Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shit! and Culture Day, eehhh?!?!

Good day to you, reader.

Let me first start with a recap of my weekend. Friday was Culture Day. All of the JETs in Aomori-ken go to Aomori-shi (Aomori City) to take part in 1 seminar and 3 classes of random things of Japanese culture. I attended a lecture on sumo, complete with business-suit man and friend pretending to sumo for us (I lost 10 yen betting on the lecturer to win the match). Then, I went to a Taiko class, where I got to play the Taiko drums, traditional Japanese drums. It was wicked fun! Then, I went to paint a fish. Yeah, that was on the bottom of things I wanted to do, but I got stuck with it, so oh well. It was as fun as…well, painting a few pieces of paper and gluing them together to make a fish.　　Lastly, I learned how to put on a yukatta (kimono). The men’s kimonos are much easier to put on than women’s, and we got some good pictures of all of us dressed up.

Afterwards I went to dinner with a group of about 13 JETs at an Italian place called Mare Luna. The chef there actually lived in Italy, and he speaks fluent English and Italian. The food was amazing, and you could see him through the open kitchen making everything by hand. I also found a few other Martial Arts students. A few of us went outside to mess around, and I ended up doing this cool Jiu Jitsu exercise. Shane (the guy who showed it to us) and I were in a stalemate for a good 1/2 hour, but he got me in the end when I got a little sloppy with my defense. It was so much fun, though, I’m looking forward to the next JET get together so we can rematch.

After dinner, I was dropped off at the train station and took the local train home to Hach. Thank god my apartment is right off the main station, because I crawled into bed and slept for a good long time.

Saturday, I went hiking at Hashikami Mountain, in Hashikami. We had a great hike up, even though it was starting to get a little chilly. At the top, we were treated to a gorgeous (if windy) view of Hachinohe and the sea. It was simply beautiful. There was also a shrine up there, and we prayed to the Japanese gods and got some great pictures.

Afterwards, we got dinner at the geodesic dome we passed by on the drive to Hashikami. The food was great, and we talked about Fantasy Novels, Graphic Novels, and other awesome fantasy-related phenomenon. Wait, there are other people out there with the same interests as me? This does not compute. At GW, I only met 1 or 2 other people with these same interests as me. Thank god I escaped!

After dinner, we ended at my apartment, watched Nick’s college-made movie, and then everyone left and I went to bed.

Sunday I hit up a school bazaar at Mark’s school. It was pretty cool, they had a lot of cheap everything (even electronics). I only ended up with 2 cutting boards and some onions, but it was a lot of fun. Especially since the high school students were so friendly, they were willing to try to talk with us. Mark seemed to be having a good time as he was showing us around. Afterwards, I went back home and began the cleaning/relaxing.

This continued into the next day, Monday, a national holiday. I worked up a big sleep debt from Nagano, so I wanted to catch up on that. I also wanted to clean my spare room and make room for my piano! I got the piano on Tuesday, and it’s been the best purchase! It was pretty easy to set up, and now I can practice whenever I want. The room also has the best ambience, by far in my apartment. A little more cleaning and it will be perfect.

Getting the 66kg piano up the 4 flights of stairs (known as the rape stairs because they are so dark and scary) was not fun. Greg, a university teacher at Hachinohe University, was kind enough to help me out with his minivan to bring the piano home. He was also kind enough to help bring it up the stairs.

After dragging the piano upstairs, I made it to Japanese class just in time. I’ve been bumped up to level 3, so it was my first day starting that class. The teacher speaks very quickly, but I’m looking at it as a challenge. I really want to be fluent in Japanese, so this is just one more step in the right direction.

So, I’m at Toyosaki-cho, teaching a group of 5th graders, and they want to learn the American version of “Janken” (that rock, paper, scissors thing I was talking about in a previous post). I teach them “rock, paper, scissors, shoot,” and they faithfully repeat after me, “rock, paper, scissors, shit!” After a few rounds of hearing my own inside joke, I had to correct them…sadly.

Lately, my car has been having problems. On the way back from a school, I was pulling into my parking spot at the office, and the car just stalled, and kept stalling whenever I turned the car on. I figured out after a lot of trial and error, that the motor wasn’t revolving fast enough to keep the car going. I told my supervisor, and it’s getting fixed on Friday. Unfortunately, right now I drive the car by revving the engine a bit to get it over 1,000 revs/min. As long as I’m putting gas in, it’s fine because the engine revolves, but when I am at a stop, the engine slows down too much. When I get to a stop-light, I slide the car into neutral, keep the engine revved at 1,000 rev/min, and then slide it into drive when the light changes. It gets old after awhile, and I think the people next to me think I’m about to race them. When they zoom off at the green, though, I’m still chillin’ there in neutral.

What else has happened this past week? Ah yes, I got lunch at the cafeteria with a coworker, and I was reprimanded for not slurping my soup. I was told that, in Japan, if you do not slurp your soup and noodles, it is signaling that the food is bad. I’d forgotten this little bit of trivia, and now my feelings go out to all of those Ramen shops where I didn’t slurp.

Ok kids, I’m going to share with you a secret about my writing, however lackluster or amazing you think (and you’d better be thinking amazing) it is. I’m exaggerating a little! Yes, just like any good storyteller, I am ever-so-slightly stretching the truth, in case you were unable to tell. For example, in my previous paragraph, I wasn’t reprimanded for not slurping. In fact, my coworker and I had a good laugh over him nicely reminding me to slurp. Also, my heart doesn’t really go out to all of those Ramen shops; I don’t like slurping, and I consider it kind of rude from my Western viewpoint. In fact, I don’t even like taking a bite and having noodles hanging out of my mouth!

Phew, now that I’ve gotten that off of my chest, I shall, in this week’s Random Japan, enumerate the top two weirdest things I’ve noticed that are endemic to Japan.

Coming in at both last and second is the awkward jog. The first few times, I just thought that the person was exceptionally uncoordinated and in a hurry. Not so. Everyone in Japan uses this. I think the best way to explain it is to have you picture Elaine, from Seinfeld, doing her awkward dance. Now, imagine she is using her infamous awkward dance to go places. Yeah, it’s that bad. For those of you who didn’t watch Seinfeld (you don’t count as people anymore), imagine that you are jogging somewhere, even if it’s only 10 feet away, and your arms stay straight down to your sides while you jog forward. Yeah, it’s that awkward.

It seems that there are a few specific times when a Japanese person will use the “awkward jog.” 1) To pretend that you are hurrying someplace without quite running, and without quite walking. 2) To convince your boss that you are a motivated worker. 3) To actually hurry someplace without quite running or walking (?) 4) To provide me unexplainable entertainment.

Ironically my coworker just did it now! Amazing luck. He ran about 15 feet to get a pad of post-it notes. Hmm, maybe they can pick up my thoughts. Man, did I ever tell you about Japanese generosity? They just go over to foreigners and give them money. Lots of money. Come on. Please? No, don’t awkward jog again! It seems they are stuck on that thought, maybe next time.

Coming in 1st place of weird, Japan-wide phenomenon, is the “eeehhhhhhhhh?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!” There aren’t enough words or punctuation marks to properly explain. This simple exclamation is enough to make grown adults sound 5, and to make 5 year olds sound mentally challenged. I’m being a bit harsh. I actually love that sound, it’s just so surprising and funny, and you can extend the sound for a longer period of time than the “What?!” that we use. I’ll have to take a video of it so you can understand, there just aren’t words to describe.

So, that’s about it for this week. This weekend I have a sports day at one school, and a culture day at another, so I’m pretty much booked. Aside from that, I expect to play piano, play Zelda, and hang out with some Hachinohe people. I’ll update you next week.