Engrishes 2.1 (and other funny things)

Engrish: Any acts of attempted English by Japanese that result in interesting reinterpretations or misapplication in any media. I have a few more examples than before.



This is an ad with a "handsome foreigner" to sell sochs. The look on the man's face says to me: "Are you sure you spelled it right, Mr. Japanese English student?


The answer, unfortunately, is no. With spelling like this on almost everything, and far worse grammar, it is little wonder that English spelling is so especially confusing...



There are also messages with good/reasonable grammar, but with no real meaning.


Well, they spelled it right at least! However, the fact that they took this from the saying, and even the font of "WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" is somehow...well...in some things English, the spirit can be lost for sake of popular English-coolness. This, by the way, is a sock/shoe store.



This is the first floor of a business called (you guessed it) The Loft. The strange thing about this loft...


...is that it has a first floor. Just like any other of its 7 floors. Without a loft-setup for any of them.


Don't you just hate it when he does that?

Japanese Lessons

My Japanese teacher, Nishi-sensei ("Professor West") took me to Kongoo Ji, a Buddist shrine yesterday. There, they have assortments of gigantic statues as guardians along the now-paved roads and along the foot-paths through park. Nothing is readily handicap-accessible. Like with many doorways in Japan, the bottom of the doorways are proportionally higher as the door gets bigger. So in my home there is a 1-3 in. bump between rooms, but in the big gates at Kongoo, you have to step over a huge B much of theEAM to walk trough some of the doors. Feels strange, but, the gates are so beautiful you don't care (unless you have crutches or a wheelchair). The roofs are lined along the edges with a symbol of one of the more dominant samurai clans, looking like a yin-yang, but with 3 of the "fishies" chasing around (you can see it in some of the pictures at the circular ends of the roof-tiles). This monastery obviously had some samurai influence in the past! Also, something you won't see in the rest of the Buddist world, are Inu, croutching on the lips of most roofs, and hanging along the beams of the inside of buildings. These are strone demons. They leave both a sense of awe and a sense of "keep in line, you're in a monastery." Also, there were two slightly more amazing statues present: one's for prayer. The one with the children at the feet is used to pray for mothers whose child did not come to term, "suiko" (sounds like "water-child" to me, but I don't think that is accurate either, since the prayers aren't for the embryos but for the mothers only at this shrine.) The other one has a clearly labels granite spire next to it, stating "illness can be relieved by prayer here" (in a much more poetic form). I passed through a giant cemetery with beautiful, well-kept grave cites (almost all Japanese-Buddist in style) and I caught sight of some giant black fish swimming along the cute and narrow streams that run throughout the place causing it to be split by a variety of small bridges. People say fish only grow as big as their residence but...these fish were about as tall as they could be without their fins being out of the water!

There were also spiders and spiderwebs everywhere. some of the spiders made ours look quite tame, and apparenty some can jump long distances, since I saw some strings of web that crossed lengths of around a few yards or meters. When I asked Nishi-sensei about these, she told me that they were not at all dangerous, and, as usual, I was slightly sceptical. I'm not used to any spider being completely harmless, and many of them being deadly! He there are an assortment of the buggers of the nastiest-looking varieties you've ever seen, and they are harmless? Well, eventually I'll believe it whole-heartedly, but I can't help but be wary for now. I also obtained a few pictures.

Before we left, Nishi-sensei had me go up to the large bell you see encased in a roofed frame. It is huge! You ring it with a big log on a rope, which you pull back and let it swing forward. It is a low, peaceful sound, that rings for about 2 minutes audibly before dropping off the end of your hearing range. What a wonderful sound...it makes clock chimes and most big American bells sound brash and irritating by comparison...then again, many people seem to think Americans are brash and irritating!

You know how a good used book store can make you happy? Well, I found one that redefines "happy" in connection to "bookstore." It is called Book Off. The average price of a book in Book Off is about 100 yen (roughly 90 cents) and is untaxed. I can find mint condition series of manga for 3000 Yen, about 26ish dollars. Thats 35 books! I can find about 100 differerent popular series and probably just as many that are otherwise. They also sell used video games. I found a game that is perhaps $60-100 for the equivalent of $4.50. Anyone who needs any Japanese literature, manga, or maybe Anime can ask, and they can pay me back. (However, anime is expensive anywhere, and never translated in Japanese version, which Japanese English teachers get very mad about when they want to use movies they KNOW are translated for OTHER countries.)

Another thing, and this is an apology. I apologize if I made the Japanese style of teacher or subborness/resilence of many of the older teachers sound bad. There are definitely things that the Japanese education system do work well for, such and Math and Science. However, teaching methodology for almost any subject is almost identical for any subject for any older (and influential) teacher. Their preferences are exerted on the rest of the younger groups of teachers, and even the teachers that want to change sometimes do not have the option. Some of the older that want to change would lose great dignity at their own style changing late in their lives. It would be admitting that their forebearers were in some way inferior to people alive and teaching today, instead of superior and equal. It is too bad, and it is to some degree an internal struggle with no answer for many older teachers. I feel great empathy for them. There is no easy answer. But when most of these teachers retire, make no mistake about it, the system is able to move more easily toward language-teaching specific techniques, towards ability to use speech, to use language in the classroom, to have individualities in their English, to develop accent, and to learn to use English in the sense of it being "living English," the clearly stated official and well-known goal of the Ministry of Education for the past 20 years. But if the teachers can't speak it because their teachers were like themselves, the students won't speak it. And if the students grow up not speaking it, they will not be able to teach speaking to their students. This cycle has already started, but luckily there are some progressive teachers making ground. However, there is a problem that happens: once they get some power to make changes (through an institution) this comes with increased status. The higher the status, the less the freedom. And no matter how high you go, there is always someone above you, usually unbudgable and to whom which you are to defer. Therefore, most people like myself have to cut back on the new and the techniques that they know are different but in many cases more helpful for achieving national goals and go with what their superiors want. However, when the going gets rough, most teachers, despite wanting group conformity more than global change, will stay at their post in the hardest times, with bad pay, little vacation, and the stress of being their children's Mama or Papa. This is nothing short of the most admirable. Most teachers in Japan would rather have a job more like that of what many of teachers in America would probably leave within a year. So this "weak-point" in progress is also a strong point in character. They gamman, or persevere, as a part of self-discipline. Some might see it as foolhardy, but to most here, and to myself, that ability to gamman is quite admirable. I know that Teachers here deep down wants the best for their students, and that most really do want to change, to varying degrees. It's just not always possible within the bounds of the system. In America this would leave us feeling "powerless," which is awful for us. Here, however, it leaves people with a sense of amae, that is, of dependence, almost like interdependence but with more heirarchy. This is seen as a good thing to have here. It fits well with the Taoist idea of balance, and the Shinto belief that one should find comfort in harmony with your surroundings and strive for peace with Earth and with others. So it definitely isn't all bad with teachers here, and in some ways, we could take some serious lessons from Japanese teachers as much as they could of us.

Making the News?

My "Kid's English" summer camp experience apparently caught the eye of a journalist, who was sitting off to the side of the room (unbeknowst to me) during our play on Sunday. Apparently, s/he was dropping by events around the downtown area of Miki, hoping for something. When they stopped at my Summer Camp, apparently, an English teacher holding a giant radish cut-out while a ton of tiny kids with better pronunciation than most adults played tug-O' war, doing a play constructed in a few hours, really impressed him.

A little history to make it clearer why our event was weird:

Sensei (teachers) are highly respected here. They do more to raise children than parents do. They are expected to. It is not like America where the teachers feel like their raising someone else's kids while the parents seem to lay all the responsibilities where they shouldn't belong. Here, that IS where they belong, and are expected to belong. Sensei are very highly regarded because of their talent and ability, and the knowledge that they are the one's that have led Japan in the "next" age in almost every sense, throughout the entirity of recorded history. They are seen for being roughly as important as they are, (unlike most of the US). Therefore, almost any teacher merits about the level of respect as a priniciple or super intendent, and any respected teacher is VERY well respected. You are sensei in school, out of it, in your sleep, during vacation, everywhere, every time. Even your graduates from Jr. High School will be "your kids" until they are under the care of the HS. their action are your responsibility. However, because of this level of prestige, people are expected to ACT their level. Usually better dressed, well-spoken, very law abiding, and a role model EVERYWHERE you go. This also means that most senseis seem a bit stuffy. They do not play along in their kids plays, they don't play sports with the kids, they don't get down and do dirty things (except mopping the classroom floor, that is a responsibility given by the school as part of taking care of your own classroom).

What I did may have been beyond belief: I dropped down to the level of the children to do English with them, they DID English, well, better than most of their older, better-studied peers, had a memorable experience, had FUN *gasp, in school?* and all seemed to come away improved from little effort and lots of enjoyment. "This is definitely not part of Japanese teaching style," the onlookers like the reporter I never saw might have thought. A sensei does not make funny faces, hide behind a desk with a radish cut out, groan, moan, or laugh like just like an evil Japanese movie villain (and neither would a radish in a play, but they might in other circles of the culture!)

This mix of creativity, student work, and general WILLINGNESS to work at the base student level proved excellent. Sitting down, being quiet, listening, not asking question, not having opinions...these were not in our camp. Memorizing was, but not much, and it was all contextualized obviously through the actions of the play. We still had Japanese sensei as LEADERS there, of course like most, leading the camp but not participating in the plays, or "sinking to the level of a student" but ALL of us internationals had no problem with it. I've already gotten a postcard from one young girl basically stating she wants a to be taught like our camps' way instead of a normal sensei! Craziness.

I went into work today, to get my Green Card taken care of and to ensure that I am 100% medically covered for everything (under $16/month under the japanese system!) and one of the teachers ran up and handed me the post card I mentioned. I read it, seeing that in addition to the reassuring information about me being a pleasant/effective teacher, it also made mention of my picture being in today's "Kobe Shinbun."

Just then, one of the workers said "I saw you in The Paper."
"Paper?" I said, still translating from having just seen Shinbun at the same moment on the page. Ah, Shinbun is newspaper, duh! I thought. Then things come together quickly. "The Paper" is the same thing as the Kobe Shinbun. Kobe Shinbun is that really big paper, that puts the others in the area all to shame. It's like the Seattle Times or higher yet. This is THE respected Japanese paper in Hyogo, maybe even the highest in all of Kansai. My picture. In that. For Kid's English. There were a thousand photos...tons of participants. They picked one with me in it to capture the spirit of it?
The office-worker lead me to the library and the paper and told me she'll get me a translation and colour copies of it for me. nice. She told me that her cousin works for the paper, very proudly, as anyone SHOULD in her position! She basically stated that if I attend another camp (since this last one was a success and was story-worthy, even worthy for a picture-spot), that it would be very likely that the next journalist seen event (now slightly more likely to be in Miki after this event) would achieve a futher-up spot and maybe an interview of me or something, since they might be inclined from the commotion we seemed to have caused anyways.

So far, I am liking being a radical western teacher in Japan, as you could all probably tell. I've been staying within most bounds of the culture, but pushing towards the new and more enjoyable learning methods that have been proven to be effective as they are fun. I've not gotten into trouble once over them yet, though I imagine that if I do so in the wrong setting it won't work so well. As it stands, I'm making much more progress that I would have ever dreamed. People are hearing about interactive teaching now, all over Japan. Reading it in the newspaper: "foreign Sensei go where no Japanese teacher dare go." In addition the the slow pushing by many fine educators that have studied abroad or have an understanding for learning, headway is being made. However, it's people like me, the radicals, that can make people see what these things can be. I don't have a strict many-years old system in place on me, and I have more freedom than the local teachers, since I do not have tradition to force me to act certain ways, or teach in certain styles that even most of these teachers KNOW aren't effective. I'm not stuck. And I intend to keep using that. I'm glad that the camp was so open to us few foreigners and my friends. Of course...none of these overlord Japanese sensei, even seeing us go up there and give it our all for the kids was not enough to make even one make a moment's stage appearance. Not even Kyoko, one of the brightest and give-it-her-all teachers I've met anywhere. If enough students see this though, and our methods are effective, funny, radical, and MEMORABLE, that those few who become teachers will remember, and maybe even follow our trend.

Confucius-style teaching was good for its time and subject, but in the age of science, math, culture, and foreign languages, sheer memorization followed by giant paper tests will not keep Japan in a leading position in the world. Korea and others are replicating the Japanese system and forcing their children into even busier time-filling schools that are hated and which produce data-filled, uncreative workers that will work to death to pass the Japanese. The Japanese feel they' don't have creativity in schools, or expression, and even the Board of Education has complained that the schools need to change in this area. However, the flexibility is not there in the generation in place. I just hope that I can reach out and inspire even one child who is willing to say "Enough of this! I'm going to teach my kids the most effective ways I can. I'm going to be creative like Adam-Sensei. I'm going to work WITH my kids when I'm sensei, and I'm going to have fun doing it too! I'm going to be different. I'm a part of the new Japan, and we are going to be the best yet."

That would make a whole year worth it for me. I am honoured by the appearance in the paper, and happy that I made an impact, but when it comes down to it, I hope they come away feeling that things don't have to be "Examination Hell" as many of the Japanese have titled much of their schoolives. I'm glad our teaching is getting publicity, but what I really want is for these kids to grow up liking learning, feeling good about their lives as children, and being able spend some time just being people instead of memorizing machines. I'd like for all of Japan to change, but nothing happens too fast here, unfortunately. Respect goes to elders, and elders stick to their guns, as it is. I think we should respect our elders. But when they are soley resposible for the #1 country for education falling behind in some of the most imortant fields, they sometimes need to learn to follow new developments in Education, or take responsibility instead of going by the same methods they grew up with and were taught only, even when they very well know there are better ways out there. I knew when I came to Japan that I couldn't reform the education system, but already I am finding I have more power to do so than I would have thought. Thank you Mom and Dad for showing me what teachers can be like.

First Korean Food, First Hamburger, Insomniac database

In Japan, food seems priced more based on availability than it is on anything else. In America, a healthy chicken sandwich will run you about as much as a a beef sandwich. Prices with chicken and beef, as a good example, are generally close in price in America, depending on the cut. Here in Japan, I can get about 3 times as much chicken for my money as beef. Sometimes $1.50's worth of Yen will give me about as much chicken breast as I can eat as a meal unto itself (alot), and the best price for Beef that I have seen has been 99 Yen/100g, which comes out to around $3.90/lb. So I've been eating ALOT of chicken! It is one of the cheapest forms of sustinence around, and it is of about the same quality as in the States. I also bought my first box of "Strawberry Collon" which I could not resist after taking the pictures. It is, of course, delicious and not in the slightest reminiscent of a the dozens of jokes about its name that could easily be devised.

Over the last 2 weeks, I have eating Chong Do Woen's cooking twice, when he has cooked too much. Both times it was Korean food, and both times it was excellent. So now I love Korean food, or at least, what he makes. After the first time I told him that I would have to cook something for him, but due to the heat, it would probably have to wait until Summer was over. Then he cooked again and it was even better, so I told him I'd immediately get underway on making him some "American" food of some kind. I knew he'd had McDonald's and Mos Burger (it's Japan-only clone) but I figured it would be simple enough, yet due to the quality of beef in the area, that it would be pretty good. I hunted down the cheapest ground beef that I could find, the best I could find (they don't seem to sell real cheese, processed is what you can find in the grocers), some bacon, brown sugar (to make it brown-sugar bacon), and the closest thing I could find to buns, unfortunately the size of McDonald's buns and not the right shape or size or abilty to come into two parts. Our freestanding stand-on-the-counter stove cooked the meat in about 1 and a half minute, leaving me scrambling between bacon, unwraping pre-sliced cheese, and trying to get the rest in order. Sweat from the further ridiculously increased heat was dripping fast enough that I didn't have time to wipe it away with my hands so busy, and I literally couldn't see through most of my glasses because of the streaks of moisture from 3 minutes of cooking or so.

When I set out Chon Do's for him, his first bite was follow with a suspiciously fast "delicious!" before he had even finished chewing. He finished both of his by the time I could get to my seat and take my first bite! So I was happy, but I knew he could eat anything fast, so I wasn't about to make any bets on the quality of my burgers. Sure enough, mine was better than one from Red Robin, but not quite a Hudson's, although the brown sugar bacon helped. The buns weren't right, but Chon Do didn't know the difference, or care, apparently. Chon Do had carefully watched me prepare it, as if throwing a hamburger together were some ancient and refined, tried-and-true traditional cooking art like Wok or Sushi, which I found only vaguely humourous during the heat, but I found much funnier in reflection once I was back into air conditioning.

The next day I went out and returned, looking in the fridge for my giant bottle of refrigerated tap water, and I noticed something strange: Our normally sparse fridge was full. When I looked at what the pink-reflecting containers were in our lower fridge (slightly warmer than an American fridge), I saw that it was ground beef. There might have been enough beef to feed my family of 4 for a day of beef dished in there! I looked up into the upper almost-freezing fridge out of habit after that and discovered that it too had had all extra space filled with ground beef! Apparently his first REAL hamburger (minus the strange bun) was a hit! Within a day and a half the rest of the buns and were gone and only one container of ground was left in the freezer, and Chon Do was all kittens and roses, as he remains now after his 2 days of binge hamburger-eating.



Another thing I came across, thanks to Sean Simpson, my pal from Alaska, is from "The Sweetest Sound" on PBS. This is a surname-frequency search. The top 55,000 were collected for this research. Surprisingly, my own surname, "Frank" is fairly high in frequency for last names in the USA! I guessed the #1 and #2 on my first 2 tries. See if you can't. I'll post what they were at the end of the blog if you don't want to spoil it for yourself playing the guessing game.

Here's the link, and a few names you might find familiar, including their frequencies (after a selection of the more important ones, there is also a list of ones strung together by subject and insomniacical craziness. Since there are so many, don't feel obliged to read them all, but they ARE wonderful social commentary in raw data form You can really see values of America as a whole in these 55,000 most common last names in the US, starting with the ones I've already categorized for your thoughts):

http://www.pbs.org/cgi-registry/pov/sweetestsound/poirot?name=Frank

Relatives or close-enoughs:
Frank is surname number 443 in the USA.
Kephart is surname number 6244
Webster is surname number 409
Klim is surname number 37293
Fitzpatrick is surname number 758
Tallman is surname number 3525
Warwick is surname number 6406
Hale is surname number 314
Cavilla, as a surname, does not exist in this database, because it is not among the top 55,000 most common names in the US.

Esteemed friends:
Tyrrell is surname number 5041
Warren is surname number 148
Simpson is surname number 142
Gardener is surname number 17744 (Gardner is surname number 160 in the USA.)
Hall is surname number 26 (Congratulations! You're name is pretty common!)
Mielke is surname number 6391
Countryman is surname number 7517

Professors:
Hunter is surname number 133
Huntington is surname number 3998
Savage is surname number 614
Colour-related names:
Brown is surname number 5
Chalk is surname number 10798
White is surname number 15
Gray is surname number 70 (about half way between White and Black)
Black is surname number 150
Green is surname number 35
Moss is surname number 339
Olive is surname number 5095
Leaf is surname number 11300
Blue is surname number 1289
Sky is surname number 49890
Navy is surname number 42582
Tan is surname number 2130
Rust is surname number 2998
Buff is surname number 9457
Orange is surname number 6306
Red is surname number 17505
Pink is surname number 10725
Rose is surname number 162
Violet is surname number 27392
Shine is surname number 4717
Luster is surname number 5058
Hue is surname number 39417
Shade is surname number 4774
Tone is surname number 27354
Light is surname number 1795
Dark is surname number 12234
(Materials, Elements)

Copper is surname number 11740
Silver is surname number 1312
Gold is surname number 1680 ^
Diamond is surname number 1667 (similar in # to ^, note the general increase in proportion to value)
Steel is surname number 4925
Rock is surname number 1771
Stone is surname number 145
Wood is surname number 73
Tree is surname number 31028
Grass is surname number 7381
Ground is surname number 33324
Waters is surname number 417
Lake is surname number 983
Stream is surname number 22978
River is surname number 35796
Pond is surname number 3701
Creek is surname number 8375
Crick is surname number 10643 (silly, made-up, hick words!)
Falls is surname number 4373
Moist is surname number 45641
Ice is surname number 9034
Frost is surname number 727
Snow is surname number 677
Hail is surname number 14446
Sleet is surname number 43152
Match is surname number 42386
Fire is surname number 41627
Burn is surname number 20027
Storm is surname number 3762
Shock is surname number 8022
Thunder is surname number 54585 *
Bolt is surname number 4117
Strike is surname number 25422
Man is surname number 13094
Many is surname number 39775 (there are very few Fews)
Times is surname number 54595 (similar to * in rank)

Sensations:
Chill is surname number 47446
See is surname number 3642
Touch is surname number 26353
Love is surname number 316 (lots of love)
Fear is surname number 14703
Joy is surname number 2476
Anger is surname number 9657

Morality, Judgement, Worship:
Good is surname number 965
Pretty is surname number 30773
Holy is surname number 23374
Faith is surname number 11928
Pope is surname number 451(that's alot of Popes!)
Christian is surname number 308
Christman is surname number 2626
Christmas is surname number 5324
Jesus is surname number 21351
Christ is surname number 4138
Tao is surname number 17567
Mohammad is surname number 8684
Allah is surname number 28579
Goat, as a surname, does not exist in this database, because it is not among the top 55,000 most common names in the US.
Bob is surname number 26527
Miracle is surname number 6195
Bless is surname number 43917
Blessing is surname number 6465
Bible is surname number 7713
Book is surname number 6840
Pray is surname number 9063
Cross is surname number 340
Temple is surname number 1395
Church is surname number 848
Sin is surname number 11179
Priest is surname number 2307
Pastor is surname number 6496
Monk is surname number 2499
Servant is surname number 43080
Lord is surname number 1343
Life is surname number 25984
Evil, as a surname, does not exist in this database, because it is not among the top 55,000 most common names in the US. (the same is true for ugly, plauge, disease, catastophe, dead, and bad)

Others
Space is surname number 20966
Ball is surname number 328
Goodyear is surname number 9893
Bull is surname number 2823 (No Cow, Sheep or Pig)

Take one person with each last name to the Battlefield (Battle is surname number 1109), in order:
Justice is surname number 1159
Honor is surname number 26851
Pain is surname number 49295 (Paine is much more common a surname number 3795 in the USA. )
Long is surname number 91
Sword is surname number 10592
Grand is surname number 18642
Tower is surname number 7237
Shield is surname number 19869
Armor is surname number 24706
Helm is surname number 2107
Shoe is surname number 29591
Or is surname number 45802
Short is surname number 503 (notice there are less Shorts than Longs)
Boots is surname number 13656
Swim is surname number 18892
Shorts is surname number 10071
Million is surname number 10162
Story is surname number 1675
Six is surname number 8185
Tall is surname number 20994
Spear is surname number 2312
Reach is surname number 37870
Farr is surname number 1715
Sheer is surname number 24515
Blade is surname number 12403
Sharp is surname number 352
An is surname number 8452
Edge is surname number 2804
Board is surname number 7250
Shake is surname number 17543
Small is surname number 612 (Big is not in the top 55,000 even!)
Super is surname number 13169
Point is surname number 20338
Stick is surname number 36001
Staff is surname number 18871
Bow is surname number 14646
Spell is surname number 5244
Rod is surname number 30831
Cast is surname number 23959
Pain is surname number 49295
Spells is surname number 20411
On is surname number 35621
You is surname number 11703
Date is surname number 44292
Off is surname number 42637
Rich is surname number 616
Baron is surname number 2080
Money is surname number 5005
Cash is surname number 1000
Dollar is surname number 5078
Pence is surname number 2536
Go is surname number 11601
Place is surname number 4198
In is surname number 22656
Castle is surname number 1557
Score is surname number 35888
Wax is surname number 13615
Troop is surname number 18018
Strong is surname number 670
Captain is surname number 30022
Young is surname number 29
Just is surname number 8586
Knight is surname number 188
Wake is surname number 10466
Weeks is surname number 740
Old is surname number 26124 (Many more babies come from Young than Old)
Dragon is surname number 14419
Well is surname number 50359
Running is surname number 20922
Horse is surname number 52360
Butt is surname number 4493
Doctor is surname number 8654
No is surname number 28152
Furr is surname number 3788
Dress is surname number 28874
Kill is surname number 25914
Blood is surname number 5352
Foe is surname number 41637


Top 3 most common names in the US:
#1=Smith
#2=Johnson
#3=Williams

I didn't find the 4th, but I did find the #5 name (Brown)

Thanks to all you readers that made it through!

Typhoon, Turnip, Today

Today I woke up to a light rain that had been going for the past 2 days pretty solidly since I finally decided to demand that the sky bring us some rain. It worked a little too well. At 8:05 am, I walk into the sprinkle, and by 8:10 am I am soaked thoroughly. By the time I make it to the place where I am to be picked up, nothing on my person that I can find is dry enough to allow me to clear my glasses enough to allow vision. As I wait under a small bus shelter, the dryfit quickly dries to the point of wiping-but-not-cleaning, and as I return my glasses to my face for the 7th or 8th try to get them cleaned-off, I see Trang rounding the corner, waving as she comes. Apparently she is to be a fellow helper in "Kid's English" the camp that I decided to volunteer to assist in so as to try to return a favor to Kyoko Kawagoe the Everhelpful teacher and one of the most fluent native Japanese speakers of English on the island (she was the one who gave me tons of advice and in a way got me connected to the Taikyoken classes here at Miki). Kyoko is surprisingly a little late, probably from driving through the typhoon. Typhoon? Yep, when I got into the car, Kyoko asked me almost immediately but politely if I had watched TV this morning. I of course had not, as I have never once watched any in my house, but apparently every channel had been cut out by the government to inform the public that a Typhoon was in progress and to travel very carefully. Whoops! I missed the memo, it seems! Well, I had just unknowingly experienced my first Typhoon! Luckily I was too tired to notice more than the effort in putting one foot in front of the other on a path I knew well until I could get into the partial shelter of the bus stop. Kyoko was SHOCKED to find out that I had never once purchased, considered purchasing, or owned an umbrella (kasa) of my own once in my life, and had only probably used one on a dozen occasions. She suggested that I reconsider this thought. As we drove, we had to slow down to let the diversions of water that were overflowing the overflow system's overflow (from all of about 25 minutes of hard rain mostly, mind you) which included large lakes and a host of diversion systems into rice fields. (The rice field discovery is a recent one for me: pictured below are some pictures of the system.)


When we arrived at the Ministry of Education's deluxe classroom building, I met a number of people familiar to home, too familiar to home, and worldly and humbling. It seems that the director of this program, Kid's English, was none other than my own Japanese teacher who recently treated me to lunch at a nice restaurant! In the group of "assistants" like myself, we had: 3 Americans (one was Christopher, the other guy in my Japanese classes), 2 Australian, 1 Vietnamese (Trang), 1 German, 1 Spanish, and 2 Chinese, and one very late Canadian. We had a premeeting, which seems to be a fairly typical Japanese thing to do in group-coordination, then set out to play our parts.

I had been assigned the "main" role in a play called "The Big Turnip," and set in a group with a number of 6-10 year old kids who had memorize their lines already the previous night. (even at THIS age, they are excellent at rote memorization, a still-present ghost of when schools required everything "learned" to be in memorized format.) They all seemed to be unhesitant and never needed to look at the lines they were provided on the pages before them. Most didn't even practice with their notes or script in site! And they had never performed it once! Children are astounding. Never underestimate them. Especially the short ones! On my crew were Ann, an Aussie ALT that formerly taught Elementary Ed in Australia, but wanted to move into English (and who just got a job doing both in a local city!) She was our narrator. Also on our crew, a young woman from KUIS who played the main speaking role, that of a Man who planted a turnip and told it to grow big. We also had the best old-woman impersonator I've seen in a very long time, a 9 year-old girl, as well as a host of tiny restless yet dedicated little performers.

My role in "The Big Turnip": The Turnip. Convinced that making a performance fun for children starts with the adults having fun, and that making the experience contain not only the moral of the story, but also some humor to help them remember it by, I decided to consult with one of the teachers acting as director on ways I could spice up the Turnip's rather flat role of sitting with a meter-across turnip behind a wall until the ever-growing group trying to harvest me manages to pull the Turnip out, while I release the carboard cut-out. Not too exciting. (The whole story is basically of repeated attempts of the man who planted me trying to pull me out with the help of his granny, his daughters, his dogs, his cats, and finally some field mice coerced into helping pull on this turnip by the cats (who would probably eat them if they didn't help).

The moral of the story is an important yet simple one: If we ALL work together, from the bottom of the ladder to the top, we can succeed at even some of the greatest tasks: but without the help of even so weak a creature as a mouse, we might fall short of our societal harvests of life. I'm not being poetic enough for it, but in English I find it difficult to translate properly the Japanese moral with accuracy yet poetry. The working model of our group and how it functioned during the play itself proved to be proof of the moral of the story itself we were working out: Everyone worked in unison, with all lines memorized and fully prepared, and the barely-practiced presentation was ready to go, a short play, in a total of about 1 hour total practice for its performers!

The additions I mostly improvised into the play on our one-and-only run on-stage were as follows: As they pulled on me, I used my elastic face muscles to make a series of increasingly concerned, stressed, and finally "oh, I'm being abducted!" expressions. When the characters would pause in order to recruit further members to help pull me out of the earth, I would shake the gigantic radish back and forth, rotating it, while making my best evil villain deep-throated belly-laughter to the delight of the audience (both student and teacher). The turnip in this traditional story laughing in mocking delight as a ragtag team of humans and animals try to pull it out of the ground?! Apparently this was the spice that this old story might have needed, a rounded (literally and figuratively) villain, who struggles to keep from being killed by removal from the Earth and who laughs in the face of a mere mortal who would dare oppose his power, yet who manages to always end up obviously worried every time they do start pulling on him again, time and time again. When the Turnip finally comes out of the ground and I release the cardboard cutout, I also added a wine-cork "POP!!" sound from my lips, adding a moment of surprise yet humour to the otherwise simple act of a turnip coming out of the ground and the final narrative concluded the One-Act play.

A few shocked teachers came up to help me with my duty of removing stuff from the stage and (their hidden reason for coming to help me out of the natural order) to thank me for making the kids laugh and fall down in the audience, as well as to ask me where in the world I learned how to make a character with no lines the central source of entertainment in a One-Act theatre production in less than an hour, in which I told them the truth: I had some limited theatre and film experience and I felt I had to make the character fun for everyone in order to make it fun for my small troupe and our audience. I didn't get to stay proud for very long though: the 5-language proficient 21 year old master violinist from Germany came up and flawlessly excecuted Mozart's 9th in an increased tempo without a single flaw of any kind and a number of stylized improvements that made me blink when I tried to look at what her hand were doing, thus putting me back into my normal-feeling place.

Later, I we went to take the large array of pictures that are required for every social event in Japan, taking us about 4 minutes in assorted arrangements. I of course grabbed the turnip to cover much of my body, and in a moment where we were all supposed to hold hands in an arc for one, I had Lucky and a friendly Spainiard hold the turnip instead. This kids need something different to remember everything they can by! I will shamelessly mix drama, improvisation, and tradition in order to achieve it!

Finally when it was all over, I was approached immediately by KUINS' highest man-in-charge that I had met to date, who told me he was very impressed and came as close to begging as a super-superior status-holding Japanese person ever may, begging me to participate in further events if at all possible.

And I was afraid I'd lost touch with the kids! The old Planetarium-watchdog has still got it! If nothing else I would have done it again for Mozart's 9th, Chinese Opera singing, and to see Trang do a short performace of a traditional Vietnamese song (which, in contrast to spoken, brash Vietnamese is like a beautiful bird-call that I am almost conviced is beyond the abilities of native English speakers like me. Trang is pictured bellow in her traditional Vietnamese Long Dress, obviously thrilled from having just had a chance to exercise her vocal chords for an audience. Who would have the the fragile red-eyed little thing could sing like that? She's too tiny to have any serious lung capacity). Also, this whole experience was fun! The kids were great. I only had one boy try to assault me with a kitty-ears head-band, and even that was too ridiculously cute, (nay, kawaii!) for me to not enjoy the attack before I returned his attention to practicing the play. Also...this was rewarding for me on a number of other levels. The kids were impressive, the other plays were excellent, the fellow teachers and assistants were fabulous, I got free giant Miki grapes, time to do some quick theatre-making, the reward of congratulations from so many respected teachers, making it fun for the kids...it had been a big day in less than 4 hours!