

They wrote and illustrated two stories and I will share them with you now. I know that I’ve been able to share the first story with a lot of you (although it’s worth reading again) but I managed to get some screen shots of the video I took and now I can share the second story with you as well! I’ve typed out the text so it’s easier to read, but I’ve tried to copy it exactly as they wrote it for you to enjoy. Click on any of the pictures to get a bigger view (apologies for the poor quality of the second set).  Enjoy!

Dinosaurs

By Kento, Kazushi, and Tomohisa

In Goshoura, there were Tomo, Ken and Kazu. They liked sea and often went swimming.

When they were swimming as usual, a tornado appeared near them and they were blown off.

They came to themselves and here was a deserted island. “Where is here?” The looked around well and they found some well known sceneries. But there were many trees around them.

“Boom! Booooom!” They went to the place where the sound came. Then, there were many dinosaurs. “What are they?”

A T-Rex was surprised by the voice and it ran after them. They dashed hard. But they were caught up by the T-Rex and they were almost eaten. At the very time, “Wait!! Wait!!” “Gaaaaaa! Who are you!!”

“Red of passion, Arakuchi Red! Loving the sea, Arakuchi Blue! Shining star, Arakuchi Yellow! Forest guardian, Arakuchi Green! Together, Arakuchi Rangers!!”

“Get this.” “Red pepper!”

“Blue chainsaw!”

“Yellow volt!”

“Green bazooka!”

“Boooooooooon!!!!!” The T-Rex was blown off. “Thank you, Arakuchi rangers.” “You were in dangers. OK. Let’s go back to the present time together.” “What? The present time?” Yes, here was in Goshoura hundred million years ago.

Alien

By Kento, Kazushi, and Tomohisa

When they got up they were in Kento’s house.

“Goooooooooooo” Then Kento was changing his appearance. He became an Alien. He had big eyes, his mouth was torn, with big ears, long nails, and a Tail. He was 3 meters tall.

“Go to hell.” “Super miracle hyper beautiful game.”



Yes, it really says that.



While he was saying that Tomohisa and Kazushi ran away. But Kento’s house was a maze. Tomohisa and Kazushi was found soon. Kazushi said “What were you doing, Kento?”. Tomohisa said “You were not such a man”. Kento said “I am the Alien from Tonkatsu Planet. I came here to conquest the Earth.” “You are an Alien Tonkatsu.” I’ve ever heard.” “They eat Tonkatsu as a main dish and they live in a peaceful planet.”

“Why do you want to conquest the Earth?” “My planet Tonkatsu was lost. So I come to this planet to find new Tonkatsu.” “Now I know the reason.” “Then grill and eat us.” “Oh thank you. I’ll eat you.”

“Wait wait.” “Who are you?”

“Red of passion, Arakuchi Red! Loving the sea, Arakuchi Blue! Shining star, Arakuchi Yellow! Forest guardian, Arakuchi Green! Together, Arakuchi Rangers!!” “Get this.”

“Red fire.” “Blue water.” “Yellow lemon.” “Green leaf.” “Boooooooooooooom.” Kento flew in to the sky and disappeared.

“Thank you Arakuchi Range…” Gaba!! They were sleeping in Kento’s house. To tell the truth everything was a dream.

The Goshoura Rangers also made an appearance in the third graders’ skit that year as they showed up to rescue two students from wild boars (one of whom was played by the homeroom teacher) by singing at them. It was by far the best part of the day, so of course my camera ran out of batteries while I was taping it and didn’t save. But I still have the memories and I'm glad I can share them with you.

Hopefully by the 100th post I will have something equally awesome to share with you all!

Sports Festival

This past weekend (two weekends ago now, as I suck at posting in a timely manner…) I attended an event called undoukai, or Sports Festival, at one of my schools. This event is somewhat like a Field Day as I remember it from elementary school. My students were all divided into 2 teams, red and white. They competed in various events and earned points for their team. At the end of the day the scores were tabulated and one team was declared winner. They received a giant trophy to hold during closing ceremonies and have bragging rights for the next year.

The school looking spiffy for the event

My Sports Day is a little different from most others in Japan since my elementary school and junior high hold the event together. On my other island, where the schools are a little bigger, the elementary holds their Sports Day in the fall (and annoyingly always on the same day as the other school so I never get to go) and the junior high has theirs in the spring. But since these schools are right next to each other and are very small they have always held the event together.

Running!

Sports Day is a bit of a misnomer because probably 60-70% of the events are various types of races. Running day sounds WAY less exciting though. The kids aren’t the only ones involved either. There were various weird relay races where the teachers and parents got involved too. It’s a large community event. Adults don’t earn points for either team (they are normally divided into teams by neighborhood) in their events, but everyone who participates in them is awarded a practical prize like paper towels, tissues, soap, or garbage bags. The tiny kindergarteners also attend for their mini races and dances.


The popular roll the hoop race


Several of my old students who are now in high school were there and some teachers who had transferred away came back just to see the students again and enjoy the event. Living on the islands here is difficult, but the kids and the school are really great and so a lot of the old teachers come back. I’m not sure how common it is at other schools, but I’d say the majority of our old teachers who transferred this past year came back. It was cute seeing the kids run up to them to talk with them again. Also one of my favorite student who moved to Kumamoto City when her mother changed jobs in April came back to see all her friends! She even got to participate in one of the races. It was so good to see her again. I really miss having her in class.


Obviously not my kids, but this is an event the little ones do.


A big difference from the Field Days I remember as a kid is that the students run pretty much everything. The kids do the announcements of the events and the participants, they fire off the starting gun, they hold the finish line tape, they spend an entire day before the event at school to set up, and they tear everything down when the day is over. At my Field Day in America there were parents who volunteered and helped run the events and the kids just got to enjoy it. But the kids here have serious ownership of the event.


This kid had a broken arm, so he couldn't do much.  But he did the drums for one of the dances.

 Another big difference is the amount of practice my kids do for Sports Day. In the month of September one or two periods of school every day were devoted to preparing for the event. Yes, as in normal class time is used to practice and some of my kids end up with days with three out of six classes being P.E. They practiced how to march in for opening ceremonies and where to stand and sit during all of the speeches. They practiced the closing ceremony, including announcing one team the winner so they can practice cheering (I’m assuming they alternate each practice run). They practiced the various dances they would do for the crowd. And that all makes sense to me. What doesn’t make sense to me is that they also seem to run through all of the events. They did tug of war and ran races. If the kids are always pretty evenly matched then I suppose it’s okay, but I would think that it would take the fun out of it if your team has repeatedly lost in practice. You would be pretty sure the actual event will turn out the same way. They also practice things like the dances and Oendan before and after school and during lunch break. These kids pretty much breath Sport’s Day until it’s over.


My kids practicing Oendan for the big day

 Oendan is a type of cheering that is popular here in Japan. It’s pretty awesome to watch. It’s far more like our Yell Leaders at A&M than cheerleaders though. It’s all based on synchronized hand and arm movements and generally looking badass. It is probably the event my kids get the most serious about. It’s a very big deal to win the Oendan competition. I was a judge this year which was fun, although I wanted both teams to win!

Dancing!  This is the Soran Bushi, its a very popular Sports Day dance.

This year I participated in 4 events at Sports Day. The first was a race between a bunch of women from the island. Teams were divided based on the neighborhood you lived in. I was on the teachers’ team. Each team had a pair of rain boots that you had to put on, run down to this giant orange float thing, pick it up, run around a cone, put the float back down in its spot and run back to the line to pass the shoes off to the next person. The shoes were too small for me, and I didn’t get them on all the way before the other teachers told me to go. So I ran very strangely with the shoes only about half on. We didn’t win the race but we all won a box of tissues for our efforts. Next I was in the tug of war event for the entire PTA. Again I was on the teachers’ team. Again we were not victorious, although I think there were less of us than the other teams. My last race involved balancing a big rubber ball on a tennis racket while running to a cone and back. And lastly I joined in the Goshoura dance, which is a special traditional dance for the islands that we all do together in a circle. It’s pretty easy to learn and it’s fun to be out with all of the kids and parents.


Elementary kids dancing with flags!  So cute!

 One of my favorite events was “Never yield the stick” (actual name, written in English in the program). Teams lined up opposite each other with these big poles in the middle. At the sound of the whistle they all swarmed the center and grabbed the poles, trying to drag them, and any members of the other team, back to their side. Hilarity ensued. The elementary school kids had a similar event involving the tug of war rope, and my other junior high school does it with tires of various sizes. It’s really funny to watch and the kids get really into it.

The kids make mascots for their teams.  This is the red team's mascot.
These mascots are from the school I did not attend Sports Day for.

My best story from this year’s Sport’s Day came after it was over. We had been outside all day and it had really heated up after lunch. The kids were working hard and had taken all the tents down. About half of the kids, mostly girls, were sitting around waiting for the other half to finish up so we could have our closing comments and go home. One of my third grade (9th grade) girls named Tsugumi was absolutely hilarious. She sat down and said in English, “I don’t work anymore!” She continued on, “I’m very hot and thirsty and tired and hungry. I want to go home. I want to go to bed. I want to drink juice.” I was giggling to myself, very content that she was able to express herself so well in English. “I don’t work anymore,” she said again. “I will die soon!”

And this is the white team's mascot. 
The raindeer's hat was pink (its normal color) but pink is the red team's color so it had to be changed!

Sports Day is always a lot of fun and it’s really great to interact with all of the kids outside of a classroom setting. I walked away from this year’s event with three boxes of tissues, a box of plastic bags, a bottle of liquid soap, over 400 pictures, and a nasty sunburn on my arms and neck. I could honestly go on and on about everything we did at Sports Day, but hopefully I’ve given you a pretty good overview of the event. Feel free to ask me any questions if I left something out!

Tanabata - The Star Festival

So today is a holiday here in Japan that most people probably don’t know about, so I figured I’d give a little run down. July 7th is Tanabata, also called the Star Festival. One of my kids wrote a poem about it in the previous post, and now you’ll finally know what he was talking about!

The story goes like this:

A long time ago the Tentei (or Sky King, but think less like God and more like the entire universe itself) had a beautiful daughter named Orihime (whose name literally means Weaving Princess). Orihime would sit by the banks of the Milky Way (Which in Japanese is 天の川, amanogawa literally “river of heaven”) and weave beautiful cloth. She worked hard every day. But she was very sad because, since she worked so hard, she would never be able to meet a boy and fall in love. Tentei wanted his daughter to be happy, so he arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (lit. Cow Herder Star), a cow herder. When they met they fell instantly in love and were soon married. This should have been a very happy time, but they were so busy with each other that Orihime no longer wove cloth and Hikoboshi let his cows roam all over the heavens. Tentei was very angry and separated the two lovers, sending Hikoboshi to the other side of the Milky Way and forbidding them to ever see each other again.

Of course, they were both very sad. Orihime begged her father to let them met again, and Tentei agreed that if Orihime worked hard and finished all of her weaving that the two could meet once a year on the 7th day of the 7th month. Orihime worked very hard and when the day arrived she had finished all of her work and it was as beautiful as ever. When the two went to meet however, they found that there was no bridge and they could not cross the river. Orihime cried and cried. A flock of magpies heard her crying and came to the pair. They made a bridge out of their wings so that Orihime could cross to Hikoboshi. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata that the magpies cannot come and the couple must wait another year to meet (hence, most people wish for good weather on this day).

You can still see the pair in the sky. Orihime is the star Vega and Hikoboshi is the star Altair.

So how do we celebrate the reunion of these two hard working lovers? Most people write wishes on thin paper strips and hang them from bamboo along with many other paper decorations. These wishes were traditionally for things like better handwriting and improved skill at weaving or other crafts, but today you can wish for just about anything. Many students wish to do well in their studies and many parents make wishes for their children’s futures. And some kids wish for more Nintendo DS games. After Tanabata the bamboo and decorations are often set afloat on a river or burned. There are several bigger festivals around the country where decoration contests and parades are held.

The decorated bamboo are VERY popular around this time and you can find them inside and outside of businesses, in schools, and even in front of some homes!  These pics are all from the train station.

Today at lunch we had a special desert in honor of the festival. It was star shaped grape jello with two little stars (made of something else) inside or it. Two stars for the two lovers, how cute!

Happy Tanabata everyone!  I hope your wishes come true!

Valentine’s Day and White Day

I meant to put this article up in February, and now its even a little late for White Day, but its still interesting so I'm getting it up now.  Enjoy!

Valentine’s Day works a little differently in Japan. On February 14th girls give chocolate to boys that they like. There are huge displays at the stores of all kinds of chocolate treats. Many girls make their own chocolates as a special gesture for the guy they like. Chocolate is pretty much the only gift associated with Valentine’s Day. The chocolates you buy or make for the one you love are called affection chocolates. There are also obligation chocolates, which are chocolates you buy for someone you work with or want to express thanks to in some way. But I think these are becoming less popular. Friend chocolates are becoming more common, which are of course people simply buying chocolate for their friends male and female. Some companies also cater to guys during this time hoping they will buy their chocolates for themselves. The example I saw on the news was made from aged sake, and they hoped that sake enthusiast would pick them up.


Now March 14th is White Day, the day on which all of the boys return the favor to the girls who bought them chocolate on Valentine’s Day. The most common treats for this holiday are cookies and marshmallows. I forgot to take pictures of the Valentine's Day displays, but here are a few of the White Day ones.

For both Valentine’s and White Day the stores set up a special area where they will wrap your gifts for you, free of charge. It’s very convenient, especially if you have bought a lot.

Last year I bought chocolate for all of the male teachers I work with. With four schools it ended up being nearly fifty chocolates, so I had to buy rather cheap ones. But as far as I am aware, I’m the only female teacher who brought them chocolate at all, so I think the gesture was appreciated. I did it because I wanted to say thank you to everyone for helping me in my first year and because I wanted to try experiencing Valentine’s the Japanese way. Since I didn’t know if the other female teachers would be bringing chocolates I didn’t want to be left as the only one who didn’t bring any.

Everyone seemed very amused at my participation in the holiday and I think my gesture was appreciated. After all, everyone loves to get free chocolate. When White Day came I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I pulled in quite an impressive haul all things considered. It was pretty exciting.

This year Valentine’s Day fell over the weekend and I decided not to buy chocolates for all my teachers. After all, I actually had Eric here this year to buy chocolate for.

Hina Matsuri

March 3rd is a festival in Japan called Hina Matsuri, the Doll Festival, also known as Girl’s Day. On this day people pray for the happiness and health of girls. Families with daughters bring out a tiered display of dolls for the occasion. There are 15 dolls in the set, not to mention furniture and few trees. The dolls wear costumes of the Imperial Court from the Heian period (794-1192).

New Year’s Card Game

This is a little late, but I don’t want to have to wait another year to post about it. Every year at one of my Jr. High Schools we play a traditional Japanese card game at the beginning of January. The game is called Hyakunin isshu 百人一首 and means one hundred people, one poem (from each). This game is played with 100 cards. Each card has the second half of a short poem. Players spread the cards out face up between them. The caller, who does not play, has a special stack of the cards with the complete poems on them. They shuffle these cards, and then read the first one out. As soon as a player knows which card it is he begins to search the field for that card. The goal is to claim the cards before the other players do (by smacking it). This can involved diving across the mat to get to the right card. If you grab the wrong card you take away one point from the cards you have already collected.

This is a really long entry with pictures, so I'm inserting a break here.  "Read more" for the rest!

Let's go make a kite!

Next week is the 7th Annual Amakusa Kite Flying Festival.  Kite flying is a popular activity in Japan during the celebration of New Year's.  The Japanese word for kite is tako 凧 (not to be confused with octopus which is also tako 蛸 [and not to be confused with the wonderful Mexican dish which in Japanese is takosu タコス]).  Eric and I will be attending the festival next week, and in preparation for the event we attended a class on kite making. (Read more for the full story and pictures!)