Keitais and Onsens

Yuka came and went again this weekend. This weekend was nicer cause it was a three day weekend! She'll be back again in two weeks!

While she was here, I got a second cell phone, or keitai!

For people in the States, there may be a pause of confusion, as you begin to work out the logic as to why I would need a second keitai, from a completely different cell phone company. Let me explain to you how the Japanese keitai system works.

I have one phone with AU. The plan is split into two smaller plans, an e-mail plan, and a talking plan. In Japan, you get an e-mail address to text message people with. In America, it's the same thing, just hidden. For example, to text message with a T-mobile phone, what you are really doing is e-mailing someone from 'phonenumber@tmomail.net'.

How does the talking plan work? Simple, about $30 a month for 25 minutes. Yes, that 25 minutes is for the ENTIRE month. See, in Japan, people text message. My crazy American habit of actually talking on my phone gave me an $80 phone bill for the two weeks I had it in August.

Now I have a Yuka-phone with SoftBank. The plan is $10 a month. Since Yuka has SoftBank too, we can talk for free and send each other messages for free. A system that makes it cheaper to have two cell phones is not a good system, in my opinion.

Yuka wasn't able to get on a plane Monday because all the flights were full, so we stayed the night in Naha, the capital. The hotel had an onsen, and since I threw out my back earlier that day, it sounded like a great idea.

An onsen is a public hot bath, separated by sex. Or, a large public spa where a bunch of naked men bathe together. Because of my back, and the fact that it was 11 pm, I figured I could slip in in my robe, disrobe next to the pool and hide myself without being seen.

I walk into the bathroom and there is a few mini lockers and several sinks with a sliding door on the other side. I slide open the door, and view a large room with men sitting on stools in front of mini cubicles either shaving or bathing themselves. In Japan, you clean your body before entering a bath. At the end of the room was the onsen, with more men sitting around it. Even from the distance, I could tell that the water was about two feet deep and very clear. In all, I viewed about ten glistening naked male bodies in the onsen. I realized the room I was currently standing in was the disrobing room. So I would of had to march to the other side of the room in all my gaijin glory. I silently slid the door closed and went back to my room.

I decided Japan isn't quite ready for my debut.

Pictures!

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First Week

I have been hired as an ALT, which stands for Assistant Language Teacher. ALTs get sent to various junior high and high schools and work with a JTE, Japanese Teacher of English. Even though my position title is an ALT, there is no JTE in my classroom.

I am the teacher at 5 different elementary schools, responsible for lesson planning and material gathering. I did not major in Education and I have never received any teacher training. I have no textbook to go by, only my native English skill, which apparently is enough.

I'm not complaining about the position I'm in. I am being paid quite well for a job that, as another JET put it, 'accepts a person in a teaching role based on a couple of questions, an essay about their desire to come to Japan, and a 30-minute interview with some random people who will never have another thing to do with [you]'.

All JET workshops have been geared towards 'Japan adjustment'. Information packets and welcome DVDs have contained information on 'all the fun things you can do in Japan!' But as I learned this week, I also have to teach, too.

Here is a short list of observations I've made over the week:

-Students and staff are groundskeepers. First day of school, I pull up and everyone is sweeping leaves. I also learned they plant the flowers and cut the grass (with scissors!)

-The staff are not interested in my past teaching experience. For each school, I would walk in the teacher's room, introduce myself briefly, and there would be follow up questions. Such questions were usually, "Are you single? She's single!", "Do you have a girlfriend?", and "Are you married?"

-AC only exists in the teacher's room. I've been told no AC makes the kids "stronger".

-One 6th grade class came in late. The teacher had already arrived, so when the kids showed up, he growled some stuff in Japanese. The kids sat down seiza-style (formal Japanese sitting with your knees sticking out and you're resting on your legs), bowed, and said something about "I'm sorry..." in unison. It was amazing.

-Kids find the phrase "My name is..." funny. When said with a Japanese accent, it comes out "mai neimu izu", which sounds like "mayonnaise".

-All elementary school kids are expert unicycle riders. Each school has about 20 of them, and the kids ride around in their free time. In America, this would be a law suit waiting to happen.

-Some of the schools have more interesting staff than others. At one school, during lunch, people sat in silence for about 15 minutes while eating. Some lady decided to break the silence by asking me, "Are you Christian?"

-One 6th grader had a Grateful Dead pencil case. I asked her if she knew what it said and she had no idea.

-Kids serve lunches to each other everyday. They dress up in white aprons and wear these little white hair caps. It's so cute.

-One kindergartner showed me his bug collection. LIVE bug collection. He tried to give me one of his grasshoppers. I declined.

Overall, the week went well. Being in freak-out-mode, I over planned for everything. But with the first introduction week complete, I'm now faced with planning a balanced curriculum for all grades at each school. I've found they can sing their ABC's, count to 10, and know the days of the week and the days of the month. But when you ask, "How are you?", they freak out. Got to fix that.

Doraemon

Doraemon (Doh-raw-eh-mone) is said to be Japan's most famous comic. I had seen it referenced in Japanese movies and TV shows, but had no idea what it was. Arriving in Japan, I heard about it even more. When one kid asked me if they had Doraemon in America, I knew I had to read it in order to continue a conversation if it was ever brought up.

When Yuka was in the States, I made her watch all kinds of movies that I thought were important. Star Wars, Fight Club, and Lord of the Rings to name a few. Before you start thinking "poor Yuka...", I guarantee you know 'May the Force Be With You', 'First rule of Fight Club is, you don't talk about Fight Club', and 'My precious...'. Whether she liked them or not is less important than just knowing about them.

So I set off to the bookstore in a quest of my own cultural education.

I asked a bookstore employee to show me where they kept Doraemon. My Japanese probably came out as "Please Doraemon want read, have it?", but she understood and took me to the kid's section. Imagine how cool I felt when she handed me the comic.

This is Doraemon:I was expecting something like Star Wars or Rambo.

Doraemon is a talking blue cat from the 22nd century. The first issue appeared in 1969 and ran until 1996, totaling 45 graphic novels. There is also a cartoon and many a merchandise tie-in. TIME selected Doraemon as one of the 22 Asian Heroes in 2002 (Thank you Wikipedia).

I will not hide that I bought the comic. But I will not tell you how much I'm enjoying it.