Whale Watching

I spent this past weekend on Zamami, a small island south-west of Okinawa. Zamami has a total area of about 17 km, and consists of three small villages totaling 1,500 people. Dave is the lucky man who gets to have this mini-paradise all to himself. He even has a couple of nearby islands with schools on them that he kayaks to! Zamami makes it's money through tourism, and that's why we came: whale watching!

We were told we had a lucky day. We found a mommy and a baby swimming around and saw them breach a few times. The rest of the time was keeping a close distance on them, marveling as they would come up for air and sometimes give a flipper or tail flip.

To get to Zamami, we took a big ferry. To go after the whales, we took a smaller boat. I learned about half way through that my body doesn't like the ups and downs.

We stayed the night and did a walking tour of the island the next day. We hiked up to some excellent observation points overlooking Zamami and other local islands. Half way through, it started pouring, and we were lucky enough to spend the next hour walking back in the rain.

Kabuki

Yuka came again this weekend and we spent the entire time in Naha, Okinawa's capital. On Saturday, we went to see our first Kabuki play. The audience consisted mostly of old people and one huge group of US military wives. It lasted for about 2 hours, with the first hour being a humorous introduction to kabuki, and the second half being the actual production. From what I could get from it, the story was about a woman who was really a fox, marries a man, they have a kid, and then she has to run away for some reason. I couldn't really ask Yuka what was going on because 1) she slept through half of it, and 2) Kabuki dialogue is like trying to follow Sylvester Stallone perform Shakespeare.

The coolest part were the costumes and special effects. A lot of the effects had men dressed all in black (to "hide" themselves on stage) move set pieces, or, for example, when the fox lady returned to the forest, they would carry candles to give the image of the candles floating by themselves. You have to suspend belief and pretend you don't see them.

For an excellent example of this, I highly recommend watching the Matrix Ping Pong video.

Afterwards, we went to Itoman, south of Naha, to the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park. Walked around, took pictures, and ate ice cream...like any good tourist visiting a park that is a memorial to the 200,000 people that died in the Battle of Okinawa. On the way back to Naha, we found an awesome second-hand video game shop. I bought a Super Famicon, Chrono Trigger, and Street Fighter 2 for $40.

A break-down of old school Nintendo systems and their Japanese names.

Nintendo = Famicon (short for Family Computer)
Super Nintendo = Super Famicon
Nintendo 64 = Nintendo

Then we went out and had awesome yakiniku!

Lawson's!

I'm going to Iriomote next month with Yuka and some other JETs! This time, I bought my plane ticket at the local Lawson. Japanese convenience stores are the coolest places ever. They look identical to American one's, but the difference is that the food is safe to eat and you can pay your bills.

Most of my bills are withdrawn automatically. But for the ones that aren't, I get a paper bill with a barcode that I take to Lawson's and pay there. Since I don't have a credit card, when I bought my plane ticket online, they gave me an ID# that I used at Lawson's to buy my plane ticket! I also pay for my Amazon.co.jp orders there too! Cool!

A Closer Look

This is an honest look at what I do everyday:

I am an English teacher at all the elementary schools in Ogimi. Even though I work every day, I only appear at each school once a week. In elementary school, English class is a break from the normal routine, and most of the kids view it as play time. I think it's fair to say that I am just an extra curricular teacher. So when "real" school stuff needs to take place, I'll have canceled classes for the day. Like on Wednesday. Grades 1-6 were taking some test, so I did not do anything. And it's this "not doing anything" that best summarizes my job.

When I first got my welcome DVD from Okinawa, I was expecting the camera to follow JETs into the classroom and provide a glimpse of what was expected for me as a teacher. I had never done any kind of teaching before before and I had no idea how to approach the job. Instead, it was over 2 hours of following different JETs to parties, some culture lessons, nice vacation spots, etc. I remember commenting "Looks like JETs don't teach". Looking back, that DVD was almost spot on.

My contract requires me to show up at school from 8:15-4:00 every day, regardless if I teach a lesson or not. Out of that almost 8 hours, I teach about 3 classes a day, each 45 minutes. So, about 2 hours and 15 minutes of my 8 hour day is working. And I would say half of that 2 hours is fending little kid's fingers away from my private places.

What am I doing for the rest of the time? Nothing. But I'm pretty good at not doing nothing. I enjoy spending most of my time in the break room, which is a tatami room with table for coffee and snacks. If you were to show up at my school, you would most likely find me there either studying Japanese, reading a book, or asleep.

Yes, I sleep on the job. But I didn't start it! I got the idea when I saw another teacher asleep at her desk. Then I saw a teacher asleep on the floor in the snack room. I even once went to the town hall and my superintendent was asleep in his chair. So I guess it's okay. Nothing beats a power nap, anyway.

JET has a motto of "every situation is different", which is true. I know people who work at only one high school and work 10 hour days. To those people, I say, I take my 2 hours of work very seriously.

So why do people quit JET? If it pays so much for so little work, who would want to leave? I think half of them are people who just want to go home. They get tired of not being able to read the signs and not communicating well with people at school. I think the other half are people tired of doing nothing. JET is a great 'figuring-out-what-to-do-with-your-life' job. There is, after all, plenty of time to think about it. And it seems to take people a year, or two, or three, to figure it out. These people are tired of being a human tape recorder and want their own classroom. That kind of thing.

Next week is my last kindergarten class for the school year (school years go from April-March in Japan). This is awesome because I won't have a kindergarten class for 5 weeks. That means I get a 3-day week for 5 weeks!

English Mistake

On Saturday, a Japanese airline started down a runway at the same time another plane was landing. Apparently, the misunderstanding was an English error on the pilot's part, and it went something like this:

Traffic Controller: Flight 502, expect immediate take-off.
*pilot thinks they say 'IMMEDIATELY TAKE-OFF'*
Pilot: Roger!
*pilot proceeds down runway*
Everyone in the traffic control room: Huh?! STOP STOP STOP!!!
*crash prevented*

I had a similar situation happen to me last week. I was exchanging some used books at the book store. The clerk has an inventory sheet with the books I turned in and says, "blah blah sign here blah blah". I take my pen and sign the sheet where his finger was pointing. He looks at me with a look that says, "What are you doing?" He then repeats, and this time I hear, "blah blah instead of signing here blah blah".

And that's why I don't fly planes.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day in Japan is the exact opposite of what it is in America. First, Japan is not a country to put their women on a pedestal. Men and women have an equal playing field. If a guy likes a girl, he'll ask her on a date. If a girl likes a guy, she'll ask him on a date. So it's no surprise that on Valentine's Day, the women give chocolate to the men. There are the "obligation chocolates", which are given to co-workers, and the "favorite" chocolates, which are given to your sweet-heart.

The women are aware of the difference, too. I had every female teacher at school today ask me to explain the difference between the holidays. They had that look in their eye that little children have when they shout, "Read me this story again!" (But I've already read it to you 20 times...) After each explanation, each teacher would then sigh and say, "Americans are real gentlemen." And yes, I guess that excludes all other countries. ONLY AMERICANS. Sorry guys.

So what did I get for Valentine's Day? Today at school, I had a few 5th and 6th graders run in and give me some gift bags. Also, this weekend Yuka visited, and she took me out to an awesome steak dinner.

Next month, there is White Day, which would be the "real" Valentine's Day equivalent. I will be expected to return chocolates to all the people who gave some to me today. I guess guys are not completely off the hook.

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In other news, why is Japan better than America right now? Because the Wii version of Super Smash Bros. has been out since the end of January. So to the people waiting for the mid-March release date...haha (and it's awesome).

One More Year

Lots of exciting stuff has happened over the past two weeks (well, for me anyway). First, I passed my JLPT! I scored 85% in grammar and writing, and an expected 35% in listening. Now if I could have my teachers provide me with a typed transcript of all future conversations, communication would go a lot smoother.

I have also received my blue belt in karate. Chuck Norris, here I come.

I often find myself speaking before thinking. When I found out JET was going to send me to Okinawa, there was no way I was joining the JET program. Yet, here I am. When I found out I was not getting my transfer to Fukuoka, there was no way I was going to stay another year. Yet, after another Yuka visit this weekend, we've decided it's best to do one more year. The conditions being I have to pay off my student loan and arrive in Fukuoka debt free.

My student loan debt is not large compared to some of the people here. One girl is rumored to be in the $90,000+ range. But the option of leaving in one year with no debt, versus leaving now with debt, is more appealing. In Fukuoka, my rent would be more with my salary being less.

So, one more year of blue skies and white beaches, before moving on to the concrete jungle. *sigh* I'll find a way to get through it.