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Published: September 21st 2006
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The Metaphor
Pulled this little pic from a 3rd grade ESL text. I will never consider the phrase "He is an ass." in the same way again. Teaching English... a whole new world. So the past month at school has been a little different than usual. Our kids' classes have been reviewing for the past month or so, and last week we began tests. Oh fellow teachers, how we must appreciate our freedom to create and establish our own methods of evaluation. Tests at English school come twice a year and aside from observation, no other evaluation is given. Tests are like a ten minute one-on-one interview. About ten oral questions, including translation (which we don't even teach the kids to do, but I won't get started on that). So these poor kids come in having little to no practice in this particular testing situation and knowing that their whole evaluation weighs on this ten minute test. Some kids come in bawling, others leave crying, some shake, others completely clam up and cannot speak. And the idiomatic term, "Shit his pants"... now very literal. Testing is almost over... the kids are relieved and so am I.
Many of my older classes have been going wonderfully. My teens are so wonderful and we all laugh and get along really well. My adult classes have been helping me get
Sports Day Practice
Every school has Sports Day. Like our Track and Field Days in Canada, but completely different. Here, Sports Day is on a Saturday and also includes games like tug of war and three legged races, as well as entertainment like dancers and marching bands. I live kiddie-corner to this school and wake up to these dance and marching band practices every morning. more acquainted with the Japanese culture. In one class, each of my students is researching a different Japanese tradition for me to participate in over the next month or so. And no, I didn't assign this... they just offer it up! Soon, I hope to take part in a tea ceremony, take in a zazen meditation session, go to a kabuki performance (traditional Japanese opera), and maybe even take a dance class or a temple tour walk.
Another class of three sisters have really taken me under their wing. They all work at their own bakery together. And oh, this bakery is one of my guilty pleasures... you have not had good baking until you've been to Pain de Voleur (yeah, a French name that no matter how much we work on it, they have grave difficulty pronouncing). These ladies are all in their twenties and have pretty good English, so we get along famously. This past Saturday night, they took me out for Indian food in Nishio... it was marvelous! During our degustation, our conversation led me to mentioning that I hoped to take another trip to Kyoto soon. Wouldn't you just guess that they were going to
Out for Indian Food!
Chieko, Masako, Mayumi, and I Kyoto the next day! So I was able to join their excursion, along with their friend and her two sons (also ACC students), and her teachers, Simran and Lesley, two great Canadian girls that I am now very used to traveling with.
Now I loved Kyoto during my own little independent field trip, but the experience traveling with the Japanese is always better. They know how to see the best of the best. We began in Nara where we visited the Todai-ji Temple. This temple houses the Dainichi Nyorai (The Cosmic Buddha) which is the biggest bronze Buddha in Japan. It's huge! Temple visits, though filled with tourists, always seem so serene and spiritual. This one was no different. The pictures tell some of this story. This temple stands in Deer Park (not to be confused with the golf course in Yorkton, Sask.). Deer Park is a very fitting name for this area as there are deer everywhere! We were petting deer and feeding deer. And once those buggers saw the food, we were also mauled by deer! Those poor little boys were running scared, but strangely never dropped the food. What a sight!
After the temple and
deer, we sat down for some ramen, then headed to Uji. Uji is the home to the most famous maccha (green tea) store in Japan called Itoh Kyuemon. We did a little sampling, a little shopping, and got to sit down to amazing maccha desserts... cheese cakes, jellies, parfaits... mmmmm, so good!
From there, we went to Kyoto. First stop, Kiyomizu-dera Temple (Kiyo - pure, mizu - water). The view here was absolutely gorgeous. Trees and hills all around, Kyoto city in the distance. We drank from the sacred spring, hoping for intelligence, health, and love. This visit was also accented by a very unique experience. On our way up the stairs to the temple, we looked up at the top only to see four geisha! It is very rare to see geisha out and about and impossible to get into their workplace without knowing the most influencial men in Japan. Knowing this, we ran to take advantage of this opportunity! We caught up with them and politely asked to be able to take pictures with them. They kindly complied. As pictures were taken and a few amiable words spoken, slowly each of our facial expressions turned from pure
Deer me!2
Little Ryuta (one of my kinder students) both excited and scared with the deer. excitement to a mix of excitement and confusion. As our short meeting ended and they walked away, we looked at each other in agreement... "Yup, two of those geisha were men!". At first, all you really see is the kimono, the white face, the big fancy hair. But a closer look revealed that one of them was very tall with a stance that was less then graceful, and another was just simply ugly, as far as women go. So I've learned that there are places that rent out geisha costumes and get their customers fully prepared for a "day in the life of a geisha". I guess we just caught a few of their customers who just so happened to be curious men!
From the geisha and sacred water to some supper and downtown shopping. This, of course, was the part of the trip with which I was a little more familiar. Supper was great, shopping too. Most of the girls then stayed overnight at a ryokan to continue their Kyoto experience the following day. As I had work on Monday, I headed back with Masako (one of the sisters) as she trudged the vehicle through some of the
nearby typhoon spin-off weather. The day was very full and we were exhausted, but I felt so lucky to have had the opportunity to make this unexpected and wonderful trip!
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Levi
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Deer me???
Cool temples, looks very relaxing. Glad to see you're enjoying yourself more and more as time goes by. But, "Deer me!", Kara? Come on, grow up. Just buggin' ya, it made me laugh.