A Month Late is Way Better than Never

After many emails, Facebook posts, and instant messaged prodding, I have finally, in the mayhem of hog flu found enough free time with Internet access to create a blog. And after deleting, restarting, and editing numerous times, I have finally reconciled with my memories of Sr. Marci's pen, which left no sentence untouched on my English 412 papers and have decided to confidently move forward and into the blogging world.

Back to hog flu. When several students and then a teacher at Wajima koko (high school) were diagnosed with swine flu, classes were promptly cancelled last week and scheduled to resume early this week. However, though all of the students have been sent home, this did not mean that I too, received the day off. Instead, I spent my days sitting at my desk with a medical mask half on, twiddling with proxy settings and what not so that I could log onto Skye and google chat.

My first month in Japan has been a whirl-wind of orientations, tours, festivals, and beach parties, bar-hopping, karaoke and in general, over-socializing. Seriously, I've never had such the social life. I have yet to spend a quiet weekend, in my new low-key hometown, Wajima. Finally, yesterday I had my first completely lazy Sunday at home. It was quite exciting. Three types of bug killer, four bottles of cleaning products, a bottle of bleach, several sponges, two steel wool scrubs, about ten loads of laundry and I have finally eradicated the fleas, mold and layers of dirt left behind in my flat by its previous inhabitant, thus making the six-roomed rectangle feel a lot homier.

The photos are from before my apartment was clean. Please do not judge me too harshly for the mess. It looks loads better now.

Now, on to more interesting aspects of my life in Japan. To list a few highlights of my Japan experience so far, I’ll begin with my first weekend in Ishikawa. Brian, a JET who has been living and teaching in Wajima for a year already, took Adam, a fellow newbie JET, and I to a kiriko festival in Naunau, a nearby city. Noto, the fist-shaped peninsula that I now call home, is famous for its kiriko festivals, and I have arrived mid-festival season. Kiriko are large lantern towers made of wood and paper, and take at least twenty men to lift. (I have posted photos of the kiriko further down this post.) They usually have a taiko drum attached, and a platform for the town’s children to sit in while garbed in their yukatas (summer kimonos). The festival was stunning to say the least.

My second weekend involved a two day summer English camp for Ishikawa high school students. It was much more fun than I had anticipated, and not at all like camping. The best part was the students’ self-written and produced skits. The students were divided into groups and each student had to have at least one English line in the skit. The skits featured appearances by celebrities. The thriller dance by a teenage Japanese Michael Jackson was out of this world! My group’s students put on a lesson for David Beckham on the importance of being friendly. Great imagination on the students’ parts! On the other hand, the most disappointing part of camp came after an announcement at campfire (the only part of the weekend that resembled a camp) that we would be eating an American favorite, s’mores, only we were all handed chocolate, marshmallows, and...saltines!

This is my friend Kate and one of the high school students from my group.

Orientation in Kanazawa took over my third weekend in Ishikawa. Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa and the nearest big city to my small town, Wajima (about two hours away). While the orientation was dreadful, the social aspect was outstanding! The weekend involved a night of karaoke with about twenty other JETs, followed by a bar crawl with about sixty JETs (talk about a scary sight for the locals), and ending with an afternoon beach party and gorgeous sunset in Uchinada, just outside of Kanazawa.

The following weekend was even crazier because it was Wajima’s Taisai (big festival), which certainly lived up to its name. It was four days of festival food, beer, rice wine, kiriko, portable shrines, and of course fire. I actually had rice wine poured down my throat by a few eager Japanese festival participants.

Above: Kiriko from the first night of the festival.

A portable shrine from the first night of the festival. My friend Tini and I trying our hand at Taiko drumming.

And Below: My coworker, Adam, preparing to help carry a kiriko.

Finally, it was my fifth weekend in Ishikawa, and I was going to have a quiet, low-key weekend in Wajima. Nope. It was Brian’s (other Wajima JET, been hear a year) birthday. So another night of karaoke with a few JETs from Nanau, followed by what should have been 15 minute stroll but turned into a one-hour trek to Wajima’s rarely used beach. The next day, Adam and I took our fellow JETs, who had come up from Nanau back home, and then made our way up to the other end of the peninsula for a lantern festival in Yanagita’s botanical garden. It was beautiful, and the woman’s taiko drumming performance was amazing!

As for life in Wajima, while Wikipedia says that it is a city of about 30,000 people, it is more like a town of 10,000 with surrounding villages that might have totaled 30,000 people a couple of years ago. Because of the decline in population, I’m unsure that this number is still accurate.

I teach at the two high schools in Wajima; one is academic and one vocational. Both schools seem pretty laid back. I visited the vocational school for the first time last week. While the students’ English levels may be a little lower than the academic students, they are plenty eager to use the English they know. I think that I will enjoy teaching them a lot. I have been sitting in the staff room of the academic high school for most of my first month in Japan. Classes should resume on Wednesday hopefully making my job a lot more stimulating. Nevertheless, even with the glitches of swine flu, my computer crashing, camera breaking, apartment infested with fleas, mold, and dirt, life in Japan has been an incredible venture and will, I think, continue to be even as winter sets in with no central heating. For now, take care, and I hope that this post finds you all well, happy, and healthy.