Kumamoto City JHS Recitation Contest

Following on from my last post, I think it’s safe to say I was close to death (not that I’m being melodramatic at all). I had to take a sick day, visit a doctor, and despite him giving me enough medicines to open my own pharmacy, with the Kumamoto City English recitation contest the next day I still felt bloody awful. The struggle of me heading to school was made worthwhile when I could see my students visibly relax when they saw me. They’d been practicing solely with me for weeks, and the fact I was on my death bed the day prior to the contest had them all on edge thinking I’d abandoned them.

Admittedly, the entire competition was pretty dire. There’s only so many times you can hear a depressing rendition of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima with children imitating a crying child. I’ve got my party piece sorted now though; I could tell you the story of Ben, Mary and the stolen cow in my sleep. I was so proud of my students, with my first and second graders earning 5^th and 6^th place in their respective years out of 42 schools in the city. Third grade was a much tougher crowd, and after earning 54/60 and praise for their ‘very good pronunciation and intonation’, they didn’t even place.

One student told me “I’m not disappointed, I’ll just do better next year”, which I think aptly sums up their attitude to learning. I didn’t mind spending both my lunch time and after school helping every day when the kids willingly took on board my weird sounds, tongue actions and acting, knowing I was only doing it to benefit them.

Now the contest is over, I can fully see how they appreciated my efforts, as now the stress is gone, they are much more comfortable with me than they ever were. They don’t see me as some unapproachable foreigner, but rather someone who can help them. Finally the 1^st graders are warming up to me, which is nice since they’ll be the ones I’ll be teaching throughout junior high, unlike the 3^rd graders I’ve befriended who’ll be graduating in April.

I’m happy to report that none of my students whipped out a Scouse accent on stage at the contest, but I definitely think me being so hyper aware of my pronunciation sometimes has resulted in me having the dodgiest accent ever. I shift from my Japanese, to American-isms in class, to Australian moments because I spend that much time with Sheridan, and back to Scouse when I speak to people from home. At this rate, I’ll be the one needing my students to teach me. 

Kagoshima – The city shadowed by one of Japan’s most active volcanoes

I’d been wanting to visit Kagoshima for some time, and after being told day in and day out by my parents to watch Joanna Lumley’s Japan documentary, which I did, I was even more sold. This weekend worked out perfectly for that, as not only did I have yet another wonderful Japanese public holiday on Monday, my junior high school gave me daikyu (time off in lieu) on Tuesday in order for me to go to their culture festival this weekend.

Ironically, the day I went on a trip to see one volcano, the one in my prefecture erupted; cue lots of worried messages from people. Fear not everyone, Mt. Aso is a still a fair few miles away (28.6 to be exact). I can only see it smoking in the distance from one of my schools on a GOOD day…

Mt. Sakurajima was by far the highlight of my trip. I was pretty annoyed that the first two days I was in Kagoshima the weather was awful, as most of my plans revolved around taking pictures of said volcano, which under cloud cover looked like a rather unimpressive hill. However, I still kept my plans and had faith.  I went to Sakurajima Island and honestly felt like I’d been transported to Jurassic Park. The hikes I did were beautiful, and despite the torrential rain and not being able to go to the observatories, I had a lot of fun exploring. The next day, my persistence paid off, and after a leisurely stroll through the city, along the pier and to both Ishibashi and Gionnosu Park, I was rewarded with some stunning views of the volcano just 4km away.

 It was a very curry-themed trip, as my first day I stumbled across the first ever Kagoshima curry festival with vendors from all over Japan. It kind of reminded me of the food festival we have at home, and it smelt wonderful. I met up with an old friend Taka, who I met at Keele, for the first time in almost 3 years. He’s a Japanese teacher of English and has his own ALT, and the fact I got placed just one prefecture away is a stroke of luck. Who knows, if he didn’t work at an all-boys school I could have been working with him daily. He took me to eat soup curry, a weird hybrid I’d thoroughly recommend anyone to try too!

After taking me to the most amazing izakaya with alcoves, multiple levels, lanterns and disco balls, he suggested for us to eat raw chicken. Apparently it’s very popular in Kagoshima as it pairs well with the shochu (rice liquor) famously produced there. However my internal screams of *salmonella, salmonella* quickly shut him down. I didn’t know that was a thing, nor should it be. Even worse when I Googled it and found it’s not even thinly sliced, just cobs of the stuff.

   

The thing I love about travelling alone, especially in Japan, is that the most random people strike up conversations with me. At the curry festival, two high school girls came up to me to practice their English and wanted a selfie. That’s probably on their Instagram now with my face embezzled with kawaii stickers for all I know. The old people are super adorable too, but my god, I understand the difference of Kagoshima-ben now… they’re definitely the Scousers of Japan! I can now empathise with everyone having to deal with my accent not sounding like Queen’s English, because I didn’t have a bloody clue.

As I’m writing this, one of my teachers is shouting 'kawaii' at me whilst opening the polar bear cookies I brought back as omiyage. I think that alone makes up for the fact I’m sat looking and feeling like death, stereotypical Asian face mask on (which traps my breath, making me sweat even more than the cold sweats I already have), with no voice to speak of two days before a city-wide English speaking competition.
Sorry children, you’re on your own now, I’m going to spike my lemon & honey with some whiskey to make it through the week.

Gotochi - my new collection

As many of you may know, I'm an avid collector of cheap, plastic, made in China snowglobes from places I visit worldwide. However, something I noticed on my last trip to Japan was that snowglobes are about as common as fairy dust.

So alongside decorating my apartment, I came up with a super fun way for me to do a similar thing, but in a very Japanese fashion. Unless you live under a rock, you'll know I have a huge, sometimes concerning, Hello Kitty obsession.

I've bought a map of Japan, and I'm starting to collect Gotochi Hello Kitty's. You can learn more about them here http://www.itoyoshi.net/kitty.html, but they're basically small charms that are themed, usually to local tourist attractions or regional delicacies.

Disclaimer: The Rilakkuma one from Tokyo is a special exception.
It's from the limited edition Yamanote line Rilakkuma-themed train.

There are so many to get, but I'm aiming to get one for each of the 47 prefectures at least. It's nice to be able to put them on my map at home; to remember where I've travelled, and something that makes that area unique.

1. Fukuoka - Hakata strawberry

2. Kumamoto - Kumamon (prefectural mascot)

3. Kagoshima - Satsuma Sakurajima daikon (radish)

4. Kyoto - Kiyomizu dera (temple)

5. Okinawa - Chinsuko (sugar cookie)

I still need to get ones from Osaka, Nara, Tokyo and Yokohama, all of which I visited before I started this. If anyone wants to help out on that front, that'd be great!

Undoukai: The Japanese sports festival

Yesterday, I was asked to attend one of my elementary schools sports festivals. From the word go I was playing the clueless foreigner card, as I had no idea what was going on for the majority without asking a few questions.

The day was a mixture of the usual races, dance performances, and other events that were only comparable to something you’d see on Total Wipe-out. The second graders at all of my elementary schools have been wandering around with flower basket hats lately, and I finally got a chance to watch this schools rendition of hanagasa, or “flower basket dance”, which melted my heart.

One thing I absolutely loved about the day is that only certain grades compete in a designated race for that year. That meant all of the students got a chance to compete, and despite being split into the “red phoenix” or “white dragon” team, the amount of enthusiasm, teamwork and comradery was something I’ve never seen at sports days back home. It was lovely to see how the children also consider themselves one big family, with the 6^th graders taking it upon themselves to comfort the little ones if they came last or fell over.

Did I mention I got roped into racing 4^th graders in their 100m dash? God forbid a child is sick and their race has one less participant. At least I showed willing, and if anything, gave the kids a slight panic attack amidst their exclamations of “eh? Keito sensei?!” at the start line.

Along with bumping in to a few teachers from my other schools, who were pleased to know I was teaching their kids, I found a British companion. She has been living here for 15 years after coming to teach English, and found out about me thanks to a rather large picture of me in the school newsletter; one I was completely unaware of might I add. It’s nice to know someone who’s got their life settled in Kumamoto, but can also relate to the position I’m in. I’ve already been invited to afternoon tea too!

In the evening, I was invited to the schools enkai celebrating their successful day. This was hands down the liveliest enkai I’ve been to, as the teachers had the day off today. The highlight had to be everyone dancing to the music from the festival earlier, and I’m not sure what I loved more; the cute hanagasa by the 2^nd graders, or the drunken rendition at a Chinese restaurant using seat cushions in place of a flower basket. Once the words nijikai (second party) were mentioned, I had to put my foot down before being bullied into karaoke by my principal. He wanted to perform “Bridge Over Troubled Water” for me, something that will have to wait until next time, as I’m not usually one to turn down a bit of karaoke.

All in all, I had a great day, despite wallowing in self-pity at my desk now. I’m pretty sure I hallucinated the smell of a bacon butty earlier, which helps explain my current state, but here’s to regretting drinking a bottle of plum wine, and waiting for 5pm to come. Happy Monday!