Saturday, January 17, 2004
Snow! Just a light dusting this morning, and it's turned to rain now.
One of my students was able to explain the golden rope around the rock near the shrine on top of Mt. Komaga-take. A god lives there. They like to move in to unusual natural features: interestingly shaped old trees being a particular favourite. An isolated big rock on top of a mountain looks very holy, and is instantly recognisable as the dwelling place of a deity.
One of my students was able to explain the golden rope around the rock near the shrine on top of Mt. Komaga-take. A god lives there. They like to move in to unusual natural features: interestingly shaped old trees being a particular favourite. An isolated big rock on top of a mountain looks very holy, and is instantly recognisable as the dwelling place of a deity.
Friday, January 16, 2004
School-with-slippers day again. Discovered that I also have to change footwear when I go to the bathroom – there's a special communal pair of bathroom slippers left on the step into it. I don't like to think about it too much...
Thursday, January 15, 2004
My student said “light”, and then “right”, and they were different, and it was very good.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
My train was late today. This is newsworthy here. I've traveled by train almost every day since I got here, and since I usually have to change at least once, that's about 250 trains so far. And every single one has, without any exception, has arrived exactly as timetabled. To the minute: they're frighteningly accurate. Most stations have marks painted on the platform indicating where the doors will be, so that people can queue, and I did once see a train reverse two feet because the driver had overshot. Today, however everything went pear-shaped, and my train arrived 20 minutes after it should have. The reason was blandly announced as an accident at Totsuka, but this conceals some grizzly facts. The delay was due to salaryman on the line. This happens so much that some stations have walls along the platform edge with doors in them which open in sync with the train's. I've been relatively unaffected by depressed salarymen leaping in front of speeding trains, because they tend to prefer the busiest lines in the centre of town, so that their final act causes maximum disruption.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Back online at last. Sunday's "major reconfigure" didn't go as smoothly as hoped...
Here beginneth today's lesson: banks. In short: they have caused me paranoia, bewilderment and fury, but, in the end a humane teller smoothed it all out. In long: opening a bank account was not easy, but to be fair to the banks, dealing with me is not much fun. They have to speak English to me, I don't have a hanko, there's a (biggish) risk I'll offend some point of banking etiquette, and so on. One bank really messed about, though. Shane, my employers, had advised me that this bank was sympathetic to gaijin, and given me a letter in Japanese explaining who I was and what I wanted. I presented this in the prescribed manner - with both hands, correct way up for the receiver, whilst bowing slightly - to the teller, who told me that I hadn't been in Japan for a year, and so couldn't have a bank account. So, either my attempts at correct etiquette were so laughable as to be offensive, or they had changed their policy towards foreigners. A few days later Stuart, who arrived in the same batch as me, was told the same thing. However, the day after that, Gary and Becky, who also arrived at the same time, walked out with bank cards and welcome packs. A few days later, I tried again, to be refused again, again because I haven't been here for a year. It was very odd, and no one knew what was going on, although the Japanese staff in head office seemed to smile knowingly (the paranoia was building). I tried a second bank. They refused because the letter was addressed to the first bank. I found out which bits of the letter were bank-dependent, tippexed them out, and tried a third bank. My luck was finally in, and I was served by someone charming and helpful. We worked out which bits of my name should be used, and which way round they should go, and I discovered that I was born in year 49 of the Showa era. Today is 16-1-13: year 16 of the Heisei era.
Here beginneth today's lesson: banks. In short: they have caused me paranoia, bewilderment and fury, but, in the end a humane teller smoothed it all out. In long: opening a bank account was not easy, but to be fair to the banks, dealing with me is not much fun. They have to speak English to me, I don't have a hanko, there's a (biggish) risk I'll offend some point of banking etiquette, and so on. One bank really messed about, though. Shane, my employers, had advised me that this bank was sympathetic to gaijin, and given me a letter in Japanese explaining who I was and what I wanted. I presented this in the prescribed manner - with both hands, correct way up for the receiver, whilst bowing slightly - to the teller, who told me that I hadn't been in Japan for a year, and so couldn't have a bank account. So, either my attempts at correct etiquette were so laughable as to be offensive, or they had changed their policy towards foreigners. A few days later Stuart, who arrived in the same batch as me, was told the same thing. However, the day after that, Gary and Becky, who also arrived at the same time, walked out with bank cards and welcome packs. A few days later, I tried again, to be refused again, again because I haven't been here for a year. It was very odd, and no one knew what was going on, although the Japanese staff in head office seemed to smile knowingly (the paranoia was building). I tried a second bank. They refused because the letter was addressed to the first bank. I found out which bits of the letter were bank-dependent, tippexed them out, and tried a third bank. My luck was finally in, and I was served by someone charming and helpful. We worked out which bits of my name should be used, and which way round they should go, and I discovered that I was born in year 49 of the Showa era. Today is 16-1-13: year 16 of the Heisei era.
Sunday, January 11, 2004
No standby call up! Tomorrow is a public holiday, and Tuesday is my day off, so I'm back in the holiday mood. More sloth today. Didn't do much more than back up my computer in preparation for a major re-configure, iron a few shirts, and reheat a packet of Dinner Curry. This stuff, Kari Raisu, is a staple of the Yoshinoya-like caffs, but isn't a curry as we know it: good old fashioned curry powder suspended in gloop just about describes it. It's often served with a hamburger and a fried egg, and you're given a spoon to eat it all with, to enhance that foreign food experience.
Saturday, January 10, 2004
More work, busy day with classes back to back from 2:30 to 7. Home by 9 though, so not all bad. Includes a class containing three girls whose names are similar enough to cause me more than my usual confusion over students' names. Most Japanese names are still unfamiliar strings of syllables to me. It causes embarassment. Before Christmas, one of my housewives' classes took me out and plied me with sake and sashimi, at great expense. In honour of this, I made a special effort to memorise their names, in which I suceeded. But, once we were seated in the restautant, I realised that I was certain about two of the name-face combinations, but that there was an element of doubt in matching the other two. When the moment came in which I had to use one of these two names, I took a deep breath, mentally flipped a coin, and uttered a name. I was right! and the evening didn't degenerate into a pit of awkwardness. Actually, it occurs to me now that I might have been wrong, and they all played along to save my blushes, and that they continue to play along in class. Top boys names: Shingo, Hiroki, Tsutomu, Kezuke, Yuta, Takihiro; top girls names: Yoko, Yuri, Miki, Chiisa, Makiko, Hisako, Tomoko, Ayano, Rie.
It's very cold, and has been for about a week. My flat is all windows, but kept warm by a combined heater, air-conditioner and dehumidifier - an appliance for all seasons. It has a remote control, which I keep next to my futon. When I wake up I can scrape the ice off my eyeballs and press a button, then get up when the room reaches a non-lethal temperature. I'll need to wear dark glasses to read my next electricity bill.
Day off tomorrow - in theory. I'm on standby, which means that if someone is off, I'll be hauled out of bed at 10 o'clock. But surely no-one would be ill on a Sunday morning, or want to pull a sicky on a weekend before a bank holiday Monday..
It's very cold, and has been for about a week. My flat is all windows, but kept warm by a combined heater, air-conditioner and dehumidifier - an appliance for all seasons. It has a remote control, which I keep next to my futon. When I wake up I can scrape the ice off my eyeballs and press a button, then get up when the room reaches a non-lethal temperature. I'll need to wear dark glasses to read my next electricity bill.
Day off tomorrow - in theory. I'm on standby, which means that if someone is off, I'll be hauled out of bed at 10 o'clock. But surely no-one would be ill on a Sunday morning, or want to pull a sicky on a weekend before a bank holiday Monday..
Friday, January 09, 2004
Back at work today. New school, right at the end of the Daiyuzan line. Nothing but kids all day, preceded by a solitary old lady. I'd been told to expect her home baking, but nothing doing. Maybe next week. The school itself is the oddest I've yet been to. It's in an apartment block, rather than an office block, in a converted apartment, and there's nothing, anywhere, to indicate its location, until you stumble across the front door. The apartment has five rooms, two of which are classrooms for my school. The others are a music school, a newspaper office and a juku, where junior high school kids are sent in the evening to make sure they don't have time to develop a personality. It's also the only school I work at where one removes shoes at the door. I'll take my own slippers next time: they don't have any big enough for me. This is always the case: the slippers at the Ota Gallery were particulary small and uncomfotable. Being a head taller than most people also means that I bump my head on things about once every couple of days, and about once a week it really hurts.
