Faster Internet

Fiber internet has finally made its way to northern Okinawa. I don't have internet at home, so for the past 2.5 years, I have relied on the dial-up internet at my schools. When one thinks of Japan, 'high-tech' may come to mind. But in a village of 3,000 with the average age being (by my guess) 93, 'high-tech' isn't really in high demand.

But as of last week, Ogimi finally upgraded the schools! Now, answering e-mail (and blogging) is an activity that no longer tries my patience.

So to flex my new internet-muscles, here is a picture from the cherry blossom season in Okinawa last month. (uploaded in seconds!)

Digging for Potatoes

There are two big potato events at my schools every year: the planting and the harvesting. Each school has their own schedule, but the kindergarten always does it on Mondays, aligning perfectly with my schedule. Yesterday was harvesting, and I was loaned a pair of 26 cm workboots...roughly a size 8. Since I wear a 14, they were a little tight, but since I wasn't really walking in them (just standing around with a shovel), I was able to manage for an hour.

This year we dug up about 44 kg (97 lbs) worth of potatoes, which was divided up among the teachers and students to take home.

Living out in the country, each school has their own garden. The city schools, however, don't. So if they want their kids to have some gardening experience, they make a field trip out of it and drive up north.

Living to 101

Apparently some BBC documentary makers came to Ogimi a couple years ago, and now you can check out what they did on YouTube:

Tokashiki Marathon

Last Saturday, I took a 35 min boat ride from Naha to Tokashiki to run my second half-marathon (ever). It wasn't until after the race that I reflected on how I may be taking my Okinawan-life for granted. I mean, how many people get to run races on little islands like this:


I ran my first half-marathon in November with a goal of 2:30, but ran it in 2:46:57. This time, I gave myself the same goal even though I had a bigger obstacle in front of me: hills. My friend Dave told me, "Tokashiki is kinda hilly, make sure you train for it." After running the race, I realized that was like saying, "Siberia is kinda chilly, make sure you bring a jacket it."

Here is the elevation chart [stolen from Dave's blog]:


At the 3km mark, you start your climb all the way up to the top of a mountain, which ends around the 6 or 7km mark. Then you spend the next 10km running around the island at a high elevation which is constantly up and down. The race didn't flatten out until the last 2km.

But because my legs are like train pistons, I ran the race (21km/13.1mi) in 2:14:47, beating my Iheya race time by 30 minutes, and my goal by 15! At this rate, my next race should be 1:45:00, and the one after that, 1:15:00.

For comparison, Dave ran it in 1:34.57 and the world-record is 58:33, so I still have some room for improvement.


***

A couple of random updates:

-I failed JLPT Level 2, again.
-I took the Kanken Level 5 yesterday and we shall see if I pass. (I already failed it once.)
-I re-contracted for a 4th year!

Drawing Monsters

When I teach 'face' vocabulary to my 3rd/4th graders, I always end the lesson by having everyone draw a monster. I will say, 'This monster has...' and have a kid roll a dice. If he rolls, say, a '5', I will then think up a color and say, 'This monster has 5 purple heads.' After working through the rest of the vocabulary list (eyes, ears, nose, chin, and mouth), the kids have the basic outline of a monster. I then ask them to fill in the details.

I am always disappointed with what seems to be a lack of creativity or imagination in their monster drawing. Most of the time, the kids look off of each other (remember, I have about 10 kids sitting in a circle) and all end up with the same picture.

But today I had two exceptions:

This one is from Motoki, a 4th grader. I imagine it would have been even cooler had he had more time to finish.



And this one is from Haruki, a 3rd grader. He named it 'Halloween Boy', and he probably would have been given a referral had he displayed this kind of creativity in America.

Returning to America

I like to tell people that everyone needs a good hard drive failure several times in their life.

When I was in college, I had my first one the night before some big homework assignment was due. I lost all my homework, previous written reports, pictures, music, saved bookmarks, etc. It took me a couple of hours to get everything re-installed and back to normal, only this time, without any data. I remember almost crying because I was so frustrated.

Why do I think this is a good thing to happen to a person? Because all of that data really isn't important. It's just a bunch of stuff that you get attached to over time.

I took a trip to America for the first time in 2.5 years to spend Christmas and New Years with my family and friends, and as I sat on my flight back to Tokyo and reflected on everything, I couldn't help but make an analogy that returning to America was like a good hard drive failure for me.

In Okinawa, I have my work and friends and all the drama that goes along with that. But detaching myself from all that for the past 2.5 weeks and getting to spend time with people i have known my entire life, I feel refreshed. I wish I could have stayed longer, but now as I sit at my desk at work, I am a little glad to be back.

***

One highlight of the trip was I had a elementary school friend whom I haven't seen in 13 years fly down from Boston to visit me during the New Years weekend. We had an awesome time.

Another highlight was that I had two teachers that I work with, Kazuyo and Aya, come home-stay with me for a week. The first day, I took them to Hooters for lunch. It was one of my buddy's ideas because he said he wanted to show them 'American geisha'. I explained to them that 'hooter' has two different meanings, with the first being the sound of an owl. About halfway through lunch, Kazuyo leans over and says, 'I think I know what the second meaning is...'.

The next day we drove down to Gainesville so I could show them UF. We got to walk on the football field and see a lot of the campus. Then we met up with my old Japanese teacher for lunch.

On Tuesday, we went to St. Augustine and visited the beach, the Alligator farm, and walked down St. George's Street. I was a little bit disappointed at our St. George's walk, because when I usually go with my family, I feel like we are there for hours going into all the different kinds of shops. With the two teachers, we just walked straight to the end, with the only store they took an interest to was the fudge shop. They could have cared less about all the stores selling 'crap'.

By the next day, I was exhausted and we were suppose to go to Cape Canaveral, but Kazuo really wanted to go to Disney World. So my sister chaperoned that trip and I stayed home.

My mom entertained them on New Year's Eve, but on New Year's Day, we were all together and had a party. My mom invited a lot of people of her friends and I invited mine. The teachers offered to make sushi, and that turned into the biggest hit of the party. They started by making only a few rolls, but when everybody started scarfing them down and they realized how much everybody liked it, they were really happy and ended up working in the kitchen the entire time. Since they don't speak English, I felt they were happy to work and avoid the conversations.

A slight hickup in the party was when my sister's friend had a seizure. It was in the kitchen and I heard a bowl break. I look over and see him bent over in his chair, and it looked like he was trying to pick up the bowl he had dropped. But then he collapsed over and knocked his head on the brick hearth. My sister called an ambulance and they stayed with him until he came to. He had a nasty red welt on the side of his face, but he is okay now.

***

No return trip is complete without a comparison of how I live in Okinawa versus how I live in America. There are the obvious differences such as in America, we can wear shoes in the house, the food portions (and some people) are gigantic, we suck at recycling, and some people come off as lazy/rude even when they are on the job (i.e., retail people). But I didn't really have any 'reverse cultural shock' on any of those points. What surprised me the most was how much my friends have changed. In 2.5 years, lots of people are now married, engaged, or dating new people. Also, certain people are no longer talking to others based on this or that. I had been told that even though I am living in Japan, that doesn't mean life stops for my friends in Florida. And I knew that...but it was still a little weird.

On the Run From the Yakuza

I have a friend whose dad knew two phrases in English: 'Do you know me?' and 'Japanese mafia'. The Yakuza are the 'Japanese mafia', and he was a big fan of all those 70's Yakuza movies.

Last April, one of my schools got a new principal. Principals are obviously responsible for the school, but they are removed from a lot of the administrative work. They dictate what they want done and someone does it for them. The principals I've worked with tend to spend their time changing light bulbs, doing yard work, and taking naps in their office. They tend to be quiet and shy, preferring to work away from everyone else.

This new principal was quiet too, in an unnerving kind of way. He had a rough face with leathery skin and a raspy voice from smoking too many cigarettes. If he was a gangster, he would be more of a Harvey Keitel gangster than a Joe Pesci gangster. Basically a guy you wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of.

The vice-principal at this school is his antithesis: she's a large woman with a loud voice that laughs too much and never stops talking. During lunch one day, the vice-principal is running her mouth as usual, and the principal is sitting quietly next to her. He then quietly says to himself, 'You don't shut up, do you?' [My translation of: うるさいな...] The vice-principal stops talking, all the other teachers just sit there, and then everyone slowly lets out nervous laughter.

That was the kind of guy he was. Then one day, I come to school and his office is empty. He had quit.

It turns out he wasn't the gangster I imagined him to be, but actually owed the yakuza a lot of money. What I have figured out is that he took out some large loans (for a house, etc) from a bank, and couldn't make the payments. So he took loans from another source to pay for the loans he already owed. He did that several times, and it looks like the last loan he took was from the yakuza, and now they want their money back.

In order to pay them back, he retired early to collect his retirement money, all $200,000 of it. But apparently that wasn't enough. I'm not sure where he is now, but the yakuza have called the elementary school a few times asking for him.

One of the teachers told me that when the principal explained the story, he said, 'My wife took out some loans...'. What a swell guy.

***

When I first met him, he invited me to go eat genghis khan (Jingisukan) with him. No, the ex-principal isn't into eating the bodies of dead Mongolian warriors. It's also a style of grilling mutton.

I never got a chance to take him up on it. Maybe it's a good thing, though, because he might have asked me for some money.