jan ken pon!

I think I've gotten "in" with some of the third grade girls at Nango Elementary. I got to the teacher's room at Nango at 1:30, about fifteen minutes before my first lesson was to start. I had previously decided to just get to school and then spend my pre-class time figuring out my lessons, since I am always a little off balance at my elementary schools. I only work at each once a week, and deal the majority of my work time with junior high kids and junior high lessons, so taking it down to the elementary level always takes me a little bit. Anyhow， I was sitting in the teacher's room for not but five minutes when I heard my name shouted as small fists pounded the glass doors that look out onto the playground. After some stunted conversation I headed out to the group of beckoning third grade girls. After some discussion amongst themselves it was decided we'd play a game that basically entailed hand holding, mysterious Japanese chanting, and janken. One team (about four on each) would walk backwards as the other team walked towards them, chanting about as menacingly as a third grade Japanese schoolgirl could manage (so, not very). After a leg kick, the opposite team would start walking towards the previous offensive, chanting said menace, always topping it off with a kick. After a few of these back and forths, each team would huddle and choose a person on the opposite team whose name they would chant through the walk-kick ritual. Inevitably my name would always be chosen by the opposite team, so that after (again) a few more chant-and-kicks, me and the chanted name person from the opposite team would janken to see which of us would be forfeited to the opposite team. Janken is the inherent and foolproof way to decide-who-is-the-winner amongst Japanese schoolchildren. It is basically rock-paper-scissors, but usually accompanied by an indecipherable yet immensely endearing Japanese rhyme.

Anyhow, playing that game with those little kids for ten minutes was pretty much the highlight of my day. The rest of the afternoon was spent endeavoring to convince my colleagues that yes, I do in fact know what I'm doing. It is a lot harder to pull this off (as at least half of the time I don't really know what I'm doing, even still) when the teacher I am working with is hard-faced, bitter or elsewise not into helping me run the class at all. I don't think it would really be ethical to do, but sometimes I fantasize about leaving my successor a deeply detailed account of my opinions of the teachers． I think that is actually what the ALT that was Hylton's predecessor did, but as he doesn't seem to share many of this previous ALT's opinions about the teachers, I guess to each his own.

I haven't written in awhile for a few reasons. Most primary was that last week both Hylton and I were consumed with reading the news as it pertained to the California wildfires. I was living in Germany when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and though that didn't affect me directly in any way, it was very strange to hear about as an American living abroad. The Southern California fires did, however, affect me very directly. I knew my dad's house was far enough away that it wouldn't likely be in any sort of danger, but as the home of my mom and Scott fell into the evacuation zone not but a couple of days into the burning, I didn't know how things would turn out. Neither Hylton nor I could get ahold of our parents for a few days, so we had to just keep ourselves informed as best we could. Without the internet I don't know how that could have possibly worked, though as it was a lot of the news was contradictory or misleading. Apart from being worried about our families and our homes, it was really frustrating to be here and worried when no one around seemed to know about the fires or care. In the last week and a half only a couple of teachers asked me about it on their own accord. I brought it up with only a few, and I was further frustrated when it was treated like any other ordinary piece of news. In their defense it is completely beyond my understanding if I was either trespassing some unspoken work code, or if I was... I dunno, ruining someone's wa by bringing up something emotionally charged. Not all teachers reacted like that, but the few that did really bothered me. I think Hylton had an even worse reaction, though. One day last week he was in the copy room with the main teacher he works with at one of his schools. Amongst the drone of the machinery he told her that the home he has known all his life might be burning right then. She said: "Oh. How many copies are you making?" He said something to the same effect the next day, this time in Japanese to make sure she was understanding him, and still the same sort of reaction.

I am less than a hundred pages away from finishing the literary epic Shogun. The story's protagonist is Blackthorne, an English seaman whose Dutch ship wrecked upon the coast of Japan around 1600. I have found myself sympathizing with Blackthorne about a lot of cultural things that, though obviously quite different in modernity than from the setting of this particular story, still have some weight in Japanese culture today. From things as simple as food to the indecipherable rules regarding politeness, that even after years here no doubt I would still be in the dark about. I think that is yet another reason that forbids me from considering Japan ａ permanent sort of residence is that no matter how long I lived here I would always stand out as gaijin (foreigner). This isn't to say that you spend seven months in Peru and hey! now you're Peruvian! But there is a huge difference, linguistics aside (which is a huge issue, as the bulk of the writing system is unique unto Japan and China), as relatively so few foreigners live in Japan, and as foreigners are immediately recognizable. If you don't look like the people who live somewhere, there is no amount of cultural blending in you can do that would cover things up. And after having said all this, I don't know if I'd completely want to blend in, and I don't know if I would be looking for permanence anywhere specifically, but just having that against you when you start off is a huge deterrent.

Someday I'll write about that autumn festival.