Shigga Shigga

Hello Everyone. Well, I had a great weekend to write about, but first I'm ticked off right now, so you have to read about this first. I was teaching at an elementary school today, and one of the 5th grade students comes from the US (mom is Japanese, dad is American, they divorced) and has been here a year. He's causing trouble at home and crying every night, and they want me to talk to him and find out what is going on. Ok, I can do that, I was a "Big Brother" in High School, I majored in Psychology, I read about therapies for fun, and therapy is sort of what I want to do with my life.

So, they take me to the principal's office and everything goes to shit. First of all, another JET comes and wants to watch me talk to the kid. Then, the teacher wants to sit in and watch as well, like all it will take for the child to open up is the presence of another American, and that PEOPLE STARING AT HIM won't be a problem at all. The teacher got the hint to leave, and I start talking to the kid. I'm just talking to him in the beginning, trying to find out what he likes, trying to build a rapport, joking about how Japanese can't pronounce words, etc. Well, I get a few giggles out of him and I'm sort of making headway, regardless of the limited time I have to figure out all of this child's problems.

Then, the principal comes in. He walks in, says a few words, and sits at his desk doing work.

Oh, you've noticed the kid is nervous and sweating profusely? Well, Mr. Principal, I'm glad you thought that the best thing to do would be to rub the kid's shoulders and tell him not to worry. Yeah, that was really helpful. Hey, while you're at it, why don't you tell him not to be sad and solve all of our problems in one fell swoop?

Now the kid, still sweating profusely and not even giving occasional eye contact anymore, is totally shut. One-word answers and everything. I decided to give him my email and phone in case he wanted to hang out sometime, but I'll probably initiate the first step next week if he's willing to see me. Just as I'm wrapping up, the teacher from the beginning comes in because she decided it would be best if she was around to watch too. Great job with the emotional-understanding deficit, Japan. Do you wonder why your suicide rate is ridiculously high?

So, I wasn't able to magically help out the child like they wanted, and they asked what I suggested and how they could help and how the mother could help. I told them that there isn't much they can do, with the recent divorce and subsequent move to another country (where he has to pick up the language, which he can speak but not read and write), there's a lot going on with him that they can't help on their own. I suggested a child psychologist. Really, if they are going to treat him the way I watched (talking about him but not to him etc.), he's never going to get better.

Afterwards, the JET apologized for being in the same room, and we talked about what was happening. He enlightened me that the whole "emotionally helping other people" thing is not something Japanese are good at, preferring to do things such as a quick massage and daijoube ("don't worry"). Part of it is the cultural thing of keeping everything inside instead of any outbursts...hence the high number of suicides. It's not that their hearts aren't in the right place, it's just that they have no idea on how to help or empathize.

Ok, now that that is off of the chest, I can fill you in on everything I've been up to lately.

Friday night I met up with some friends who were on their way to Hokkaido (the northernmost prefecture) for dinner and to drop them off at the ferry. We went for yakiniku- a restaurant where you cook small slices of meet on a grill at your table. We had some great conversation about how Palin is the scariest woman alive (unless you were friends with her in High School), how McCain totally changed all of his stances post-campaign (check out this link for a great Daily Show segment on the life of McCain), and pretty much everything politics.

After dropping them off at the ferry, I went downtown to meet up with some Hach JETs (Big Mike, Paul, Mark, Tina, Erin, and Wade). I met up with them at a restaurant and we went to another bar with darts, pool, and nintendos. I couldn't drink since I was driving, but it seemed like downtown Hach would be a lot of fun to explore next time, when I'm not driving. I did pretty well at pool, and Wade and I won both games.

I got home around 2:30 and I'm getting into bed. Around 3 am my phone buzzes:

“Hello?”
“Hey Greg, it’s Paul.”
“Oh, hey…What’s up?”
“Dude, someone’s hand just reached in my window and I’m freakin’ out.”
“What?”
“I was sleeping and I woke up and this hand appeared above my head, it was coming through my window. I screamed “OY” and whoever it was ran away. I think I was dreaming it, but I couldn’t have, it seemed too real.”
“Whoa, that’s really creepy.”
“Yeah man, I can’t sleep anymore, I can’t believe that happened. What if someone is still out there? I thought it was a woman, I saw a pony tail, but I don’t know…it could have been Yakuza or something. Sorry to wake you up and everything, I’m just freaked out”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
And so the conversation continued. He called again at 5am and we talked some more. He also called about 3 or 4 other JETs too, so some of us didn’t get good sleep. The next day Paul and his supervisor checked his window, someone broke the screen and everything. They fixed the window and got a lock for the glass part, but I think Paul is still a bit shaken. Luckily I’m on the fourth floor, so no one will be reaching their hand through my window, all that can happen is the voyeur with the binoculars across the way.

The next day (Saturday), I went to an all-you-can-eat Yakiniku place with many of the Hach JETs. I couldn’t read the signs for what each meat was, so I just piled them all on my plate and began the grillin’. After a few refills and some ice cream, I was pleasantly stuffed. Afterwards, I went to Lapia Mall (home of the infamous Fantasy Dome, surely you’ve heard of it) to watch a Brazilian festival. Paul’s Capoeira class was doing a performance, and I got to meet them backstage. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that is dance-like, and instead of sparring in the traditional sense, they sort of dance together, attacking and dodging to make a dance-like sparring match. The people really cool, and I’m going to a class tonight to check it out. It seemed like a very chill group.

Afterwards, I got some Mos Burger (ridiculously small burgers, but they have different flavors like the ebi-burger, tonkatsu-burger, and so forth), and headed home to clean the apartment. Exciting, eh? Well, I taped up the bottom of the entranceway to my shower, where I suspected those pill-bugs were coming from. Oh, I haven’t mentioned this, but lately I had a small pill-bug posse in my apartment. After taping up their suspected entrances, they haven’t made a return, so I think I took care of them. After cleaning, I saw my friend Saki online and we talked for awhile, then I headed to bed.

Sunday I tried surfing for the first time! It was wicked fun. Grahame in Oirase brought two surfboards, so Brandon and I went to Oirase and began learning the venerable art of surfing. We only lasted about an hour in the freezing water, but Brandon was almost standing up, and I was able to catch some waves lying on my stomach. Sadly, we won’t be able to go surfing again until Spring, but I can’t wait until we do. The beach itself was surprisingly ugly. There were tons of concrete jacks to protect against tsunamis (which the Northern Part of Japan doesn’t really get…it’s just a way for the government to stimulate economic growth by paying for construction).

After surfing I saw Wanted, which is great for some mindless action, then headed home for some sleep.

The next day, Monday, was a day off (Respect for Old People’s Day), and I went to a festival at Yawata shrine near the outskirts of Hachinohe city. It was really cool, there was an archery competition for the middle and high schools, and I’ve got some great pictures from that. The shrine itself was gorgeous. I also paid 100 Yen to get a card with my luck and advice on it. My luck is “Good,” so I think I’m pretty set for awhile.

A young woman shooting in the competition. Japanese traditional archery is called Kyudo.

A place to pray at the shrine.

We really just walked around the shrine that day, eating festival food, doing festival things, and in general having a good time. Afterwards, we went to the coolest pizza place ever in the uptown development of Hachinohe New City. Brick oven pizza is already awesome, and the place itself had great ambience and music. At night, it appears that there will be live music, so I really want to go and check out the bar.

A monk walking through the shrine.

After driving home, I rested for a bit, cooked some dinner while watching The Office online, and went to sleep. It was a really good weekend.

This week in Random Japan:
I have a coworker who I think is hilarious. About once a week, when I’m going on a trip to school or something, everyone will say some incomprehensible Japanese as a goodbye. Not him. He stands up and does the “get some” signal, his arms pumping in and out from his hips and his bottom half gyrating back and forth. Does he know what he’s doing? I don’t know. Is it hilarious? Of course! It’s a middle-aged Japanese salaryman signaling me to get some action, saying something that sounds like “shigga shigga.” I am pretty much crying every time.