March 19, 2004

I was putting on my makeup at the bathroom mirror, and suddenly I felt a small tremble. Then there was a smash of glass and I felt water at my feet. My heart was pounding and I gave a small shriek. Phil ran into the bathroom to find me stnding there, frozen. Then he said, "Hmm, I would have thought you could have predicted that." Yes, it was my own stupid fault. I had put my glass of water on the washing machine, and later I turned it on. When the washing machine started to shake, as I should know that washing machines do, my glass fell off, smashing into the ceramic sink, shattering and spilling water everywhere. Of course I was scared, immediately assuming the worst because I am afraid of the imminent earthquakes that supposedly happen frequently. By the way, our washing machine got fixed, or rather, the plumbing got fixed. Nova arranged for a plumber to come over and add another tap to our bathroom sink. Now the washing machine stays in one place, but things on top of the washing machine do not stay in one place. Sorry about the confusion; it is Sonia King that broke her leg, not Sonya Pighin. Sonia King is engaged to Phil's stepbrother, Mike. Remember the stupid bathroom light that only turns on when it wants to? Well, the other day I tried to flick on the light switch numerous times, and I was getting frusterated. I said, "stupid light switch, it never turns on when you want it to". Phil heard me, and said, "What are you talking about?" I guess that he figued out on our second day here that you just have to push in the light switch when you flick it to the side. Now it works every time! I wish I would have known that two weeks ago. I am writing this e-mail sitting in my own living room, and Phil is watching an old James Bond movie on our cable tv! Yes, we finally got cable internet and tv in our apartment. I am so happy. Now I can use the internet as much as I want to, and watch English television for about $100/month. We have the discovery channel, history channel, super channel, disney channel, MTV, FOX, star, cartoon network, movie plus, etc. We even get shows like ER, Veronica's Closet, and NYPD in English, among numerous others that are in Japanese. $100 a month is a great price considering we were spending 480 yen per hour per person at the internet cafe. At the rate we were using the internet, restriciting ourselves to once every two days, we would have spent about $260 per month at the internet cafe. Now we get tv too! It wasn't easy though. We had a lot of trouble finding a supplier. We asked about how to get internet at the Sawara Ward office and we asked the other Nova teachers. They said to go through BEST Electronic. We scoured the streets until we found one, and 30 minutes later we walked out of there with the outrageous prices for ADSL (telephone line internet). A telephone line in Japan costs about $1,000.00 to set up, plus you rent the line by the month, plus you pay by the minute for phone calls, even local ones. The employee at BEST said that for cable internet, go to JCOM, but he couldn't tell us where one was. He gave us a phone number, but we realized later that it was one number short. So I asked one of the Japanese staff at Nova to look up the number in the Japanese phone book, which of course, I can't read. I asked for the phone number for J-COM in Nishijin (where we live). When I called the number, it turned out to be Jacob, a Nova employee in Nishijin. The Japanese lady must have misunderstood J-COM for Jacob. So we were back to wandering up and down the streets in search of J-COM. Not a very effective method. Then one day Phil was standing at the subway station that we always use, and he found a billboard advertisement that has probably been there since we arrived. It was for J-COM, and it said "cable internet and television" in English and there was a phone number. Finally, we called the number and they came to install the cable. It is very frusterating living in a country where you don't speak the language. We have been invited to a birthday party for a Nova teacher. It is April first, and it is a BBQ under the cherry blossom trees in a park. I can't wait. I have never met the Nova teacher personally, but I guess that this is a yearly event, (aren't all birthdays?) and it turns into a big Nova party. I am interested to see the beautiful cherry blossoms. It is such a big deal here. The cities are all in a competition to see which city can pronounce that their cherry blossom season started first. Fukuoka city announced the start of their cherry blossom season a couple of days ago, and a couple of other cities followed suit. There are even bets on which city will be next. About as absurd as groundhog day I guess. On Sunday we went to Sofukuji Temple. It was amazing. The temple was actually closed because it was Sunday, but the gate was open, and we couldn't read the sign to know that it was closed, so we went in anyways. We were greeted by a lady, her two small children, and her husband who looked like a monk. They told us that they live there, and that it is closed, but to please come in anyways. They showed us their Japanese garden and their stone figurines that look like Buddha and wear cloth aprons to keep them warm because it is winter. They even give their small statues a bowl of clean water, incense, and fresh flowers as offerings. Then they showed us the temple. They told us to take our shoes off, and then we saw a beautifully ornate room decorated with gold and fancy drawings and statues. I will try to send a picture because words fail me. Then they gave us the best coffee I have ever tasted and some cream puffs. We were so greatful, but we had forgotten our Canadian flag pins at home, so Phil gave them a $5 bill. The children were very interested in it. When we left, the children kept saying "bye-bye" and waving until we turned down the next street. At least we think they were saying "bye-bye"; maybe there is a word in Japanese that sound like that? As far as we could tell, the children did not know how to speak English, and the mother barely made any sense. On a final note, if any of you want to come visit us, start practicing with the chopsticks now, or starve! Japanese eat EVERYTHING with chopsticks. Try potato soup, Mr. Noodles, spaghetti, a bowl of corn, salad, a whole boiled egg, a whole boiled egg battered and deep-fried, many tiny boiled eggs battered and deep-fried on a shishkabob, a raw egg alone in a small bowl, huge pieces of sushi, or even a half of a breaded chicken breast. They pick up large items with the chopsticks and bite off a piece. Restaurants do not provide cutlery. We are now quite proficient at using chopsticks, but we still resort to cutlery at home sometimes. Have a great day, Love Shay

March 25, 2004

Hello everyone! Yes, we got our garbage back. Well, it was our recyclable cans and bottles luckily. I guess we did something wrong. Now we just have to figure out what it was we did wrong. They came and took them away, and then two days later, they returned them to our apartment building. The bag of recyclables had a note attached in Japanese that probably gives directions as to how to properly dispose of recyclables. I think that maybe we were supposed to rinse them out or peel off the labels. Or maybe the bottle of rum doesn't belong in there? I don't know. I will bring to note to work and ask someone to translate it for me. Unfortunately they only pick up recyclables once per month, so now we get to store the bag in our apartment for a month. To those of you who I sent the picture of the fishing sign. It was a strange sign we found in Ohori Park. We couldn't figure out what it meant for a long time. Half the sign was a picture of a boy who was fishing and he had a circle around him, meaning he was allowed to fish. The other half of the sign was a picture of a boy who was fihing and he had a circle around him with a line through, like a no smoking sign, assumedly meaning that he was not allowed to fish. Then about every 100 meters we saw the same sign repeatedly, every time flipped around. Eventually we figured out that you are not allowed to fish between the signs that show no fishing. Anyways, the picture of the sign is just an example of the many strange signs we have seen around here. Here is a quote from another sign we saw on the outside of a Pachinko and slot machine casino: "The people who are led to brightness to shine and who gathers. It is good though it fights in this Colosseum fully". On the outside of a bar a sign reads "Let's Beer with Music". The bottom of my frying pan says "Kitchenwares will be your nice partner for your cooking. We bet like them". There is a sign on the subway that shows a man dropping his cigarette butt down the sewer drain. There is a rat in the sewer that has lines of shock all around it. We think the sign means, do not throw your cigarette butt down the sewer drains because a rat will eat it or something. There are strange signs everywhere, so sometimes we burst out laughing while just walking down the street. We saw another sign on the subway with a picture of a one-legged lady falling over, and a young healthy girl sitting in a seat near her. We think this one means you should give up your seat on the subway to people who are handicapped. I heard a song playing in a store the other day. It was a Japanese lady on the radio, and all she said, over and over again was "I like to sing music". This song is popular because it is in English, and English is popular. People wear shirts just because they have English written on them, even if it makes no sense. A few times now I have walked into fancy stores, with middle aged saleswomen in business suits and very expensive merchandise. They are playing music that is in English, because English is popular. They can't possibly have any idea what the music is saying, because it is the most vulgar rap that I have ever heard. It is so horribly offensive that I feel compelled to tell the ladies that the music is very offensive. I have never even heard such things before, but I keep my mouth shut because they probably wouldn't understand me anyways. Another strange thing is the taxis. Phil and I watched a man exit a taxi from the back seat, on the opposite side from the driver. He didn't close the door all the way, so the taxi driver reached down to where the gear shift would normally be, and he pulled a lever which opened the door and slammed it shut. Cool! Why haven't they thought of that in Canada yet. Go ahead. Patent the idea and make millions. Another cool idea is that movie rentals are sorted by actor or actress. There is a whole Julia Roberts section, and a whole Sandra Bullock section. I love it. For example, "The Mexican" can be found in the Julia Roberts section and in the Brad Pitt section. But Japanese have trouble saying Brad Pitt, so they call him "Brappy", and they call Arnold Schwartzenager "Schwartzy". Well, we have another training day tomorrow. We are going to learn how to teach kids. Yay! Finally! Supposedly Phil is going to get to teach lots of kids, and I am going to teach them sometimes. But our training starts at 10 am, and it is now just about 1 am. So, have a great day because it is now 8 am in BC. Love, Shay

March 28, 2004

Hello to my friends and family in Canada, In one of my classes I was teaching about news stories. For one section, I asked the four students as a group to write down what they think are the top 5 most important news stories in the world in the past 10 years. What would you choose? Maybe the twin towers on 9/11? Maybe Princess Dianna's death? Not if you live in Japan. They chose: 1. Thunderbirds (Japanese team) win at baseball. 2. 100 yen shops open in Japan. 3. Beef bowls banned in Japan. 4. Japanese actress got caught not paying her taxes. 5. Japanese runned did not make the Olympics. Unfortunately the bell rang and I did not have the time to question them very much about threir answers. I should specify that this was a fairly fluent class who could carry on conversations quite well on their own. Therfore, I think that they understood their task. Also, they were mostly middle-aged, so they should be aware of what has happened in the past 10 years. Moreover, they adamantly agreed with each other that these were of utmost importance in the world. Their world. However, I don't think that this is entirely their fault. It is almost impossible to get world news in Japan, and if you can get it, it is in English on CNN or in a very expensive imported English newspaper. Here is another example of "Japan is very . . . Japan". Well, I missed my parent's 29th Wedding Anniversary. So if you see them, wish them a belated Happy Anniversary. It was on March 22nd. Wow, the big 3-0 in 2005. Phil and I just had our 7 month wedding anniversary on March 23rd. We weren't sure excatly when to celebrate because it is a leap year, and we are 17 hours ahead of BC time. Another important date was March 24th, because it marked us being in Japan for one month. How time flies. Some good news: I found Skippy peanut butter, strawberry jam, Heinz ketchup, spaghetti, and spaghetti sauce at our local grocery store. The jam contains whole strawberries, so it is very difficult to spread. I think I'll buy blueberry next time. We were very happy to find these things. We also found a wonderful American restaurant close to where I work in Tenjin. It was very cheap, and just like home. The waiter spoke English, the placemats and menu were in English, and they played an American oldies rock radio station. It felt like we were back in Canada. I think we will go there often. Today we spent a majestic day at Nokonoshima Park on Nokonoshima Island. We took the ferry for 10 minutes to get there. Then we tried to walk across the island to the park, in the beautiful sunshine. It is only 4 km across the island, but the road curves so much that 2 hours later, and many meters of elevation gain, we flagged down a bus and hopped on. It was so beautiful that I took 84 pictures, testing Phil's patience. By the way, I love our digital camera. I wouldn't change it for the world. I have printed out some amazing pictures at the Fuji camera shop down the street. Anyways, back to the story. We were walking along, and we came across this beautiful house/temple/building thing. There was a walkway leading in, and we found a lady suntanning on the patio. She invited us in, sat us down, and asked to paint our picture. We asked how much it would cost, and she told us it would be free. She was an artist and she had paintings everywhere. In about 15 minutes she had our portraits done. She gave them to us. Luckily this time we had Canadian Flag pins, so we gave her one. We took a picture with her, and so did she. This was on our walk to the park, so we had to carry the 14 x 17" painting all day. It was worth it. Phil carried it without complaining. He only complained about having to stop to take pictures so often. What a great guy I have. It is like having another honeymoon all over again. This is just a more long-term honeymoon than last time. I should go before I get too mushy. Live life to its fullest! Love, Shay

April 3, 2004

Hello, Just a quick note if you have the chance to watch a movie this weekend. If you want a fairly accurate depiction of rural Japan, it's language, culture, and history, rent "The Last Samurai". Real Japanese people absolutely love it, and that's not just because Tom Cruise is the star. It has many very famous Japanese actors and actresses, which I did not realize. All of the Japanese Nova students I have talked to have said that they are very proud of the movie and its international acclaim. They are glad that it teaches the world about what Japan was really like in the not so distant past. On the other hand, "Lost in Translation" is so offensive to Japanese people that "it's been reported that only one medium-sized theater in the whole of Tokyo will be showing the film" (Fukuoka Now Magazine). Note: the population of Tokyo is 12 million people. This magazine goes on to say that "a British-born Japanese reviewer labeled the role of Japanese in the film as 'dirty wallpaper in a cheap hotel' ", to say nothing of the fact that it has been labelled "racist" and "a collection of shallow stereotypes". My favorite quote from the magazine article is: "To be fair, if a Japanese movie company released their own version of 'Lost in Translation', featuring only fat-assed hamburger-eating Americans wearing cowboy hats and the only English speaking character was Hulk Hogan, we'd probably be a little angry too." So the film was "wost in Twanswation"(Piwup's edit). We watched both movies before we left for Japan, and we do agree that "The Last Samurai" is well worth theatre prices, whereas "Lost in Translation" wasn't even worth the time it took to fast-forward through it at home. Let me know what you think. Enjoy the movie(s), Love from: Shay

April 6, 2004

Hello, As you can see, I haven't really figured out how to send my photos by e-mail in small sizes yet. Those of you with hotmail accounts can't receive very large e-mails. I am shrinking them to one-tenth of their original size, but I will work on shrinking them even more. We downloaded a free one-month trial of a photo editing software program, and we are playing with it to try to figure it out. This is the problem with a 5 megapixel digital camera. The pictures are absolutely amazing, but the files are extremely large. Our solution is to put some of the pictures on our webpage at: http://web.unbc.ca/~jonesp/main.php Try it out! We will keep on adding pictures when we get the chance. Please let me know if you don't want to receive pictures by e-mail. I will remove you from my picture e-mail list. I understand that it blocks up your e-mail inbox and then you can't receive other e-mails. The way I understand it is that if your e-mail is not hotmail or yahoo you can receive unlimited amounts of e-mail. Am I correct? Basically, if your e-mail is shaw, telus, aol, or another paid service, I can send as much e-mail as I want to and it's not a problem? Maybe I misunderstand. Note: It is very humbling to live in a foreign country. You realize that you really don't understand much about anything except English. Even English stumps me sometimes. We finished the puzzle today. Now we are going to glue it to our $30 coffee table. We need some decoration around here. Any suggestions for the adhesion process? We were thinking a plate of glass would be nice, but good luck finding a glass shop. Now we are thinking a big tub of white glue. It is a really nice picture of a red Japanese temple beside a waterfall and lots of trees. I am really glad it is done. Now we won't be knocking puzzle pieces onto the floor every time we put the remote down. We attempted to go to the zoo on Sunday. It was an absolutely beautiful day. T-shirt weather. We walked in the general direction of the zoo. When we stopped to look at the map, we realized that Phil thought I packed it and I thought he packed it. So we kept walking. About an hour later, we looked up the word zoo in our English/Japanese dictionary, and flagged down a taxi. Taxis here start at 500 yen (about $6.25)! We said in Japanese "zoo, where is it?" And he replied in perfect English, "You want to go to the zoo?" Ha Ha! It is only when we know Japanese that they know English. He took us through a winding maze of very narrow streets, and we emerged 5 minutes and about $9 later at the zoo, which was closed. It opens again on the 13th of April, we think from the Japanese sign. We will try again. Then we were fortunate enough to run into a Mormon Missionary. Quick thinking and I told him about how lucky we are to have all this technology so we can stay in contact with our Menonite Church back home in Canada. He asked us where our little hats went, so I told him that we are liberalized Menonites. We can even dance. He said wow, you are liberalized Menonites, and left us alone. I can't believe it worked so well. I wasn't really lying . . . I did go to a Menonite church in Canada a while ago, and we could stay in contact with them via the internet if we wanted to. One more observation before I go. We happened upon a youth baseball game that was just finishing one day. The two teams lined up in the centre of the field, facing each other. I expected them to shake hands as is customary in Canada. Instead, they all bowed very low at the same time. Then they ran to form a line in front of their own coaches. Then the teams bowed again to their coaches. Then they ran to form a line in front of the other team's coaches. They bowed again to the other coaches. Then we left because we felt like we were staring at them. It was amazing how much respect was shown. We have been told that boys put the needs of their team above their own needs. In Japan, you don't miss a baseball practice because of your mother's birthday, or because you have homework. Not only that, but you go to school from 8:30 am to 5 pm, 5 days a week, and they also go to school for a half day 3 Saturdays a month. Many parents also enroll their children in Cram school in the summers. Your marks in highschool dictate what university you can go to, and graduation from the right university ensures you a good paying job. There are many private schools, which increase your chances of getting into these good universities. There is pressure to perform right from Kindergarten. Your marks and how much your parents are willing to pay dictate which elementary, junior high, and highschool you can get into. They all have entrance exams. I always thought that Japanese children are very well behaved. It turns out that there is little or no discipline at home. Young children are extremely poorly behaved. We often see young children in stores screaming at the top of their lungs, and no parent to be seen. At the ferry, we had to wait for about 30 minutes, and we watched a child of about 4 years, have full reign of the ferry port. His parents just laughed as he ran into people, and ran around the station, knocking over things. He would even run down to the docks for long periods of time, out of sight of the parents, and they didn't seem to care. There is a complete turnaround when they go to school. Class sizes are about 40 students to one teacher. You can see the need for strict discipline, and the students fully comply. They learn society's high regard for peace and putting society above yourself. I find it very interesting. Talk to you later. Keep sending the e-mails and pictures. I love reading/looking at them. Love

April 15, 2004

Hello, First of all, make sure you check out our website. We have put more pictures on it, and we will continue to expand it. Phil has been a little side-tracked with creating another Hockey web page for his playoff pool, but sometimes he forgets about hockey for a few hours. We've seen two playoff games now, both at 1:30 at night, and it was the same game twice. Every Canucks game blares out from our laptop speakers at about 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning. I can't wait for the playoffs to be done. Our television shows the strangest shows. The Japanese must think we Westerners are still living in the 70's. We watch the Partridge Family, the very first James Bond movies with Sean Connery, and Saturday Night Live with Bill Murray and Phil thinks it was Bob Hart too. We think they are spying on us at the video rental store. So far we have rented "The Bodyguard", "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", and "When We Were Soldiers," and the seventh season of ER. We bring them home, watch them, and return them to the video store. Then about two days later when we randomly turn on the tv, we see the movie we just rented playing on an English channel. What are the chances that this would happen so many times? It's awfully frusterating, because we have to pay to rent them, and then they are on tv for free a couple of days later. A few more strange things around here that you might already know. They read top to bottom, not left to right. Their books are backwards, so you start reading from the last page. They drive on the opposite side of the road. And I was born in '56. That's because their years are based on the age, or length of reign, (I'm not sure which one) of the current Emperor. Right now it is year 16. Go figure. The Emperor still exists, but only as a figurehead. He has no power. Going to work now.

April 18, 2004

Hello, If you are Japanese, your favourite colour is most likely not red. In fact, if your favourite colour is red, you are considered arrogant because of it. Crazy, eh? I was writing with the first pen I found in the staffroom (it just so happened to be red), when the head teacher told me that this is a huge social faux-pas. I guess that red is the colour that represents communist power in China, and in China, only people in power can use red ink. Therefore, Japanese people regard it as elitist. If you write with red ink in Japan, you are telling people that you agree with communism, and you think that you are a very important person. That doesn't mean that you can't find red in Japan. They still have red on signs, and they sell things that are red. It just reminded me that I really don't know much about Japan, I can't take anything for granted, and it is very different from Canada. I am Canadian, NOT American. Favourite and colour are both spelled with a "u", not like the American spelling "favorite" and "color." I had no idea just how Canadian I am until the Japanese started questioning me about the "wrong" way I spell things, and the way I say "eh" to pose a question. At Nova there is a listen and repeat section in every lesson. I say a sentance, and they repeat it. Unless there is an "a" in the sentance. Then they just say "eh? eh? What does eh mean?" I say, "I would like eh banana", whereas an American would say, "I would like ah banana." What way do you say it? So I am teaching the Japanese the differences between Canada and America. I teach them to say "eh banana." I am very proud to be Canadian. The Japanese people all hate George Bush. They think he is creating a war, and sacrificing many lives just to prove his power or gain more power. At Nova we get to talk to some Japanese people who can speak excellent English, and we have a free discussion time for 40 minutes most days that is called Voice. Sometimes we talk about current events, and this war seems to be the only current event that they know about. I was amazed to find out that in WWII an American war plane was shot down by the Japanese in Fukuoka, and they kept the plane wreckage and created a memorial site. It is still here today, and the Japanese people go there to pay their respects. They have such a different view of life here. Mom asked what the price of a kimono is. I have heard that they are about $100-$200 dollars. They are very difficult to put on. They are just pieces of cloth, layered in a certain way, and tied in special knots so that they stay on. Women wear them for graduation and weddings, and some old-fashioned women wear them daily. Years ago all women wore them every day. Now they are generally a special occasion item. The women wearing them also have beautiful up-swept hairstyles with embellishments such as flowers or pearls. They have elaborate make-up, and they wear white socks that look like mittens because the big toe has its own section like a thumb in a mitten. This is so they can wear the traditional sandals made of a very thick wooden sole. Sorry about my last e-mail. I entitled it "Hotsprings in Japan" and then I said nothing about hotsprings. I intended to, but the time flew by and I had to go to work, so I just pressed send. We haven't been to any hotsprings yet, but we intend to go in May, when we will start getting Sundays and Mondays off together. There are many hotsprings in Japan, and luckily most of them are on our island, Kyushu. The closest ones are only 2 hours away from Fukuoka so we do not have to go overnight and pay for a hotel room. Anyways, I thought hotsprings were all water. In Japan they have the hot water ones, but they also have hot mud, hot sand, and hot rock ones. They are only about 500 yen ($6.25) to go in, but you have to do it totally nude. They have men's rooms, women's rooms, and a few family rooms. A hotspring is called "on-sen" in Japanese. Anyways, I should get to bed now. I used the word "anyways" in one of my classes, and then a student asked what it means. How do you describe what anyways means? I said that it is just a useless word that doesn't mean anything, and it doesn't change the meaning of the sentance it is used in, but sometimes it is used to close a conversation. It is a strange word.