Strait and DeGraff From Japan

One last Japanese Festival

2008-07-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

We have been a whirlwind of activity as we prepare to leave Japan and return to Kansas City. Yesterday 6 big bags were picked up to be transported to the Tokyo airport and now we are finishing up packing and cleaning. We leave Japan in about 36 hours! We have had a fun couple of weeks and have had some nice dinners with families, given many good bye speeches and went to a local festival last night.

Here is Jonas dressed for the festival in his yukata.

The festival consisted of floats like these being pulled down the street by a group of people. This festival lasted until 2 am! We left much earlier than that.

Jonas seemed to be a bit overwhelmed by all the people, floats and noise--it was a noisy festival. He spent a lot of the time on Jason's shoulders quietly checking out the scene. This is not his usual operating style. Normally, he is running around, checking everything out.

Jason with some students. Since we visit 8 schools between the 2 of us, we saw many students last night.

A very decorated cell phone

Jonas did get down to explore for a little while

And he was intrigued by pieces of paper flying around in this machine.

Jason and with one of his students and her boyfriend. She was one of the float pullers.

Eating dinner at the festival. I am going to miss Japanese festival food. We ate yaki soba (similar to friend noodles), yaki tori (grilled chicken on a stick), edamame and a jacket potato.

Our friends and fellow ALTs Rheanna and Mark. This is the Mark who took the fantastic sumo photos that we posted recently.

Jason - #1 Dad

2008-07-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

Jason recently participated in the 2008 World Sippy Cup. Our friend Jeff writes a column every month on the final page of the Chicago magazine called The Closer. They are always funny and this month he decided to rate a few fathers in a 'competition' of sorts.

Jason took second place, but he is number one according to Jonas and me.

Check out the article on the Chicago Magazine website. Jason is on page 2. He also appears in the print magazine, but no picture there.

One more thing-- If you begin to think I am lame when you read that Jason gets up 90% of the time when Jonas wakes in the night, go to the Anonymous comment posted at Jul 17, 2008 07:18 pm.

School Festivals

2008-07-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

I spent all of last weekend at school festivals (bunkasai in Japanese). From what I have seen, every junior high and high school holds one of these cultural festivals every year. I was quite impressed.

On Saturday, I went to Kita Ko. Below you can see groups of students selling and eating food in the courtyard.

One of my favorite students is in this picture. She always talks to me and is always excited. When she saw Jonas she said, "Oh my God. Everyone come for a picture."

The students were very good at selling their ice cream, floats and shaved ice treats. I felt compelled to buy one of everything since the students kept asking me to buy something until I did. Jonas did not seem to mind and was still able to nap after all that sugar! The picture on the right is a group of students in the temporary cafeteria. They had many lunch choices for sale.

Inside their were stores and displays of student art.

Above are students playing Go and the Koto club playing beautiful music. Afterwards they let me try and we took a group picture.

This is the illustration group

The festival ended on Saturday afternoon with dance and singing performances. Prizes were awarded to the classes that earned the most points.

On Sunday, I went to Akita Senior High School's festival. Three of my four schools had festivals on the same weekend. They had a wider variety of food, including jacket potatoes.

This is the broadcasting club. I was impressed with their communication center.

They had an interesting competition...which boy makes the prettiest girl...

number 3 won and was incredibly excited.

Many of the class projects at this school seemed to carry a political or social message. This particular one addressed the increasing prices of food and other necessities.

There was also some major rock and roll going on. This band played Red Hot Chili Peppers along with their original music and Japanese rock.

See the Stitch fan above? Now that it is hot here these fans are everywhere. Air conditioning is not used nearly as much as in the States as a way to conserve energy. I like this.
Here is another rockin' band. This band also played original songs. I love the name of this band - P!nk Shell.

This picture includes a group of track and field students who eat lunch with me every time I visit Akita Senior High.

After dance performances, a quiz show and a skit in the gym, there was a night festival that included fire.

Then more band performances, including a teacher led band. The teacher wore leather pants and sang "We Will Rock You." I thought of my nephew Holden (once when we were watching a KU game and they were losing, Holden yelled out, "Hey KU, get the mud off your pants." Yes, the actual line is face, not pants, but he was six. Close enough).

Here are the students dancing to a student band.

And finally the festival ended with fireworks. Yes, a high school festival ended with fireworks. It was July 6, so it was my substitute 4th of July celebration.

I think the school festival is a great tradition to take back to the states. The students organize this festival and take on a lot of leadership. The festival builds community and pride among the students, as they organize and display their hard work. Parents and community members have a chance to see the students' hard work. I love the Japanese school festival tradition.

The (nearly) Full Monty

2008-07-01T20:51:00.001-07:00

A quick warning. This post contains several graphic photos that reveal more of Jason than many of you have ever seen. Certainly more than you want to see. The pictures are courtesy of the fantastic Mark Lidell. Naturally, I picked out the ones that make me look best, or at least not so hideous. It wasn't an easy task.

So, I participated in a charity sumo tournament last weekend. The charity is run by some Akita and Aomori JETs, to build a school and provide scholarships for kids in Nepal. The contestants, nearly all foreigners, were other English teachers from around the prefecture, and a handful of guys from up in Aomori. I was one of them.

Here are the highlights:

I'd like to say that I did my family proud by dominating the dohyo. This would not be true. I was beaten soundly in my first match, of which there is actual video evidence of somewhere on some other blog, and if there are enough requests, I may even link to it. No shame there, though. That guy finished third.

The second match was a disaster. Feeling I was too passive the first round, I overcompensated the second time by going full-bore, straight into the other "rikishi" and straight out of the ring, bringing him along with me. Actually, I'm not really sure what happened. I know that he, a very nice guy, and I made a pact earlier in the day not to throw each other out of the ring and onto the ground. After picking himself up off the ground, he gave me a "What the hell?" look, to which I had no good answer, later pointing out to him that he was in fact the winner and I could take no responsibility for having our backsides caked in sand. What I knew for certain was that I was 0-2, facing a likely and shameful 0-3 finish, which may have just forced me to stay in Japan for an additional year so I could redeem myself at next year's charity event.

In the third match I faced an Australian named Mark, an incredibly nice guy who is also incredibly fit. He didn't have the bulk or size that the rest of us did, but that was mainly due to his being in phenomenal shape. A spectator actually mentioned to me, later in the week, that he looked almost a bodybuilder-esque. I can tell you having seen him up close, this is an absolutely accurate observation. He also was 2-0, beating the other two guys (who I lost to) in our group and was a win away from advancing to the semifinals and eternal sumo glory. Did I mention he works out? I'm just saying -- look at the guy.

So, as you may have suspected, I managed to win this last one, even though there is a rumored photo out there somewhere, and I'm not saying where, which may, just may, show my foot grazing the sand of the outer ring just moments before Mark goes out. But that's just a rumor.

Tricia didn't get to stick around to see me and my moment of glory. It was way beyond his normal naptime, and according to Tricia, he was not a happy kid by the time they finally left and was asleep five minutes after being buckled into his car seat.

This, from Tricia:

The event began some amazing taikai drumming. Jonas loved it too. He had been running around, not wanting to sit still, but the minute the drumming started he was focused, watching and listening intently, as you can see in this picture. And, yes, you can see I enjoyed the drumming too. My mouth is open in awe.

One of the things Jonas did when he ran around was enter the dohyo. This official was very sweet and let Jonas play in a big pile of sand, but it was time for him to leave the dohyo.

There was a lot of pre-sumo activity and Jason was in the last group to fight. I tried so hard to keep Jonas there long enough so we could watch Jason compete. But the poor guy was ready for his nap and let me know by doing what toddlers do when they are tired - throw fits.

You can see the tiredness in his eyes in this picture. He played hard during the pre-sumo warm-up and got very sweaty and dirty. Both of us had a layer of sand on our clothes when we left.

Camping with Mike and Lisa

2008-06-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a slide show of our camping trip in Tazawako. I wrote a few captions. If you want to read them, click on the slideshow and it will take you to our Picasa albums. We had so much fun camping with Mike and Lisa. The weather was perfect, the area was beautiful and the company was great fun.

A Lump of Nature

2008-06-21T15:35:00.000-07:00

(We've found some great T-shirts for Jonas here in Japan. This one says "A Lump of Nature" on the front, and something nonsensical on the back. One of the kids at Jonas's daycare, actually my favorite kid who calls himself "comedian," was wearing a shirt the other day that said "Bear or Panda?").

We went to the beach last weekend and Jonas loved it. He has no fear. He'd walk as far as we'd let him into the water, almost up to his neck. Every so often a wave would hit him and send him tumbling, and this still didn't give him pause. He also enjoyed collecting the driftwood on the beach and throwing it back in the water, as you can see.

After the beach, we bought some cheap crabs and made crab cakes out of them for dinner. They were surprisingly good, considering neither of us had ever cooked crab before.

Jonas made a friend at the beach, and then her grandfather carted her off, Japanese style.

And finally, one of the Japanese roadside ice cream stands, that are everywhere and almost always in the middle of nowhere. At least I think its ice cream they're selling.

Jonas' 2nd Birthday

2008-06-19T01:33:00.001-07:00

Uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa made this video of Jonas's birthday party in the park. Thanks to them for making this special video. We love it.

Drawing Circles at Kita Ko

2008-06-18T07:15:00.001-07:00

We have many pictures to post from Mike's and Lisa's trip and we will get to that, but for tonight, it seemed more manageable to post these. Hours before Mike and Lisa arrived, I took Jonas to one of my schools to visit my supervisor. Jonas loved running in the wide and beautiful hallways (the school is the newest and most beautiful school that I have seen in Japan; ask Jason and he will tell you too, most of the school buildings are old, old in our area). We happened upon a classroom (it was after school) with a few students studying. Jonas found the chalkboard, which was a dream come true for the little guy. The chalkboard moves up and down, and luckily for Jonas, you can move it down pretty far. He loves to draw and recently was in a circle drawing stage, which he seems to be moving out of this week. Anyway, he discovered that there were multiple colors of chalk and then he was really happy.

The students were funny and there was a lot of squealing and picture taking, the general fanfare that Jonas attracts here in Japan, that he won't attract in the states.

This school was an all girls school until a couple of months ago when the new year started and 40 boys were admitted. The second year students are still exclusively all girls and I taught in their classes today. In one of the classes the Japanese teacher left (we team teach) and the students were preparing for exams. I said something along the lines of please raise your hand if you have questions. Well, I meant about English, but they started asking questions about Jason. They wanted to know how we met, how long have we been married, do I love him and other assorted information. At the end of the questioning session, they concluded that I love love Jason. Yes, I intended to type love twice. That is what they said. They also told me Jason is 'cool.' It was pretty funny. Actually students have asked me quite a few times if I love Jason. They have also asked who do I love more - Jonas or Jason. Funny questions.

We leave Japan in about 5 weeks. The 5 week mark hit me tonight while I was at yoga class. I started going to this yoga class in February and have gone almost every Wednesday for the past 5 months. (Thanks to Jason for putting Jonas to bed every Wednesday without me. You got to love love him for that.) I remember thinking that we were about half way through our year here when I started the class and it was snowy and cold and now it is warm and sunny. I am sort of just rambling here about time and how it moves. But anyway, I also reflected on how unique this time is for us. Jason and I both miss home and are looking forward to being back, but I will miss the slowness of our life here. My job has been a lot less stressful than my last job at home and I can feel this difference every day. I also have enjoyed all the time we have had as a family and know that our lives will get busy and more jam-packed with stuff when we get back. That stuff is a lot of stuff we miss, but the lack of stuff has been nice too. Of course, we have done a lot of fun stuff this year.
Enough stuff about stuff.

One last note, Jason turns 34 in 7 minutes (Japan time). He is sleeping, as I should be. I don't think he wants me to wake him up to tell him Happy Birthday (I woke him up for 2nd earthquake the other night and he told me the next day that it wasn't necessary. It was small and there was no damage, so I can see his point.)

Okay, I will go to sleep now...

Saturday

2008-06-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

I began my day by rolling over to Jason's open laptop at 6 in the morning. Jonas was still asleep (surprise) and Jason was awake watching the US Open (not a surprise). He has been known to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a US sporting event. Jonas woke up soon after and I remained half asleep for a bit while Jason and Jonas drew pictures (you can only remain half asleep in this small apartment when the other parent is 'on duty.'). A few hours later, after breakfast, we felt an earthquake. I picked up Jonas who was happily playing with his legos and had the idea that we should all go outside. Nobody else was outside and afterwards I read on the internet that going outside is what NOT to do. When I picked up Jonas he started to cry a bit. I thought maybe the earthquake scared him; Jason thought he was just mad that I was taking him away from his legos. I think Jason was right.

The earthquake's epicenter was a couple of hours south of our home and we did not see any damage here in Akita City. It was Jason's and Jonas's first earthquake, my second. I felt one in El Salvador when I spent a summer there about 10 years ago.

Over the past month I had started to ask my co-workers a lot of questions about earthquakes and even talked to Jason about what our plan would be if there was one while we were at work and Jonas was at daycare. (Of course this caused Jason to wonder why I was waiting until a few weeks before our departure to decide we needed this plan.) We were lucky, because the earthquake did not affect us except for a minute of shaking and we were all at home together.

Switching gears, I will post a few pictures of Jonas with Uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa. They are safely back in the US visiting family in Texas after nearly 30 hours of travel (train, plane and automobile).

This is one of the reasons uncles are so much fun. They put you in laundry carts and push you around.

Aunt Lisa loves swimming and lakes and so does Jonas. She got in the freezing water with Jonas and he loved it.

This is at our campsite where Jonas split his time between exploring the area, playing with ants and drawing pictures.

Happy Birthday Jonas! and We miss Uncle Michael and Aunt Lisa already...

2008-06-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

Jonas turned 2 last week (June 5) and the next day my brother Michael and sister-in-law Lisa arrived in Akita City! We have been a whirlwind of activity since they arrived and they just left this morning. It was so great to have family here with us. Jonas was visibly excited to have them here too.

We went to a small festival, camping, visited samurai houses and celebrated Jonas' birthday in the park. It was fun. This visit reminded me just how much I miss all my family and friends at home. We will post more later, but here is a picture from the park. Michael and Lisa gave Jonas art supplies for his birthday. In this picture he is drawing with some markers that he loved. His favorite activity these days is drawing. He is a prolific artist and we have pages and pages of his work.

Hey! Where'd My Parents Go?

2008-05-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

Tricia is off to Tokyo to meet up with brother Michael and sister-in-law Lisa, who will spend a few days there before going to Hiroshima and Kyoto, and then it's up north to visit us in scenic Akita, which will be the last hurrah for the Straits (and DeGraff) before leaving Japan for good. So with Tricia gone, it's just me and little junior from now through Sunday night (a group of students have taken to calling Jonas "Jason Junior" for some reason, which I like and am hoping becomes a trend. Tricia doesn't seem too wild about it). As was the case last time, people have reacted with shock and outrage that Tricia would leave us all by ourselves for so long. I calm their fears by telling them I'm an ace with a can opener, and that we have enough cat food to last us for weeks.

A couple of weekends ago we went to our local aquarium, GAO. Here is the evidence.

Did my best with the photos. Signs everywhere warned people not to use a flash, though we seemed to be in the minority of people following this rule. They must have missed the numerous drawings of a flashbulb with a giant X through it.

This was some sort of bizarre end-of-the-exhibit game where kids colored in a paper fish, which was then scanned into an impressive-looking computer. Then in the next room, the fish appeared on the screen where it took a virtual tour of the ocean. Allegedly, kids were able to control their fish during the tour by slamming the directional arrows as hard as they could. It was very weird and very Japanese. Kudos to Tricia for figuring out just exactly what was going on.

The kids' fish then shot up into the air and exploded in the night sky, showering the children with fish bits and horrifying all the parents.

Jonas before eating a spaghetti lunch.

Jonas after eating a spaghetti lunch.

Some fisherman way out there.

Jonas got a free balloon dog, which he immediately tried to eat.

Moments later, he was asleep.

Cage Free

2008-05-25T05:15:00.000-07:00

Jonas graduated from his crib last week and was rewarded with the Japanese equivalent of his own bed – a spot on the floor with the rest of us. This became necessary as the process of him climbing up and out of his crib became a thrilling game for him, one that he enjoyed a little too much. At bedtime, Jonas would climb out, sit by the door and stick his hands through the opening between the door and the floor. He’d then wait for us to tell him to get back into his bed, which is when he would laugh and laugh and laugh. The sterner we were, the more he’d laugh. So, while Tricia was at yoga, I pulled all the toys out of his room, broke down the crib, pulled a futon into his room, left him in there with a handful of books and barred the door. Within about 20 minutes, he was asleep. It was a miracle.

And ever since then, he’s gone to sleep pretty easily. He probably was wondering what we were waiting for. Now if only we could get him to sleep in on the weekends.

We went to another baseball game over the weekend. My school won. Sunday's semifinal was rained out, which I didn't find out until I biked all the way to the stadium. I assume they'll make them up Monday and hold the final on Tuesday. I expect they'll let us out of school to go watch if they make the final. We spent an hour practicing cheers last week. I'll post those in action in the next couple of days. You haven't lived until you've heard We Will Rock You sung in Japanese by teenagers.

Rice Planting

2008-05-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

On Fridays I teach at an agriculture high school. I was excited to learn about this assignment before moving to Akita, because I grew up visiting my Grandparents' dairy farm. I was even active in 4-H as a kid and in Future Farmers of America for one year of high school. So I was excited that I was able to participate in a little bit of Japanese farming - rice planting. Every year, the first year students spend a Friday afternoon planting rice. It seems that it is a tradition.

Here are the rice plants.

These students are planting the rice plants. Notice the standing water. All the rice fields have been flooded.

After the students left the rice fields, a teacher explained to me that last year people who live near the school's rice fields complained that the students did not do a good job of planting the rice. If you look carefully in the picture below, you can see straight machine-planted rows on the left and student planted rice on the right.

To avoid this problem this year, a teacher planted new plants on top of the student plants. Or the machine straightened the plants that were already there. I am not sure how it worked, but while he was doing this, he invited me to drive the rice planting machine. Unfortunately, in the pictures I have, I am only standing to the side. But, he did let me drive. I don't think my rows were as straight as his.

Here are some students washing their feet after standing in the muddy rice field.

I'm So Excited

2008-05-12T03:52:00.000-07:00

Jonas was so excited for Mother's Day that he woke up at 4:30 and refused to go back to sleep. As much as she loves him, Tricia didn't exactly consider this the ideal Mother's Day present. So my gift to her was to get up with Jonas while she slept in a little longer. Eventually, though, the euphoria wore off. So much so that halfway through breakfast, pretty much mid-bite, Jonas fell asleep. If you look closely you can see egg on the tip of his nose. He didn't even get to his favorite part of the meal, the frozen berries. After he ate his egg and cheese, I left the room to fetch the berries (he'll eat those and only those if he has access to them first thing), and when I got back, he was snoozing away.

Part of the reason for Jonas' early rising is the ungodly time the sun comes up here, currently, just after 4 a.m. This often wakes me up, too, although I have the good sense to go back to sleep.

Once Jonas woke back up, we went to watch the Spring baseball tournament. I watched my main school play the day before. The main difference I noticed (aside from the Japanese obsession with bunting) was that these kids didn't make any mistakes. There was one error all game, and even that was a tough one. The ball took a bad bounced, and the second baseman still knocked it down and made a play on the runner. I guess that's what practicing year- round will do for you.

In the fifth inning play is stopped so members of each team can rake the field.

Tricia, Jonas and two players from one of her schools. Again, if you look closely you can see a pen and pencil clutched in Jonas' left hand. He's obsessed lately with drawing and wants to do it wherever he goes. Also, notice the kids' shoes. Didn't know velcro was still in here.

Crash Jonas

2008-05-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

"Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. Win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it only means you are a slob."
-- Bull Durham

About a week ago, we went over to a fellow teacher’s house for a curry dinner with his wife and 3-year-old daughter. During dinner, the wife, who spoke no English, smiled broadly, pointed over at Jonas and declared, “Kevin Costner.” So what do we think? Does Jonas look like a young, Bull Durham-era Kevin Costner. I intially dismissed this, as I’ve been told I look just like Matt Damon. But after a second look, I don’t know. Maybe she’s right.

A future Jonas?

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A young Costner?

The daughter was a full year and two months older than Jonas, though exactly the same size, and I think this confused her terribly, because Jonas, being younger and being Jonas, wasn’t much interested in talking with her. He ignored nearly everything she said and instead opted to play with all of her toys. She also appeared completely flummoxed that we couldn’t understand what she was saying. This happens to us a lot. Kids walk up to us and start jabbering away in Japanese. We tell them, in Japanese, that we don’t understand. And from the looks on their faces, and can just see them saying to themselves, “Why the hell not?”

She sat still from start to finish. He sat still for a few minutes.

We went camping last weekend, cutting the trip short after just one night. Jonas bolted awake at 3:30 a.m. and decided, instead of sleeping, he’d scream as loud as possible. This was a problem as the campground was packed. So I put him in the car and started driving, hoping he’d fall back asleep. He didn’t. He just sat there, staring out the window for the full two hours as I drove completely around Japan’s deepest lake, then drove to another prefecture, Iwate, before returning back to the campground. So we ate breakfast, went to Nyuto Onsen, featured earlier in the year in The New York Times for good reason, as it’s definitely the oldest and most authentic-seeming onsen we’ve been to, and then headed for home. Here is the photographic evidence.

I think anyone who does one of these blogs has to, at some point in time, apologize for neglecting it for a period of time. I wish I could say that I (Tricia has forbidden me from speaking for her in any way whatsoever in this space, so I will honor this directive by only commenting for myself) have been terribly busy and haven’t had the time. This would be untrue. I’ve been no busier than at any other point I’ve been here. Maybe less so. I’ve simply run out of steam. After nine months, Japan and all things Japanese are no longer new and interesting. They haven’t been for awhile. They just are. I’m still enjoying it all. But I think the end is in sight, and I’m ready to cross that line.

Finally, one of my schools canceled classes last week to honor all the sports teams and hold its annual river cleanup. This attracted the attention of the local newspaper. And if you look closely, that’s me in the middle of all that trash. Among the items discovered: a rusty, triangular saw, a Japanese wash basin and a hot tea dispenser. Thankfully, no bodies. This is Japan, after all.

Jonas runs to get his shoes

2008-05-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

In the last few weeks, Jonas started a new thing at daycare. When he sees Jason or me, he runs to to get his shoes from the shoe cubbies. Here is a short video -

We are leaving for a camping trip in the next hour. The weather is beautiful and we have Monday and Tuesday off. Should be fun.

Goodbye, My Friend

2008-04-26T17:14:00.000-07:00

From earlier this week ...

Teachers in Japan are forced to switch schools every seven to eight years, sometimes when they desperately don’t want to move, and sometimes at their own request. So it was my bad luck (although in the end, probably their good fortune) that two of the teachers I’m most friendly with were transferred, including my fabulously sweet and easy-going supervisor, Sasaki-sensei. She most definitely did not want to leave. Her school is probably one of the more difficult around. The students can get pretty wild and the atmosphere in the teachers room is surprisingly tense. Yet, I guess she’d gotten used to it. Also, the school’s five minutes from her house. Her new school is about 40 minutes away, just one example of the sudden change that is thrust upon teachers. They don’t find out until late March that they’re moving. Two weeks later, they’re gone. Like I said, this is bad for me because we got along great. As the baseball coach observed one day, “Sasaki sensei, she’s the only one who talks to you.”

Her replacement is fine, although she seems a bit overwhelmed. One day she was sitting at the public computer, which is right next to my desk. I noticed she hadn’t moved in awhile. I looked over, and she was asleep. At the end of the first week, I asked her if she had any plans. She told me, “I want to sleep all weekend.”

As it’s the new school year here, we reintroduce ourselves to all the students in all the schools. Here were some of the better questions I received:

May I have some comments about human right violations in China?
Who do you support, Mr. Clinton or Mr. Obama?
What do you think about my beauty?
Do you own any guns?
What is the current trend in U.S.?

And finally, my favorite:

What are your thoughts on the sub-prime loan program?

Finally, if you haven’t, read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Its stunning. Unlike anything I’ve ever read. I cant stop thinking about it.

If you don’t trust me …

“Trenchant and terrifying, written with stripped-down urgency and fueled by the force of a universal nightmare. The Road [has] stunning, savage beauty. This is an exquisitely bleak incantation–pure poetic brimstone . . . [Cormac McCarthy] gives voice to the unspeakable . . . Yet this narrative is also illuminated by extraordinary tenderness . . . This is art that both frightens and inspires . . . Its fearless wisdom is more indelible than reassurance could ever be.”
–Janet Maslin, New York Times

… even if it is an Oprah Book of the Month selection.

Sakura

2008-04-19T23:42:00.000-07:00

Since we first moved to Japan I have heard a lot of talk about the infamous sakura (cherry blossoms). Sakura is a common girl's name here in Japan. On Friday one of my students asked me if anybody is named Sakura in the United States. The idea of someone named Cherry Blossom made me laugh and we then discussed the differences between names in Japan vs the US. Later at home, Jason reminded me that there are people named Blossom (I can only remember Punky Brewster's friend or is that a separate show?) and he named many people with the last name Cherry, so I guess it isn't that funny after all.

Recently I read hundreds of introduction essays and many students wrote that they love spring, because of the cherry blossoms. I also have learned that not only does the school year begin in the spring, but springtime and the blooming of cherry blossoms is considered a time of new beginnings in Japan. This weekend they are out full force and there is a cherry blossom festival at the main park in Akita City, Senshu Park. Yesterday we drove to Kakunodate to see the cherry blossoms and decided they are prettier in Akita City. Yesterday was gloomy, but today the weather is sunny and warm. Probably the prettiest day of the year so far.

Some people asked me about cherry blossom festivals and picnics in the states and I said we don't have any. Well, it turns out that there is a cherry blossom festival in DC. The trees were a gift from Japan in 1912.

Here are some pictures of us enjoying hanami. Yesterday in Kakunodate--

Jonas decided he liked these women and snuggled right up to them. This picture was taken a few seconds after the snuggle.

Jonas likes ice cream as much as I do.

Notice how Jonas is trying to escape my hold near a drop off above a river. This was the theme of the day yesterday. He wanted to just go, go, go without any help from me or Jason.

Here are some pictures from today (Sunday) at Senshu Park. First Jonas checking out the crowd.

The people picnicing next to us.

People had some serious picnic set-ups. This was group was friendly and invited me to take a picture.

Here is an action shot. You can see Jason trying to catch up to Jonas. Jonas had just knocked into this woman trying to get to the flowers. He is fast.

Jason and Jonas talking with a new friend.

Jason and Jonas eating yakisoba, a common festival food in Japan.

Kansai Vacation -- Bonus Coverage!

2008-04-15T03:52:00.001-07:00

Jonas and his My Two Dads moment. As I said, he wasn't sure who was who, so he decided to latch onto both of us.

As if everyone hadn’t already seen and heard enough of our travels through southern Japan, we’re back with even more coverage thanks to semi-pro photographers Mer and Abe. The first picture below is one of my favorites from our entire time here. There is no question that the only reason this woman approached me to chat was because of Jonas. He really has opened up a unique side of Japan for us that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Supposedly the most photographed image in all of Japan. Abe added to the pile.

Kansas and its ball of twine have nothing on Japan. How about a giant rice spoon?

Tasting some sake.

This is a pretty good picture of what the typical small-time hotel bath looks like in Japan. For those of you who haven't seen Mr. Baseball, you sit on the stool and shower before climbing into the bath. It doesn't seem odd at all to me any more.

Yes, that's a monkey grooming a deer. Not pictured: the monkey later came over and did Tricia's hair.

The monkeys … these photos are as close as I came to them. This was not a zoo situation. The monkeys were roaming around wild, and as many a sign warned us, if eye contact was made, the monkeys were absolutely not responsible for what followed, such as them gnawing off your nose. To be absolutely clear, large pictures of monkeys on the attack were prominently displayed throughout the grounds. There was no doubt in my mind that Jonas not only would make eye contact, he would do everything in his power to make actual physical contact with the monkeys. He has a stuffed Curious George at home, and if he can't tell the difference between me and Abe, I wasn't betting on him telling those two apart.

So, after enjoying not one but two gondola rides to the top of this mountain (where, let me tell you, I sweat bullets from start to finish. I’ve always had this idea that Jonas would manage to jump off my lap and leap out the window in these situations. This is why I stayed on the ground months ago in Hokkaido when Tricia and Jonas gondoled up a mountain. I would have done the same here, but it didn’t seem to be going along with the overall spirit of that day’s group activity) Jonas was sequestered in the visitors center. And that meant I was sequestered, too, because he flipped out every time I left the room on this trip (which you think would make me feel good, but in fact just made me feel tired). So, I was forced to sit with him while the others, as the Japanese would say, enjoyed the beautiful nature. At least I can enjoy the pictures.

Only the first of two gondola rides. I still have nightmares.

Some geisha in Kyoto that Mer for some reason thought were phonies. I wasn't even there, so I don't know the story behind that.

Here I am recreating Tricia's panicked expression when she thought I was heading to the wrong booth to buy chocolate ice cream. Even though I had seen a couple walk out of said booth with chocolate moments before, she insisted we go somewhere else, where it turned out, they only sold vanilla and green tea ice cream. Notice I'm eating chocolate. Tricia, vanilla. Jonas didn't seem to mind what flavor he ate.

Me, lighting a candle praying for familial harmony and happiness.

Wish granted.

Part 3: Himeji, Hiroshima and Miyajima

2008-04-10T04:19:00.000-07:00

After leaving Kyoto, we headed to Himeji, to visit a 400 year old castle. It was originally built even earlier, but the existing structure is 400 years old. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can see how old it is and low the ceilings are in this picture.

Again, Mer and Abe boarded the super fast train (shinkansen) and Jason, Jonas and drove our car. Again, we experienced some difficulties navigating the Japanese signs and highways thus it took us much longer to get to Himeji than we anticipated. Mer and Abe arrived in Himeji well before the 4 PM cut off to enter the castle; we barely made it and had a Chevy Chase moment. Japanese towns can be confusing to navigate, because the roads are not laid out in a grid format. One of my co-workers claims this is the case in cities with castles, because this made it more difficult for enemies to approach the castle. Well, now, after Himeji, I can see his point. We could see this huge castle, we approached it from many angles, and it took us awhile to actually find it, even though we could see it in the distance. We drove up at 3:59, I jumped out the car, ran breathlessly up to the front gate and asked for tickets. Both of the gatekeepers looked at their watches, indicated that we barely made it and told us we would have one hour to make it through the castle grounds. I yelled back to Jason that we were in, the guard at the gate let us park in some random spot that wasn’t really a parking spot and they shut the front gate behind us. The gate keepers followed us and shut doors and gates behind us. Jonas was happy to be free from the car seat and spent some time twirling in circles in front of the castle.

Here is the view from the top of the castle.

Jonas checking out the view.

That night we ate a delicious dinner at an Asian fusion restaurant that Mer found in the Lonely Planet, Len. Our nicest accommodation was the hotel we stayed at that night and we enjoyed the public bath. The public bath included these massage chairs that were unlike any massage chairs I have ever experienced. At times, I felt like a person was massaging me instead of a machine.

Jason and I somehow scored a room with an incredibly big bathroom, which is highly unusual in Japan. The bathroom was so big that we set up Jonas’s pack n’ play in the bathroom. It also included an awesome steam shower.

The next morning we left Himeji to drive to Hiroshima. We met Abe and Mer at the Hiroshima Peace Park. Seeing the remains of the structure that was bombed was powerful and incredibly sad. The day and the weather were perfect, sunny and warm, and the park is beautiful. Even though it is a memorial to a sad moment in history, and it is overwhelming to be there and reflect on what happened, the park is peaceful and pretty.

There were many men playing a Japanese board game, Go.

I am ringing the bell at the Children's Memorial which was surrounded by thousands of origami cranes.

Here are some of the cranes.

The A-bomb dome

From there we boarded a ferry to the island of Miyajima which has one of the top three views in Japan, the Itsukushima Shrine (the orange tori below). I am not sure how exactly the top trhee views were determined, but if I mention a Japanese person that I visited this shrine, they always tell me it is one of the top three views. Lonely Planet says this too. This shrine is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. This is the only group picture we had taken the whole trip.

This place was different than the cities we had visited and was a nice way to end our trip with Mer and Abe. The island is small and we never even saw a grocery store. We stayed at an old minshuku and had a decent dinner of udon and curry. Like Nara, there were deer all over the island.

Mer and Jonas trying to figure something out.

Abe was great at making up games with Jonas. This game consisted of putting rocks in a juice can.

Dekita! We did it! We did it!

On Saturday, we took a cable car up to the top of Mt. Misen. We had to walk up some hills to get to the cable car. Jonas wanted to walk by himself and we were afraid he was going to roll down the hill.

Here is Mer with the tickets for the cable car in front of the 'ticket booth.'

Mer, excited by the view in the cable car.

Here is one of the many monkeys that were at the top of Mt. Misen. We had to keep Jonas away form the monkeys. He does not understand that he should stay away from some animals.

After returning from the top of Mt. Misen, Jason, Jonas and I returned to our car to start our long drive back to Akita City (it took two days). Mer and Abe had one more night in Miyajima and then spent their last couple of nights in Tokyo.

The trip was great fun, and we are lucky that Mer and Abe traveled all the way to Japan. We enjoyed seeing southern Japan with them. We miss them...

2008-04-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Home Again

2008-04-07T00:22:00.000-07:00

And … I’m back. The return trip to Japan was much easier than the one going and held one huge surprise. Riding on the train from Narita Airport to Ueno Station, where I was to catch the Shinkansen back to Akita, I was shocked by how familiar Japan felt. It really did feel like I was returning home, rather than returning to a foreign country where I’d been hanging out for awhile. Didn’t expect that.

And finally, a few more photos from our trip with Meredith and Abe.

The cherry blossoms were just beginning to blossom while we were there.

One night, after eating sushi, Meredith and Abe hugged each other, and Jonas surprisingly walked over and joined in on the hug, grabbing both of their legs. We recreated the moment here.

Actually, Jonas got Abe and his Dad confused a few times. Seeing as he’s around the Japanese all the time, and Abe and I are the same height, with black hair and beards, I suppose this wasn’t surprising. There’s a joke that the Japanese think all Westerners look alike (we have a friend who lived here who looks nothing like Tom Cruise who was told by everyone that he looked exactly like Tom Cruise). Anyway, once when I left the room, Jonas continued playing with Abe. And when I returned, he looked at me, looked at Abe, and looked back at me. I think it blew his mind to suddenly see two of us standing there.

Before I left, Jonas had developed this exhausting habit of only wanting me to hold him, which is why in all the pictures of Jonas where he isn't standing, I'm holding him. I thought this might pass during my week back in America. It didn’t.

The alleged World’s Largest Wooden Structure.

The alleged World’s Largest Gilded Buddha.

In the World’s Largest Wooden Structure, there was a tiny opening in a wooden beam, I think supposedly the size of the Buddha’s nostril. Apparently, if you can squeeze through the opening, you get a lifetime’s worth of good luck, or something to that effect. Many people looked, but no one tried. That is until Meredith took the plunge and wriggled through. This set off a chain reaction of dozens of Canadian tourists giving it a try. So I couldn’t get a good shot of the opening, but here are Mer’s feet, and the layers she had to drop to fit.

Just outside of the alleged World’s Largest Wooden Structure was a flock of the World’s Mangiest Deer Who Live Off Handouts and Harass Unsuspecting Tourists.

Not sure what to say about this. I bet each of them got to work that day and said, "Oh no. So you're wearing the red rubber rain boats too? Doh!"

Another shot of the sumo. I can never get enough of it.

Other assorted shots ...

Our Trip South, Part 1: Ferry, Takayama and Gero

2008-04-01T05:46:00.000-07:00

We began our trip by boarding a ferry on Thursday morning at 9 AM. I returned from the United States the night before, and only had time to pack quickly before leaving Akita again. The ferry was almost exactly like the one we took to Hokkaido, but was a longer trip. We slept on the ferry and woke up at 5 AM on Friday morning to drive off the ferry and into Tsuraga (only a train stop away from Obama, Japan). From there we drove through the mountains to Takayama, Gifu-ken which is in central Honshu. We probably could have driven to Takayama in couple of hours, but it took us five. We chose the wrong route…which is not unusual for us when driving through Japan.

Our newly married friends, Meredith and Abe met at us in Takayama to begin our 10 day adventure. We stayed at Minshuku Kuwataniya, which was a good value for Japan. We had fun visiting a sake brewery (no tour unfortunately, but we did taste some of the sake), visiting the morning market and walking around the town. We stayed across the street from Takayama’s oldest temple, Hida Kokubunji. Supposedly there is a 1200 year old gingko tree by this temple. Unfortunately we missed that.

Our first night we had a traditional Japanese dinner at the Minshuku, which included tofu, Hida beef cooked over a flame with vegetables, sashimi, pickled vegetables, rice and fruit.

The next morning we had a traditional breakfast, which is growing on me. It included cooked salmon, green beans, a hard-boiled egg, fruit, seaweed, miso soup and rice.

Our friends, renters and current Lou caretakers, Christine and Wellan, lived in Gifu-ken for one year on the JET program. Christine outlined a day trip for us from Takayama, which included seeing Gassho houses in Gero, eating ring toast in Hagiwara (their Japan home) and visiting an incredible onsen near Hagiwara. The ring toast is hard to describe, but it included a lot of bread and was very sweet. The onsen had every imaginable indoor bath contraption, including individual sauna boxes that you could sit inside.

Mer and Abe in Gero

More Gero

A Gassho house in Gero

Mer and a lucky cat in Gero. A smaller version of this maneki neko cat often greets you at restaurants in Japan or at Japanese restaurants outside of Japan.

Jonas playing with a rock that entertained him for awhile

We saw these "monkey babies" all over Takayama. I know this creature does not look like a monkey baby, but this is what more than one Takayama-ite told us they are called. It is not unusual for an area or town to have a mascot and Takayama has the monkey baby. Mer and I both bought mini monkey baby cell phone charms.

We bought apples from this sweet couple at the morning market in Takayama.

We spent two nights in Takayama and left for Kyoto on Sunday. Mer and Abe boarded the train with their handy JR passes and Jason, Jonas and I packed our stuff and ourselves into our Subura.

People often comment about determining the author of our blog entries…reviewing this one, I can’t help but think that is obvious that it is me (Tricia), because I am just not funny like Jason. The only funny story that I think of from Takayama makes me look a little crazy…and probably won't be funny in my telling...but it consists of me running down dark and winding streets pushing an empty stroller and asking every local I could find about the location of a Mexican restaurant that we read about in the Lonely Planet. Jason, Jonas, Mer and Abe all followed, cautiously. We eventually found the restaurant, and like most situations in Japan like this, a local walked us to the restaurant. If Japan would only use streets names…

Many, many pictures of Takayama and Gero

A Day with Jonas

2008-03-31T07:09:00.000-07:00

After reading this funny post from our friends' blog, I felt inspired to play with video editing. This video is long (over 3 minutes) and is my first attempt at using video editing tools. So...only watch the video if you are super interested in Jonas, otherwise you might get bored.

A few notes on the video if you do watch it -- you might notice that Jonas had some costume changes...it was a messy day for Jonas. Also, he was obsessed with the play microphone that day. In fact, at the park he walked over to another child's bike and used the handle bar as a microphone.

The jump rope scene does not do justice to how hard Jonas tried to jump rope after watching an older child at the park. I did not get his longer try on video. He is always eager to try to do what older children do. Shows me how powerful modeling is for kids.

There was a woman who spoke great English at the park and she told me that Jonas said the Japanese word for funny. Since I don't know this word, I never noticed.

Information Overload

2008-03-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

Less than a week ago, Jason, Jonas and I got back from our trip to southern Japan. This week Jason is in the states for job interviews and we have a two week spring break in the schools here. This means that I am not teaching, but I still go to work everyday. Even though this is spring break, teachers go to work and some students still come to school in full uniform for club activities. The only days when nobody is at school are Sundays and the 20 or so national days that fall throughout the year.

So, I am at work with little to do. I have been reading and commenting on some essays the students wrote, but this is only taking a portion of my time. Since I am not a regular teacher, I don’t have the end of year reports and cleaning the other teachers have to do. I have offered to help, but since the reports are in Japanese, I can’t really help.

With this time, I am organizing pictures that we have taken since Jonas was born and reading every article in the international newspaper that my school subscribes to. This is causing a bit of informational overload for me. On the personal front, we have hundreds of pictures of Jonas’s first year and our time in Japan. I need to get these organized. I always see the articles about how the youngest generation is the most documented generation ever, but this data is just a big mess left unorganized. Yeah, the least of our problems in the world right now, but it can be overwhelming. And of course, I feel sentimental and really notice that we brought a baby to Japan and will be taking back a little boy. He has really transitioned from babyhood to full-fledged toddlerhood.

On the global front, I am just overwhelmed. When I have time to really read international news, my brain starts to work overtime as I attempt to process everything. For the majority of our time in Japan, I have read many articles on the sub-prime mortgage crisis that originated in the USA. Lots of talk about economic problems worldwide has followed. Of course the Iraq war is always in the news.

Often when I fly internationally I randomly sit next to a soldier. On a recent flight I sat next to an interesting young soldier. He studied Middle East history and knew a lot about the history of the situation in Iraq. From his perspective we are in the middle of a pretty nasty civil war and getting out of there will not be easy. He told me stories of waking up to mortar raids, and running to shelter. Later I sat next to a seasoned soldier who was about to leave his two kids at home for a 3 month job in Iraq. He knows a woman that is leaving her 8 month old baby and 2 year old toddler at home for a 12 month stint in Iraq. As a mother of a 22 month old, this got me. I just can not even imagine how hard that would be.

The situation in Iraq is just one example of the pain and suffering that is happening in our world. People are eating mud cookies for sustenance in Haiti. Riots are taking place in Tibet and the Chinese government is barring foreign journalists from going to Tibet, while they are blocking international news websites from Chinese citizens.

This week I also read about "Pay Day" Loans that people are using to pay their bills in the United States. According to the story, “the average borrower ends up paying back $793 for a $325 loan.” I am a big supporter of micro-loans in the international community and I wonder why we don’t have programs like this in the United States. It should be illegal to take advantage of people like this. While growing up in poverty and coming home to our electricity or water being shut off as a child, I witnessed the desperation of trying to make ends meet. I understand why people would turn to these ‘pay day loans.’ It angers me that there are people who take advantage of this desperation to make a profit.

As all of the things were swirling in my brain, I read a column that sums up some of the international issues facing our world right now. The article was a response to HRC’s quote about sniper fire in Bosnia. The author, Roger Cohen suggests that Obama could bring some new and creative thinking to the White House.

I can’t imagine being President. It is just too much to think about and understand and digest, but I do think Obama has a unique perspective and experiences that would guide his presidency positively. I know I have made it clear how much I love Obama. Lately there has been a lot of controversy over what Obama's former pastor said. I don’t know everything the pastor said, so I should be careful here, but from what I understand he indicated that we live in a racist, unjust world. I think we do live in a racist, unjust world and this needs to be said and changes need to be made. I think Obama understands this better than the other candidates, because he has had to live that reality in a way that some of us have not. This understanding is something more people need to grapple with as we progress in our world.

Whew. Do I sound preachy? I don’t mean to…I am processing. I told you my brain is working overtime…

After writing this I finally listened to Obama’s speech on race in its entirety. It is Friday afternoon and this was a good way to end my week of information overload. I think he powerfully says what needs to be said. If you haven’t listened to this speech yet, I urge you to, even if you are not an Obama supporter. Whether or not Obama becomes our next president, I see him as an important, unique and inspirational leader.

We're Back

2008-03-25T03:30:00.000-07:00

We survived our 10-day trip through southern Japan, where we visited a lifetime worth of temples in Kyoto, saw sumo in Osaka, Japan’s most famous castle in Himeji, the A-Bomb Dome ruins in Hiroshima, and in one afternoon, purportedly both the World’s Largest Wooden Building AND the World’s Largest Gilded Bronze Buddha. It was quite the trip, which we enjoyed with our friends Meredith and Abe. Not surprisingly, there were a few bumps along the way. Jonas caught a cold, then Tricia caught a cold, and then Abe caught a cold. Also, the willful side of Jonas (not insubstantial) was in full blossom on this trip. His being a bit sick, and having his schedule thrown off, and all of the travel created the perfect storm of sorts for some colossal tantrums. Abe and Meredith were extremely gracious and understanding through it all, and we all made it in the end. Actually, looking back at the photos, it’s hard to remember that there were any low moments to speak of. Abe said it best during dinner the final night:

“None of us are all that easy to travel with. But as a group, we’ve done pretty well.”

I’m sure Tricia will have more to say in the coming days. But I thought I’d throw some random stuff up here before I head back to America for a week.

I've noticed going through photos that Tricia has a tendency to shoot from the rear. Here's some evidence.

Go West!

2008-03-12T02:00:00.000-07:00

See below for details. Not taken while sole guardian for Jonas.

Tricia returns tonight, and we’ll be glad to have her back. I’m not saying that Jonas is tired of me, but last night after his bath, Jonas decided to skip the nightly book reading and milk routine. After getting him dressed, I went over to straighten the covers in his bed. Meanwhile, he pulled a chair over from the wall, climbed up on it, climbed up on the railing of his crib and dropped into his bed. I guess that was his way of saying, “Enough. I’m calling it a night.”

Tomorrow, we’re off for Kyoto. This is our one BIG TRIP during our stay here in Japan. We’re meeting friends Meredith and Abe, whose wedding we missed as it was held on the exact same weekend that we arrived in Japan. They’re flying in from Milwaukee, and together we’re going to see just about everything possible in that area in a week and a half.

Graduation was a couple of weeks ago, but here are some highlights from the weekend.

Inexplicably, a lot of people asked me whether this was my first Japanese high school graduation – people who know that I’ve only been here for half a year. I’m not sure what that was all about. As it turned out, they aren’t all that different, and are just as boring for everyone, from American graduations, minus the hat throwing (which a lot of people also asked about). Only, and for me, this was a big only, we had to sit through the ceremony twice. On Saturday, we all came in to work to rehearse graduation.

Among the details of which MUCH time was spent practicing and re-practicing:

The volume, enthusiasm and overall genkiness of the students who stood and shouted “Hai!” when their name was called. Many (mostly the girls) were too soft, some were delayed a bit, and others, I think (this was all in Japanese, so who knows, really), were actually too loud. I suspect the louder they were, the more likely it was they were seen as mocking the ceremony – but that’s only a guess.

Again, volume – this time during the singing of the national anthem, Kimi ga Yo. They practiced this so many times, that another teacher was able to fill me in about all about the various controversies over the anthem, which are actually pretty interesting.

Clapping in concert while the graduating students entered the auditorium. Oh, I didn’t mention that all the students, years 1-3, were required to attend. In retrospect, I’m surprised the parents were not required to practice their watching.

The actual ceremony, like those in America, was long and boring. Two of the female teachers wore kimonos, including my supervisor, which was pretty cool to see.

I would call the whole deal uneventful, except for the following:

All of the parents carrying their house slippers with them, then putting them on and taking off their dress shoes for the ceremony. I tried to discretely take some pictures of this. There is nothing funnier than seeing a grown woman in full makeup and dress wearing fuzzy, flowered house slippers.

The student who, instead of simply shouting “Hai!”, stood up on one leg, balanced himself on his right foot, stuck his left leg out at an angle, did some militaristic-looking gyration with his arms while shouting what sounded like “Api! Api! Api!” Not surprisingly, this set off a tremor of murmurs in the audience. It was quite the scandal, and I have not managed to find out what it was he was saying.

After the ceremony, and after the celebratory party and dinner, I went to an after, after party with the coaches of baseball, rugby, basketball, cross country – and two older guys, one of whom pad 10,000 yen for a bottle of whiskey for the group. The less said about this whole outing, the better. Somehow, they convinced me to sing “Go West!” which is what I’m doing at the top of the page.

Escape!

2008-03-09T03:38:00.000-07:00

Life Without Tricia rolls into Day Three and we’re both still here, although I think some of my coworkers had serious doubts heading into the weekend. Students took exams all last week, so those teachers who didn’t have a test to give or to grade sort of milled around the teachers room drinking tea all afternoon. Typically, I too, would have nothing at all to do, but for some stupid reason, I volunteered to grade the English portions of all of the first-year final exams, of which there are hundreds, and being an English exam, nearly all of it, surprise, is in English. Anyway, taking a break for marking up the tests, I mentioned to a small group of tea drinkers that Tricia flew back to America for a job interview and would be gone a week(gambate Tricia! – I love the word gambate, as it is fun to say, and basically means “go for it/do your best/good luck/break a leg.” It’s one of those cool Japanese words like tycoon that needs to find a prominent place in the English lexicon). When I mentioned Tricia would be gone for so long, many an eyebrow was raised, and one woman actually asked whether I knew how to cook for myself and Jonas. I told her we’d survive on potato chips and ice cream. And beer.

The baseball coach invited Jonas and I over for dinner on Saturday night. Upon arrival, it was pretty clear they wanted us to stay the night; and at one point, the coach’s wife and another woman (more on her later) actually took Jonas downstairs with the intention of putting him to sleep (their kitchen and family room were on the top floor of their house, and all the bedrooms were on the main floor, which was pretty cool, actually, giving you the feeling that you were in a clubhouse).

I asked Mr. Goto, “Where are they going?”
Mr. Goto: “Don’t worry. Women business. Relax, please.”
“Are they trying to put him to bed.”
“Maybe. Yes.”

I told Mr. Goto that this had exactly ZERO percent chance of working, as under the most ideal of circumstances – i.e., his crib, his bed and a belly full of milk, none of which were present here – he still doesn’t exactly drift off peacefully. Sure enough, minutes later I hear Jonas wailing, and in no time, crawling up the stairs, back into the action.

Goto’s wife followed him back up, sat down, and acted as if nothing had happened. I actually liked her a lot. Unbelievably, I never caught her name, which is less of a cultural misunderstanding and more of a personal shortcoming. I once spent an entire year in Chattanooga, TN ….

DRAMATIC INTERRUPTION

Jonas just slid the door open to his room, where he was supposed to be napping, and ran straight over to me. Grinning ear to ear, he pumped his little arms up and down and danced around in circles. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so pleased with himself. The reason: after weeks of trying, he finally climbed out of his crib without help. We knew this would happen soon, and today was sort of the perfect storm for an escape. Because we stayed out and up so late (we’re talking 9:30, which is practically an all-nighter for Jonas), he slept in late, thus jeapordizing his afternoon nap. But I had to give it a shot, and after about 30 minutes of clapping and blabbering and spitting noises (not sure what that was about), I heard the sound of two feet hitting the floor. Excited footsteps followed. And Jonas soon emerged victorious. Truthfully, I’m surprised it took so long. He climbed out once a few weeks ago and hurt/scared himself a bit, and he’s been chicken to try it again. So sometimes we’ll walk in his room and he’ll have half his body, one leg and one arm hanging over the edge, and I can only imagine how long he’s been frozen in that position, considering whether to take the plunge. Today, he took the plunge.

Jonas Enjoys Absorbedly

2008-03-04T03:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a shot of Jonas with one of his friends taken during Hinamatsuri, and neither of them look all that thrilled to be there. The little girl next to Jonas used to always cry when she saw Tricia. Maybe she was sad to see Jonas go.

Also, here are some more notes from daycare. The last one is the best, and needs no explanation. I still laugh every time I read it.

Sumo Wrestler Photo Op

2008-02-23T02:15:00.000-08:00

high

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to meet a real sumo wrestler.

On Fridays I always work at a local agriculture school. It is interesting. It is definitely the school that can be the most difficult for me to engage the kids. Then there are some English devotees. Out of 600 kids there are 3 that are in the English Speaking Society and I meet with them most Fridays. They write things in their notebook to read to me when they see me. It is really cute and funny. This Friday one of the boys read a paragraph describing the crane game to me. You know the crane that you can can try to operate to somehow pick up a prize, like a stuffed animal. I have never successfully maneuvered this machine. My student was able to pick up four stuffed animals out of eight tries in one day.

Anyway, this school graduated a highly ranked sumo player, Takekaze, who visited on Friday and I had a photo op with him. He is not very tall, as you can see in the pictures, but he is big. His visit was an ordeal. There were camera crews running around the whole afternoon.

I have noticed that there are many ceremonial aspects to the Japanese culture some of which I witnessed on Friday. For example, the sumo coach waited in a separate room while
Takekaze talked with the principal and two students while many photos were taken. Then the sumo coach was announced and he walked into the room in a ceremonial fashion with tv cameras following him.

Afterwards the school held an assembly. First the students gathered early to practice the school song. When Takekaze entered the auditorium he was led by a student holding a huge purple flag. Then there were speeches, bowing, singing and drumming.

It was a pretty interesting day. I have to mention that I like the ceremonial aspect of Japanese culture. I like how it celebrates the importance of events and seems so official. Although an aspect of the ceremonialism is that there is a RIGHT way to do things, and I am often caught doing those things wrong. Many times during these formal ceremonial acts, I have been nudged by a Japanese person to sit up straighter or uncross my legs or fold my hands differently. I comply and am reminded that I am an informal American.

Anyway, shaking hands with a top-ranked sumo wrestler was fun.

The Japanese Way

2008-02-21T03:40:00.000-08:00

During the morning meeting two weeks ago at my largest school, many of the teachers were doling out accolades and receiving congratulations (the rugby team, cross country, etc.), when suddenly my friend Nomi pops up out of his seat and starts bowing to great applause. I was puzzled, as Nomi doesn’t sponsor a sport. He finally sat back down, and the meeting continued with the vice principal barking out the daily instructions through his megaphone (this school’s teacher room is enormous, so the VP either uses his megaphone or microphone to spread the morning message; he alternates between both, though it isn’t clear why he picks one over the other). When he was settled, I asked Nomi whether he won an award – and he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about, as if he’d been conked on the head with a rock and had blanked out during the last five minutes. After gathering himself, he said “Oh, yes. I won the gold medal in an essay writing contest. About school activities.” Wow. The Japanese really do compete at everything, I thought, including an essay competition about competition.

… fast forward to this week …

Nomi was AWOL for most of the day, which made for a boring afternoon for me. Japanese teachers typically have about three classes a day, leaving them with a lot of time to spend in the teacher room. Now, at schools like this, many of the teachers, who are forced to work on Saturdays for no extra pay, manage to look as tired and busy and put upon as possible, and in truth they do have a lot of work, but from my perspective, they have more than enough time to finish their work without all the theatrical moaning. Anyway, Nomi typically is very cheerful, and more than happy to chat away, even (or maybe because) it goes against the grain of the overall teacher room atmosphere. Just after lunch, he shows up wearing an expensive suit, as opposed to his school suit, and carrying two giant, framed certificates that, he tells me, he just received at and awards ceremony. He didn’t look all that happy.

Turns out, the winner of the essay competition not only received a couple of ho-hum framed plaques to hang on the wall, but two checks for 100,000 yen each, or about $2,000 (why there were two checks wasn’t clear). Only, Nomi had just found out that the principal had ruled against the VP, who said the money was Nomi's to keep, and decided the money belonged to the school, and not to Nomi.

“That’s bullsh---, you know,” he said. “I was thinking maybe a new bike, a vacation.
"Now, there is nothing.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the office manager walks up and hands Nomi two ornamental envelopes, which apparently held the prize-winnings checks. Nomi opened them, held them up to the light, and just to confirm the sad reality, notes they are “empty.” And next, office guy hands Nomi a single sheet of paper, of which is a photocopy of both checks. Talk about rubbing your nose in it. I’m told they are to “remind him of his achievement,” yet I suspect all they're going to remind Nomi of is how he got screwed out of 2,000 bucks. Nomi lets the photocopied checks sit on his desk for a bit, mumbles to himself some, and pulls out a three-ring binder. He places the photocopied checks on top of a stack of papers, and snaps them into place.

“It is the Japanese way.” I guess.

Those Markers are Washable

2008-02-18T03:48:00.000-08:00

(these photos have nothing to do with anything, but I thought you all might enjoy them. Jonas loves markers. But he hasn't quite figured out how to use them. Or maybe he has).

A weekend ago, we used a three-day holiday to go skiing/snowboarding in a nearby prefecture called Iwate. We made reservations at a smallish, family run place called Rocky’s Hotel (here in Japan they’re called pensions – somewhere between a bed and breakfast and a regular-old hotel). Frankly, we were surprised there was an opening. Just about everything everywhere was booked, and this place looked pretty sweet. We get there, and the owner, Sato, says he doesn’t know anything about our reservation, but that he’ll find a room for us. The same thing happened to an Australian couple who booked using the same Internet service, hostelbookers.com, an English website that books hotels/hostels all over world. Initially, Sato explained the discrepancy by saying his Internet had been spotty the last few days. Later that night, after much sake, the truth came out.

“Speak English -- OK. Read English -- not OK,” he said.

“I get email from hostelbookers.com. I don’t know what it says.”

So, Sato signed his place up with this English website, knowing that all the reservations would be in English, and also knowing that neither he, nor anyone in his family, could read any English whatsoever. I think this pretty much summed up Sato. He thought this was hilarious. He thought most things were hilarious. His told us his favorite actor was Eddie Murphy, and he constantly cracked jokes that were frequently very difficult to understand. Here’s one that I did get, although it took me a full day to figure out.

Sato drives a Jeep Wrangler. He also wears Wrangler jeans. At the bar (he ran the place, and also the bar – sort of a Japanese Sam Malone), he pointed at his brother in the kitchen and said that his brother loves American trucks.

“He has a Dodge Ram – I have a dodge wife,” he said, falling over himself with laugher. Then he said it again. The next day, I figured out that he has a dodge wife – or, he avoids getting married. But who knows if that’s the real joke.

Another one. As his mother, a sweet, tiny woman, walked up the steps toward the kitchen after cleaning the downstairs rooms:

“Here comes my uncle – I mean my mother.” He repeated the joke again. He repeated all his jokes two or three times. His uncle, I mean his mother, just smiled.

Some shots of the area. I swear, it snows so often here that I feel like I'm living in one of those snow globes, and that every few hours, someone just shakes it up.

As you might expect, Sato was my kind of guy. As we were leaving, he demanded that we all get a picture in front of the building. And so here we are.

The highlight of the weekend, beyond even the skiing, was the food. Both meals were, hands down, among the best food we’ve eaten in Japan, and at $30 apiece, Tricia thought maybe the best meal for that prices she’s ever had. Sato’s brother studied French cooking somewhere, and before the first dinner, Sato claimed that a meal like this would cost $100+ per person at the main ski lodge further up the mountain. I figured he was boasting, but after dinner, I ‘m not so sure.

An example of one meal (I don’t think I have the order correct):

First course: a salt-incrusted, smoked Japanese trout, baked on a stick over an open fire.

Second course: a green salad with a thin layer of tofu, which gave the salad a real kick.

Third course: garlic and something (the menu was in Japanese, so I don’t know) soup.

Fourth course: pork medallions in some type of sauce, topped with a soft-boiled egg.

Fifth course: a slice of chocolate cake with ice cream, with “Thank You” spelled out in fudge sauce (wait, I thought they couldn’t read any English!).

Here is the breakfast spread.

These dudes were from Tokyo. The night before, they passed around a bottle of 60 proof sake for everyone to try. It tasted awful, and they were awfully drunk. But also very nice. They loved Jonas, but come on. Who doesn't.

The best thing about the ski mountain was the sweet play area for kids. We switched off skiing, while the other watched Jonas here. He loved it.

No PJs, No Sleep

2008-02-15T05:25:00.000-08:00

The other night, when Tricia was out doing one of her many weeknight activities (honestly, it's hard for me to imagine that she would be as busy as she is considering we have, like, two friends in all of Akita, yet she still seems to having something going on at least two-three nights a week, from yoga to whatever else she does) I was left alone to put Jonas to sleep. I couldn't find any pajamas, so I grabbed a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt, figuring that would do. Hey, it's what I sleep in. It should be good enough for Jonas, too. So I dumped him in his crib and sat down on the couch. Only he didn't go to sleep. I noticed a lot of noise coming from his room. And I mean a lot. Also, nearly 45 minutes passed, and I could tell he still wasn't asleep. He wasn't crying; just jabbering away. So I finally decided to peek in and see what was up. And what was up was this: he had tossed every blanket, pillow and comforter out of his crib and onto the floor. He had taken off his T-shirt, removed his sweat pants, pulled off his diaper, and thrown all of them to the floor. That left him sitting there, in the middle of his crib, completely naked, just talking to himself. I guess when you can't speak in full sentences, it takes some creativity to get your point across.

Snow Festival Month

2008-02-11T05:51:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard from of us in awhile, don't worry. We are just spending our weekends enjoying the snow, so that the cold Akita winter is fun, not just cold. Last weekend we were lucky enough to be invited to spend a weekend at an icicle festival with a group of Japanese, Australians and Americans. We enjoyed eating meals together, the beautiful onsen, and the snow. Here is a picture of Jason and Jonas after playing in the snow.

I don't think Jason and I have had a couple pic taken in a long time...too bad I am wearing that ridiculous hat. You can see the frozen icicles in the background--they were lit up with huge lights.

Jonas having fun in the snow.

This is one of our friends, Mary Ellen, in this picture with us. I think Jonas looks much older here. I think the fact that he is creeping up on two years old is apparent in this picture.

February is the month of snow festivals in Japan. More to come later...

Curing Rubbish in Tokyo

2008-02-06T01:55:00.000-08:00

Some more shots from Tokyo ...

This shrine/temple (honestly, I can never remember which are which, and that's pretty lame on my part) was just a short walk from my hotel. They lit the sucker up at night, and it was very cool to walk around and check out for 30 minutes or so on my way back to my room. The thing about Tokyo was, you would just be walking down the street, and something like this would just pop up out of nowhere. I didn't make a point of seeing this, or arrange to have my hotel near it. It was just there. And there was a lot of that going on in Tokyo.

I think that's an Edo-period gang sign he's flashing.

A note about the subway system in Tokyo: on two different occasions, a random stranger approached me and asked whether I needed help as I stared and stared at the complex subway map up on the wall. One guy was with his wife and two kids, and they had this patient look on their faces that told me he had done this before. The other were two giggly girls. I noticed them looking at me, and when I looked over at them, one of the girls pointed at herself and said, "Me?" I said, "Yeah, sure." And she helped me to the point of pulling aside a train worker to make sure I was going where I needed to go.

These are just a couple pics of the crazy electronics/magna area in Tokyo, Akihabara. The one picture is going up the escalator, and notice, that not a surface is spared of advertising. Even the tiny space in between the wall and the escalator itself gets a tiny strip of adage.

And this is Harajuku, where teenage girls (and one boy) dress up in odd outfits and pose for western (and, without a doubt, plenty of Japanese) tourists. Also there were, as the picture indicates, kids giving out free hugs. And my favorite was this guy dancing very passionately to U2 while someone with a very professional-looking camera filmed it all. And lastly, the crowd, which seemed pretty typical for Tokyo. Just an unbelievable amount of people.

And finally, my favorite picture of the weekend. There were many street-corner bands in Tokyo, but this one stood out for its music, and most of all, for its seriously-cool name.

Get out the vote

2008-02-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

Jason and I were talking tonight about the election tomorrow. We feel excited by the possibility that Obama might be the Democratic presidential candidate and I can’t wait to find out how the voting goes on Tuesday.

This is just a quick post to remind people to vote in the primary – which is Tuesday for many people. One of the things that I love about Obama is that he cares to lessen the widening gap between rich and poor. I admire that he spent a few of his pre-political years as a community organizer, working with low-income residents in Chicago. I think this gives him a unique perspective on class issues that most presidential candidates do not have. In the Senate, he has helped pass legislation that helps working people, like increased subsidies for child care.

I came across a letter that Joan Baez wrote to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. I like what she wrote, so here it is:

Editor - I have attempted throughout my life to give a voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless, encouragement to the discouraged, and options to the cynical and complacent. From Northern Ireland to Sarajevo to Latin America, I have sung and marched, engaged in civil disobedience, visited war zones, and broken bread with those who had little bread to break.

Through all those years, I chose not to engage in party politics. Though I was asked many times to endorse candidates at every level, I was never comfortable doing so. At this time, however, changing that posture feels like the responsible thing to do. If anyone can navigate the contaminated waters of Washington, lift up the poor, and appeal to the rich to share their wealth, it is Sen. Barack Obama. If anyone can bring light to the darkened corners of this nation and restore our positive influence in world affairs, it is Barack Obama. If anyone can begin the process of healing and bring unity to a country that has been divided for too long, it is Barack Obama. It is time to begin a new journey.

JOAN BAEZ

Menlo Park

In family news, we spent a fun weekend a few hours outside of Akita City. We will post some pictures later, but for now here are a couple of videos of Jonas sledding.

Strait to Sumo

2008-01-30T01:17:00.000-08:00

I, Jason, just returned from a weekend in Tokyo sans family, the highlight of which was attending sumo at the Ryogoku Kokugikan for the final weekend of the Grand Tournament, or what’s known as the Winter Cup. It was fantastic – both the sumo and the peacefulness of traveling alone. Even though Tricia loves to say that traveling with Jonas is “lots of fun,” and it is, we both agreed that we needed a brief vacation that didn’t include navigating naps or weathering fits (Jonas, not Tricia) or lugging around Jonas’ “cage” (what many Japanese parents refer to as his portable crib. An aside: Jonas climbed out of his crib over the weekend while I was gone. Tricia put him in there for time out for punching the buttons on the heater, which he knows not to do but can’t resist doing as they make a delightful beeping noise. Moments later, she hears a loud crash and a Jonas crying. We think he used his Curious George doll, which is as big as he is, as a stepping stone to freedom. And what better doll to cause mischief than Curious George?). Anyway, this was my weekend.

If I were gong to stay in Japan for an extended period of time, I really could get into following the ins and outs of sumo. There’s plenty of drama, and the highlight of this tournament was the return of former champion Asashoryu, who was suspended for blowing off a summer promotional tour, citing injury, only to be caught running around in a charity soccer match in Mongolia. Media reports claimed fans had turned on the big Mongolian following the faux injury debacle, but he seemed to still hold sway when I was there. Here is a clip taken from my seat, near the top of the arena, of the action.

When I bought the train/hotel tickets for Tokyo, I asked the travel agent whether she had ever seen sumo. She cocked her head to the side and gave me that quizzical, askance Japanese look that means, “You’re crazy.”

“Oh, no. I think it’s mainly for the older generation,” she said.

“Like me?” How old did she think I was?

“The older generation,” she said. “And foreigners.”

She was right. Old timers and gaijin and little else filled the arena – for example, in my row there was a lone Japanese guy, a British kid in his early 20s, a girl with blue hair who seemed American, her boyfriend, and a group of six Australians. Well-connected and wealthy Japanese sat in the lower levels, where four-person boxes go for $450, and I have to say, many of them appeared to be of Takako the travel agent’s “older generation.” Before I left for Tokyo, I polled several coworkers of comparable age to me to whether any of them had watched sumo in person, and not a one of them had. They claimed it was too expensive (not true; my ticket was $20), that it was too difficult to get a ticket (not true; I bought mine the day of and walked right in). My friend Nomi told me his father, who is close to 70, loves sumo and went every January. As for himself, he never once went with him, although he said he would have loved to go. I didn’t press him any further.

Other than sumo, I didn’t take many pictures on this trip Every time I came across something oddly and distinctly Japanese, I’d think, “That would be a great picture. I don’t have the guts to take it.” It must have been that old Midwestern modesty taking hold. For example, within Akihabara, a mecca for electronics and manga geeks, there are these things called maid cafes, which as far as I can tell, are pretty much cafes where girls dressed as maids call you “lord” and serve you coffee and cake. There’s nothing expressly elicit about them; I’d consider them more of Japan’s answer to Hooters, although, and this is absolutely true, I have never patronized either.

Anyway, on numerous streets, girls would be standing around in their skimpy maid outfits, freezing their bare legs off while handing out leaflets that guided all the otakus and tourists to the cafes. Now, it’s cold in Tokyo. Not Akita cold. But chilly enough that you might want to wear, you know, pants while standing outside for hours. On one street, two maids were positioned among the crowd, smiling, handing out leaflets, their bare legs, from about mid-thigh down, being warmed by a pair of 3-foot-tall electric space heaters, which required electric cords to run all the way from the street, across the sidewalk, and up the stairs to the maid café. That's dedication and ingenuity.

I did take a number of shots of these girls, allegedly bullied high school kids who have become semi-famous for hanging out in a particular area of Tokyo and dressing up in costume, also known as cosplay, seemingly for no other reason than to be photographed by tourists.

Jonas update and some other stuff

2008-01-26T20:45:00.000-08:00

Jonas says a new word these days --“Oishii,” which means delicious in Japanese. I think it is super cute when he says it and I usually chuckle. So now Jonas follows up “oishii” by laughing. We have heard him say a couple of other Japanese words, but this is the first word that the daycare told us about too. They were so excited to tell Jason about it. One of the foods Jonas thinks is oishii is onigiri. Onigiri is basically a rice ball stuffed with some sort of food, like fish or fish eggs and covered in seaweed. He even loves to eat the seaweed. Some other foods that illicit “oishii” from Jonas these days: yogurt, tangerines, water, strawberries, noodles, anything sweet. Jonas eating onigiri:

Some other favorite activities enjoyed by Jonas lately:

Putting on grown up shoes

Dumping all of his toys out, but only playing with a few. Playing with his toy trains, animals and new crayons. He does color with them (with sound effects), but he more often carries them around, lines them up, puts them in containers and takes them out.

Playing at the ALVE play area

Going to Starbucks (okay, that was my idea and us sitting in Starbucks lasted about two minutes, but I thought he was cute for the two minutes he sat there). And, yes, it is a American chain, but sometimes I just want a tasty latte.

He has always enjoyed books, but lately he really likes these non-fiction bug books that I brought with us from home. I think he likes the pictures, because they are real, not drawings. He has also shown a preference for his Elmo book lately (too bad he ripped out the big Elmo on the last page). Today he was looking at the book by himself and when he got to the page where Elmo reaches up tall, Jonas reached both hands high in the air like Elmo. He still likes to dance and I noticed this weekend he is trying to jump. He definitely watches the older kids at the play area and tries to do what they do.

For a few weeks, he has been reaching up or looking up to communicate that he wants help with something. He also makes some fussy noises sometimes when he needs something, so I am trying to teach him to say “please.” Wish me luck.

Jonas loves playing in and eating the snow.

Isn’t he so cute, all bundled up? And lying on the cold, snowy ground with mismatched gloves.

When we were in Nagano, one of the highlights of the trip for me was playing in the snow with Jonas and watching him enjoy the snow. He loved to slide down the snow hill and then watch me follow him in the sled. A couple of weeks later, he and I were walking down a snowy hill at the base of the ski mountain in Tazawako. As soon as he realized we were going downhill, he sat down to ‘slide’ down like he did in Nagano. Here is a video. The camera work (by me) has some issues, but I think it is so funny that I am posting it anyway.

He is becoming more independent and explored the base of the ski mountain. A couple of times he tried to catch a ride on some guy's skis.

When we went to Tazawako, Jason skied in the morning while Jonas and I explored. Here is he is playing by a snowman and the Kamakura (snow house).

When we met Jason at lunch time, Jonas was very happy to be reunited with Jason. Here he is giving him a big hug. Jonas gives great hugs.

While I was snowboarding, I took some pictures from the mountain. It is a small ski hill, but we enjoyed it. The view of the lake was beautiful. The lake you see in one of the pictures below is the same lake you can see in the picture that is at the top of our blog.

This weekend Jason traveled to Tokyo to watch sumo wrestling. It sounds like he is having fun there. Jonas and I have had a low key weekend at home. We went to the play area at ALVE this morning and Jonas is napping now.

I will end with some stats. At daycare they weigh and measure the kids every couple of months. I appreciate that they do this, because I lose track of how much Jonas has grown. Riveting way to end, I know.

Date	Height	Weight
September 4, 2007	No measurement-They wrote that Jonas would not stand still	11 kg (24.2 pounds)
November 2, 2007	77 cm (30.3 inches)	12.2 kg (26.8 pounds)
January 8, 2008	80.5 cm (31.7 inches)	12.4 kg (27.3 pounds)

My Biggest Weakness is I Care Too Much ... Yack!

2008-01-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

This is Jason.
We are a house united when it comes to the presidential election. I, too, am wholly behind Obama, for reasons big and small. No word on Jonas' top choice. Although when I told him about that wacko Mike Huckabee's views on evolution, I noticed him squeeze his toy dinosaurs just a little tighter.

Anyway, I think the small details influence me more than the big ones. For example, when doing research on video games and their potential uses in education, I came across this from Hillary Clinton. Essentially, she teamed up with two uber-conservative senators to sponsor legislative that would further censor video games and restrict access to them. It's this type of small-minded, politics-of-the-moment thinking that really turns me off to Hillary. When some of the smartest people out there are looking at how to harness the appeal and methodology of video games, Hillary spends her time figuring out ways to restrict their impact. And she claimed to be doing it to "protect the children." Please. Protect us from Hillary.

And there's all the hoopla over John Edwards' $1,250 hair. The guy's a millionaire, so it's his right, but someone who fancies himself as the champion of the poor probably should being paying attention to details like this. And paying a lot less for a haircut. But whatever. He's insignificant.

And finally, my favorite small story of the campaign:

Obama began by recalling a moment in Tuesday night's debate when he and his rivals were asked to name their biggest weakness. Obama answered first, saying he has a messy desk and needs help managing paperwork - something his opponents have since used to suggest he's not up to managing the country. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said his biggest weakness is that he has a powerful response to seeing pain in others, and Clinton said she gets impatient to bring change to America.

"Because I'm an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, 'What's your biggest weakness?'" Obama said to laughter from a packed house at Rancho High School. "If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, 'Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. It's terrible.'"

We will return to more news about Japan and Jonas soon ...

The Election

2008-01-23T04:35:00.000-08:00

I just watched Barack Obama's inspiring MLK speech. This caused me to remember an email that I received a few weeks ago about an interesting website. It is called Glassbooth. By visiting this website, you can see how your views align with the Presidential candidates. I think it is a neat tool, because after indicating which issues matter to you most, you are given a survey on the issues that are most important to you. Based on your answers, you can see which candidates align with your views. The part that I really like is that you can click around and see how different candidates align with you on particular issues and the evidence that is cited comes from actions (like Senate votes), quotes from debates, newspapers and other media.

I was not surprised that I align most closely to a candidate that will not be a major contender, Dennis Kucinich. But, I do love Barack Obama. I am reading his autobiography right now. In his book he brings up so many important and thought provoking issues.

Shirako

2008-01-20T04:14:00.001-08:00

Thursday I went to an enkai (work party that consists of all you can drink and non-stop eating of generally delicious food for two hours).

When the first dish was served, I noticed this white, slimy mass surrounded by soy sauce and asked if it was some sort of egg dish. My co-worker to the right looked at me for a moment and said, "It's like ikura (salmon eggs), but from the male." Two thoughts flashed through my mind.
Number 1. Male fish lay eggs?
Number 2. Wait. It could not be---SPERM!

As these thoughts flashed through my mind, my co-workers across the table pulled out their Japanese-English electronic dictionary (I love these things) and went to work, giggling.
After reading through some definitions on the dictionary they told me that the dish was cod testes. I thought, Okay -- testes and dismissed the word sperm from my mind -- knowing of course that testes are full of sperm -- and why would testes be any more appealing than sperm?

Well, I thought, what the heck? It's not alive, it's not horse meat and it's considered a delicacy.

I picked up the small bowl and chopsticks, opened my mouth and took a couple of slimy, awkard bites. I don't know what to say about the taste, because I don't really remember. I just remember that it was slimy. My co-worker looked at me and said, "You are brave." She then continued by telling a story about the time she ate tiny fish swimming in soy sauce and unsuccessfully tried to eat live shrimp.

The middle dish is the shirako I ate:

A beautiful plate of sashimi that we were served:

Here is a picture from the enkai:

Vacation -- The End

2008-01-15T04:26:00.000-08:00

So we've been back for about a week now, wishing we weren't. Vacation was tremendous, and though I often try and look at this experience as a year-long vacation, going back to school is still going back to work, no matter how you slice it, even if it isn't exactly shoveling coal.

Funny story: Today at school, I was chatting with students about what they did over their winter vacation. Since this was an academic school, not surprisingly, many of them said they studied. And I believed them. Most also said they visited their grandmothers. I asked one girl, who didn't say much, whether she visited her grandmother over the break. She shook her head yes, then pointed toward the sky. I assumed she meant that her grandmother was no longer of this earth. So I asked her, "You went to temple to pray?" She said, "No," still pointing upward. "She lives with me. Upstairs."

Jonas loves all things snow. He loves to eat the snow and play in the snow, just as long as he's not wearing his gloves, and as they've noticed at daycare during these cold days of winter, he never actually gets cold himself.

And here is Tricia ....

On our way into Hakuba, we spotted a sign for Subway. Since both Jason and I are beginning to really miss American food about now, including a good ol' American sandwich, we turned immediately to follow the sign. Turns out that Subway was at the base of one of the ski mountains so we entered busy territory. Jason ran inside and bought 8 sandwiches! We easily ate all eight over the next two days.

Arriving in Hakuba, we were greeted by lots of snow and foreigners. In fact, I felt as if we left Japan for a week, because we were surrounded by so many Westerners. After many missed turns and driving over packed snow, we finally found the guesthouse that our friend Christine booked. We loved the place. The owner, Yoko, actually lived in Steamboat Springs, CO for two years (I lived in Steamboat for a year, with Jason visiting a few times) and she had three wonderful children. The place was perfect for us. Jonas loved playing with the kids and their toys.

Yoko and her sisters are running the guesthouse. It was such a comfortable place with a nice common area with plenty of hot tea to drink during the day. The place had been closed for five years and the three sisters grew up with their mother running a guesthouse when they were kids. Everybody in Yoko's family grew up skiing and she showed me pictures of the family in competitions. Her father was the national ski team coach and had certificates from the 82 Sapporo Olympics and the 98 Nagano Olmpics for his help with the events. I can't imagine growing up in such a beautiful place. Living in a ski town for a year gave me a new appreciation of snow. When you live in a place as beautiful and snowy as Hakuba or Steamboat, the snow is so much fun. It stays for the whole winter and is a much different snow than the wet, heavy stuff we get in Missouri--that comes and goes so quickly.

It was great to see friends from home and the time went by too quickly. Christine, Wellan, Val and Smitty were spending two weeks traveling around Japan, including spending some time in the town that Christine and Wellan lived in for one year during their JET year. We skied/snowboarded during the day and visited onsens at night.

There were some interesting people to meet at the guesthouse, including an Australian, a Welsh couple and two Swedes who were at the beginning of a 3 month stay in Hakuba. They had some intense skiing equipment and were planning on spending everyday on the mountain. The night before we left a guy from Norway showed up who planned on snowboarding for three months.

We were able to eat non-Japanese food at night, which was a treat for Jason and me. As we have both mentioned, we love Japanese food, but are ready for a break. We miss Mexican the most. Here we are eating at Uncle Steven's, a Mexican restaurant---

Jason, Jonas and I went back for a second meal there before we left Hakuba.

Jason and I loved the place so much that we extended our stay by another day and spent our last day sledding and playing in the snow with Yoko and her family.

For whatever reason, Yoko and I had long and in-depth conversations about children (this is Jason again). Her youngest kid, Shingo, insisted on riding on her back wherever she went. This is common in Japan with younger children, but when Shingo can walk just fine on his own, and you have two other kids to chase around, I think it really was beginning to wear on her. As she told me, "If I could go back, there are some things I would change. This is one of them."

Shingo, by the way, was hilarious. He would walk up to all foreigners, scowl at them, and say, "Baka!" and then walk away. Baka means idiot in Japanese. It probably didn't help that we all snickered every time he did this. Eventually, Tricia cracked his scowl and got him to laugh and giggle like all 2 year olds should.

Winter Vacation Day 3 -- Happy New Year

2008-01-10T02:34:00.000-08:00

We spent the New Year playing cards and drinking beer with a bunch of other gaijin who were friends with the owner of the Hawk and the Hare, the Brit from Atlanta. As the night wore on, I began to wonder whether he invited them just so the place didn’t look so empty on such as big night, as none of the Japanese couples staying at the inn came down for the festivities. Among those in attendance:

A 32-year-old guy from Edmonton who is an English teacher with a private company called Interac, which doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to work for according to this story. The guy was extremely funny and extremely lewd, both of which I enjoyed. He toned things down a bit when Tricia came down from her nap, but only a bit. Among his more tame comments: after getting demoted to Vice President in our card game by his girlfriend, who became the new President, he responded, “Ah, no problem. I do my best work under you.”

His 21-year-old Japanese girlfriend. The real show-stopper here wasn’t her age, but the fact that they had been dating for over two years, leading me to suspect that they likely met at school, where she was a student and he a teacher, which is obviously frowned upon, but I don’t think all that rare here. In truth, she seemed much older than 21, and had a really cool yellow strip of hair that wound around her head like a race-stripe when she pulled her hair back, yet was an unseen middle layer ringing the circumference of her head when it hung loose. I’m still not sure how that worked. She had one of the funniest lines of the night. Someone mentioned that her boyfriend was sexy (I think it was the boyfriend). She said, "No. Not sexy. Just cute." Then ruffled his balding head. He looked deflated.

A 30ish guy from New York, who worked for Nova, until recently, when he took over the teaching job previously held by the owner of the Hawk and the Hare. He was a nice guy with a voracious appetite. I saw him eat two plates of fish and chips, a whole plate of French fries, and when Tricia ordered some guacamole and chips for herself, he assumed they were for the whole table and helped himself to a rather generous portion. He also told me he had smoked 25 cigarettes the night before at a bar while unsuccessfully trying to pick up Japanese girls. The Western trend of banning smoking in public places, including bars and restaurants, has yet to take hold in Japan. This is one smoke-happy country, where people are free to smoke anywhere and everywhere, including within close proximity to children. I’ve seen parents smoking away in donut shops surrounded by kids, practically using their little heads to balance their ashtrays on.

A 40ish guy from Tokyo, who was the biggest mystery guest of all. He was alone, he wasn’t skiing, and I don’t think he knew anyone there. He also wore multiple pieces of St. Louis-themed clothing – including a Hard Rock Café sweatshirt from St. Louis and St. Louis Cardinals jacket. I told him we were from Kansas City, which didn’t register at all, and asked him whether he had been to St. Louis. His response: “No. I got them on the Internet.” No further explanation. He was a very jolly fellow, and when midnight struck, he ran upstairs to get his camera, which he used to snap pictures of all of us by remote control. This led the Canadian to say, “Wow. You really are Japanese.”

We left the party at 1 a.m., and at 4 a.m. (when Jonas unfortunately woke up), I noticed the Japanese couples who presumably slept through the New Year scurrying around the hallways, putting on their ski gear. We later asked what was up with that, and the very tired looking Japanese woman, the girlfriend of the British/American owner, who cooked all the meals, cleaned all the rooms, and basically did everything that needed to be done at the inn, told us, “They wanted to see the sunrise. Which is strange, because there is no sunrise.” Ah, those wacky Japanese. Why let a little thing like the lack of sunshine, thick clouds and tall mountains get in the way of getting up to see an imaginary sunrise.

We enjoyed Myoko, more or less, but it was time to leave, and we were glad to be gone ...

... just as soon as I locate our car.

Winter Vacation Day 2 -- Still in Myoko

2008-01-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

I believe I mentioned earlier that the owner of the Hound and the Hare (now I don't remember if that's what it's actually named) is a falconer. Well, here is his hawk. He/She would just hang out in the common room, where everyone would eat, drink and be merry. To be honest, the bird freaked me out. It brought back memories of my friend and college roomate Whitey releasing his pet Cockatiel Cheeks in our house, ostensibly so it could get some exercise. The second that bird left its cage, Cheeks would swoop straight for my head, its claws flexed and it eyes fixed on me, ready to scoop out my eyeballs. Anyway, in the afternoon, when Jonas napped and Tricia snowboarded, it was just me and the hawk and our thoughts, at a safe distance.

Jonas, not surprisingly, was fascinated by the hawk. We were cautioned not to let Jonas too close to the bird, a warning that wasn't necessary. This wasn't easy to do, though. Every time we put Jonas on the ground, he ran straight for the corner. One time, I had to grab him by the scruff of his neck and yank him back toward me, scratching him in the process. He cried, but I told him that my little scratch was nothing compared to the serious damage that bird would inflict on him.

The hotel was a mixed bag. It was nice, and the area was beautiful, but we had the feeling that we were their first customers -- ever. For example, the owner was fixing the showers when we arrived, and the indication was that they had not worked since he took ownership of the place. He and his girlfriend also would stay up way late serving people in the common room, then get up before 6 a.m. to fix us and the other guests breakfast. It wasn't exactly the breezy pace of Newhart and the Stratford Inn.

These are Jonas' gloves. Obviously, they are a bit big for him, but they were all I could find at the sporting goods store the day before we left. He loves wearing them indoors. And he loves pulling them off outdoors, so he can get his hands on the snow.

Tricia, after an afternoon of snowboarding. This was possibly the most snow that either of us had ever seen fall in one day. And there was more waiting for us in Nagano ....

Winter Vacation Day 1 -- Myoko, Japan

2008-01-05T14:25:00.000-08:00

I’m typing this fireside from Myoko, Japan, in the pub of an English Bed & Breakfast we’re staying at called The Hawk & the Hare Inn, run by a Brit who was born in Atlanta. And I’m drinking a German beer. How cosmopolitan can one family get? (Tricia is upstairs trying to get Jonas to go to sleep. I wish her well).

We found this place on a lark. We’re meeting our friends in three days in Hakuba, about an hour away, and decided we couldn’t stomach staying in Akita one day longer, so we took off this morning at 6 a.m., driving eight hours through some nasty weather At one particular rough point, it felt like slabs of ice were falling from the sky – then a few miles later, sunshine. The weather changes often and dramatically here.

About a quarter of the way there, we stopped for a break (notice Jonas still in his PJs). Jonas was absorbed by the ocean, and didn't seem to mind the cold wind and spray hitting him.

And just a few hours later ...

Tricia and Jonas went snowshoeing for about 10 minutes once we got settled. I tried to go night skiing, but the mountain was closed due to high winds. Dinner was spectacularly Western; something the host called Guinness stew, which included potatoes, carrots and beef. We both love Japanese food, but a break is called for now and then, and we were ready for one.

(interlude: two young Japanese couples playing Uno just switched to Operation Brain Surgery, which has them doing some sort of funky calisthenics on the floor. Also, I’m now watching The Fellowship of the Ring on a 46-inch TV with our host, who is definitely a little weird, and claims to be a Tolkien expert, along with being a falconer).

Tomorrow, Jason skis in the morning, Tricia in the afternoon. Jonas, sadly, is left on the sidelines until I can buy him a sled, which I plan to do just as soon as I get some rest. (Postscript: Jonas did get to snowshoe some more with Tricia while Jason skied. He loved it and ate snow the entire time. If you look above, you can see him licking the snow off his glove.)

On a Break ...

2008-01-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

The blog has been on hiatus while we're vacationing in Nagano. We head back home tomorrow.

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-27T03:06:00.000-08:00

Christmas in Japan has been a bit different than Christmas at home. We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, because the Emperor’s birthday happened to fall on Sunday and this is a national holiday in Japan. So, Monday was the substitute holiday and we did not have to work. The current Emperor happens to have been born on December 23, so that works nicely for the westerners living in Japan.

I was surprised to find that Christmas is celebrated in Japan. Christmas decorations arrived on the scene in late November, just like in the states, but not as many as we see in the states. I have been asking around to get a sense of how, why and what is celebrated. I have heard a number of different things and this is the overall answer I have received: Japanese people like celebrating things, so they have incorporated Christmas into their celebrations. There is a lot of talk of Christmas cakes—and many people assume we have Christmas cakes in the States. People don’t make Christmas cakes. they buy these expensive and elaborately decorated cakes. Here is a picture of a cake Jason bought on Christmas day for 50% off. I really wanted to partake in this Christmas cake Japanese tradition, but could not fathom paying 20 bucks for a tiny cake, but then my co-worker tipped me off on a secret--they go on sale on Christmas day. I am a bargain shopper, so even it was still expensive, hey, it was a bargain!

I have also heard that young couples go on dates on Christmas and many people drink champagne. There is some gift exchanging as well, but nothing like we do in the states. I have enjoyed the absence of commercials trying to convince me that I need to ask Jason to buy me a diamond for Christmas and overall commercialism craziness associated with Christmas. I think there is some commercialism associated with Christmas here, but I don’t see it so much (maybe because I don’t understand the language!?). I have decided that Christmas is celebrated in the same way here that many people celebrate Valentine’s Day in the States. People go to work; some people have nice dinners and exchange gifts, but not everyone.

For our Christmas, we were able to go over and have a nice dinner at our friend’s house (the ones who came to our place for Thanksgiving). Mai is a great cook, so the food was tasty and the kids were fun. Jonas enjoys playing with them, but Yozan, their four year old son does not like it when Jonas plays with his toys so there was some crying and fighting between the two boys. Warning: You will see an upset Jonas in the video. After all this happened, I spotted Yozan hiding the toy that caused the conflict behind the curtain. Funny!

Here is the table of food. Mai and her kids made a Christmas cake with strawberries. She made a delicious dish of chicken that she explained consisted of over two days of marinating and cooking. I did not quite understand the process, but the chicken was delicious.

Above we are sitting around the kotatsu table. The kotatsu table is a heated table and I have been excited about this aspect of Japanese culture since I first heard about it. Sitting under that blanket was cozy--not only was the table heated, but so is the rug. When we arrived the kids were excited to show us the table.

Below, Nene and Yozan are enjoying the Christmas cake.

The next day, Christmas Eve morning we woke up and opened some gifts and Jonas spent the morning playing with some wooden trains we bought him at the 100 yen store. (like dollar store but better). He enjoyed opening the gifts, but was not quite sure what we were doing. He had some gifts to open from family back at home and enjoyed the unwrapping.

Here is Jonas with his trains. He had fun placing them on this book, taking them off and doing it again. He busies himself with these kinds of tasks these days. Stacking, unstacking, finding new places to stack things, put things, carry things...

Above Jonas is pulling Elmo out of his stocking. Below he is checking out the track suit from Aunt Catherine, Uncle Paul and Cousin Andrew.

He does not watch that many videos, we promise...but he enjoys the ones he watches. When he opened this DVD he took it to the tv and placed it where you see it in the pic and just looked at it for a moment.

That evening Jason made a nice dinner while I went with Jonas to get my hair cut. I intended to just make an appointment, but the receptionists convinced me that they could play with Jonas while I got my hair cut. I finally decided to let them and he had a lot of fun. He was laughing and smiling the whole time. I think he especially like the chairs that go up and down.

By the time Jonas and I got home, Jason had finished preparing some steak, mashed potatoes and green beans with almonds. I particularly enjoyed the potatoes, because I don’t think we have had mashed potatoes since we arrived here. For desert, we had strawberries (which are really expensive here, so that was a real treat.)

Next week, we are going to Hakuba, Nagano (where the 1998 winter Olympics were held)
and meeting our friends Christine and Wellan. They lived in Japan two years ago and are coming back for a visit. (They are also renting our house while we are gone and Lou’s temporary parents for the year.) We are looking forward to seeing them and having fun on the ski mountain.

Here is Jonas opening a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Strait

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Click below to see more pictures.

No Gas, No Bike, No Service

2007-12-22T21:05:00.000-08:00

Two transportation calamities struck at once this week, leaving me cold and alone on a Saturday morning, walking my bicycle from the downtown police station in the snow and ice while juggling a steel, 10-liter container full of gasoline and a 15-liter, plastic container full of nothing.

First, the bike. Last Friday, I went to one of my school's bonenkais, which translates to a forget-the-year party, which is done, apparently, by drinking a lot of beer and eating little to no food. Each school has one of these, and they can be outrageously expensive -- a couple of mine topped out at the equivalent of $100. I skipped those. But this one was only $30, a genuine bargain by comparison, so I happily went. Plus, two of my favorite teachers work at this school. I soon discovered why it was so cheap. There was no food. Each person got four pieces of sashimi, a bowl of mushroom soup, and that was that. There was, however, Bingo, with the grand prize being a mini-refrigerator, and lots and lots of beer. I wish we could have traded that fridge in for some more food. And honestly, it was a bizarre choice for a grand prize. The medium age at that school is probably 45; I don't think any of them are going to need a fridge for their dorm room anytime soon.

So there was little food, but the beer flowed freely, and not surprisingly, there were a number of very drunk Japanese and one tipsy American at the end of the party. Technically, it is illegal to ride your bicycle having consumed alcohol in Japan, but there were plenty of bicycles parked next to the restaurant, so I know I wasn't alone. And it was a really long walk. So I hopped on my bike and started pedaling for home when, about five minutes later, the chain popped off. These bikes are about 50 years old and were built to last. They were also built with a metal casing completely surrounding the chain and crank, meaning there was no way to fix it on the fly. So I did what anyone would do in my situation. I ditched the bike and walked home, which wasn't the smartest idea in the world, because the next day, I wasn't entirely sure where I left the bike (this mostly had to do with me being in an unfamiliar area, and that there being no street signs, whatsoever, in Japan and that every street in Akita City pretty much looks like the next one, and that I'd had a few too many beers and not nearly enough food -- look, you'd be confused, too).

Not my actual bike.

I figured when I found the time, I'd find the bike. Which I was not able to do at all that week. Then on Friday, Tricia drove to school, where she got a call from the police. They found my bike, and said I needed to come pick it up Saturday morning. Tricia then drove home, making it all the way to our apartment, where she ran out of gas. Convenient for her. Not so convenient for me, as I was the one who now had to walk all the way downtown to get my bike.

Which is just what I did. And on the way home, I passed a hardware store, and decided to get the bike and the gas all in one trip. So I bought a cheap, plastic fuel container and walked over to the gas station. The attendant greeted me, pointed at the container and asked me in Japanese if I wanted kerosene. I told her, no, gasoline. She said, in English, "No. Very dangerous," then pointing a the container, "Boom!" Another attendant ran into the station and emerged with a bulky metal canister, indicating that this is what I needed. I asked where. They said HomeCenter, which is not remotely reachable by foot. After much standing around, they finally agreed that I could borrow their canister, but under no condition, could I fill mine with gasoline.

I later learned that it is illegal to put gasoline in a plastic container. I'm not sure, but this probably has something to do with the fact that central heating doesn't exist here, and everyone uses kerosene to heat their homes, and if their was a mix-up between kerosene and gasoline, then, as the nice girl at the station told me, "Boom!"

A few pics

2007-12-19T06:08:00.000-08:00

Jonas and Jason are both focused on separate projects. We have noticed that Jonas is able to focus for longer periods lately. Jonas loves putting his legos together, but he now gets frustrated that his wooden blocks don't stick together like the legos. Recently I noticed that he was putting together legos of a specific shape. Sorting already! I was proud. He also has has fun putting things in containers and carrying them around the house now.

I just thought this picture of Jason was funny so I had to post it. We had a temporary computer scare. His laptop had some problems, but Jason fixed it thankfully. Sadly, the two of us would have a difficult time managing with only one laptop. Notice that Jason is wearing shorts. Meanwhile, I am wearing a sweater, two pairs of pants and sleeping bag slippers on my feet (we will leave that pic out).

Jonas is looking older. Notice the shirt. It says, "Texas Continent: What do you do and will it play tomorrow?" Kind of poetic. And good question.

Below is Jonas climbing into his pack'n'play. He pushed that chair next to his pack'n'play and proceeded to successfully, but precariously climb into it. We can not take our eyes off that boy or we might find him climbing on the ceiling.

Here is a link to a few photos of him when he was climbing into his pack'n'play for the real Jonas fans (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc)

Jonas Meets Santa. Santa Scares Jonas. And Happy Birthday Grandma.

2007-12-16T03:50:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, an ALT out in the sticks hosted a Christmas party for little ones at her town community center, which is just a couple of minutes from one of the schools I visit each week. It's about a 45 minute drive through small mountains and countryside, and I enjoy going out there. Jonas was probably the youngest youngster there, but he still tried his hand at the crafts table, and took a seat on Santa's lap. He wasn't too excited about Santa at first, but he warmed to him later (pictures not shown), once Santa started dancing.

One blond boy in a sea of black hair. (Also, below, that isn't blood on his upper lip. It's marker, in case you had ideas of calling family services).

And finally, a happy 89th birthday to Faye Strait, my grandma. She is an amazing woman, who not only uses a computer, but routinely checks this blog. How about that! Many people (probably most) thought we were crazy to come to Japan. She was one of the few who didn't. Right before we left, I knew she was sad to see us leave, but at the same time, she told me that she was a little envious, too. She and my grandfather spent most of their free time traveling all over America, and I got to go on some of those trips with them when I was a boy. Those are some of the fondest memories. So anyway, I'm glad to carry on in her adventurous tradition, and I hope she had a good birthday. We'll be back soon.

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas

2007-12-13T02:50:00.000-08:00

I incorporated a happy birthday message to Tricia in a lesson today. I also taped them signing Happy Birthday, but the performance was too woeful to publish.

These two jokers claimed their birthdays were Dec. 9 and 10. I'm not sure if I believe them.

A group of students made Christmas cards for me, which was very sweet. And funny.

Uh, I'm Not American. I Swear, Eh.

2007-12-09T23:44:00.001-08:00

This has nothing to do with Japan (well, it does, but barely) …

On Sunday, as Jonas napped and Tricia lay comatose under her electric blanket (either a virus or bad sushi knocked her senseless for three days), I managed to find and watch the Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton fight on the Internet.

I find boxing slow and plodding and rarely much of a payoff. But, unlike most fights, there was genuine intrigue to this one, and not just the typical manufactured pre-flight blah: an American, Mayweather, against a Brit, Hatton, both undefeated. And, most interestingly, 20,000 Hatton fans flew in from England to Las Vegas to cheer on their boy (or bloke, as is the case here). Consider that – 20,000 fans, making an international trip to cheer on this one little fella. And they weren’t even able to watch the fight in person. The arena held 16,000 fans, meaning most of Hatton’s crew were forced to drink themselves into a stupor and watch via television at a bar – just like they could have done at home in dreary ole’ England.

Anyway, the fight was genuinely exciting, with Mayweather flooring Hatton in the 10th round and winning by knockout. Hatton looked small and outclassed, but also fearless. And he’s a very funny guy. It’s easy to see why he’s so popular and has such a devoted, if mindless, following.

And as exciting as that was, it was the pre-fight hullabaloo that had everyone in a tizzy.

During the singing of the American national anthem, the British fans booed lustily and loudly from start to finish, completely drowning out Tyrese, whoever that was, who did the singing. This seemed pretty ballsy to me, considering they were actually in America, and obviously, it wasn’t exactly a classy move. Checking the message boards of the Times of London, this not surprisingly boiled the blood of many Americans. I wasn’t that bothered by it; I found it more amusing than offensive (look, KC Chiefs fans punctuate the singing of the US anthem by screeching, “… and the home of the CHIEFS!, which I find more offensive than this). It did get me to thinking, though, about anti-Americanism and what the reaction would have been if those were American fans jeering “God Save the Queen.”

And we all know what the reaction would have been: typical, ugly Americans. Before leaving home, I was well aware of the low opinion in which Americans are held internationally – some of it deserved, some of it exaggerated. As a result, there is a defensiveness and a compulsion to distance oneself from America while abroad – i.e., American travelers pretending to be Canadian, being compelled to blurt out to new acquaintances, “Hey, I didn’t vote for Bush.” I find all this tiresome and absurd, though I’m guilty of it, too.

Anyway, with thousands of Brits acting so boorishly (there were reports earlier in the week of the hooligans shouting down schoolchildren who had shown up to support Mayweather), and with Mayweather punishing Hatton, and then acting classy and gracious afterward, I don’t know, I felt, for at least this once, America came out on top on a national stage, even it was just a boxing match.
And that made me feel good.

And finally, these graphs from the London Telegraph..

Showtime was almost upon us. In the ring Tom Jones sang the national anthem. The walls shook as the crowd joined in. Beckham, his back ramrod straight, hit the high notes with Tom. He was a proud man at that point, happy to be reminded of his Englishness in a foreign setting.
Then, disgrace. The courtesy extended to the visitors was spat back in shocked faces by the vile tendency that follows English sportsmen around the world. Beckham shrank. We all did, as English boos drowned out the Star Spangled Banner. Sometimes it is painful to be a Briton abroad.

I know how you feel.

New Moves

2007-12-08T14:05:00.000-08:00

A couple clips of Jonas busting his best Bill Cosby moves. Also, photos of Tricia, Jonas and three of her students playing last weekend at Alve, and finally, snow. It snowed heavy and often last week, but it wasn't warm enough to stick, so now we're left with a big sloppy mess, which is worse, I think, than consistently cold and snowbound.

Jonas is just getting warmed up in the second clip, but in the first, you can really see what the little man can do.

A note about the clothes ... these students attend the top high school in the prefecture, and for whatever reason, they are not subjected to a dress code. They are free to wear jeans, grow their hair long, dye it any color they like, wear crazy Engrish t-shirts. It's the only school I've heard of that doesn't require uniforms -- although you wouldn't know it by looking at them. Most of the students CHOOSE to sport uniforms, though they personalize them a bit, as you can see by this photo. Also, this was taken on a Saturday. They didn't have school, and they still wore them.

Jonas Goes Native and Jason Goes to the Doctor

2007-12-05T20:42:00.000-08:00

Jonas babbles constantly these days, and over Thanksgiving, we learned that it’s not just jibberish. Nomi and Mai told us that Jonas was saying “de-ki-ta” – “I did it!” – to show he's pleased with himself, which is often. You can hear it below if you listen closely. Poor kid. He probably has lots to say, and his parents are just too thick to understand him. No wonder he’s gone from crying when we drop him off at daycare to now crying when he has to leave in the afternoon. I wouldn’t want to go home, either.

Last weekend I had a pretty serious ear infection and sore throat, but by Monday I was feeling OK – except that my right eye was watery, flushed red and sort of droopy. So anyway, like I said, I was tired and all but felt well enough, so I soldiered on and went to school hoping nobody would notice. It was the first thing anyone noticed. My supervisor looked at me, stepped back and asked, “Jason-san, are you OK?” I tried to tell her I was fine, but she insisted I leave immediately and see the doctor – who told me exactly what I knew to be true, that “yes, it is very bad to look at” but not contagious. People at school are already afraid to talk to me, and I didn’t want to give them more ammunition, so I stayed home for three days until it mostly cleared up.

Visiting the doctor (and Japan’s quasi-universal health care system) was quite an experience. I learned how to say my ear, eye and throat hurt in Japanese, which in the end wasn’t necessary, as the doctor was an older guy who studied in Baltimore for two years and spoke excellent English. The examination was odd, though. Instead of lying on, or even sitting on, a bed I sat in my chair and he sat in his, with a desk in between us, which he had to lean over and across to listen to my lungs, look in my ears and check out my eye. It felt like a job interview gone wrong. He prescribed me five different medicines – three pills, some eye drops and a mystery powder – and sent me on my way. The medicines and the visit cost about 10 bucks. Tricia advised me against posted a pic of my eye, but as is too often the case with her sound advice, I ignored it.

Sugoi!

2007-12-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

The highs and lows of daily life here seem to hit with more intensity than they did back home, probably because we have less to distract us (no TV, no family, no familiar friends; just each other – yikes! ). As such, one good day can fill up a whole week. This was a good week.

Miraculously, my student Hikaru passed the entrance examination to get into Akita International University, making him one of the 20 out of hundreds of applicants (so I’m told) to be accepted in this first wave of entrance exams. (I’m puzzled by the application process, but apparently there are a series of examinations, and you get a second and third chance, so if you didn’t pass the first time around, you can apply again and take a couple more cracks at it, unless you scored horribly, in which case – McDonalds).

Anyway, Hikaru’s acceptance stirred up great cheer in the halls of Akita Tech, more so than it would if he were at one of the more academic high schools. Hikaru was still in class when the notice was posted online, so we celebrated without him. The vice principal thanked me for my “strict guidance and disciplined teaching, ” and the principal grabbed my hand, held onto it for an uncomfortable amount of time and repeated “sugoi, sugoi” (I’ve heard this translated as “cool” “wonderful” “shocking” “surprising” – and all of the above were appropriate). As is often the case here, perception doesn’t quite match reality, in terms of my role. I’m sure I helped Hikaru a good bit, but the amount of effort he put into preparing for the exam dwarfed anything I did. For example, he wrote a full-length essay, all in English, every week for the last two months to prepare for the written portion of the exam. That’s how he spent his free time. Studying English. Ah, the wild life of a teenager.

To give you an idea of what’s at stake for these kids (or at least what they believe is at stake), two of Tricia’s best students applied to AIU. One passed. One did not. Tricia sought out the one who didn’t pass, found her surrounded by friends, and all of her friends were crying. Tricia – or as I call her at home, “Scrapiron,” as she is quite the tough taskmistresses – gave her a big hug, and apparently, the student wouldn’t let go. (I related this story later in the week to a teacher who taught at Tricia’s all-girls school for six years. He laughed at the sobbing group and said, “I know this scene.”).

The day after the results were announced, Tricia told her students that a kid from Akita Tech got in. They were shocked (sugoi!), as were the English teachers at Chuo, where I go on Tuesdays. My friend Nomi’s reaction: “Really? That is (expletive) crazy. I am very surprised. No offense.”

Crazy or not, for Hikaru, the good times are about to roll. First, I believe the student body at AIU is something like 60-70 percent female, which has to be a welcome change of scenery for him, having just spent three years at a high school that has 900 students, only 80 of whom are girls. Secondly, and I have heard many an adult Japanese confirm this: many students exhaust themselves to get into university, but once they’re in, their studies become secondary and their social lives explode. I can only hope this holds true for Hikaru. Going forward, he must pass his high school winter exams, which will be no problem at all for him, and then, it’s nothing but comic books and video games until graduation in the spring. The pressure, at long last, is off.

Although I had to pick Jonas up from daycare, I made sure to steal a few moments at the end of the day to congratulate Hikaru. He’s a kid whose younger brother dropped out of school after junior high (unheard of here), and I don’t think anyone in his family has ever left the country, or possibly, even Akita. As part of the AIU program, Hikaru will study abroad (likely in Europe) for a year, which will change him in ways that studying only in Japan could not. I’m thrilled for him. We chatted a bit about how he felt, how overwhelmed he was and how proud I was of him. He told me he called his mother with the news between classes, and that, more than anything, he was relieved it was all over. And finally, as I was leaving, he smiled and told me, “Now, I’m free.”

Akita in the New York Times

2007-11-29T20:38:00.001-08:00

Check out this NYT article and slideshow to learn about Akita (where we live in Japan). The onsen area that is mentioned is where we had our first onsen experience in Japan. We camped on the lake that is in the article and plan on snowboarding/skiing in this area this winter! The slideshow is beautiful and makes Akita look much more glamorous than it really is. Check it out:
New York Times travel article and slideshow about Akita
(Even though Akita is not glamorous, we do love it. As they say here, Akita is full of 'the nature.' We would take the nature over glamour any day.)

That Bites

2007-11-28T03:09:00.000-08:00

I think this says it all ...

When I picked Jonas up from daycare, he was standing where he always stands, in the corner watching a Japanese kids show (which they only have on at the end of the day, to help manage the rush of mass departures). After walking in the door, three daycare workers ran up to me with pained looks on their faces, repeating sumimasen, sumimasen (sorry). I looked at Jonas, noticed something on this face, and figured he must have fallen (which happens every few minutes -- sometimes from great heights. the boy is a climber). I shrugged, shook my head and told them it was OK. It wasn't until he ran up to me that I noticed the teeth marks imprinted on his cheek. He seemed fine, and I told the ladies not to worry.

And they don't need to worry, because payback will come soon and swiftly. The kid who bit my kid is going to get his -- I'll not have Jonas fall victim to the well-documented Japanese plague of bullying. Jonas will go Mike Tyson on this so-called "friend," just as soon as I figure out who he
(or she) is. Jonas' bite will look like a love nip once this score is settled.

Thanksgiving in Japan

2007-11-26T04:14:00.000-08:00

So we didn't have any family around, or a Western-style oven, or even a turkey, but we managed to celebrate a pretty enjoyable Thanksgiving nonetheless in Japan, thanks to some new friends, and a few giant bottles of beer. My good friend Nomi brought his wife Mai, and two kids Nene and Yozan, over to our tiny apartment on Sunday for a new-fashioned Thanksgiving.

I was a bit handcuffed in the kitchen, as our "stove" is about the size of a toaster oven, with two gas burners on top (this is typical of all Japanese homes, not just ours). Also Yozan is allergic to milk and cheese. But I managed to knock out a decent Shepherd's Pie, some stuffing with sausage and apples, and green beans with onions and almonds. Nomi and Mai provided the sushi, and we all (except Mai and the kids) drank the beer.

There was no football, but plenty of rough play ...

That's tissue in Nene's mouth. She had so much fun, she bit her lip.

I think Yozan and Nene have been in a few too many pictures. When the camera came out, they struck a pose.

East meets (sorta of) West.

Here is where Tricia bought the apple pie.

And here's the dude who baked it.

Everyone played nice, for a awhile.

And then there was a fight over the Legos tub.

Hey, there's Nomi. Jonas loved that there were other Japanese speakers in the house. We learned that he has learned some Japanese phrases.

The kids were dying to jump into Jonas' crib.

Yozan plopped down in Jason's lap. Jonas got a tad jealous, and climbed past Yozan to claim a spot.

Japan -- Unlikely and Quirky

2007-11-20T03:27:00.000-08:00

Months ago, back in America, Tricia had a conversation with a friend who lived in Japan for a year or two on the same JET program. Her husband was in the military (and flew the Stealth Bomber while stationed in Missouri), and she taught at schools in Okinawa. When asked to describe the Japanese, she had a one-word description: "They're quirky."

I think about this a lot. It came to mind again the other day while reading a story about the big whaling controversy . A Japanese whaling fleet just took off for Antarctica, where they plan to kill humpback whales -- which are protected and were nearly hunted to extinction just a few years back. This didn't strike me as quirky. I found it sad. I mean, give the whales a chance to repopulate. Then we can eat them. I have no problem with folks chowing down on some whale, although, obviously, I expect many Americans do (this led to a conversation this afternoon with my friend Nomi about eating animals with warm personalities. He said he once ate squirrel while living in Tennessee, which tasted like chicken. He also wanted to make it clear that Japanese do not eat dog, adding "They do in China, though. There's a saying 'The Chinese will eat anything but their desk and chair, so they can still work.'"

Anyway, the quirky comment came to mind when reading this graph of the whaling story:

"Families waved little flags emblazoned with smiling whales and the crew raised a toast with cans of beer, while a brass band played "Popeye the Sailor Man."

This, in a sentence, captures Japan for me.

Mallrats and my new Man Purse

2007-11-18T04:24:00.000-08:00

Ho Ho Ho, crispy or original?

The mall may be dead in America* but it is very much alive here in Akita, Japan. We needed to buy a humidifier for Jonas, who can’t seem to shake his cough, so we decided to make an afternoon of it and drove to Aeon, our local (and as far as I know, only) shopping mall. It seemed as though all of Akita was there. This was one bustling mall, and it reminded me of my early teenage years, where many a weekend was spent loitering at the mall and playing video games, first at WhiteLakes and later, at Westridge (which sucked the life, the customers and the Orange Julius out of WhiteLakes, turning it into the ghost mall, and later, a government office building).

I spent many a yen trying to win Jonas a Miffy.

Jonas wasn’t the only one to get a present. Tricia bought me a man purse that latches onto my belt loop, pictured below. I’d seen many a Japanese hipster wearing these, and I have wanted one of my own ever since. This is definitely a trend I’m exporting to the US. This was my Father's Day gift, Tricia informed me, as last Father's Day fell on my birthday, allowing me to join all the December-birthday whiners who bellyache about getting cheated out of their special day. Tricia finally made amends, and I'm glad she waited.

Saturday, our day at the mall, was sunny and beautiful. We should have gone Sunday, which was rainy, and later, snowy. So Jonas played in an indoor play area, and we watched a movie later in the day (Jonas watched some, and then got up and played some more).

* I was once falsely accused by a teacher of skipping school to attend a mall opening, the celebrity marshal of which was none other than Vanna White. I was in seventh grade, and was sick the day Westridge opened, yet my gym teacher figured I must have ditched school to eat Sbarro pizza and rub elbows with Vanna – which, I certainly would have done, had I not been sick. The rest of the year, that gym teacher referred to me as Vanna.

Of course, the new mall also proved to be the death knell for the old one, WhiteLakes, the real and true mall of my youth. Years later, I went to White Lakes just to see what was what -- and I swear I am not making this up -- the only shops still open were the Footlocker, an Orange Julius, a men’s clothing store and a jewelry store. Employees from all four were lounging on couches watching TV in the middle of the mall, and when they saw me, they all scrambled to their respective posts.

In our very own hometown (actually, the swank area of Mission, where the very rich like George Brett and Tom Watson live) the city demolished the Mission Mall (which was certainly dated, but perfectly fine) and were in the process of building, right on top of the old mall, a new outdoor mall – or as they’re known these days, a Lifestyle Center. This, to me, seemed like a bizarre waste of money and resources, although it’s apparently a trend that has been spreading like a weed throughout America for some time now, like poor people voting Republican. I can’t wait for this trend to go the way of the Mall, and I expect in another 10 years, they’ll tear all of them down and replace them with even newer Lifestyle Centers, but with roofs.

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This afternoon at the grocery store, I noticed, for the first time, a new item in the seafood section: a turtle. I wasn't the only one surprised by this. The turtle (there was only one) was wrapped in a red mesh bag, and it wasn't entirely clear what it was. This guy next to me poked it a few times, laughed, and then moved on. So I poked it, too. What I poked was its shell, and upon being poked, its little legs wiggled. I considered buying it and setting it free, or taking it home as a pet, but it was nearly $40. We're on a budget, afterall.

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As I mentioned, it snowed today. I would comment about the weather, but this fellow JET teacher has already done so in a post about the cold weather, and he said it better than I could.

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The highlight of the mall, for me, was watching these dudes rock out in the arcade. Notice, they are not individuals playing Guitar Freaks (same as guitar hero), but they are all three playing the same song at the same time, including the drummer. And they were flawless. The other two videos are of Jonas dancing and crawling, his favorite activities.

You Can Dance If You Want To

2007-11-13T02:26:00.000-08:00

"Man, you're like school in the summertime. No class,"
-- Rudy, Fat Albert.

Lets Larry King this one …

I just returned from an intense study session with Hikaru, a third-year student at Akita Technical High School, who is trying to get into Akita International University, where the application process consists of a 90-minute essay and an oral interview, all in English. If he doesn’t pass, I’ll feel pretty low, but he’ll be crushed. The boy is beyond stressed. My supervisor fears he is getting a permanent crease between his eyebrows. I told her its just acne.

In many ways, Hikaru is at a significant disadvantage, particularly coming from a technical school, where English ranks just below Home Ec. in terms of importance. For example, at Tricia’s loddy-da all-girls school, where they enjoy catered meals and therapeutic massages, interview questions from previous years are all on file (not sample questions, but the ACTUAL questions). At Akita Tech, where we warm ourselves with Bic lighters, the only thing we have on file are discipline reports.

Thankfully, we have Tricia on our side. It took some coaxing, but she cut short her afternoon soak in the on-campus onsen to copy off the questions for us. Hopefully, they’ll help.

It’s a ridiculous myth that all – or even most – of Japanese students are hard-working, studious and respectful. Particularly at the technical, boy-heavy schools, students more often are obnoxious, indifferent or asleep, particularly when it comes to English. I find it hard to blame them. For many of these students, their future is more or less cast once they enter high school. They’ll work in factories and for auto manufacturers – and make a very respectable wage (more than a teacher), according to one of my co-workers. This can be depressing when you’re the one teaching them English, yet you do your best, and typically, at least a handful of the students are into what you’re doing, and for those dozing, at least you can have fun bouncing coins off their heads.

…

Last week, I played in a teacher-vs.-teacher baseball game. I was more than a little rusty, which was obvious when I warmed up, yet the manager insisted I pitch, even though I pleaded with him to play me anywhere else, and chucked a few throws over the fence to drive home the point (even when I played baseball, some 15 years ago, I never pitched, as I’m quite wild, like Nuke Laloosh, but without the good stuff, and less command). When I finally conceded, I asked one of the English teachers whether I should just toss it in there, or really let loose. He said, “This is a serious game. Play serious.” I tried, and I was seriously awful. I walked the first batter. Nearly hit the second. Walked the third. And gave up a pop fly to the fourth, which was dropped. That’s when I walked off the mound, insisting I play somewhere else. They put me at catcher, where I did reasonably well (every time I made a nifty stop, the coach yelled, “Good catcher! Good catcher!” I’m certain he was mocking me). At the plate, I was so-so, as the Japanese say. I walked twice, fouled a few off, and struck out. I later found out that their pitcher played in college, as did our manager. It’s almost a week later, and my legs are still recovering. So is my pride.

…

Saturday night, we went to my good friend and coworker Nomi’s (know-me) house for dinner. We had a blast, yet we forgot the camera, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Nomi, who teaches science, lived in America for a year, and met his wife at graduate school there, so they both know English very well. They have two kids, a four-year-old boy and a girl, Nene, seven. Jonas loved it there, and after some sake (for us, not Jonas), Nomi kept saying, “Every weekend, you’ll come here. Every weekend!” His wife, Mie, who did all the cooking, was noticeably silent. We’re going to try and have them over for a Thanksgiving-esk meal.

The great thing about Nomi is that he has a tremendous sense of humor and loves to curse, which I find hilarious. Late in the evening, either when Jonas tried to eat a lump of clay, or when his son was bonking Jonas on the head with an inflatable bat, Nomi blurts out, “Maybe he’s f-cked up. Maybe he’s just f-cked up.” (Tricia won’t let me curse here). It wasn’t clear who he meant. He also tried to convince Tricia that his seven-year-old daughter could handle watching Jonas and his boy upstairs, alone, while we all went down stairs and drank more sake (Tricia overruled this). And later, when Jonas was dancing on top of a coffee table in the adjoining room, he said, “Don’t worry. If he falls and is hurt, we will hear him cry. And then we will know.” I agree. Let the boy dance.

Ikebana exhibit

2007-11-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

One of my JTEs (Japanese Teacher of English) gave me tickets to an Ikebana exhibit, because her work was part of the show. Jonas and I went to see the exhibit today. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement and it is quite beautiful. There is a scene in Lost in Translation where Charlotte walks into a room of women practicing Ikebana. At one of my schools, there is always a flower arrangement in the women's bathroom outside the teacher's room. It is always beautiful and simple. Just a few different flowers, plants or twigs.

This was arranged by the JTE who gave me the tickets.

Jonas was more interested in the chairs.

If you are interested in seeing a few more pictures, click below.

For Mature Audiences Only

2007-11-07T04:30:00.001-08:00

Tricia is in bed (or in futon, rather), so I thought I'd use this opportunity to post the two questionable paintings that were -- at least from a student perspective -- unfairly barred from participating in last weekend's art contest. The whole scene was odd. The homeroom teachers, at the very least, had to have known what was up, yet they allowed the paintings into the gymnasium for the big ceremonial unveiling, only to order them right back out again after the, um, tarp was dropped. This gave the offending students an even brighter spotlight, and let me tell you, they enjoyed it.

I'm just guessing here, but I think the baseline criteria for the competition was to come up with a design that best represents the students at Akita Tech.

It's hard to get any more accurate than this.

It's a Festivus

2007-11-07T03:36:00.001-08:00

We spent a sunny Sunday afternoon at my school's festival (one of the few sunny days we've had recently. as people love to tell us, Akita has the highest suicide rate in all of Japan -- for 11 straight years. "Winter in Akita, no sun," Sasaki sensei likes to say). The students spent Friday and Saturday preparing for the big day, which for some reason, featured a lot of cross-dressing.

Then main event on Saturday was an art competition (a workday for me. ostensibly, i get Sunday and Monday off, but like I said, Sunday we were at school for the festival, and Monday I'm playing in an inter-teacher baseball game, and later, a teacher drinking party). Each home room spent an afternoon on these, and they were pretty amazing, in my opinion. I was one of the judges for the competition, and below is the painting I voted for. It didn't win.

Neither did this one, yet I like it. I'm not sure why the kids decided to paint Arnold, but I thought it was a pretty good 80s likeness.

This one did win, and I nearly voted for it. There was a complicated story behind the creation of it, which I didn't understand. The little guy in the corner holding up the peace sign teaches mechanical engineering, and apparently, is very will liked by the students.

These two were left over from previous years.

Two other paintings (not pictured) were ceremoniously booted out of the competition. There was was a real buzz surrounding them before the judging took place, and when they were unveiled, I realized why. Due to their graphic content, Tricia has forbidden me from posting them on our blog. I did manage to snap shots of each with my phone, though, and when Tricia isn't looking, I'll throw them up here. They're actually not that bad. Most of the teachers were laughing, and even the principal managed a smile. In fact, the biggest controversy was that I used my cell phone to take pictures of them during the unveiling. Cell phones are forbidden, even during a festival, apparently. My supervisor kindly told me I needed to put it away, then added, "Don't worry. No one will care. They understand why you would be interested in these paintings."

These guys were selling curry. I asked them if they made it. They said yes. I said, no thanks.

This girl (name forgotten) always tries to talk to me, I think, because she's in the brass band, and I told her that I knew how to play the trumpet. We also both like Radiohead.

Jonas loved these girls dressed as Pokemon and Poo. They were very sweet. And short.

So students at this school study all sorts of engineering, computers, drafting, architecture. It reaffirms, for me, that we seriously need to rethink education in America. This is the positive side of tracking, in my opinion. In addition to academic classes, students here work on projects in whatever field they're interested. Below is a solar-powered car built by a student I'm trying to help get into Akita International University, where all the classes are taught in English. It's a prestigious school, and I really hope he makes it. He works unbelievably hard.

And finally, a video of little Jonas, playing in a puddle.

Chuo 35, Akita Kogyo 10

2007-10-31T04:04:00.000-07:00

The Akita rugby title match was held over the weekend (like a state championship in the states), with the winner moving on to the nationals in late December in Osaka (I think). This is a very big deal. Two of my four schools, Akita Kogyo (my base school) and Chuo (which I visit every Tuesday) faced off in the final, so obviously, I went and cheered for both squads. It was tied 3-3 at the half, but Chuo blew things up in the second. They clearly were the stronger team. I spent one half with the Chuo students and teachers, and the second half with the Akita Kogyo crew, as not to show any favoritism. As one teacher said, “Jason, you are a winner, and you are a loser.” Don’t I know it.

Backing up to the semifinal, though … Chuo advanced by sort-of defeating yet another one of my schools, Oga Kogyo (Kogyo meaning technical, which means a lot of these kids go on to be mechanics, auto workers and machinists – which might lead you to think, “Oh, they’re brutes, so no surprise they’d be good at such a rough and tumble sport.” Yet, Chuo is either the second- or third-best academic high school in the entire prefecture, depending on whom you ask. So go figure).

Anyway, Chuo didn’t actually beat Oga. They tied. And, as I understand it, instead of playing into the night until one team scored the decisive whatever it’s called in rugby, they simply stopped play at the end of the clock and called the game even. The winner was decided by pulling a name out of a hat (or as my co-teacher put it, the winner was chosen by fortune). The official drew Chuo, so Chuo wins; Oga loses, its season finished. By itself, this is pretty cruel. But, what really has people blue: this is the final season for Oga’s coach. He’s retiring. Oga has never made the national tournament, and the consensus seems to be that they would have easily handled Akita Kogyo in the title game. So I guess you could say fortune was unkind to Oga.
Or as B-san said to me, “That f---ing sucks, you know?”

And consider this: B-san said Chuo expects donations from alumni and parents to exceed 80 million yen, or about $700,000. That seemed unbelievable to me. So I asked him again, and he said, yes, 80 million yen. My friend Ishii at Oga confirmed the figure, and said that Oga would have received a similar, though somewhat smaller, windfall. It’s the first trip to the finals for Chuo in 41 years. Oga has never been. What drama.
I wondered how the kids were holding up, seeing that some teachers were still moping about a week later. Ishii claimed the students were totally fine, saying that Rugby is a sport played by gentleman, and that rules are rules, and everybody understands and accepts this, and that the team is judged not by the final score, but by how honorable they play -- and most importantly, how graciously they handle the outcome. I asked a few of the kids, and indeed, they seemed OK (although, I have my doubts they understood exactly what I was asking. Japanese kids are savvy, and they’ve learned over the years to answer any question they don’t totally understand with a “Yeeeessss,” or just as often, “Okaaay.”).

I’m not so sure. Either way, I am enjoying the win, and suffering through the loss. My friend B-san says that, of course, he’s going with the team and students to cheer Chuo on in the finals (he begins most of his sentences with, “Of course,” which often adds real intrigue to straightforward statements such as, “Of course, I’m fine,” and “Of course, I brought my lunch”). I wondered whether I could tag along for the trip, and he said he’d put in a good word for me. I also asked if there would be limited space, thinking that most of the teachers would want to be on hand for such a historic event.
“Of course not,” he said. “No one will want to go. They will be on a bus with kids for over 12 hours. It will be just like work!”

(my mild-mannered supervisor at Chuo. I've never seen her so animated)

(these girls claimed to be the source of Chuo's inspiration.)

Before the big match, the students at Akita Kogyo practiced their cheers for a very long time. I stayed for about 30 minutes, then took off (it was Saturday). I asked one of the teachers how much longer they would rehearse. "Who knows. Maybe 15 minutes," he said. "Maybe another hour."

Jonas was Dances with Children

2007-10-27T03:47:00.001-07:00

Our favorite daycare worker has either moved on to bigger and better things, or is simply on vacation. Either way, she is missed. We have a little notebook that we send with Jonas to daycare each day detailing what he ate for breakfast, when he woke up, his views on global warming, etc. At the end of each day, she would write a little message in English about his day. They were very sweet, and sadly, they have been missing the last week. Obviously, part of their humor lies in the broken syntax; yet, I wouldn't want anyone to think we were having a laugh at her expense. She put a lot of work into these messages, and they are, for us, comforting. There is a real sweetness to each message, and like I said, if she is gone, she will be missed.

Home Sick

2007-10-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

Jonas and I are sick today. To borrow a phrase from my supervisor, Jonas "caught the fever," and was in rough shape last night. He sweat like a madman this afternoon during a four-hour nap, and now he's good as new. If only we all could rebound so easily. Spent the weekend in Yuzawa at Mary Ellen and Andrew's place. Andrew and Jason went to a bar to celebrate some dude's birthday, and Tricia, Mary Ellen (and Jonas) stayed in for a movie and popcorn. Jonas was on the cranky side for part of the weekend, as was Jason. Now we know why (no cracks about Jason being cranky ALL the time).

Contemporary. Traditional. Jason.

After an onsen, one of the proprieters (who Mary Ellen and Andrew) know
had the kitchen fix us some dinner. Delicious.

Everyone paused for one picture, then back to eating.

The power water of Yuzawa. Jonas was more interested in jumping in than drinking.

Home Cooked Meal

2007-10-19T04:37:00.001-07:00

Home-economic students at one of the schools I visit, which shall remain nameless, prepare lunch for me every week. It's very sweet, and I'm partly to blame. The first meal, a combo of tuna and pasta, was pretty tasty, and I was a bit over the top in my thanks and praise. Since then, they insist I eat with them each week, which I do, but the meals have been somewhat hit and miss. This past lunch, a dish called yakisoba, was a big whiff, but I managed to choke down most of it. Here is a picture, along with some other random shots.
The home-ec class consists mainly of girls, save these guys who I eat with. The one smiling with the pink apron also is the school's star pitcher.

Try as I might, I could not get any of the home-ec girls to look up. They did not want to be photographed, so they just ignored me.

That round deal in the middle of fried noodles was a boiled quail egg. Yum.

View from the third floor of my school.

He's handy with a broom, and gang signs.

A typical student lunch:pasta sandwich, rice ball. Delicious.

These students were not camera shy. They were cold though. While male students here have donned their wool winter uniforms, the girls soldier on wearing their skirts. So during class, they all put blankets over their legs to keep warm.

Happy Birthday Brothers DeGraff

2007-10-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hokkaido Continued and Concluded

2007-10-15T03:50:00.001-07:00

“The sea was angry that day my friends …”
-- George Costanza
Not wanting to expose Jonas to the elements any further, we dug deep into our dwindling wallets and left the campgrounds behind for the rest of the trip, opting for budget-busting hotels the rest of the way. I suppose you can’t put a price on your child’s health. Believe me, I tried. Tricia, however, would sooner shove me off the ledge of a mountain in order to prevent her baby from falling and skinning his knee, so hotels it was. Actually, the accommodations were a nice change, and at least one of them, a traditional Japanese ryokan, was a new and thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Leaving Daisetsuzan National Park, we hopped on the expressway (which was everything you’d hope for in an expressway. The speed limit appeared to be turned off (an observation confirmed by fellow Hokkaido traveler Andrew) and the traffic was nonexistent. But unregulated speed comes at a price. The expressways in Japan can be expensive – a trip that might cost a few dollars in America cost us around $60 in Japan. This forces drivers to choose between frugality and swift travel. We opted for swift travel). We sped past Sapporo, drove around the port city of Otaru, which is alleged to have a famous canal area, and ultimately decided to bypass both, heading to Niseko, one of the top ski areas in all of Japan, and a beautiful place to hike around in the Fall.

After a white-knuckled drive to the top of the mountain, we stopped and ended up staying at the first place we crossed – a small but spectacularly comfortable Japanese inn. Breakfast, dinner and a round-the-clock onsen were included in the price. The place had a capacity of about 20, and when we arrived, there were only two rooms left. In addition to six couples, there was a group of rowdy Japanese dudes, who dined in their own private room and, from the sound of things, were there to live large. They threw down an astonishing amount of beer and Sake, as evidenced by the parade of bottles heading from the kitchen to their dining area. So I was surprised to find them not only awake and ready to go early the next morning, but also middle-aged and very conservative looking. Even more puzzling, four of them were dressed head-to-toe in hard-core hiking gear – and two of them wore gray suits. One of the hiker guys asked me to take a picture of the group posing in front of the inn (a very Japanese thing to do, it seems), which I did, before they all piled into a stretch minivan and took off together, disappearing into the mountains.

Once again, we loved the onsen, and dinner stood out as the top meal we’ve had in Japan (a close second would be the restaurant near the zoo, where entrées featured a piece of meat from one of the zoo animals). The dinner consisted of numerous small and delicious dishes -- crayfish, sushi, vegetables, rice -- and a large pot of soup with chunks of fish, leek, potato, and more crayfish. Breakfast was just OK, as neither of us are really down with the traditional Japanese breakfast, here or anywhere. You can only adapt so much.

We left Niseko, did some fun hiking with some very serious Japanese mountaineers (pics below). One glaring difference between Japan and America: the high numbers of extremely active old timers here. The mountain was filled with oldsters who take there hiking, and stretching, very seriously. They were all decked out in extensive and serious-looking hiking gear, so serious that I began to worry whether the hike would be too much for us and little Jonas, whose balance isn’t the best even on level ground. As you can see below, I needn’t have worried. All that gear for a stroll on a wooden, man-made path.

Along the way we stopped off at a dairy where, among many highlights, was a goat tethered to a stake in the middle of a field where dozens of kids were playing. The ice cream here was delicious. And the goat, well-mannered.

We spent an unremarkable night in a cabin by a lake, then met friends Andrew and Mary Ellen for beers (so-so) and dinner (pretty good) in Hakodate, the final night of our trip. It was here where Jonas, for the first time in front of my eyes, clearly bowed to another toddler upon first meeting him, drawing laughs from all the Japanese onlookers and surprise from me (Tricia was inside still eating). It was a well-executed bow. I was proud.

After a night of good sleep, and finally, Internet access, we boarded the super-charged, two-hour ferry boat that would speed us from Hokkaido to the main island in luxury and comfort, before a short drive home. Those were our plans.

I started the ferry ride by inhaling a $10-dollar sandwich consisting of oddly colored meats and cheeses. This was a mistake. Not only was it overpriced and far from great, I would struggle the next two hours to keep it down. Getting on the ferry, I hadn’t really noticed the rain and whipping wind (the only bad weather the whole trip). I should have. The nasty weather, coupled with a ferry that promised to be twice as fast as its competition, made for a nauseating combination. In other words, once the ferry got going, it really got going. Scores of people – by my guess, at least 50 – got sick. People vomited on the floor, into barf bags, into just about anything they could get their hands on. Trash cans overflowed with sagging bags of vomit. A line of sick, sweating and green-hued Japanese snaked out the bathroom door and down the hallway, trying with everything they had to maintain their composure. The ferry workers, who ran around wearing sanitary masks, actually ran out of those little air sickness bags, and started handing out full-sized trash bags for people to lose it into. It was a long, stomach-turning two hours. Surprisingly, the three of us managed to hold it together, and hold everything in -- a truly remarkable feat for me, as a winding road can turn my stomach. Tricia was nauseous, but held steady. Jonas was oblivious, although he fell down a lot. It was a rough closing to our trip, but at least the weather saved its worst for last.