My last six months as an English teacher in Japan

Well, as they say in Japan, "Hisashi buri desu ne," It has been a long time. I have had a busy and exciting half year.

My last update was written the day after my marathon race on the 11th of January. A few days later, I was ready to run again and back up to an easy half-marathon jog the next weekend. I continued training, but at lesser distances. My new goal was to do well at some six mile races.
On the 8th of February, I went up to the town of Izumi for their 10km (6.2 mile) race. My goal was to finish in under 50 minutes. It was a beautiful cool day and I amazed myself with a time of 45:34.

On the 31st of January, I went up to the far northern city of Okuchi. It was as far north as you could go in the southern most prefecture of mainland Japan. They had an ice carving festival and created some very nice sculptures. But, my favorite part was the 50 meter ice slide.

During the month of February, a Japanese professional baseball team (the Chiba Lotte Marines) takes over the city gym. I joined a private gym for two months. It was a lot of fun. They had their own swimming pool, indoor running track, weight room, lots of hot baths, a sauna and squash courts. I had never played squash before, but started playing a few times per week with my friends. I really enjoyed it. I tried to make the most of my monthly membership fee, so I spent a lot of time at the gym. On a couple of occasions, I managed to play squash, lift some weights in the gym, swim in the pool, run a few miles outside and ride my normal 20 mile round trip commute to school. It did not take too many of these five sport days for me to realize that that was a bit excessive and needed some scaling back.

On the 21st of February, Rie and I visited the rich neighborhood of Kagoshima City. In Japan, they say that it is impossible to bury the wires for electricity and telephones because they have very special dirt here and buried cables won’t work. As a result, the cities and neighborhoods are very crowded with overhead wires going off in all directions. But, it turns out that in this one small area of Japan, where the local residents are willing and able to pay extra to have the cables buried, it is possible. So, I wanted to go see a neighborhood with lots of big houses with lawns and garages and no ugly wires. It felt like any nice suburb in America, but was worlds away from typical Japan.

On the 7th of March, I took the ferry from near my house to the nearby volcano of Sakurajima. They had their annual 10km race and I joined in. I paced myself well and managed to finish in 44:51, nine seconds faster than my goal of 45 minutes.

The next weekend, I went to Kaseda City for their duathlon. They had a 1km run, 14km bike ride and another 1km run. It was a good day and I even won a bottle of alcohol in the post-race raffle.

On the 25th of March, my father came to visit me. A few days later, his friend Albe came as well. I had a great time visiting all of the special places around the city with them. I also managed a weekend getaway with my father and Rie. We toured the beautiful Pacific coast of Miyazaki Prefecture and dad got lots of nice pictures of birds, sea life, horses and monkeys.

On the 17th of April, I went to the local stadium to see a professional J-league soccer game. The turquoise kitted Fukuoka Avispa won handily over the Purple Sanga from Kyoto.

Even though my running training was severely lacking, I decided to participate in the Fukiage Beach race. Seven kilometers, half of them on the beach. It was another fun run, even if they did not give out a t-shirt this year.

On the 1st of May, Rie and I went to Yakushima Island. Yakushima is one of my favorite places in Japan. I went there once before in September of 2002. They have lots of my favorite kinds of nature - beaches, mountains, rivers, waterfalls and hot springs.

On the 2nd, we started hiking up the mountain in the rain. It only took a few hours to find some leeches on hour legs. They sure can be painful, considering their small size. We hiked up the highest mountain in Southern Japan and then spent a night on the beach near my favorite seaside hot spring. After that, we went to the north side of the island and stayed in a campground with a special bath. The bath is shaped like a big pot and you light a fire underneath it. Eventually, the water gets nice and hot. I felt like I was being turned into soup.

Rie went back to Kagoshima, and I set out for another hike. I found a nice trail with almost no people and hiked up into the mountains all day. I got lucky with the weather and had an enjoyable two day hike up and down the island. After visiting a few waterfalls and the hot spring again, I returned to the ferry port.

Two years ago when I did some hitchhiking on Yakushima, my Japanese was almost non-existent. I could only exchange a few words with the people who picked me up. My last ride on the island was the best indication yet of how far my Japanese language ability has progressed. While I am by no means fluent, I was able to carry on a full thirty minute conversation with the woman who picked me up. That was very encouraging.

When I got back to Kagoshima, I started my serious swim training. At that point, it meant 25 meters swimming and one minute resting. Nothing special, but challenging at the time. I quickly discovered that breathing was the hardest part of swimming for me. I kept getting out of breath. Also, the water kept pouring off of my mustache and into my mouth every time I tried to breath. Shaving helped cure this. I have kept at it for a few months and my normal swim now is for about 80 minutes or two miles. 　In mid-June, the outdoor pool opened and I have since learned the danger of swimming outdoors in a Japanese pool. You are required to wear a swim cap in the pool. That means that I have a really funny tan line going straight across my forehead.

On the fourth of June there was a city wide speech contest in English for the Junior High Schools. Last year my students won both the 8th and 9th grade competitions and I was hoping to do as well this year. Two of my students had an excellent skit and won the 8th grade prize. In the 9th grade contest, two of my students had great pronunciation, but their speeches lacked originality.
I felt bad for them because they did well but came away empty handed. Another one of my students spoke about riding his bike in the mountains. He finished up by asking people not to throw so much trash in the woods. His original and funny speech earned one of the second place awards. First prize for my three students last year and my two students this year was a two week trip to Miami.

In Japan, the firework season is in August, so I was not able to celebrate the 4th of July in a traditional American way, but I did come close. My friend was in a skeet shooting competition and I went to watch a bunch of people shoot shotguns all morning. My friend, Tatsuya, came in one point behind first and I did not go deaf from all the noise, so all in all it was a pretty good day.
On the 9th of July, I went to the office of the Mayor of Kagoshima City. Every year he gives out some special prizes to the deserving foreigners who promoted internationalization while they were here. This year, there were no especially deserving recipients of the annual "Friend of Kagoshima" award, so all of the departing second year ALTs were chosen as winners instead. At the ceremony, I got a nice plaque, a video about the city and some pottery. I am now authorized by the City Government to tell people all over the world about the wonders of Kagoshima City. I also got my picture in the paper.

The 11th of July was the official start of my goodbye party season. My section of the Board of Education had a goodbye party for the five leaving ALTs. I made a nice speech in Japanese. I said that when I came here, I could not speak at all and now, after two years, I can speak as well as a two year old. I got some nice parting gifts and my boss did not fall over drunk at this party, so it was a good night.

Last year, I had dinner with about twenty people at a nice hotel restaurant in honor of the visiting students from Miami. This year, on the 12th, the dinner was expanded to include the 40 or so visiting students from Australia as well. There were about 80 people and the dinner was in a hotel ballroom, with bad hotel ballroom food. A definite step down from last year.
After Tai-Chi class on the 15th, a bunch of us went out for dinner together. On the 16th, I had a goodbye party with the teachers from Tani Yama Kita (Valley Mountain North) Junior High School.

The week of parties interrupted my training, but that did not stop me from entering a duathlon in Kanyoa city. This race in the mid-summer heat was a 1.25 mile swim in the ocean followed by an 8 mile run. I was looking forward to the challenge of the swim. I was not used swimming fast, in a crowd, with no lines on the bottom to guide me, while worrying about jellyfish. But, on the plus side, the salt water is a lot more buoyant than the pool I am used to. We had to swim around the course three times, but the side near the beach was to shallow, so we all waded. It made the over all swim pretty easy and I finished in 30 minutes. The run was long and hot. I dumped ice water on my head every half mile or so. I finished 12th out of 20 and was happy overall.

The final day of my week of sad goodbyes at the schools was on the 20th. I went to another party on the 24th and on the 26th, I went for a day trip with some teachers. We drove north to the Mount Aso area. We had lunch near a river and visited the viewpoint overlooking the giant caldera. We drove to the top of the central volcano, but it was too active, so we were not allowed up the final little bit to look down at the lava. Later, we visited a half mile long tunnel. It was supposed to be for trains, but they struck water instead. So, we got to walk along the tunnel, next to a river. It was nice and cool down there.

On the 29th, I went to my final Tai Chi class. The teacher gave me a nice t-shirt and key chain. At the end of class, I had to give a small speech. Everybody clapped for me and then stood in a line and shook my hand.

I got a nice pile of goodbye messages from the students at Kamoike JHS. My favorite note said "Thank you for your wonderful crass."

On the 30th of July, I went to a friend's house for a goodbye party. The next day, I went to a teacher’s house for another party. Finally, on the 1st of August, I had my last goodbye party with the English teachers from Wada JHS.

My last morning in the office will be the 3rd of August. My plans for the next year call for a lot of traveling. I will take the ferry to Hokkaido in the north of Japan tomorrow night. I will ride my bike around Japan for three months before returning to the US at the end of October. In January, I plan to return to South America and take a cruise to Antarctica. After the cruise, I will travel around South America and do a lot of hiking. I hope to start studying for a Masters in Geography somewhere in the US southwest in the Fall of 2005.

And now for the random observations.

Teachers work hard here. Part of their job is to go to city festivals and keep an eye on the students.

One day at school, I smelled something really good. Along with fifty or so students, I followed my nose to the Homemaking class. They were cooking hamburgers and asparagus. After the bell rang and all the students went back to class, I joined the Homemaking class. They all had bandannas tied around their heads as hair nets. I happened to have a shaved head then, so I thought it made more sense to tie my bandanna around my big beard, bandit style. At that school, the lunch is cooked someplace else and brought to the school an hour or two before lunch time - not always very appetizing. But on this day, I had a great pre-lunch after managing to get myself invited to share the food.

Career day is much better here than it was in my junior high school. All I remember from my career day was sitting in the gym and listening to a tall skinny woman from the Barbizon beauty school give a talk. That is where I learned that horizontal stripes make me look heavier and vertical stripes make me look taller and skinnier. Here, the students decide which job they want to check out, contact the company and then spend a few days there as an apprentice. They worked in all sorts of places such as the zoo, a pet hospital, a 7-11, supermarkets, restaurants, government offices, hospitals, and even an animal hot spring.

Sometimes, in the morning, before I open my eyes, I try to remember what my surroundings look like and which direction my head is facing. When I am doing a lot of traveling, this can be a challenging game, but after two years in the same room, this morning game is pretty boring these days. That should all change soon.

Car seats for kids are not very popular here. I have observed a different set of customs when it comes to kids in cars. Babies are naturally safest when being held snugly in their mother's arms. By two years of age, the kids are about ready to stand on the seat and look out the window. A year or two later, they are big enough to run around the back seat. By six or so, they are big enough to stick their head out the sun roof.

Suzuyama, the little school in the mountains that I visited, had heaters in all of the classrooms. But, in the winter the price of heating oil goes up, so it is too expensive to use them.

Students do all sorts of passing notes, talking and goofing off when they think that the teacher can't see them. They think they are really sneaky, but I now realize that the teacher can pretty much always see everything. The funny thing is, that when I go to my Japanese class, I sometimes goof off and expect that the teacher doesn't notice.

I found a fun sentence in one of the student's books - I think that that that that that girl used is wrong.

I noticed some interesting brands of condoms in the convenience stores. You can buy Bennetton, Popteen and doggie brand condoms.

At Wada JHS, the students have an assembly on Wednesday morning. If they are late for school, the class rooms are locked and they have to leave their bags in the hallway and then go to the assembly. There is a teacher in charge of going through the bags to look for contraband. One day, Mrs. Fukinaga found a box of cigarettes in a girl's bag. She spent an hour yelling at her. After being reduced to tears, the girl wrote down all the times she smoked, where and with whom. Then, the teachers had an hour long discussion. At the end, they decided to search every student's bag. As you would expect, they came up with all kinds of forbidden items such as sunscreen, hand cream, the wrong buttons on their uniform and candy. For me, the worst part of all this yelling and activity in the teacher's room was the noise. I was trying to watch a DVD on a computer. I was using earphones, but I still found all that hustle and bustle distracting.
In the summer, the classrooms are very hot. Everyone sits around dripping sweat and mopping it up with little towels. Especially after PE class, the room can really smell bad. The students are not allowed to wear deodorant because all of those conflicting perfume smells can be noxious.
And on that note, I am homeless and back on the road - just the way I like to be.