A rainbow after the typhoon. Ehime Prefecture.
The beginning of September marked the beginning of school. For the students this was their second term since the school year starts and ends in the spring. Their summer break is only for the month of August. Once classes started I was much busier during the week. Since I had just barely adjusted to the time difference, and I wasn’t used to keeping normal work hours I was exhausted most of September and October. On top of that I was doing activities on the weekends so it was hard for me to catch up on sleep. During this time we also had two typhoons (hurricanes) and though there wasn’t much damage here, there was heavy flooding and some serious landslides in other parts of the country, they closed school early a couple of days. I went to several parties. I think this is the biggest “culture shock” thing for me. All of the parties here whether it’s with Japanese people or foreign people, are drinking parties. In fact my prefecture is known for it’s drinking culture, including several drinking games unique to the region. For me having grown up in a family that doesn’t drink, having high school friends that didn’t drink and then going to Principia where we didn’t drink, this was a change for me. I haven’t felt that people have pressured me to drink, and I am rarely the only person not drinking because there is a zero tolerance for drinking any alcohol and then driving. But still these parties are often expensive and designed for people to be drinking. The choices of non-alcoholic beverages are slim (usually oolong tea, orange juice and sometimes cola) and for me I’m just not used to being around people who are drunk. I think it was hard for people to understand how I feel because even if they aren’t drinking, they do drink on occasion and they are used to being at parties where everyone is drinking. I think it wasn’t until October that I honestly had a great time at a party. That is not to say I didn’t have fun before then but it was still very strange to me and I spend a large amount of the time feeling awkward.
Christian Traylor and me at the Kochi Castle Lantern Festival.
Some of the fun highlights of September were the mud soccer tournament and Hatafest. One weekend a group of us went over to a BBQ in the next prefecture over. There we met several of the JETs who live there. Some of them live very close to us but our paths don’t cross because there aren’t very many multi-prefecture activities. We camped out and the following day went to a mud soccer tournament held at a local elementary school. Every year this town has this tournament after their rice harvest. They fill the muddy rice fields with water and set up goals at each end. There were a few teams of JETs competing and since several people had pulled out last minute some of our group joined in the fun. It was very fun to watch and messy even for the spectators. All of our teams lost in the first round but they had a great time doing it. After the soccer there was a traditional children’s activity of eel catching. They released a large amount of live eels into one of the ponds and the children had to go in and try to catch them. Some of the older kids had it down to a method and caught large amounts which they brought to their parents and then I’m sure ate for dinner. There was one cute little girl whose parents wanted to get a picture of her with an eel but she was terrified of it, and as I watched I was thinking that that would probably have been my reaction.
The tournament mascot.
Hatafest was an arts festival in my city. This was the first time they had done it and there was a great turn out. The goal was to highlight local artists. A group of us got together and manned a booth that we called “The Wild West”. Where we sold baked goods that we made and represented the countries we were from (America, Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand). Some people from our group did face painting and it was fun to see children line up to get flags from different countries as well as stars and hearts painted on their faces. I made my mom’s banana bread recipe in mass and it was a big hit. I also sold photos I had taken in America and in Japan. There were many different. Performers at Hatafest, there were Taiko drumming and some Yosakoi dance groups came. There was a group that played ocarina that included a couple of my adult students. There was a steel drum band, interpretive dances (including one with mostly naked men covered in body paint). My students from Ogata High School who are in the music club came and preformed. There are several rock bands at that school, and I was pleasantly surprised at how talented they are.
From the end of September through October Schools across Japan have sports day. This is a part field day and part festival, people from the community come and watch people compete and sometimes even join in. Unfortunately I did not get to attend a sports day this year because Hatano High School had their sports day when I was at Ogata High School and Ogata didn’t have a sports day this year. But I got to watch my students at Hatano practice the opening ceremony. I was impressed at how organized the students were they all paid attention and practiced it over until they got every part of it right without complaining or being disruptive. I kept thinking about how high school students in the US would never do that. And how even my college graduation practice was not that organized. And here is the funny part. As part of the ceremony the students marched around the field military style carrying flags and saluting the teachers in unison to….. “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga. I guess I never noticed that it has the perfect rhythm for marching. And I was sitting there the whole time thinking “I wonder if they would use this song if they understood the lyrics” and trying not to laugh and ruin the moment.
And finally at the end of September was my birthday. I had a party at my place and a lot of people from the area came. I had good time and got some great presents from here and from home. I even had Dr. Pepper and we played video games so if felt just like home.
