--cheese (on pizza, on crackers, on bagels, etc)
--books I can understand
--TV shows (mostly Grey's Anatomy, House, Scrubs, and Numb3rs)
--being able to call up any random person I want and start a conversation
--American football
--my Kingdom Hearts Game (no really)
--Mexican food
--daylight savings
--Halloween
--coffee
--my money
I'm sure there are more, and rest assured that the list would be a whole lot longer if I were including people. I'm still not really homesick, but there is a definite longing for some of the comforts of home.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
"Barefoot Gen"
Today was one of those days where I felt really bad for being from the U.S.
Nothing really serious, mind you. Just one of those, "oh right, we dropped an atomic bomb on these people and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children" moments. We watched a movie today in class called "Barefoot Gen" which is an animated movie about a fictional family that lived in Hiroshima during the time when the bomb was dropped. It was dubbed in English (rather poorly I might add), and would have been entirely comical if not for the very graphic and disturbing nature of the video. We watched the skin melt off of people as they were exposed to the radiation of the blast, eyes falling out of heads and screaming until they were only ashy mounds in the earth. We watched most of the eight-year-old protagonist's family burn to death under the remains of their house, including a four year old brother who couldn't understand what was happening and kept repeating "It's so hot Gen! Why won't you help me?!" Women with dead babies, maggots eating people's skin, people screaming... and all the while this little boy is just skipping around, watching his hair fall out of his head and his baby sister starve to death from malnutrition. I know that its just a movie, but by the end of class a few of the Japanese students (including our graduate level TA) were crying, and the rest of the Westerners were just feeling like crap. Historical justification aside, its very difficult to not feel like crap for being from the country that dropped the bomb on the first place. And I dare anyone to watch that movie and not feel even a little remorseful at the end.
Nothing really serious, mind you. Just one of those, "oh right, we dropped an atomic bomb on these people and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children" moments. We watched a movie today in class called "Barefoot Gen" which is an animated movie about a fictional family that lived in Hiroshima during the time when the bomb was dropped. It was dubbed in English (rather poorly I might add), and would have been entirely comical if not for the very graphic and disturbing nature of the video. We watched the skin melt off of people as they were exposed to the radiation of the blast, eyes falling out of heads and screaming until they were only ashy mounds in the earth. We watched most of the eight-year-old protagonist's family burn to death under the remains of their house, including a four year old brother who couldn't understand what was happening and kept repeating "It's so hot Gen! Why won't you help me?!" Women with dead babies, maggots eating people's skin, people screaming... and all the while this little boy is just skipping around, watching his hair fall out of his head and his baby sister starve to death from malnutrition. I know that its just a movie, but by the end of class a few of the Japanese students (including our graduate level TA) were crying, and the rest of the Westerners were just feeling like crap. Historical justification aside, its very difficult to not feel like crap for being from the country that dropped the bomb on the first place. And I dare anyone to watch that movie and not feel even a little remorseful at the end.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
The Happiest Place in Japan
It really feels like school is underway now. Japanese homework every night, quizzes everyday, and trying like mad to balance a new job with family time and club activities. It actually feels more like high school than college, since I'm definitely not used to having a family to come home to every night. Asako-san and Shige-san have been great though, and they always use dinner time to talk to Sunny-san and I and try to help our stuttering Japanese along. Since they're both junior high teachers, they're both really busy, and don't spend a lot of time at home. They're usually gone by the time I wake up in the morning, and dinner is usually very late. Which is why its nice that we can take some time on random weekday nights to do something family-esque. Like Wednesday.....
It takes about an hour to get to Disney sea from where we live in Suginami-ku. But the cheapest tickets are after 6pm, and when you add that to the fact that the park is significantly less crowded at night, its really worth the entrance fee to go at least once. Having only been to Disneyland in California, I have a vague set of expectations for all Disney-themed resorts that I figured would be upheld by the trip. After all, it's all one big Disney franchise, right?
Disney Sea, having only been built some six years ago, simply defied most of the things I have come to expect from such tourist attractions. There were no big goofy Disney characters walking around shaking hands and taking pictures. No crowds of people shouting at one another while
their children cried or ran around like heathens. No trash sitting around on the streets waiting for someone to come and pick it up at the end of the night. It was clean; it was quiet, and it was HUGE. The park is divided into sections, such as Mediterranean Harbor, American Waterfront, Mermaid Lagoon, and the Arabian Coast. Each was designed to look like a different part of the world, with different themed rides in each section. In the middle of the park was Mount Prometheus, a huge volcano that occasionally erupts in fireworks. The mountain is surrounded by these huge lakes, which separate the park into the different themes. Shige-san and I are definitely the more adventurous type, and he made sure that we road all the best roller coasters in the park at least once. Asako-san refused to ride most of them though, since she says that she's afraid of the fast rides and the loops. We managed to get Sunny to come on most of the rides along with us, but she mostly clung to my arm the entire time. Very reminiscent of another family I've been to Disneyland with....
Enjoy the pictures, and make sure to take a look at the others that I've added from our CIEE Halloween party. There are some interesting cultural references I'm not entirely certain that everyone will understand, but the hilarity of the situation should transcend these boundaries.
P.S. Fireworks at Disneyland are far superior to those at Disney Sea. I think Americans just like the explosions.
It takes about an hour to get to Disney sea from where we live in Suginami-ku. But the cheapest tickets are after 6pm, and when you add that to the fact that the park is significantly less crowded at night, its really worth the entrance fee to go at least once. Having only been to Disneyland in California, I have a vague set of expectations for all Disney-themed resorts that I figured would be upheld by the trip. After all, it's all one big Disney franchise, right?
Disney Sea, having only been built some six years ago, simply defied most of the things I have come to expect from such tourist attractions. There were no big goofy Disney characters walking around shaking hands and taking pictures. No crowds of people shouting at one another while
their children cried or ran around like heathens. No trash sitting around on the streets waiting for someone to come and pick it up at the end of the night. It was clean; it was quiet, and it was HUGE. The park is divided into sections, such as Mediterranean Harbor, American Waterfront, Mermaid Lagoon, and the Arabian Coast. Each was designed to look like a different part of the world, with different themed rides in each section. In the middle of the park was Mount Prometheus, a huge volcano that occasionally erupts in fireworks. The mountain is surrounded by these huge lakes, which separate the park into the different themes. Shige-san and I are definitely the more adventurous type, and he made sure that we road all the best roller coasters in the park at least once. Asako-san refused to ride most of them though, since she says that she's afraid of the fast rides and the loops. We managed to get Sunny to come on most of the rides along with us, but she mostly clung to my arm the entire time. Very reminiscent of another family I've been to Disneyland with....Enjoy the pictures, and make sure to take a look at the others that I've added from our CIEE Halloween party. There are some interesting cultural references I'm not entirely certain that everyone will understand, but the hilarity of the situation should transcend these boundaries.
P.S. Fireworks at Disneyland are far superior to those at Disney Sea. I think Americans just like the explosions.
Monday, October 8, 2007
School, Inc.
I've been trying to hold off writing something about school until things are actually underway and I know what exactly I'm doing every week. However, my desires are in constant conflict with the reality of time, and I still have no idea how I'm going to fit everything that I want to do into my waking hours. The only thing that I know for sure is my course schedule (which is slowly eating me alive) and the ever growing list of things that I want to do.
We can safely start with Japanese, which is a required course (duh). In a moment of weakness, I gave into my fear that merely living in a foreign country wouldn't give my language skills the boost that I was looking for, and I decided to enroll in the intensive Japanese program instead of the regular course. This mistake has cost me two of my four courses for the semester, as well as three hours of my life, every day, from now until the end of time. And most unfortunately, the intensive program has fewer levels than the regular program, so I placed lower than I would have otherwise, giving me at least a month and a half of grammar and vocabulary review. Don't get me wrong--I am learning something from my three hours everyday. I've picked up some new kanji (the Chinese characters, remember?) and I've definitely found my place as the leader of the class, since most of the kids ask me questions instead of whatever teacher we have depending on the day of the week. Despite some serious moments of doubt, I have decided to continue the course and pray that things get better, and that I won't shrivel up and die from the immense boredom to which I am currently subjecting myself.
Then, on Mondays and Thursdays, I head on over to my anthropology class: Approaches to Japanese Society. Its a class designed to give us some of the basic theories behind the characteristics of the Japanese people. The professor happens to also be my academic adviser at Sophia, and he has some very interesting insights on Japanese society. Not much has happened so far, mostly because of several issues affecting the physical location of the classroom (we haven't had class in the same room yet). I'm enjoying everything so far.
On Tuesdays and Fridays, I get to enjoy a political science seminar on the media and politics, taught by the most awesome bald Irishman I've ever met. He's pretty opinionated on the subject of Japan and the media, but he's also very interested in what we think, which gives the gaijin in the room plenty of time to talk (since the Japanese students are really quiet for some reason). The first week of class we spent discussing the issue of media censorship in Japan, which is unique in that the media reporters and news anchors practice a strict form of self-censorship. The government doesn't have to limit what people say because they will do it on their own. As an example to this, we have been discussing the issue of Imperial succession and the fact that the media is completely ignoring the women's rights activists in other parts of the world. The Japanese equivalent of tabloids will sometimes make comments--"the crown prince is almost certainly a test tube baby", "can the Imperial Family risk putting its entire line on one boy?", etc--but these are smaller papers that don't always attract a lot of attention. Very interesting things happening there.
Between these three classes, I'm also trying to balance a club (probably indoor soccer, though at this point in time I'm not sure which of the three I will be joining) and hopefully a tutoring job somewhere along the line. I'm also toying with the idea of volunteering at the elementary school we went to a couple weeks ago. We'll just have to see how everything works out.
We can safely start with Japanese, which is a required course (duh). In a moment of weakness, I gave into my fear that merely living in a foreign country wouldn't give my language skills the boost that I was looking for, and I decided to enroll in the intensive Japanese program instead of the regular course. This mistake has cost me two of my four courses for the semester, as well as three hours of my life, every day, from now until the end of time. And most unfortunately, the intensive program has fewer levels than the regular program, so I placed lower than I would have otherwise, giving me at least a month and a half of grammar and vocabulary review. Don't get me wrong--I am learning something from my three hours everyday. I've picked up some new kanji (the Chinese characters, remember?) and I've definitely found my place as the leader of the class, since most of the kids ask me questions instead of whatever teacher we have depending on the day of the week. Despite some serious moments of doubt, I have decided to continue the course and pray that things get better, and that I won't shrivel up and die from the immense boredom to which I am currently subjecting myself.
Then, on Mondays and Thursdays, I head on over to my anthropology class: Approaches to Japanese Society. Its a class designed to give us some of the basic theories behind the characteristics of the Japanese people. The professor happens to also be my academic adviser at Sophia, and he has some very interesting insights on Japanese society. Not much has happened so far, mostly because of several issues affecting the physical location of the classroom (we haven't had class in the same room yet). I'm enjoying everything so far.
On Tuesdays and Fridays, I get to enjoy a political science seminar on the media and politics, taught by the most awesome bald Irishman I've ever met. He's pretty opinionated on the subject of Japan and the media, but he's also very interested in what we think, which gives the gaijin in the room plenty of time to talk (since the Japanese students are really quiet for some reason). The first week of class we spent discussing the issue of media censorship in Japan, which is unique in that the media reporters and news anchors practice a strict form of self-censorship. The government doesn't have to limit what people say because they will do it on their own. As an example to this, we have been discussing the issue of Imperial succession and the fact that the media is completely ignoring the women's rights activists in other parts of the world. The Japanese equivalent of tabloids will sometimes make comments--"the crown prince is almost certainly a test tube baby", "can the Imperial Family risk putting its entire line on one boy?", etc--but these are smaller papers that don't always attract a lot of attention. Very interesting things happening there.
Between these three classes, I'm also trying to balance a club (probably indoor soccer, though at this point in time I'm not sure which of the three I will be joining) and hopefully a tutoring job somewhere along the line. I'm also toying with the idea of volunteering at the elementary school we went to a couple weeks ago. We'll just have to see how everything works out.
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