Blogs from Ehime, Japan, Asia - page 10

I’m a little behind on blog entries. So, this entry is not about last weekend, but the weekend before. That weekend was my junior high school’s bunkasai (school festival). We’ve been preparing for it for over a month now. Sometime in September, one of my students asked me if I would play my violin with her piano accompaniment for the festival. At the time, I didn’t realize what this was all about, so I agreed. Soon she showed me two pieces she wanted me to play, and we started practicing every Friday after school (for a long time she and my speech competitions student would have to share me on Fridays). I guess because all my students enjoy singing traditional songs with my fiddle during classes, this student assumed I would be good at classical music ... read more

Today was the day we visited a high school. Like every other visit, we had a welcome meeting from the administration before going to the classrooms. Once again, we had several class periods to roam in and out of classrooms, trying to get a feel of their day. My first stop again was PE. The boys were outside warming up together in sync before going to play tennis. I would have enjoyed that, but it was too cold, and the wind was going right through me, so we went to the gym where some girls were doing basketball drills, while others were playing ping-pong. Another American and I joined in a doubles match. After observing PE for awhile, we went to several classrooms--Music, Math, Computer, English II, Calligraphy, Art, and Open Communication II. The Open ... read more

Happy Thanksgiving! For some reason, the Japanese students didn’t have school today, so we went sight-seeing around Matsuyama. The first stop was the Shiki-Kinen Musuem. Masaoka Shiki was born in Matsuyama and is well known for his literary achievements. The most significant achievement was his work on the haiku. He focused his work on nature or simple occurrences of daily life. He lived a brief life, but he attracted a number of followers and left his mark on Japanese literature. The interpreter was hard to understand, and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get a lot of out of the museum, but they did have a nice gift shop. Next we went to the Ishiteji Temple. Just like in America, they had several tent shops leading up to the temple. Once inside, the smell ... read more

Finally we visited a school. Today we were guests at an elementary school and to no surprise we received a warm welcome. After a quick introduction to the teachers, we were off to the media production room for morning announcements. The equipment used to make the announcements was quite impressive. After this, we were free to visit any classroom. Some classrooms tried their best to go about their regular routine, while other classrooms were definitely entertaining their special guests from America. Whether things appeared to be orderly or pure mayhem, there was no question as to who was in charge. The teacher basically just needed to speak in a regular voice and the students listened quickly. What also greatly impressed me was the high level of tolerance to noise. A classroom next door could be ... read more

The season of “bunkasai” is here and everyone is busy with preparations. A “bunkasai” is a festival that all schools (even through college) hold around this time in Japan. The word “bunkasai” literally translates to “culture festival,” but it’s really just a school festival with food stands and student performances. Just as the undookai (sports festivals) and aki matsuri (fall festivals) created a lot of chaos and exhaustion earlier this fall, preparing for the bunkasai is just as strenuous, but lots of fun at the same time. However, my junior high school’s bunkasai is not till this weekend, but last weekend I had the opportunity to go to yuge shoosen’s bunkasai. Yuge Shoosen is the merchant ship school here that is like a high school and a technical college combined. The age of the students there ... read more