| Sunday, July 23, 2006 |
| The Lotus Watchers |
 Hey, what kind of fools would be out at 4am to watch lotus flowers open?
Us kind of fools, actually, and several hundred other Okayamans. The lotus flowers at Korakuen only open for 4 days out of the year, so the marketing geniuses at the park make it an event on one morning, charge admission, and people flock to the park to admire them before daybreak. There were rooms open for tea ceremony, women in kimono, instrumentalists, a handful of loud ALTs that hadn't gone home yet, and ponds of giant leaves revealing flowers that were doing... nothing. But, it was all very cultural and dignified, and the park was gorgeous in pre-dawn light.
 No, Besty! Don't eat the lotus!! While posing for this picture, an concerned old man nearly jabbed her with his umbrella before I reassured him that she was okay. Foreign (probably), less-than-sober (perhaps), narcoleptic (blame the flowers), and sprawled on the lawn... but okay. The Lotus Hour was the pivotal event of last weekend's Saturday that never ended, but merely bled into Sunday. We kicked off with dinner, karaoke, and Aussie Bar, bidding sayonara all along the way. The Korakuen visit was succeeded by walking the city until sunrise, brunch with SC Claire, serious Big Rain, soothing preschoolers from the scary thunderstorm while playing at the orphanage, and a farewell round of Scrabble with Adametal.
 Kitty-chan mania! Japanese dress partygoers, meet J-girls on a bench. 25 people go traditional in yukata and kimono, and I'm the only modern one in my housewife attire. (UV-blocking gloves in the apron pocket-- have to keep this skin ivory and wrinkle-free. I may look young, but I'm actually 42 and raising 3 children alone since my salaryman husband lives in Tokyo. Better keep up the pretenses of youth or they'll kick me off of JET, yo.)
 I know every social occasion for the past 2 months has carried the Sayonara trademark, but no more. I'm now Adam-less and Chris-less in Okayama, and officially have no more tears left for British men heading for other horizons. A final Joyfull night this weekend with Chris-Bae-chan was nearly diverted by landslides on every road I tried to take to his town, but I made it after a trip up the expressway and 2 and half hours in the Guppy.
After taking this picture: "You look like a hobo."
Bae-chan: "I look like a homo? Well, miss, maybe I just haven't found the right woman."
(30 years, no luck? Bae-chan, ganbatte!)
Summer has yet to fully hit, due to a tremendous rainy season that has caused floods and landslides all over the country. Many of those who have died are bedridden elderly that are left in their houses to perish when their family is away. Big Rain caused school to close on the last day of term, so instead of a dull ceremony, the end of the year was marked with utter confusion after arriving at a school empty of students, having several teachers laugh and indicate surprise at seeing me when I slipped in as the bell was ringing, and spending 30 minutes in bewilderment through the staff meeting since no one explained to me what was going on. Two years, still no clue... |
posted by Raychaa @ 7:42 PM  |
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| Friday, July 21, 2006 |
| Cow with guns? No, kids with knives... |
For all the ridiculous safety precautions here, where "Abunai, yo!" ("Danger! Watch yo'self!") is one of the most common phrases you'll ever hear, and entire SAFETY DAY afternoons are devoted to making kids ride around cones in the parking lot in helmets and reflector sashes, there are some surprises. For example, 6-year-olds are set free in a room full of large, sharp knives and dangerously rollable melons and pumpkins while the teachers do other things and the ALT screams "ABUNAI! ABUNAI!" silently in her head. These are first-term first graders, and many have yet to fully master the art of using a spoon, but oddly they can use huge knives with spherical vegetables, and there was neither loss of limb nor digit.
This was the second of two Vegetable Parties this month, where the kids serve up what they've grown in the school garden. The first was a simple kindergarten production, and the culinary feast is known commonly as "salad." That event fell the same day as my birthday, and in addition to the "Happy Birthday Lachel!" chalkboard drawings, hearing the mangled celebratory song from children with lettuce pieces dribbling out of their mouths was perhaps the highlight of an otherwise unmemorable day. My birthday falls on July 7, which is an auspicious holiday called Tanabata. It's a romantic story about 2 lovers banished to opposite ends of the galaxy and only reconvening on this one day, but the significance of the date is boiled down as "Lucky 7! Lucky 7!" by my future-gambling-addict kids. My vice-principal gave me some heavenly Tanabata mochi (pun intended, sorry...), and I also got a cucumber. And an egg from the school chicken coop. The second vegetable party was an elaborate slice 'n' dice 'n' boil 'n' blend affair, with pumpkin soup, steamed eggplant with homemade dressing, kebabs, grilled peppers, and fruit salad. It was tons of fun, and better than any lunch I would have cooked for myself. (And, if you want to know if I wore my own personal apron, the answer is yes. No headscarf or mask, though-- I still maintain some dignity.)
It seems that many schools in the US have metal detectors to keep knives OUT of schools, but here they trust even the youngest kids to use them properly, without fear of the kids going postal. Maybe the metal-detector fear-factor applies (with good reason) to urban schools, but it's nice living in the countryside, and I love how competent and independent my elementary kids are encouraged to be. However, if one of them had sliced off a finger or acted out a scene from a slasher movie, I might be singing a different tune. In reference to my blog title/theme of things that don't seem right together, Children+Knives makes about as much sense to me as Cows+Guns. (In the Cows With Guns parody song, the cows lead an uprising to fight for bovine freedom, and just before becoming Cows on Buns, they are saved by Chickens in Choppers. I know, it doesn't make much sense. Cows have no way to hold guns! And Chickens are too small for choppers. In analogy form, Cows:Guns :: Kids:Knives. I thought of this while hovering in fear around the gourd-chopping block. There is a connection and deep meaning here, or else I've been hitting the White Cider again.) But, it works out, all my paranoia to the contrary, and the food was delicious. Without Frisbee Neilu to head up the Crazy Thanksgiving festivities this year, maybe we can hire the kids at Butcher Knives 'R' Us instead? |
| posted by Raychaa @ 12:26 AM |
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| Wednesday, July 05, 2006 |
| So long (and thanks for all the fish). |
Hard to believe I'm saying sayonara to the JET crew yet again, but not leaving. I pegged myself as one of the most likely people to not make it through the year, and my theme song for the fall was Joni Mitchell's "Urge for Going." However, that choice itself is prophetic: "I've got the urge for going, but I never seem to go." Roll on, year 3!! Birdie Glass and I organized the Sayonara Party on Naoshima Island, which went off well despite minor disasters the whole way along. They wouldn't rent this place out to JETs after it was trashed a few years back, so it required a bit of maneuvering and sweet-talking to get the venue in the first place. We nearly pulled out 2 or 3 times while making concurrent back-up plans, but somehow everything fell into place at the last minute. Birdie/Barbie, our stealth nihonjin, is already rocking out as president.  That lovely ojiisan is a caretaker at Tsutsuji-sou, where we stayed. Does he look friendly and approachable? Don't be fooled. He patrolled the grounds in giant black Wellington boots all night to make sure our music wasn't too loud and that we were staying out of trouble, and shot a few death glares in our general direction. Maybe Dear Welly is smiling in the picture because he's remembering the show he got from not-so-shy Besty. Either that, or the allegedly famous guy whose children we were allegedly keeping awake just slipped him a large bill.   About half of us (the big spenders) stayed in these Mongolian-style tents, which had cushy beds, a table and chairs, lights, and a heater/AC unit. (S.C.Claire says they were just a little tiny bit nicer than those she saw in Mongolia.) Does it seem silly to have a heater in a tent made of canvas flaps? Yes, I thought so, too. Won't the air-con just dissipate right away? Mmm hmm. But go measure the thickness of your aparto wall and tell me if any heating/cooling systems at all make sense in this uninsulated land. Before getting on the ferry to Naoshima, the rain magically stopped while we scrambled to get all the shopping done (with Herbamy and Bae-chan to save the day!), and we had a crowd of 30 on the island by mid-afternoon for a big BBQ, karaoke, beach-walking, onsen, hanging out, drinking, dancing, and so forth. This may have been the first BBQ I've attended in Japan where there wasn't any rice whatsoever, but Danielle's sneaky mochi addition almost changed that.
Naoshima promotes itself as an "Eco Island", and in this vein, we tried to be environmentally-conscious by asking everyone to bring their own dishes and cutlery rather than waste paper ones. Right. Another failed experiment. About 5 people did, but Bob brought chopsticks galore to share. (Save the wild hashi trees!) Naoshima is between Tamano and Takamatsu, in the Seto Inland Sea. The sea is flat, warm, and polluted from the shipping traffic, and is prettiest when viewed from a distance or when shrouded in mist. The island is gorgeous, though, with clean beaches, art installations everywhere, and awesome buildings and schools that were designed by one of the famous architects featured at the museum. I'll have to go back with more energy sometime to explore the island, as all I wanted to do by the morning was go home, quit AJET, and sleep for a week. Maybe I'm better at orphan parties than gaijin fests, since there's very little that kids could do to frustrate me as much as faux-grown-ups, but it's good people-skills practice. Moth to the flame, I also get an odd thrill from planning events, with no damage done besides some singed wings.
Just 9 days of school left, which means everyone really will be leaving. I'll soon be off to Osaka, Tokyo, and Seattle for the summer, and then hopefully there will be a new ALT in town come September. (I should rephrase that- there MUST be a new ALT coming, because I refuse to drop my elementaries in order to teach at Eau de Bleach-and-pee Chugakko with the Inbred Farm Kids again. No no no no no. Sign your contract, little ALT-san.... come to the happy congratulations middle Kibi plateau town! Just say yes! Come see the luxuriant overgrowth river. We have happy life. Sign the contract!! Sign!!) Mina san, farewell, so long, sayonara! |
| posted by Raychaa @ 7:04 PM |
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| So wrong it's right. And then wrong. And then wrong again... welcome to the inaka. |
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Name: Raychaa
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About Me: “No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - 'devoted and obedient'. This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.” (Florence Nightingale)
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