MooshiMooshi Part 4

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My first month of school is behind me, and I really like teaching so far. The 9th grade girls in particular have taken a shine to me, making me an honorary member of their cool clique. A few of them are really good artists and one girl drew a picture of me in her notebook! I drew her a picture of an owl in return, and the next day I found myself surrounded by a group of eager girls with notebook and pen in hand, requesting that I draw them all pictures.
In some ways, I really like the atmosphere of schools here. I see no misbehaving in or out of the classroom. There is no detention or punishment system for students. The teachers, rather than being an authority figure, treat the students with respect and talk to them like adults. The teachers are more like a second set of parents to the kids. The students are allowed to come into the teachers lounge and the office areas and can be seen playfully flicking rubber bands at their favorite teachers. If there is a problem with a student's behavior, rather than discipline, the teachers have a meeting to discuss a solution on how they can help. Each class is very self-sufficient. They set a class goal, which is written and hung in the classroom, and spend the year trying to achieve it. There is far less adult supervision over the children. They all seem to know their role within the group, and go about completing their tasks. In Japan, the students actually clean the school themselves! Every day after lunch, students change into shorts, grab a towel or a broom and spend ten minutes cleaning both inside and out. It is a great idea, it teaches teamwork and pride in your property, but I have to admit, most of the students just lean idly against their broom talking with friends or repeatedly cleaning the same square of tile. The schools don't exactly sparkle and shine, but I think the Japanese are going in the right direction. I'm reminded of the old sang, It takes a village to raise a child. I think that philosophy is at work here.
The hardest thing I have had to adapt to thus far would definitely be structure. I must abide by what to wear, what to say, when to sit, when to stand and even what to eat while I am at school. There are no cafeterias at Japanese schools, the lunches being provided by some huge company with government affiliation that cooks thousands of lunches a day and ships it out, individually packed, and usually cold and soggy. The powers that be are very concerned about the calorie intake of the students. An average lunch consists of a bowl of rice or noodles, assorted foul smelling soups, a slab of dry bread, misc. cooked protein item, ‘salad’ as they call it- every day an unthinkable concoction of oh, say, spaghetti noodles, pickles, lettuce, oysters, corn, and seaweed, a carton of warm milk, and defrosted jello.
It is amazing just what long hours people work here, I feel like no one has a life outside of their jobs. Although 40 hours is stated as the average workweek in print, in reality everyone easily works 12 hour shifts every day. I have been leaving work at 6:30 lately (having gotten there at 8, mind you) and everyone else is still there before me in the morning and still working when I go home. There is even a ritualized phrase when you leave work, ”Osakini shitsure shimasu” which means, “I am sorry I did not work as hard as you today” I think there is a prevalent fear in the culture not to be seen as the weakest link. I've heard many people say it is taboo to leave before the boss does. A double-edged sword, the boss usually stays until well after dark, afraid of being seen going home before any of the employees.
When you do finally punch out, you must be careful what you do with your free time. If you act in someway that is character damaging outside of work, you can potentially lose your job here. A friend of mine was almost fired because he had friends over at his apartment playing guitar late at night. Instead of calling the landlord to complain, the neighbor called the Board of Education. Consequences for everything here are much more severe. Example: If you drive drunk, you will be fired from your job, no matter what profession you are in, and no one else will hire you. Societal blacklisting is more damaging than jail time.
Speaking of driving, I have had quite the character-building road adventures thus far. As I suspected, the minicar that I own is nothing more than a glorified go-cart with a lawnmower engine, uncapable of going over 50mph and carrying more than 2 full sized adults at a time. These minicars make up about a third of the cars on the road in Japan. They have a different colored license plate, which means you pay less road tolls and service fees. The roads themselves are another issue, it takes three times as long to get anywhere in Japan as it would at home. All of the roads here are narrow single lane routes that either swirl up the sides of mountains or are clogged with stop lights and chain stores. Irrigation ditches line the shoulder, and cars whip by in the opposite direction on pavement only big enough for one, almost forcing you into the ditch. The other two-thirds of traffic, comprised of trucks and normal cars, can also travel at normal speeds. And they like to go fast. Which presents this character building exercise; dealing with the impatience of normal cars who tailgate as close as they can, and dangerously whip around you into oncoming traffic. There is an expressway system, but you pay through the nose for the convenience: about $1/2miles.
We learned this when we took the expressway down to Hiroshima last weekend. We went to Hiroshima to visit the site of the atomic bomb and the peace memorial museum. It was very sad, but I think very important to see. The museum has many interesting facts that I feel I was not taught in history back home, going into much more detail about all of the post-bomb deaths from radiation and cancer. Babies that were in the womb at the time the bomb fell were born with extreme mental disabilities. There is a monument next to the museum dedicated to a young girl who slowly died of cancer due to the radiation. In an effort to cure herself, she dedicated her final days to folding paper cranes, as it is an old belief that if one can fold 10,000 paper cranes their wish will come true. She died before completing her goal, but in memory of her, every year all of the schools in Japan make chains of colorful paper cranes and leave them at the monument.
Many people thought that nothing would grow in Hiroshima for 100 years, but the perseverance of the Japanese proved that false, as Hiroshima is a bustling city center of trade and boasts many nice gardens. There are some trees within the detanation vacinity that actually survived the bomb. They are easy to spot because they are the only tall trees in the area and they are kept protected by a supportive frame of wooden beams. Perhaps this tree is symbolic of the way everyone pitches in here, creating a strong framework for society…
The next day, we visited Miyajima, a small island off the coast of Hiroshima. It is a sacred island that you enter by ferry. It is a world heritage site and the second most photographed monument in Japan. It is famous for its floating Torii, a red column that becomes submerged in water during high tide. It was very pretty but oddly enough, the island is overrun by aggressive dear who, at the fault of tourists, are now worse scavengers than a New York pigeon. I got chased by one who tried to eat my map. The four of us spent the afternoon strolling the island and were treated to a seaside fireworks show to welcome the autumn equinox.
The week before was spent at a lesser known island outside of Kure City, near Okayama. One of my friends is assigned to the island, and because of its remote location, is renting a 5 bedroom mansion for $400 a month! It is a traditional Japanese style house, all tatami matted with sliding screens for walls to separate all of the rooms. The previous owner left it fully decorated, so it seems more a museum than a home. The island is small and sparsely inhabited. Her neighbors consist of a few silver-agers who kindly leave bags of passion fruits on her porch. A group of us stayed at her place for 3 days, enjoying the sun and the sea. One night, we went to the lone restaurant on her island and had a good time shocking the 3 old men sitting around one of the only 2 tables inside. What a site to see a group of 9 foreigners come stumbling in asking to be fed. More of a house than a restaurant, the kindly wife invited us into her kitchen and didn't need to show us a menu; they only served one dish there- Okinomiyaki! Sitting around her hotplate, we watched her work as if she had eight arms, layering pork, eggs, vegetables, and noodles onto the stove, and then flipping them skillfully onto plates. Finding gems like these are what makes memories.
And so, October has arrived. A time to celebrate autumn, the harvest, and moon-viewing. I awoke this morning to find the streets adorned with white paper kami blowing gently from strings. When I was cycling home from the grocery store just an hour ago, I became enveloped in a noisy parade of children on their way to temple clad in blue silk kimono marching golden boxes high above their shoulders. Adults followed along the outskirts either blowing whistles or dancing with giant paper-mache dragons for heads. I lingered for a moment, drawing attention from the children, who nearly dropped their boxes to wave at me and shout “Hello”.

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