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Published: November 5th 2010
JETs dressed up for the seminar
Photo courtesy of Ali - gracias!I was worried I wouldn't get to celebrate Halloween in Japan, but...
the week of festivities included Justin Bieber, moonwalking, jack-o-lantern origami and more pointing and staring than all of my days in Japan combined - and that's saying something. So it was still Halloween, but with a little twist.
A week's worth of Halloween lessons kicked off the celebration, and that's where JB came in. I can involve him in just about anything, so he provided the background music for our activity. He's making his way to Japan and when my students hear him on the radio they will think I'm even cooler because they heard him in my class
first. Mission accomplished.
Michael Jackson also helped me out as I taught my English Club students to do the Thriller dance, including the other two teachers in charge of the club - priceless. I've never seen my teachers giggle so much. I even made them all say "ow!" at the end... perhaps I am nearing a corniness threshold...
And you can guess that MJ also inspired the impromptu moonwalking in many of my classes. It's times like these when I'm thankful to be teaching at a tech school and a commercial school (as opposed to academic). The English level may be higher at the academic schools but I'm guessing that the in-class moonwalking level is significantly lower. I'm assuming that also goes for the level of punching, kicking and taking off of ones' shirt and flexing ones' muscles in the middle of class. Yes, that happened.
The last day of the week was spent at an academic high school for a seminar with all of the Tokushima JETs. This is the part where my jaw dropped at the English those kids could speak. And they were so sweet. One activity was to brainstorm ways to make the world a better place, and here are two examples of what the students in my group came up with:
"To realize that all things are miracles" and "to turn all weapons into cookies." How cute is that?
I tried not to compare this vocabulary to the "hello," "oh
yes!" "Susan Boyle" plus a myriad of curse words that is the extent of my students' vocab.
The week ended with a big gai-jin Halloween party at a local foreigner bar. The walk around this part of Tokushima City involved so much staring I really felt like there was a spotlight following me. Luckily, some of them knew it was Halloween and would shout it out, so I suppose not everyone thought we were crazy.
Fittingly, to top off a week of the Thriller and the moonwalk, I won fuzzy pink pajamas for being the funniest girl dancer at the party. (Let's not dwell on the fact that I was the only girl dancer in the contest...)
Happy Halloween!!
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Dan Lewis
non-member comment
Stoked!!
Susan, the Lewis clan all enjoyed your notes on Holloween in Japan. My lasting memory from trips to Japan are of the people and how friendly and hospitable they all are. One day I left some small change in a juice machine. About 10 minutes later a 7 year old girl pulled my shirt, looked up to me and handed me the change I had left. This gal had to walk several large steps over a few blocks to catch up with me but did so without parents urging or complaint and also refused to accept the change as a small tip. Those are the kinds of experiences you'll be having and trust me that you'll never forget them!! Uncle Dan