Last night I had dinner with Nagasaki's Chinese JETs. It was a farewell party, since all but one of them (Feng sensei, the woman) are returning to China this week or next. A Japanese teacher and a Japanese friend were also there. And me! I am so lucky!
I have been friends with the Chinese teachers at my school--they are some of the easiest and most interesting people to talk to in Japanese--but I've never been to a party with them, and this was really fun. I've never really heard Chinese spoken in conversation, so I enjoyed letting the new sounds wash over me even though I didn't understand what was being said! It seems much rowdier than Japanese. Another interesting aspect was the kanpai (or cheers...toast?), which for Japanese and Americans happens once at the beginning of a meal... but my Chinese friends seemed to come up with a new reason to kanpai (ganbei?) every few minutes! They must have toasted to every thing imaginable, sometimes the whole table, sometimes just a few members of the group.
Since the two Japanese men also spoke Spanish, and one of them was very fluent in English, and all the Chinese are excellent at Japanese, there were four languages floating around the whole night. Near the end, the Japanese teacher (who also speaks Chinese) gave a small speech, first in English, then in Chinese/Japanese, about how he had been prejudiced against Chinese people before he met Feng sensei, but now he has realized that we are all friends. His honesty was moving. As we were leaving, Wang sensei told me, as he has before, how he thinks the Chinese and American spirit have a lot in common. I think he's right.
I felt very privileged to be part of that "international club" for a night. Made me feel that world peace is possible if everyone could just meet everybody else, and make friends over some good food. And, of course, the lethal Chinese rice wine, which I declined to try!
Matthew is humming at his desk across from me. Driving me mad. :p
Oh yeah, I'm going to Thailand next week! Anyone have advice or recommendations?

Something that always cracks me up is the way people here refuse to go through a door before another person. This results in door wars, sometimes lasting for minutes--You! No, you! Go ahead! No, I insist! Well, perhaps minutes is an exaggeration. Anyway, it happens every hour at the door next to my desk, as it did just now.




The cherry blossoms (sakura) have started to bloom! The huge hill going up to my school is lined with them, and these are some of the first to bloom in Sasebo. As it's a gorgeous day and I'm looking for ways to pass the time, I took some pictures of them, so here ya go!

Hisashiburi (it's been a long time). I'm sorry blog! I forgot all about you!!
I'm going to blame English camp for that, a three-day event at my school last week which consumed the lives of all the English staff. It was for our first year International Communication course, 40 girls who are pretty much geniuses in my opinion. They stayed in a special building on school for three days, taking tests, studying, and being subjected to the activities me and Matthew came up with. They liked gym time and Matt's "treasure" hunt the best. My painstakingly planned introduction to American television was a bomb, as most of them were too tired to care. But thanks Dad for all those recordings!! At least they will have seen Oprah before they go to America this summer, which is important, in my opinion. Favorite camp memory: two girls putting the soft frisbees around their heads, which made them look like "animal operation," in their words. It was too true.

I just survived a solid week of dinner parties. The English club from my previous high school came to my house for dinner on Wednesday, and broke into extended giggling fits like they always used to. Not much has changed! It was fun to see them in their funky street clothes, with their hair all dyed brown which they weren't allowed to do before graduating, and thumbs permanently glued to their sparkling cell phones.

Next day was a dinner party with just the English department at my school. It was the most expensive dinner I've ever had, at 6,000 yen. But to be fair, we got about three days' worth of food. Including this. Everyone got one of these.
Complete with little porcelain dolls that opened up to reveal pickles. Wierd. This was unusually complicated food, even for Japan, where eating generally tends to take a little more effort than I was used to in America. The meal included a few slabs of raw beef, meant to be eaten that way, but I used the little grill provided for one of the other dishes to cook them into something eatable.
The teachers got into a pretty gossipy mood and were quizzing us about our opinions on the teachers who didn't show up--"Do you like .... sensei? We think she is so negative!" I found out who can't stand whom. It was pretty educational, I guess. It's interesting how people sometimes open up like this at a work party.

Finished up the dinner party marathon with the farewell party for all the staff, last night. We honored the teachers who are retiring or have to move schools this week. Japanese schools have a rather stressful system of moving teachers around within their prefecture every couple of years. Young teachers have to change every other year or so, and more experienced ones stay at the same school for around 5 years before moving. Nagasaki prefecture is blessed with a million islands (well, 99 is what they say), which makes the moving tradition even more dramatic--it seems most don't want to go to an island, but everyone's gotta serve their time sooner or later. I lost one good English teacher in this process.
After the requisite 50 speeches, dinner began with the "kanpai" (cheers), and most teachers spent the evening walking around the room and pouring drinks for the leaving teachers. I am always shy at these, and I stayed in my seat as usual. But I was sat next to a friendly office lady, and we had a good chat about food, traveling, and how there are too many ceremonies in Japan :). Does anybody like the ceremonies? I asked. Well, no, not really... was the answer. Seriously, people take naps during the speeches. I can imagine the ceremonies would be heaven, though, for anyone who likes to hear themselves talk.

I went to karaoke after dinner with all the young women on staff, and one lucky man, who got a good reaction from the principal and vice principal when they visited our "box." One of the PTA fathers complimented me on my English pronunciation while singing "Imagine." A horrible song for karaoke by the way, I don't recommend it. Not the first time this has happened. "Wow, you can really pronounce English!" Well, I should certainly hope so...

The mystery of "no more cry" solved! It is from a Japanese song for the drama Gokusen. Many Japanese pop songs include English bits, as does the Japanese language in general, I've learned! Ex: OK desu (meaning, OK). Chekku shimasu (to check something). Romanchikku (romantic). There are many more.

Nice quotes...

"Mashu, I want to eat chocolate. No more cry!" -Yuki, our student, asking for chocolate which Matthew keeps on his desk. It worked! Not sure where "no more cry" comes from, but her friends sure thought it was funny :).

"Our wisdom comes from our experiences and our experiences come from our foolishness." -Buddhist proverb

"A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." -William Shedd

The character for "fire" burning on a mountain in Kumamoto on March 4th, at the annual fire festival which marks the burning of the rice fields. Farmers burn rice fields to kill diseases in the plants caused by fungi. I like the smell of it, it marks the seasons kind of like the smell of wet concrete or chimney smoke back home. We drove a long way to take bad pictures of this. It was a good drive, though! Looks like a person, or a chromosome...

Please leave comments!! I just changed the setting so anyone can, you don't have to register. Sorry about that!
We had the graduation ceremony this morning, in the gym. It just took an hour, and our graduating class was just about 270 students. Students wear their usual uniforms, and just stand up when their name is called, as opposed to walking across a stage to shake someone's hand and recieve a diploma (cover). The principle gave a long speech on the theme of the four seasons... well, the four seasons are a pretty big deal in Japan, which one can only appreciate fully by living through them, sweating through the summer and shivering through the winter. School children and teachers especially appreciate them, since most schools in this area, mine included, have yet to deem heating/air conditioning necessary.
I was most impressed by the big "whoosh" sound when everybody stood up to bow (this happened roughly 50 times). People must have practiced their high-speed standing, bowing, and sitting just for the occasion. Also notable was the high speed with which the students and teachers put all the chairs and decorations away immediately afterward. They don't believe in custodians or janitors in Japan, at least not at schools. Who needs custodians when you've got students, right?
Here is an English web page about my high school that the students made, sometime before I got here. It's not bad!

A few more pictures from Junko's house...
These were part of dinner. A little couple made from rice and eggs! They were too cute to eat.






Me, Ellen, and Junko's mother :). Junko, her mother, and Mihoko dressed us in kimonos.

Tired! (Tsukareta!)
Ellen returned to Seattle last night (this morning?) and I returned to my apartment at 1 am, after a full day of riding subways, trains, a bus, an airplane, more trains, and finally driving back home. We ended our week together in Tokyo, which is, well, ginormous. I was struck again by the multitudes of people and buildings there. It seemed like we spent a large part of the time underground, on the labrynthine subway system, coming up briefly here and there for air. And a fair bit of the time wandering around confused. But all in all it was great! Some memorable moments: wine and the smallest ice cream dessert ever (four spoonfuls), with a spectacular night view from the Hyatt hotel restaurant in Shinjuku (of Lost in Translation fame); looking down on a sea of umbrellas at the famously crowded Shinjuku crosswalk from--where else?--Starbucks; a subway attendent running after us to deliver a 100 yen coin (like $1) we'd dropped; Ellen's operatic karaoke singing :). Ellen could win American Idol, I believe.
We also visited Kamakura, a historically significant and beautiful town near Tokyo, for part of a day. We saw the big Buddha there, and the Hachimangu shrine. And went to Starbucks, naturally. Pictures will be forthcoming.
Ellen was a superstar when she visited my school for a day, as I knew she would be. We both marveled at how excited the students here can get. I mean, can anyone imagine students in America screaming because their teacher has brought her sister to school?