It's been my usual few months of inactivity resulting in the inevitable guilt threshold saturation. Guilt is a terrible motivator. This was one of the few lessons I really learned at University. By myself I might add. There was no Basics of Guilt Motivation 1h unfortunately, pointless really, no one would turn up apart from for the exam, only to sign their name. That would be good enough for a pass though.
It's the end of the junior high school year at the moment in Japan. The third grade students 'graduated' on Friday with a very formal ceremony and more half bows than the sea bed at Pearl Harbour. It's pretty boring the second time through, though there was one guy who had the best Japaneses bow that I have ever witnessed. As the Japanese flag was displayed on the stage, everyone who had to make a speech, after bowing first to all of the invited dignitaries seated down one flank, then second to the teachers seated down the other flank, would march up to the stage, climb the steps, get onto the stage, stop facing the flag, bow properly, make it to the podium, bow again and then make a speech. When the speech ended there would be an exact reverse of the whole stage mounting manoeuvre. The head punter from the dignitaries was from the head education office on Sado, and therefore the ichi ban (number one) dude there. His bow was a belter, and the best he did was to the flag. His approach to the stage was not super robotic so I wasn't expecting such a great bow, the juxtaposition of his actions soon to fuel my enjoyment, as when he stopped walking in front of the flag he paused for a moment then went completely spastic. First he stood as tall and straight as he possibly could with a violent jerk, as if he'd just had a cattle prod rammed up his bahooky. This he held perfectly still for a good moment before a second spastic jerk into a very low, long bow. He could give a cracking head butt if anyone's interested. This he held again perfectly until one last spastic movement back to straight and tall. He then relaxed and went about the rest of his business. This made the whole ceremony. Especially as I got an action replay on his stage exit.
The Japanese are always surprised, they mock shock, that we don't graduate at school. My favourite Japanese sound is their sound of surprise. They say 'ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' where you start off on a low note and end on a high. The amount of surprise can be measured by how long it lasts and the difference between the low note and the high note. This is a great sound and the king, or I should say emperor, of all surprised Japanese people is the Kyoto Sensei (deputy head master in the UK, or vice principal in USA) at my base junior high school. He's a really nice and capable chap whom I like, but the icing on the cake is to hear him surprised. He's that good at it that he actually changes gear a couple of times to accentuate his feelings - 'ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh', only whales can hear this, gear change 'ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh', around 20 - 20,000Hz spanning frequencies that the human ear picks up, gear change 'ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh', all the stray dogs run for cover though strangely pedigree ones don't and the odd crystal champagne flute that litter the teachers' room shatters. The Japanese kids graduate from nursery school, elementary school, JHS, high school and University. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a ceremony for their first successful keich in a toilet, whereupon they are formally presented, in the typical bowing delivery, with three sheets of bog roll rather than a certificate. You could also tie a piece of, invisible to the human eye, thread to the kids neck and attach it to the flushing handle. Then when they bow the toilet could simultaneously remove the ceremonial cack. In some ways it is good to have an event that marks the end of an era, at the very least a flushing noise. At primary school, we had a prize giving which basically did the same job in a slightly less stiff manner. That was good. At high school though most didn't bother going to the prize giving and even for those that did it wasn't personal at all, more like a Tory party conference. We should have had some sort of ceremony, not necessarily a graduation, but something to bring school days to a proper close. The whole 'graduation' thing comes from the states where you have to actually pass each year, otherwise you have to do the year again, until the last year, where you graduate. This sounds fair enough. The Japanese have taken this system and changed it around a bit. No one fails a year here and basically everyone graduates. Last year when I attended a large graduation (this year I was at a very small, but my favourite school, that only had five students graduating) and I didn't recognise some of the kids who graduated. There were the school refusers or the kids who hang around in the nurses room because they can't handle being in class for various reasons. I'm not going to say much on this matter other than I think the whole Japanese 'graduation' process with respect to passing anything other than a first planned dump, is mince and that special needs kids aren't dealt with effectively at times.
We had an enkai (work party) the evening after in Ryostu. I was absolutely pished. It has to be said that my drunken memory is really poor these days as my last memory was singing 'I want to break free' by Queen (what a tremendous singer Freddie Mercury was, I'm sure I did him justice), in some wee bar, I couldn't remember getting home at all. Needless to say but I was as rough as a buzzards crotch on the Saturday. After the headache goes I always have a kind of melancholy after a good booze up, which meant I wasn't quite as blabbery on the Saturday night when we went round for dinner with Matt and the rest of the ALTs in Hamochi. I haven't seen some of them in a while and it was nice to see them and hear how they were getting on. I've been liable to rant a bit lately. Not exactly sure why it is, but it may be because I don't get a chance to have proper conversations with people during the day. This is mainly due to my Japanese inability. I'm still studying a little bit when I can but I'd have to improve immensely before I was able to get a decent conversation. I can get around and understand enough now so that 95% of situations are fine, and I'm not going to need the language much after the summer which doesn't help. I understand a bit of what is said to me but I find it difficult to construct a decent reply that maintains a dialogue. So, Caroline probably get's a lot of bull from me, nothing new there, and my family, particularly my old man get's a bit of earache from me. Doesn't do him any harm as he's headered too many footballs in his time. I think that I am far more opinionated than I used to be. I was very easy going at school but I think that I was a late developer and lacked a bit of confidence. On Saturday, I was sharing my feelings about computer games (which I did enjoy playing but believe that they are a complete waste of time) and maybe over egged the pudding. I'm sure I've expressed my feelings about the French government and mad cow disease that possibly caused a raised eyebrow or two in the past. In some ways I enjoy a good argument but maybe I'm needing to tone it down a little so that people aren't worried about replying or getting upset at all. Maybe I need to start ranting on here as at least you can just stop reading should you wish. Maybe you have already done that with this blarb. Fair enough, no knickers in a twist and no creams in a puff.
On Sunday I took part in the Toki Marathon. This isn't a marathon but a 3, 5 or 10 km race for school children and any fun runners. A toki is a red crested ibis - Sado's endangered bird, a bit like Norfolk and one of Bernard Matthew's turkeys. Last year I did the 10km race and there was sleet, which was murder polis. I signed up for it again this year as I've been trying to keep ticking over with the exercise during the winter months, and saw this as something to keep up a little training for. I ran round with one of the chaps from the English conversation class that we hold once a week in Ryostu, he kept a nice steady pace. We managed the 10km in around 44 minutes, which wasn't bad. There are a few more 10km races in spring around different towns on Sado, which I'll enter too. My aim for these races is to beat 40 minutes. Yesterday, the weather was still cold and windy and there was a little snow and hail. At one point we were running by some terraced rice fields, where cedar trees lined the road. The snow was floating in the air all backed by the largest mountain on the island. A truly Japanese and thoroughly beautiful moment. This was quickly blown from mind as I turned a corner and puffed my way up a hill whilst a strong wind, not of my own making, did it's best to stop me. The Japanese love all this type of stuff and doing these sorts of challenges together, which I think is great. I admire their spirit. It's good that so many kids and adults took part. I can bet my bottom yen that had it been in Scotland in similar circumstance there would have been a few people there, and only to fulfill bets. The Japanese, including the kids, are a pretty healthy bunch, even though they are fond of a wee puff, sorry the odd fag, forgive me, a cigarette and a drink. Not so many fatties over here. The kids all eat the same school dinners and you want to see what we eat. Rice, fish, squid, octopus, prawns, mussels, seaweed all sort of stuff. I give it all a go and most of it is pretty good and I'm much healthier for it too. Many people in Scotland, never mind fussy kids, would turn their noses up at this 'muck' as they'd call it. We have such a poor and ignorant attitude to food in Scotland. It's a crying shame too as we have the best of gear, be it fish, meat or veg, great booze too, that all gets shipped to London, Paris and even Tokyo. I have to admit that if I come back to Scotland and go into primary school teaching I'll be taking a leaf out of Jamie Oliver's cook book when it comes to school dinners. With the completely shocking and embarrassing (that would be a four gear change 'ehhhh' from Kyoto Sensei) statistic that 900,000 people in Scotland, a quarter of them children, are living poverty, school dinners should be free for all (eliminating any stigma attached to freebie dinners) and compulsory. I think the ideal is that the whole school sits down to a meal and has time allocated only for lunch, and then separate time afterwards for play time. We could definitely learn from Japanese school dinners.
We're going to see Kyoto and Nara next week and are managing to squeeze in the Osaka leg of the Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium tour, which we are really looking forward to. I'll get some pictures of that up next.
I better go and do something else.
