I am at 1,613...

It's been a while, yada yada whatever. I don't fing care.

This week, the plan is to study kanji and celebrate New Years with the Iwakiris. They are the coolest family in Nango-town and I eat dinner with them quite often (We also made home-made peanut butter together)。 Tomorrow, we will make mochi together and on New Years Eve, party. Thursday morning, Jan 1st, it's the first Kendo practice of the New Year! 7am, right as the sun is rising, the kendo students are planning on stomping their feet and shouting "face" really loud. Other Japanese will most likely view the first sunrise from hills around town, then clamber down and eat mochi and osechi (food served on New Years... I know nothing about it other than that). Then this weekend, all the adults will 泣 and 悼 at the shortness of 若! They'll 念 for the 昔 days and get ornery and 怒 with their 子's 巧 bodies.

I'll post again if time permits.

Omg I'm a badass cook

I just made the most delicious, vegetarian ish your taste buds will ever get a chance to experience. Unfortunately, none of you are around. Ahhh well.

もう十二月か？？

まぁーエレモンジャー　長い間この日記で書かないでごめん！

So, it's been a while.... The last two entries were way too positive I've realized, it's time to shower a little "Nangoality (Nango reality, I made it myself!)" on the one or two people reading this thing.


Sometimes, teaching ESL can be a disappointing experience. You've gotta be prepared to be teaching a lot of (sad but true) hopeless cases. And however much you may want to, it's absolutely imperative that you not cave into the students' miserable inattentiveness/rudeness. You have to persevere and try constantly to find a way to crack that shell so the students can finally start munching on the yoke of interest that's just got to be there (and IS there at the elementary level).

It's easy to become worried over Nango's future when you look at the students at the local middle school. At least half have zero interest in the majority of their subjects. I'm talking about worse than failing levels here. Like, not even answering a single question on their tests. Some of them refuse to say an English sentence, even during pair work, which leads to frustrating situations where gung-ho teammates end up crashing and burning too. If you're the sort of teacher who doesn't give a crap about your classes, well, then the situation is probably fine and you go back to your office and you quickly start to think about how to waste another fine day. But even if you have a shred of interest in language instruction, then finding a way to "fix" the problem becomes your priority. And the fact is, you cannot fix this beast. You can bake cakes for the beast, you can give the beast a manicure, you can shine the beast's shoes, you can even force the beast into having a 2-hour long bath, but even after all that, it's still going to be the same smelly and disgusting beast that it always was.

I've only got a half-assed undergraduate's degree in Psychology, but I have a *hunch* that the big issue for a lot of these kids is interest that is failing to be nurtured on two levels: a)there's very little enjoyment in the class, and b)they receive daily confirmation of their own inadequacies. I look at my struggles with kendo as being a good comparison to a young student, certainly not identical but comparable. Because we're both receiving instruction. Frankly, my interest in Kendo is, in theory, a whole lot higher than it is in practice. The reality of Kendo is: it's far away from my home (20 minute drive), difficult, smelly, chauvinistic, difficult, in Japanese, and difficult. Very, very difficult. All of those things make my interest go down, big time (part A of the BIG ISSUE). And it doesn't help that when I do go, the elderly Mr. Miyagi provides constant assurance that every single thing I'm doing is absolutely wrong (Part B of the BIG ISSUE). I think the first thing the senseis want me to learn isn't how to swing the sword correctly, but how to ignore that smelly old man (he's really smelly).

So gradually, Kendo becomes more and more of a chore and less and less like fun. And since it's extracurricular for me (unlike learning for Middle School students), you could bet a pretty large sum of money on the fact that Jonathan "Whiney-Pants" Slakey will soon end his kendo career. The frame of mind with which I approach kendo has received a thorough beating by a variety of interest-lowering factors. This Friday is my next kendo practice... will Jonathan attend? Only time will tell. Will the majority of these students break down completely, put their brains in an iron vault, and fail to learn English? It's already happening.

In the end though, it's all about your mindset. Are you the sort of person that takes all the dirt being shoveled in your eye and builds a gigantic, chocolaty-delicious cake out of it? Or do you go down for the count, call it quits, and stop caring. Chocolate cake construction is an important skill that just isn't getting taught often enough, is it?


Gotta make a lesson plan for my English Conversation Class, take it easy all.

Jonathan

What's been happening

So.

Been a while.

Sorry I haven't posted all that much, must not seem worthwhile to check this blog if the person doesn't bother updating. BUT LOOK! Over yonder! What is that you see?? Yes, it's an update. Pigs CAN fly!

Hope all that read this are doing well. Hope those that don't read this aren't doing quite as well so you can pat them on the back but secretly be happy about your good fortune. 

Japan continues to astound me. I said this in my first entry, but I want to reiterate: The people of Nango-cho are friendly, hardworking, intelligent people... hardly what a "city dweller" might expect from people living in the middle of nowhere. They are devoted, not only to themselves, but to family and friends. Some people in America "go the extra mile" for a friend in need. The people I've met go the extra mile, then offer to run it again WHILE scrubbing your toilet, shining your shoes, and cooking you dinner. I just got back from a camping trip with a woman of truly EPIC proportions. She's 60 and yet, goes backpacking at least once a month and rides her bicycle to work EVERY DAY. A 40 minute bike ride!! I've eaten dinner at her house, gone hiking and now backpacking with her... this woman causes my socks to fly off my feet when she enters the room. And yet, despite having just arrived home after a 5 hour drive from the mountains where we spent two nights... she cooked dinner for us. Then she drove me home. When I think of a Japanese person, this is what comes to mind. Every day "giving it their all" kinds of people. In Japanese, they call it, isshokenmei. With all one's strength.

It's not just with the adults that you see this level of commitment. The kids are astoundingly devoted to whatever it is they are interested. Lately, older folks in Japan often complain that modern youth lack the discipline of earlier generations. That's a little frightening, because already most of these kids stay after school for special projects or clubs. At middle school, where I teach once or twice a week, most club activities end around 6/6:30pm. 60-70% of the school has some kind of extracurricular commitment. At high school it gets even more absurd; I rode my bike around town yesterday and saw clumps of students riding home at 8:30pm! You can bet these kids are doing this EVERY DAY after school. The son of Mrs. Mountain Climber, now a senior in highschool and preparing for entrance exams, arrives home around 8pm every night. He doesn't do any club activities, he studies at school in special "test preparation" classes. Once he's home, he studies. 

Alright, so that's a little of the good that I see in this place. Obviously not everything is rosy all the time here. First, the mindless obeisance to "authority." So often the excuse for a poor plan of action is: "Well, that's how we're told to do it." Lesson planning is a good example. Elementary schools have a very simple lesson plan, you might call it an English "sampler." You take a little vegetable, toss in some shapes, maybe a color or two... if they can say all the months, that's cool too. But they learn about 10 words a month disconnected from sentence patterns and condensed in Japanese explanations. The words themselves start to sound Japanese. Left becomes Lefutto! GO Sutre---tto. I'm a little more than shocked. Just the amount of financial effort the Japanese government puts into this program throws me for a loop. There are more than 10,000 native English speakers living in Japan at this moment whose soul purpose is to teach English to Japanese children. The end result: Broken English rarely used by a population that remains embarrassed about their speaking ability. Just slightly discouraging.  

Alright, I'm done venting and it's time for a school visit.... Today, Nango Middle School.

Jya, matta!

Hi Everyone!

A few people have been pestering me to put up a blog, particularly myself, since I know longer exist on Facebook. I’m sorry it has taken me so long to actually post something on this thing. I created this space about a month ago and even wrote an entry… then proceeded to misplace it. Along with that entry went all my interest in blog writing. UNTIL NOW!! (because I’m tired of studying) So now you all are going to get a small snippet of my life in Japan and why I am a terrible person and don’t bother conversing with much of anyone back home.

Where am I? I live in Nango-cho, Miyazaki-ken, Japan.

It is a beautiful place, far removed from the technical wonderland of Tokyo. Nango is a town of 10,000 people, with the two nearest cities sporting populations of 30,000 each and spread out over a territory much wider than New York City. The major industry here is lumber, which would make sense since any plot of land not already occupied by a house is infested with trees, the mountains look like cauliflower. We’re right by the ocean, with beautiful, craggy, volcanic islands dotting the sea. Standing on the veranda outside my house, sipping pina coladas which my butler/pool cleaner Enrique made for me, I have a perfect view of one of the two harbors in town, which small fishing ships regularly putter out of. The people here are friendly and communicative, but rough in the English department… if you like doing more than nodding and grunting when communicating, I recommend learning Japanese before you come here. My closest Japanese friends consist of people 20-30 years my senior, almost all of whom have children my age or older who currently work/go to school in the major cities of Japan.

What do I do here? I’m an Assistant Language Teacher, working for the city. That means I visit all of the Elementary and Middle schools in town, which the local Board of Education oversees. When I am not out visiting, I am at the Board of Education's offices, near rice paddies and the other of the two town harbors. I sit next to the head of my department, who goes by the nickname Mr.Strict. On the second day of work, I gave Mr. Strict bright yellow underpants with “California” scrolled all over… we’ve been buddy buddy ever since. I also teach an 'English Sentence a Day' which everyone at the office is SUPER EXCITED ABOUT! They're so excited, several of them have consistently told me that it would be ok for me not to do it, because I look 'tired'. We just finished learning 'Yesterday' by the Beatles, and we sang it with all the force of a funeral dirge. Today we're having an Enkai (welcome party... two months after I got here) and the plan is to get them to karaoke Yesterday.

During my free time, I've undertaken Kendo, which was apparently founded in my prefecture. My teacher is the dojo owners father, a 70 year old man who eerily resembles Mr.Miyagi from the Karate Kid. He's lightning fast with a wooden sword but he's like the turtle in that tootsie pop commercial when it comes to talking/explaining things. That especially stinks when he's making us sit seiza (having your legs folded under you as you sit... hurts A LOT if you're not used to it). Sometimes it hurts so bad that I want to get up and start miming him in a rude and slanderous manner; the only thing holding me back is the fact that I've lost the ability to get up.

Kendo is one of the many martial arts/sports in Japan that contain the word 'do' or Way/Road in their name. This is part of the reason why I undertook it, the idea is that you are learning discipline, humility and proper manners, even as you learn to cut people in half with your mind.

The reason why I have temporarily quit facebook (If you hadn't noticed; I quit facebook) is a drive to minimize my encounters with English. It's part of a full immersion program that this guy recommends. So forgive me if I've seemed a little distant lately, it's not that I hate you, it's that you can't speak to me in fluent Japanese... and if you CAN speak to me in Japanese, well... send me an email .


Sorry to cut this short but I'm going out drinking with my coworkers! Hope you're all fat and sassy!


Jonathan