Translators

To my great relief, I finally found work here in Japan. Hopefully this means my days as an unemployable pariah are over. Whew. (In the back of my mind I worry that this company will call and reneg on the offer...)

Anyhoo, despite everyone's assurances that I'm insane, I've decided to commute. The job is in Tokushima City which means well, A LOT o' drivin'! Though with the repeated emails and exclamations of "Really? You're going to drive? Are you sure?" from various sources, I'm starting to uneasily wonder if I've made the right choice. But all this is beside the point.

In order to take this job it means I can't do certain other jobs I had previously agreed to do. After some agonizing over what to do I, perhaps selfishly, decided I couldn't pass up the city job over 2 hours a week if I stayed here. So I hied myself over to the Board of Ed to discuss my options. It had been agreed we'd meet when the/an interpreter was available.

I arrived at the designated time to find that the interpreter had "retired." Whether this meant he/she was sick, sleeping, or had actually retired, I wasn't sure. The most important fact was, there was no one who could speak both English and Japanese. I was ushered in to sit down beside the computer where I sat and was served some green tea, that I drank in small sips. The supervisor sat beside me and turned on the computer. Once it was on, he showed me a translating program via the internet.

Let me tell you, translating words using a dictionary doesn't always work. Things get mixed up and literal translations sound just plain strange a lot of the time. The two of us sat there, typing like mad then clicking that magic button which transferred our words into Japanese or English. We spent equal amounts of time puzzling at what the other had written. One time, when I asked if a class time could be changed I got the response: "It is not easy to say because it is very crowded." When I obviously looked confused, he changed one kanji character and I got instead, "It is not easy to say, because there are many participants." Another mistranslation was: "We will by separately worry by this." (when I expressed concern over what would happen to the adult classes I was supposed to teach) It went on like this for close to an hour, with people periodically standing behind us to watch the fun.

In the meantime, on top of the tea, I was served black coffee. Seeing that all the others were drinking theirs black, and feeling rude if I asked for any sugar or cream, I proceeded to drink it black too. It was strong but I kept sipping it, hoping to get used to the taste. Hell, if they can drink it black then so can I! Between the tea and coffee I was also given some cookies to munch on. It was almost like being at a teahouse.

In the end, we got our respective points across though I still wonder if they think I'm an ungrateful b***h for ditching the classes they had set up for me. If they do, I'll never know it because people are unfailingly polite here.

All in all, an interesting day.

Sports Day

This is a day when students display their athletic prowess. Well, not exactly but something to this effect. The day started out with some ceremonial greetings from both the principal and vice-principal of the school. The students stood quietly in straight, organized lines listening to them. They were dressed identically, in white t-shirts and dark blue shorts, white socks and sneakers. The only difference was the colour of the headband they were made to wear. It indicated what group each student was in. They were organized according to grade and then by gender.

A short warm-up followed which all the students and teachers seemed to know from long practice. Then the students dispersed, chatting at the sides until their group was due to practice/perform. The first event that I watched involved girls and car tires (I can't recall what grade they were in). Basically what happened is that the girls were divided into two groups, ran to the tires and struggled against their opponents to drag them to their respective sides. What was most amusing was when they came down to the last tire, at this point ALL the girls piled around it, pulling and pulling but to no avail. The thing wouldn't budge what with all the pressure around it.

Events that followed were equally mesmerizing. There was an odd kind of obstacle race which involved: throwing balls into a basket, ducking under hurdles, somersaulting onto a mat, rolling an enormous number cube, getting your face sprayed and then dunking your face into flour, finally the students ran past the finish line. There was also a folk dance that I had to stand in for since there weren't enough girls in the San-nen (third grade middle school) class. That was fun, though I had no idea what I was doing for the first few repetitions.

Keep in mind that all this is being done with inspirational music being played in the background. On the sides vendors sold sno-cones (my favourite! the cola flavour was especially good) and takoyaki which are hard to explain. They are bits of octopus mixed in batter and then baked/fried into little balls. It might sound disgusting to the average foreigner but they're actually pretty good.

All in all it was a good day. Thanks for reading.

Culture Festival

Today I accompanied Will to his junior high's Culture Festival. It usually seems to take place on a weekend and is to celebrate...culture as far as I could tell.

The first thing that happened were the 3 different grades each sang a song. As I can't understand Japanese, particularly if sung, I had no idea what the song might have been about. The students are all in uniform here. The girls wore sailor tops with pleated dark blue skirts and white knee socks while the boys wore short sleeved white collared shirts and black trousers. I'm not sure why Japan thought sailor-type outfits were great for girls but there you have it.

After the singing came a brass band performance and then a rap performance by three grade 9 students. Then the teachers sang another song I didn't understand. A trivia game followed and then some milling around. The fun part was the bazaar. We walked around, bought food from different booths that were run by the students and then I bought a ridiculous looking white vinyl purse for 50yen. Why? Because it was 50yen! Ah I love a good sale.

Afterwards was the closing ceremony, that I skipped, and they day was over. While I don't feel like I got an impressive amount of culture in me it was an interesting enough day. Clean up is extremely efficient. The students are really quick to put away chairs and tables that were used for the food booths. It was all done in about 10 minutes.

I look forward to Sports Day or undoukai tomorrow.

Some very random musings

It's another lazy day for me...there have been too many but nevertheless here we go. I ventured into a coffee shop yesterday to sit and well, drink coffee, write, read and enjoy their air conditioning. While there I pondered about the following subjects:

1. Why am I the only girl in this place? Ooh, did I enter a snack bar unknowingly?
2. Nifty Asian made cell phones! Very advanced...and prettily coloured.
3. How almost all things are packaged individually. Ie, cookies are often individually wrapped and then put into a larger package with other individually wrapped cookies.
4. Print Club/Photo Booths and their popularity
5. How this heat is just refusing to leave. Oi.
6. If I go to Kyoto will I be able to see a geisha? Or even more than one geisha?

Going back to #1, snack bars are places where men go to unwind and relax after work. Notice I said 'men' not 'people'. While the name 'snack bar' is innocuous enough the things that go on inside them aren't. Usually when viewed from the outside, you can see a rather nice building with the windows all heavily curtained off. In snack bars there are hostesses. These are women who go around, serve drinks and tidbits, and chat up the menfolk. Before I left Canada, I had to sign a waiver stating that I would not engage in this kind of work (in addition to prostitution and other unsavoury jobs). While hostesses aren't expected to do anything more than chat and harmlessly flirt with the men, there are some who go further, if you know what I mean. *wink wink, nudge nudge* Perhaps not the most desirable of professions.

At #4 I've listed Print Club. What is this you ask? Well, it is a booth designed for taking photo sticker pictures. We don't see too many of these back home, I don't think they're all that popular. What happens is you first choose the machine of your choice and then, the camera flashes away while you assume rather ridiculous (but sexy) poses. Note that this is usually done with at least one other person. Then, you choose how many of the photos you want printed. The real fun with the Japanese version comes from being able to adorn your photos with the most zany, loud and preposterous looking borders, stars, hearts and whathaveyou. Then, voila! You have print club stickers, ready to dole out to your friends. I commonly put mine on my bank card to dress it up some.

Alright, I'm only going to go over those two since the others look self-explanatory. Hope the weekend went well! Cheers,

Typhoon Update

Sorry folks, not too exciting. There was some wind and lots o' rain, but not enough to constitute a flood.

I stayed indoors and taught.

And there is your typhoon update. Today is very sunny and warm.

Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji

At the moment, Shikoku island is being hit by a typhoon. I've never been through any type of severe weather (save the all too common blizzards of Calgary) so this is a new experience for me. As of yet it doesn't seem to be too bad but I hear that it's supposed to pick up tonight. Expect an update when this weather passes! Now onto the subject of my post...

In Japan, three different sets of characters are used for reading and writing. They are:
1. Hiragana - solely for Japanese words
2. Katakana - for English words phonetically written into Japanese
3. Kanji - Chinese characters that are nicely mixed in with both hiragana and
katakana

Where hiragana and katakana are phonetic and relatively easy to learn, kanji is symbolic and the very devil to master. Each character's meaning needs to be memorized, however once you begin tossing different kanji together to make various words, their separate meanings almost become nil and a new meaning needs to be learned. For instance, when the characters for 'heaven' and 'messenger' are put together the new word formed is 'angel'. While the base words for angel makes some sense, other words put together are more obscure in their relationship ie, 'woman' and 'child' becomes 'like'. Though I suppose the reasoning there is all women are supposed to like children.

In addition to having to memorize about a billion combinations of kanji, the Japanese also need to learn which pronunciation to use. There is a Chinese and Japanese pronunciation for nearly every kanji. Take the kanji for 'mountain'. The Japanese word for it is 'yama' while the Chinese word is 'san'. When do you use which? I have absolutely NO IDEA. I just go around making a fool of myself by reading aloud kanji by their meanings in English. As a result the words make no sense whatsoever and I'm left more puzzled than when I started. I'm already pretty confused to begin with.

Writing a foreign language is a task unto itself. My English writing is neat and orderly if I do say so myself. My Japanese writing is probably similar to that of a young child with severe motor-skill deficiencies. I haven't even attempted kanji. There is a certain brushstroke order that is supposed to be followed when writing most Asian characters. Because I'm so fabulous I make up my own rules and as a result, my characters don't look anything like their book counterparts. I think for certain kanji you have to make as many as 23 different strokes to complete the character.

Thus, the conclusion is, I really haven't learned anything. I can read hiragana and katakana but so much kanji is used in written Japanese that any words I might've known are completely overwhelmed by it. Thus, I'm more or less illiterate, yet again in another Asian country. This has been your friendly neighbourhood post.

p.s. The Kanji shown with this post means 'truth'

Ordering when you can't read the menu

Last week I went with two friends to a cafe/restaurant that could only be described as coming straight from the set of the "Flintstones".  Seriously, on the outside it was a yellowish-beige colour and well, rocky looking.  Once you stepped inside the stone-age ambience ended and you were presented with a rather quaint but cozy enough looking restaurant.

I thought that a restaurant like this wouldn't have appealed to men but by far, it was men who populated the cafe.  Businessmen if their attire was any indication of what they did for a living.  Mostly they sat on their own at the tables, browsing through magazines or manga (Japanese comic books).  I was informed, I can’t verify if it’s true because I didn’t have a chance to read over their shoulders, that the popular genre of choice is pornography.  Again, I can’t verify though judging from the selection of manga at the café, it could very well be true.

Literary predilections aside, once the three of us were seated, the task upon us was to decipher the menu enough so that we could order something recognizable.  Two menus were provided, thus providing twice the reading effort.  We pored over the small, short menus as if we were trying to analyze a Shakespeare poem.  Sounding much like a 3 year old child, I would slowly read aloud those characters I could recognize while following my finger on the page.  I don’t think I looked very bright.  I don’t think any of us three looked especially intelligent.  We would squint and scrutinize those words written in katakana (characters used for English words translated phonetically to Japanese) and cheer once we figured out what it meant.  Ie. Ka-pei o-rei was café au lait.  There are no ‘l’ sounds in the Japanese alphabet.

I would judge that it took us a good half hour of study (including consulting my phrasebook) to decode the menu to some degree of satisfaction.  Then, in a show of stunning solidarity, we all ordered exactly the same dish, yakimeshi or fried rice.  We did branch out by requesting different desserts.  I opted for jam and toast, the other two received toast (sans jam) and a biscuit (I think it was whole wheat).  Actually I’m not sure if this was dessert or just another mini-meal served after the main meal.  I’ve learned not to order ice cream as part of a lunch set because it comes out at the same time as the rest of the meal and you’re left with a nice glass dish of soupy cream.  Hmm, perhaps you’re meant to eat it first.

Afterwards, we went on a cheese run.  This is exciting because there is virtually no good cheese to be found in Japan.  Not the likes of cheddar, mozzarella, Monterey jack or etc.  You can find brie and camembert.  Our endeavours were somewhat thwarted when we discovered the cheese available at a designated supermarket really wasn’t much different from what you could find locally.  It was a sad day but I bought some feta to soothe the blow and felt better.

My next plan of action is to go to a department store called Sogo in Tokushima City where I can go insane buying all the western fare that is fabled to exist there.  

Reading a foreign menu is something of a challenge that I think everyone should try at least once in their life.  If you can’t read it at all, just look blank and point to something at random.  You will get some sort of dish, though it may not be easily identifiable.  If you can read even a little you’re pretty much set.  Nevermind that you’re reduced to the point of starvation by the time you understand what you’re reading.

This post was brought to you by Yuri’s laptop and her fingers.  Cheers.

Kobe/Nara/Osaka

Hello again and welcome to the umpteenth instalment of Yuri's frenetic blogging. Brought to you by time and the Toshiba Satellite laptop which is better traveled then a lot of my friends. While that sounds like a plug it isn't. (though I do very much like my laptop!)

Over the weekend Will and I went to visit a friend of his in Kobe, Jun. So, we duly hopped onto a bus, watched the driver wave enthusiastically to every other bus driver during the entire 2 and a half hour trip, then pulled up into Kobe's Sannomiya Station. Having been a small town for the past month, the crowded streets of a big city were almost surprising. That and seeing more than a two lane highway was also quite titillating, though the congestion was something I don’t miss.

Our first night was spent with the Jun’s family where we were welcomed with great hospitality and a home-cooked meal that didn’t end. When I say this I mean that food was constantly being cooked and brought out to us. I’m wondering if I should’ve left food on my plate to signal the fact that I was full and no longer needed to eat anymore. After the food fest, I watched the two guys consume large amounts of alcohol and then we went to sleep on traditional futons.

The next day we were up and off to Nara, a place where there are many temples, a lot of natural beauty and alot of...deer! Oh yes indeedy, deer deer deer at every corner and every turn. Of one of the main roads anyway. I'm not sure what kind of deer they were either. I had thought only fawns had the white spots on their bodies but these deer all had them, whether they were big or small.

Now here is how it worked. The deer were trained to want these special deer crackers. You could buy them from the vendor for 150yen. The deer were apparently trained to not want to eat the cracker's lying on the vendor's cart but once you had them in your own hands, hoo boy, watch out! As most of you know male deer have antlers, and they use these antlers to stab at you until you give them some crackers. No, it's not very nice but telling the deer this does little to make them stop. I even got nipped by one of the does and she left a bit of a bruise. You can make the deer follow you around by holding crackers up in the air and feel like the King/Queen of the world! The deer automatically gravitate towards humans until they realize you have no crackers, then you're left severely alone and shunned by these creatures. Most of the afternoon I watched several people trying to feed the deer though it usually resulted in them trying to avoid being butted and bitten. Some actually ran away, screaming, from the ferocious animals. By some, I mean me. Well, I didn't scream, but I did back away.

We also saw some temples too. I'm not sure what to say about them, being a temple snob since I've seen so many in the past 2 years.

Another thing that I did on this trip was goggle at the unusual fashion sense I saw displayed by both the males and females. Generally, I saw no young Japanese with their natural hair colour. No, it was various shades of brown, red, orange and blond. If they did have their natural colour it was overwhelmed by insidious streaking of the aforementioned colours. Not to mention that the mullet seems to have come back into style here. What starts off as a thick head of hair on most girls (and is sometimes teased into a huge pompadour), ends in thinned out trails. Now, yes, I'm in Japan and I realize cultures are different, blah blah blah, but a mullet never looks good on ANYONE. Not 80s hockey players nor trendy Japanese youth. *shudder* Make up was done with painstaking care. Powder, eyeshadow (alot of green) and lots of mascara. I wanted to know how they applied the makeup without having it run off the face as soon as you stepped outside.

Clothing was another thing. In order to be fashionable here you need to layer like there's no tomorrow. Girls would commonly wear:
1. a thin light coloured tank top
2. a slightly thicker more abrasively coloured tank top, and sometimes
3. a thin, short sleeved button down top, but left unbuttoned
Jeans were usually worn with these layers and in this weather I think that's nuts. During a summer where I'm constantly plotting how to jump from one air-conditioned place to another, jeans are just not an option. Girls also usually wore very girly sandals which I very much liked. No really, I sound sarcastic but I really liked them. I want metallic pink strappy sandals with big blue flowers too! (again, this is not sarcasm)

Men sported alarmingly similar hairstyles to the girls, to the point where sometimes I couldn't tell who was who and would commonly wear:
1. a tank top, and sometimes
2. a short sleeved button down top, left unbuttoned or just the tank top
They also paired their shirt/shirts with jeans. You've already read what I think about that. Men usually wore huge near-platform sneakers on their feet. We won't go into what I thought about that.

So to those of you who wanted or expected the lowdown on a Japanese city, sorry but this is what I noticed more. I also want to say once again what great hosts we had. Only in Asia have I met people who are quite so attentive to their guests.