Song and Dance

(This one was actually from before this last weekend. I've been writing up posts as I think of them on Microsoft word, but I didn't want to overload y'all with posts, so I've been trying to slow down how often I post).

So this weekend all the HIF students are going to Ohnuma Park to stay overnight. There will be onsen (hot springs), hiking, biking, swimming, and a hotel to stay in instead of a tent (Yay!) (Oh don’t give me those scornful looks, I’ll take my mosquito free hotel room, thank you very much).

But this all comes at a price.

What is it? Our firstborn children? An arm? A leg? Our second-born children? Our souls? Or—heaven forefend—our internet access?

It is none of the above. It is indeed something more terrible than you can possibly imagine…

Alright, so I’m being a bit melodramatic. Perhaps it’s because I’m in the performing mood, because the price of all this wonderful recreation is a mandatory song performance by each class after dinner Saturday night.

Lovely.
(Oh, how I wish sarcasm could be conveyed in text).

So this past week we’ve been practicing this song by SMAP, a five member boy band who everyone in Japan apparently knows:

We don’t have to do the whole dance, but we do have to do the cheesy hand motions.

And I repeat with the same sarcasm:

Lovely.

Anyway, I was talking to one of the girls who boards at my host family’s boarding house at dinner tonight, and she was telling me about how her leg (recently broken) was on the mend and she was able to learn a dance to do with her class for school. I then shared my story of the song I had to learn for class. Okaasan overheard this exchange, and at tea time Otoosan presented me with this:
It’s a wind up music box that spins and plays the tune of the SMAP song I have to perform. They said I should use it for my practice.

Lovely.

Keyboard

Per request of a certain nerd I know and love, *cough*Dad!*cough* here’s a picture of what the keyboards look like in Japan. As with all the pictures on this blog, you can click on it to get a bigger view if you want to scrutinize it.


You’ll notice that there is only the left half of the spacebar. You can imagine how well this works for someone like me who only uses the right half. The first couple times I used one of these, I accidentally hit the button to the right of the spacebar with my thumb and suddenly found myself typing nonsense in hiragana (Japanese letters, basically). Using my computer logic, I hit the button again to see if it changed back. No such luck. I tried it again. Nope. I was stuck in the middle of a painstakingly written e-mail with no way to continue except in incomprehensible jibberish.

It wasn’t until much later that, upon hearing the colorful metaphors I was directing at my computer, someone showed me that pressing the key in the top left corner of the keyboard would reset it.

Nonetheless, I still very much prefer to use my laptop and its heavily-worn-on-the-right-side-not-the-left-side spacebar.

Flower Festival, and a mildly related tangent

Last weekend I went with my host family to the annual Hakodate flower festival down by the docks. Flower vendors from all over Hakodate were there with stands full of flowers and other plants too. There were flower displays, and little sets simulating garden scenes featuring the different types of flowers. A stage was set up at one end, and a band was playing the entire time we were there. And, as one expects from an event that draws lots of people, there were lots of food stands.

So here are all the pictures of the pretty flowers and the stands:




But those weren’t my favorite part. You have to guess that.

Scratch that, you’ll never guess this one.

My favorite part was….

….

…

…

[dramatic drum roll]

[dramatic drum roll continues]

[dramatic drum roll continues]

[drummers give up and ditch their drums]

[awkward silence]

….

The robot squid!
Ha ha, I kid you not! (If I were kidding, would I have a picture?) A local school robotics club put this one together for the festival. Hakodate is famous for its fishing industry, particularly its squid. So cute, cartoony squid can be found all over the town. Like on this fence:

And on this sidewalk:

And on this manhole cover:


At any rate, hopefully I’ll get a chance to try a dish of Hakodate’s favorite squishy sea creature* before I leave. :)

*I just made that sound so appetizing, didn’t I?

Kendo

This past Tuesday I participated in my first Kendo class at Nishi High School. Kendo is a sport martial art that was derived from samurai practice drills way back in the day. Our first day was pretty fun, running around with our shinai (a training sword made of 4 bamboo slats held together by leather fittings) and whacking things. Ok, there was a little more structure than that (line drills galore!) but you get the idea.

The Kendo sensei and two students before class

All of us ryuugakusee (exchange students) before class

We learned strikes for two different targets. The set-up for both strikes involved raising your shinai up and back until your hands were above/behind your head and your shinai tapped your back. For the men strike, you brought your arms down until your shinai hit the top of your target’s men (protective helmet), and for the kote strike, you aim for your opponent’s wrists, which are protected by the kote (gloves).

Some classmates decked out in the bogu (protective armor) and receiving instructions from Sensei on how to be targets. (Really, they should have seen that one coming when they asked for volunteers to try on the bogu).

We learned some footwork too, nothing too crazy for our first day. Then, at the end, two of the club’s members demonstrated a match for us, which was pretty cool.

This is a clip from a documentary on kendo to give you an idea of how it works. It has some match footage in real speed and slow motion too. Check it out here.

And then on the way home I made a new friend. :)
He was just sitting there meowing on the sidewalk, obviously mooching for attention. It worked. I figure he usually just lies there in wait for all the Nishi high school students. As soon as they show up, he sits in the sidewalk and meows until they pet him.

And on another martial arts related note, I got to try out a karate class at a friend's host father's dojo in Hakodate. No pictures from that one though. I did not get the name of the ryu (style of karate) (I'll ask again next time) but it was another derivation of Okinawan karate. (Unfortunately their patch was just an abstract symbol, no convenient writing out of the name of the system. Darn it!) (Whenever I start with the parentheses I always seem to go overboard...)

Hiking Mt. Hakodate

Last Sunday I and a group of other HIF students decided to climb Mt. Hakodate. This was partly for the accomplishment of climbing it, and to prove to that we could indeed get to the top without paying 800 yen (about $9) for the gondola.
Naturally, it was foggy and rainy. Got to see lots of clouds. Even got to be inside the clouds. And then be rained on by the clouds we were standing in!
But it was fun anyway. :) We’re probably going to try it again on a sunny day when the view is better.

The best photos of the day were actually after we had hiked down. There was a great view of the mountain facing the ocean, and then we walked past a cemetery that had Japanese style gravestones.
No, those weren't in the order I described them in, but I'm betting you figured out which was which anyway. :)

Jomon Archaeological Site Visit

Lots of pictures, yay! (But they didn't all come out so well... at any rate, enjoy!)

Last Thursday I went on a field trip with HIF to one of the Jomon archaeological sites in Hakodate. The Jomon people first settled in the area of Hakodate 9,000 years ago. The finds at different sites in the region have been dated from then until 2,000 years ago, indicating that for 7 millennia (or as I prefer to put it, a looooong time) the Jomon people were living here.

A model overview of the site fully excavated (they have since filled most of it back in to preserve it)

They’ve found lots of artifacts on the sites, the most famous being this hollow clay doll from the late Jomon era.


But there was lots of other stuff, including tons of pottery. Even from the Initial Jomon era 9000 years ago, they were using lacquer.
What are left of the actual buildings are holes like this. The Jomon people dug into the ground as a way to keep themselves warmer. The holes within the holes held the wooden columns for the structure above. At the center was a fire ring.


Here’s a picture of a recreation of the wooden structure.



In the distance in this picture, you can see the replica of a complete structure.

We were able to go inside of the replica. My camera was claiming to have a low battery, so I didn’t use the flash inside, but you can still get the idea. You can see the placement of the sleeping platform directly above the fire too.
And then we all piled into our very cramped bus to go back home. :)

Nihongo Dake Rule

So here at HIF, the Nihongo Dake (Japanese Only) rule is in effect. We are sworn to speak only Japanese.

Naturally, there are many situations where it is really easy to accidentally speak English. Say, for example, when someone sneezes. The Japanese don't say anything when someone sneezes, but I'm always dying to say "Bless you!". Haven't slipped yet, but it's tough.

During the first week, I did say something in English accidentally. Suddenly everyone was looking at me like I had kicked a puppy!

Luckily people have relaxed a bit and the occasional slip-up is met with a giggle and a dramatically whispered reminder: "Nihongo dake!"

Lost in Translation

Prepare to learn something new about Japanese! (It won’t be boring, I promise). (Ok, it might be, up until the funny part of it). (But you won’t get the funny part if you don’t read the oh-so-slightly boring educational part). (Again with the zealous usage of parenthetical asides…)

Anyway, whenever you count a number of something in Japanese, it has a counter. This basically means you count people differently than you would count, say, peaches.

If I was counting people, I would use –nin after each number. (There would be some irregular ones, but that’s the general counter). If I was counting small objects (like the aforementioned peaches), I would use –tsu after each number. Flat objects, -mai, long objects, -h/bon, and so on and so forth until you have an entire chart of ways to count. (At which point you have the oh-so-fun task of memorizing it).

I ended up having a question with a counter I didn’t know on my homework. I had to say “there are only three restaurants”. I checked my textbook for a counter chart and couldn’t find it, so I looked up the word for “counter” in my dictionary and went to ask my host family. This coincided with tea time, so everyone was there.

The word for counter is josuushi. Okaasan was still putting something together in the kitchen, so I posed my question about the josuushi to Otoosan and Obaachan.

They both looked at me like I had two heads. I began to wonder if I had looked up the wrong word. I tried to explain what josuushi meant.

That was the point when they decided I was clearly trying to talk about sushi.

After another minute of Obaachan and Otoosan trying to figure out what sort of sushi I was talking about, Okaasan came to the rescue. Having taught Japanese, she knew exactly what I was talking about. She explained it to Obaachan and Otoosan, and then much laughter ensued.

Oh the subtleties of the long vowel.

Here are some other word pairs that are very close:
Biyooin-hair salon
Byooin-hospital
(“So I was at the hospital getting my hair done…”)

Obaasan – grandmother
Obasan – aunt
(Best to leave your drawl at home when going to Auntie’s house…)

Ane - older sister
Ani – older brother
(But you already knew that one, of course)

Okoru – to get angry
Ogoru – to treat someone (to a meal, etc)
(“I’m angry with you!” “Oh, cool. Can we get ice cream too?”)

Sushi! And soccer too!

On Saturday night I had sushi dinner with my host family. We did it temaki style, which is rolled. It was actually make your own, which was really cool and fun.

There were two large wooden platters with sogohan (vinegar/sushi rice), plates with dried nori (seaweed), and then various other ingredients in other dishes, including maguro (raw tuna), mayotsuna (canned tuna and mayo), cucumbers, carrots, ikura (fish eggs), and uni (sea urchin). There were a couple of other raw fish cuts, which were good, but I didn’t get the name of them.

Nori (google image)

Maguro (google image)

Ikura (google image)

Of course I tried everything. I bet you’re wondering about the sea urchin, huh? Too bad, I’m going to tell you how we put it together first.

To make a sushi roll, you took a piece of nori, put rice on it, and then picked whatever else you wanted. Then you wrap it all up and eat it. It’s kind of like fajita night at school, only much better. :)

Anyway, the sea urchin just tasted salty and ocean-like to me (I didn’t really dislike it, but I wasn’t blown away either) so I tried it and then left the rest for my host family to enjoy.

Raw sea urchin (google image)

It was really great, and I ended up eating way too much because it was so good. Hopefully I’ll be able to find the ingredients to do something similar back home when I get back!

We finished the night watching the Japan v. Netherlands World Cup soccer match. The Netherlands ended up winning, but it was still a good game and fun to watch with the family. Well, Obaachan was playing her Mahjong game mostly, but she watched a few minutes. :)

My dear older … sister, brother, brosister, what??!

Ok, so I mentioned this in an earlier post. Last weekend, when I was first talking about my family with my host family, I accidentally described my brother as my sister for a good five minutes of conversation before I realized what I’d done.

You may be wondering how this happened. Alright, so the formal words for older brother and sister are:

Oniisan – brother

Oneesan – sister

These are used when referring to someone else’s siblings. So my host family would use these to refer to my older siblings, but I would use:

Ani - brother

Ane – sister

You see how close those last two are? Those would be the two I screwed up.

Sorry, Tim. I’m still your favorite sister, right?*

*I’m his only sister, so this is actually the default state. He really has no choice in the matter.

More food adventures!

This past week I got to try natto for the first time. It's a food Japan is (in?)famous for. It consists of fermented soybeans.

Natto, aka fermented soybeans

Alright, so it's got a reputation for being nasty, but some people obviously like it because it's pretty popular over here. Stores are selling it because people are buying. So when it was served with breakfast the other day, I said sure, I'll try it.

Good thing I did, now I know to avoid it. O_O

I have a friend who likes it, and she says if you just get past the smell it tastes fine. As far as I'm concerned, that's the same as saying once you get past the taste, it tastes fine.

Also, as you can see in the picture, it does this funky thing where it sticks together with fine strands of fermentedieness (yup, that's a word, 'cuz I said so). The Japanese actually have a verb for it: neba neba suru. This neba neba business makes it difficult to eat gracefully.

Ok, so onto a good food story! (I think natto is really the only thing I've disliked so far, and I've been trying everything).

Last night I went out with some of the other HIF students to celebrate someone's birthday. We ended up eating at a donburi restaurant. Donburi can be a variety of different foods served over rice. For example katsudon is pork over rice, and tamagodon is egg over rice. Last night I had oyakodon (親子丼).

Oyakodon

What's in oyakodon, you ask? Well, you've got to look at the kanji that make up the name. First, 親 (oya) means parent. The second, 子(ko) means child.

Hm, this is beginning to sound a bit morbid, huh?

It's actually just chicken and egg, chicken being the "parent" and egg being the "child". For some reason last semester we talked about this in Japanese class, so I was wise to it when I ordered. When I told my host parents that I had eaten oyakodon, they asked if I knew what the name meant. They found it quite amusing that I did. (They find a lot of things amusing, like my distaste for natto). X)

Anyway, that's it for now. Hopefully I'll get pictures uploaded from our visit to the Jomon Archaeological site soon and be able to post about that. :)

Ofuro

I've decided that I'm going to suffer horrendous culture-shock upon returning to the U.S. Because we won't have:
1. Heated toilet seats
2. The ofuro

Heated toilet seats are pretty self explanatory. Surprising at first, but you warm up to the idea quickly. (Pun intended, sadly).

The ofuro is the Japanese bath. In a Japanese style bathroom, the shower is separate from and adjacent to the tub. (See random google image below)
This is because of the ofuro tradition. At the end of the day, the house's ofuro (bath) is filled up with very hot water. Each person in the house gets a turn--they take their shower outside of the ofuro, then get some time to soak in the ofuro. (These are nice, deep tubs too, not the ones at home which you outgrow somewhere around the age of 10.) There's a cover to keep the water from cooling off too much over the course of the evening.

Anyway, I got my first chance to try the ofuro on Wednesday. It was great, totally relaxing. So, Mom and Dad, weren't you saying you wanted to remodel the bathroom? I'm sure you did...

That's it for now, but here's some pictures of fancy ofuro that I found on google.

Onigiri

My favorite inexpensive lunch to have over here is onigiri. You can get them at the supermarket or local 7-Eleven (they're all over the place in Japan) for around 100 yen, which is about a dollar.
Each one is sticky rice with something like fish or egg stuck in the middle, and then wrapped in nori (seaweed). The one above, for example, has a bit of egg in the middle. Two of them make a pretty filling (and inexpensive) lunch.

My posts may be slowing down since classes started and I'm getting a bit busier, but hopefully in the near future, maybe this weekend, you should see entries about the Ofuro, our visit to Jomon Archaeological Site, and how I accidentally described my brother, Tim, as my older sister.

Yen!

I know at least some of you were wondering what the yen look like. So here's a picture of the different stuff that's in my wallet right now. If I had two of a coin, I showed the other side too.


From left to right, there's the 10,000 yen note, the 1000 yen note, the 500 yen coin, the 100 yen coin, the 50 yen coin, the 10 yen coin, and the 5 yen coin. There's a couple missing.

I also have a 2000 yen note, which is pretty rare, a bit like a 2 dollar bill. Don't have a picture of it though, so here's one from Google:

Of interesting note to all the karate students out there, that's the Shureimon pictured on the right. It is a gate of Shuri Castle, Okinawa.

First Day of Classes

So today was my first day of classes--can I just tell you how much I hate those, wherever they are? Your sensei/professor tells you in a few minutes everything that you are going to do for many weeks to come, and stress crashes down upon you like a rogue meteor on a planet with a whole lot of gravity. (Well, that's the case with me, anyway. Luckily I get over it soon enough, but those first couple minutes in the class I tend toward panic.)

Anyway, my host father borrowed my camera's SD card today to print out the pictures of the family and me from yesterday, so no new pictures today. But lucky enough for you I have one from Friday to share!


I sniped this at the park by HIF at about lunch time. If you look closely, you'll see that all the truck drivers and are napping there in the shade. This reminded me of something my first year roommate from Vietnam told me about. Apparently in Vietnam, everybody naps after lunch, no exceptions. Her father's business office had a special room set aside for that purpose. It looks like the same midday nap tendency may be here in Japan too. :)

Goryokaku Koen

Today I went with my host family to Goryokaku Park, which contains the Goryokaku Fortress, the first Western-style fortress in Japan. From above, the structure looks like a star. There’s a moat around the outside and within the moat are high stone walls.

random google image

Now the park is planted with many flowers, and is a huge attraction in Hakodate, especially during the beginning of June because many of the flowers are in bloom. It is also very popular in May, when the sakura (cherry blossoms) bloom.

Okaasan made bentoo (packed lunch) and we ate there. (Might I mention that I am being extremely well fed over here?) She brought budoo (grapes) as well, which were nearly the size of golf balls! (On a side note, in the supermarket yesterday, I noticed many of their fruits and vegetables are supersized. For example, carrots the size of cucumbers!) (Oh, we also had milk tea/afternoon tea, which was delicious). (Weee, parenthetical asides!)

I also took lots of pictures because the place was so gorgeous. And, the moment you’ve been waiting for… [drum roll] … pictures of my host family!

Otoosan [host father] and me

Obaachan [host grandmother], Okaasan [host mother], and me

Okaasan and me

I picked up some post cards from the gift shop after.

Goryokaku's moat when the cherry trees are in bloom

Aerial view of Goryokaku

Hakodate City, viewed from Mt. Hakodate at dusk

To make this blog a little more interesting, I’m hosting a mini-contest with the above postcards as the prizes! :)

Here’s how it works. I’m going to give you, the readers at home, and sentence in Japanese to translate. You can use online dictionaries, online translators, friends, strangers under duress or bribed, etc. to get the answer. Only person you can’t get the answer from is me. :)

E-mail your answer to me at vfalconi@smith.edu, and the first 3 to answer correctly get postcards. (Don’t comment on the blog, everyone will be able to see the answer!) First person gets first pick, second person gets second pick, third person gets the last card. Edit: All the postcards are claimed! Contest over! :)

So, here’s the challenge:

日本で　春に　桜　が　咲きます。

にほんで　はるに　さくら　が　さきます。

Nihon de haru ni sakura ga sakimasu.

(Those all say the same thing—the first is in kanji and hiragana, the second in hiragana only, and the last is spelled out in roomaji.)

Good luck!

P.S. More pictures from Goryokaku Park: