Saturday, May 20, 2006

Bizarre Teaching Moment #1: Close Encounters

~Hi everyone. Up until now, I've been posting mostly about my travels around Japan, but most of my time here (i.e., 10-11 hours a day) is spent working at a small English school for children. I'd like to share some of my more bizarre teaching moments with you (and by 'you', I mean Stef). Please understand that out of respect for privacy, I won't be posting pictures of my students or of the school itself. Disclaimer aside, here is the first of my strange teaching moments:

Today at work, I had my weekly, 50-minute private lesson with a boy who is around ten years old. We were playing an easy warmup game where you have to name one thing in English for each letter of the alphabet. When we got to 'Q', he thought for a moment and said, "Queen Alien." Naturally, I immediately asked him what his favorite movie was, and my carefully-planned lesson promptly collapsed. You can probably guess what we spent the next half-hour talking about:

^ Blatant product placement.

Of course, the awkward part came when I had to explain to the boy's father (through a translator) what his son had learned in today's lesson. I thought it might be a bad idea to say that today's vocabulary words were 'pulse rifle', 'APC', 'android', 'smart gun', 'flamethrower', 'sentry gun', and 'game over, man!'. I should have made flash cards! Luckily, I did manage to deliver the real lesson (the names of different rooms at school) in the last five minutes, which was enough to satisfy the parent.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. This student's hobby is collecting insects (particularly butterflies), and his favorite food (and your Word of the Post) is hachi no ko, which is bee larvae. It's typically served as a snack before beer (I can only assume that this grade school student abstains from that). Hachi no ko (or hachinoko) literally translates to 'Young of Bee' [Hachi=bee, no=of, ko=young]:

^ Yummie! How 'bout some Budweiser to wash that down?

Oh, and in case you were wondering, his word for the letter 'A' was AK-47, and 'G' was 'Glock'. I'm a little scared now. Stay tuned for more bizarre teaching moments from Nagaoka! Oyasumi~

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Manshons and Mansions

~Greetings again, loyal readers. In an effort to improve both my own Japanese language skills (or lack thereof) and your understanding of Japan, I will now be adding a 'Word of the Day' feature. Actually, that is not true; it'll be more like a 'Word of the Post'. At any rate, today's word of the day holds a special place in my heart, because it is where I live: manshon. Yes, I am amazed to discover that I have unknowingly been living not in a small non-centrally heated apartment, but in a mansion!


^Okay, that's obviously a lie. The truth is that"manshon" is Japanese for "apartment". Although the apartment is small, I do like it a lot. When I was hired for this job, I was told that I might be in a single small room, perhaps 10 x 10 feet. Fortunately, that is not the case:

^ My apartment has four rooms, a balcony overlooking a park, and more than enough space for me (luckily, I don't take up much space and I didn't bring much stuff to Japan). One curious aspect of the rooms here is that the main room is a multipurpose living room/bedroom. There is no bed--instead, I sleep on a futon,although probably not the kind of futon you're thinking of. Japanese futons are flat mattresses that one can roll up and stuff into the closet during the day (although I have to air it out on the balcony once a week or so). This gives me extra space in the room during the day:


^So my apartment is nice and roomy...but it could be better. Here is a real mansion under construction in a certain desert city on the other side of the planet:


^ Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair! The massive construction site you see above is in central Baghdad, Iraq, on a piece of prime real estate along the Tigris River. What could it possibly be? I'll give you a hint: the soon-to-be finished complex of buildings is known locally as "George W's Palace". The truth is that this is the future sight of the new U.S. embassy to Iraq...and it will be far and away the largest embassy operated by the State Department. Here are a few fascinating facts about the new embassy, courtesy of this report:
  • Projected cost: $592 million, down from an original estimate of $1 billion+. I wonder how much the end bill will be...
  • Number of buildings: 21
  • Area: 104 acres, roughly equal to the area of the Vatican (or six times larger than the United Nations Headquarters, or almost six times the area of the White House and its grounds). The architects claim that the embassy will be visible from space, along with the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Wall of China.
  • Perimeter wall thickness: 15 feet of concrete (that's the thickness, not the height!)
  • Number of staff members: 8,000+, working in two massive office buildings
  • Number of embassy marines: unknown, but presumably enough to take over a small country...or a large city
  • Amenities: the largest swimming pool in Iraq, country club, tennis courts, restaurants, gymnasium, cinema, etc etc etc
  • Independent power plant and water system
~Impressive, isn't it? Apparently, some whiners in Baghdad are irritated that this edifice is being built while they only get electricity and water for a few hours a day and that there are a few minor delays in the reconstruction and the occasional act of violence. One can only imagine why they're so annoyed; don't they realize that every day, they'll be able to see evidence of our benevolent presence dominating the Baghdad skyline?
The embassy may seem a bit excessive, but remember that despite what you may have heard, Iraq is still a dangerous place; up until now, our diplomats have had to rough it in Saddam's much-smaller palaces. The Iraqi federal government, as well as other foreign workers, are currently holed up in a heavily-fortified area of Baghdad known as the 'Green Zone', where suicide bombers only occasionally slip through. Since soldiers presumably don't want to keep an entire sector of the city sealed off permanently, this embassy will become the new place from which Iraq is ruled, no wait, I mean, the new place from which the ambassador works.

~Despite the size of the embassy, I am sure we can all believe our leaders when they say that we have no plans to permanently occupy the country. ~Oyasumi.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Monkey Business

~I hope everyone had a relaxing weekend, and that you all did something nice for your mom on Mother's Day (hi Mom!). As for me, I was involved in an exciting domestic disturbence incident yesterday (just paving the way for you, A.J.)! On Sunday night, a group of (mostly gaijin) friends and I set up a barbeque in a park in Nagaoka:

^ Unfortunately, our fire, crazed laughter, and frisbee-throwing action attracted the attention of the locals, who apparently weren't too happy about a gaijin gathering at 11 pm. Lo and behold, a pair of police cars pulled up, complete with flashing lights and maglight-wielding officers, and we were promptly ordered to clean up and leave. The cops were actually really cool about the whole thing, laughing at our antics and helping us clean up. Still, I doubt we'll be holding any more late-night barbeques.

~After fleeing from the law, I spent today riding my bike to the boundaries of Nagaoka. First, inspired by the recent discovery of the Kipunji monkey, I stopped by Yukyuzan park to see the monkeys. This time, they were out of their cage, and I was able to get a few pictures for your enjoyment:

^ The monkeys in Yukyuzan Park live in a complex called "Monkey Mountain", and there are about 20-25 of them. I love the expressions on the faces of these monkeys, especially the one in the lower center.

^ Taking a nap on the bridge. Monkey Mountain would probably be a lot more fun for its residents if it had some foliage, but I think the zookeepers are worried about the monkeys throwing objects at the tourists.

^ You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.

^ A monkey family. I spotted three younger monkeys jumping around. Amusingly, the older monkeys had exasperated looks on their red faces as they watched the youngsters carouse around the mountain.

^ Tasty snack? I guess he just couldn't wait for dinner. Or maybe he's sharpening his teeth...

A running joke among the Japanese here is how excited gaijin get about monkeys. To a Japanese person, a monkey is perfectly normal; they're native to Japan and China, and they are more pests than anything else. My theory is that foreigners like monkeys because none of us (and by "us", I mean foreign English teachers) are from countries that have monkeys living in the wild. We've only seen them in zoos (such as this one). To actually see a monkey in the wild is a new and exciting experience. I hope to visit the Wild Monkey Park sometime in the future and take lots of pictures for your amusement.

~After visiting the monkeys, I headed up to the mountains, toward the municipal ski area of Nagaoka. On the way, I saw these unusual buildings:

^ This complex is Nagaoka University. There were a few students hanging out here when I passed by, but otherwise this institution of higher learning is on the very edge of civilization...there are just miles of empty mountains beyond it.

^ Without snow, you'd think the ski area would be closed, right? Wrong. I discovered that, like Yuzawa, Nagaoka's ski area has its very own alpine slide! I don't think it's open yet, but I will definately be coming back to try it out and reach the GOAL!

^ I took this picture from halfway up the mountain near the ski area. The entire mountain was empty of people and eerily silent. The sun was shining and the birds were singing, but I couldn't help but feel a little creeped out by the massive, empty picnic fields, with every sound echoing off of the hillside. Still, I did manage to get a nice lanscape view of Nagaoka. Note the mountain rising out of the clouds in the distance.

~Finally, for your amusement, here is the most famous Japanglish in all of Nagaoka. Note that this is among the first pictures taken by virtually every gaijin who moves to Nagaoka, including me:

^ This is one of three hip-hop clothing stores in very close proximity to one another in downtown Nagaoka. Japanese junior and senior high school students are obsessed with hip-hop dancing. There are hip-hop performances at almost every one of the many festivals held in the city, and several of my older students are on their school hip-hop teams. Two of my students spent the entire vacation practicing their dance routines with their clubmates. This is a funny sign, but I'm confused about one thing: the presence of an acronym. Does anyone have any ideas as to what P.I.M.P. might stand for?

~That's all for now, everyone. Keep checking David Does Japan for more madness from the Land of the Rising Sun (and hopefully no more run-ins with the law). Oyasumi~