Advertisement
Published: November 13th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Hello Faithful Readers,
Remember when I told you last week how exciting, dynamic, youthful, and crazy a big city like Osaka can be? Well, I’m here to shed some light on the flip side of the coin, the side of Japan that gaijin living in Osaka would never see—welcome to MY ‘hood.
As I’ve told you before, Kotohira (the town I live in, pop. 10,000) is quite small with not a whole lot going on except for a major Shinto Shrine that attracts tons of Japanese tourists by day. By 5pm, it’s back to normal (read: dead). This week, I got to see the side of Japan that can only be described as “boonies”.
Saita-cho, or Saita-town (pop. 4,500) is a town nestled in the mountains and sprawls out across the expansive valley. It is dotted with (of course) rice fields and other farming plots of land, small access roads and even some trees (you’d be surprised how few trees there)! It’s really the soaring pristine mountains that give you that secluded feel, like you are a million miles away from Osaka.
I was scheduled to teach at the Junior High School with 1-day visits to both elementary schools. The hour
First Graders
Bet you can't find me! commute each way meant that I had to wake up at 5:45am in the freezing cold to catch the 7am train. From there, the bus would take me within a 10-minute walk to Wako JHS. 3 cups of hot tea later, I would be thawed-out and mostly awake. I generally consider myself somewhat of a morning person, but waking up that early in the pitch dark and freezing cold is not something I could get used to doing on a daily basis (shout-out to my old roommate Robby for doing this for two years in New England!). The good news is that was the only blemish on what was easily my best workweek of the year.
Seriously, this week kind of rocked. First of all, my fellow bus commuters were a handful of elementary school students on their way to school. They even served as my personal escort to Saita-naka Elementary on the day I taught there. Really, there’s nothing quite like blindly following a group of 8 year olds to your place of employment. For these classes, I would teach them basic greetings and how to say “my name is…” and ending with the “Hello Song” we used at
Military...er...School Assembly
They were giving out awards to the basketball team for winning a game. Hilarious. Berkshire Hills--nothing but smiles all around. These kids were amazing! In fact, elementary school is amazing! Not only are they so excited to see me, listen to me, talk to me to the point that they can hardly sit still, but also their brains are sponges so they learn at an incredible rate. I will even go as far as to say that there are some elementary school students who speak better English than their Junior High School counterparts. And, because their Japanese is still developing, it was much easier conversing in Japanese to them than anybody else I’d met so far.
Wako Junior High School was also one of the better schools I’ve visited. Both of their Japanese Teachers of English (my co-teachers in the classroom) are two of the more effective classroom teachers I’ve worked with, and are incredibly helpful and considerate to me. The students are also more advanced, probably a benefit to having no more than 12 kids in a class.
The thing that really put the icing on this week’s cake was the quality of school lunch Saita offers its schools. I mean, we’re not talking filet mignon here but still Saita easily had the
Saita
It's kind of pretty. best lunch of any school district I’ve been to. I hear horror stories from my friends working in Takamatsu-city that regularly get served inedible food (to gaijin…the students probably relish the opportunity to scarf down pregnant squid). Takamatsu has to prepare a few thousand lunches per day, while Saita has only a few hundred, making the quality a bit higher. So what’s good school lunch? This week I had chicken teriyaki, filet of salmon, GOOD miso soup, fried rice, seaweed salad, and chocolate cake in addition to the staples (noodles, rice etc.). Hells yeah.
A good day was usually topped off with some nice conversation with the old lady waiting for the train with me. As far as the language is concerned, I’ve gotten to the point where I can say a lot of things, but I never understand a single thing coming from the other end. Is that atypical for learning a foreign language? It’s encouraging and frustrating to know that I can ask directions or questions yet not be able to understand the answer in the slightest. I guess it’s all about the process, and eventually that step will come.
By the way, I miss you all!
More Saita
On my walk to the bus station. p.s. After re-reading this entry, I realized I’ve failed in my attempt to succinctly capture the beauty of the town, the refreshing smiles of the children, and the positive work environment. I hope the pictures can help paint a better image than my words can.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0412s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Skip
non-member comment
Miss you too Dave!
Great pictures.