Here are the answers to the second postcard challenge:
1. Remon (Raymon) - Lemon
2. Saakaa (Sawkaw) - Soccer
3. Hoteru (hotayru) - Hotel
4. Bosuton - Boston
5. Chipusu -Chips
6. Hanbaagaa -Hamburger
7. Bideo - Video
8. shatsu - Shirt
9. Koohii - Coffee
10. Chiken - Chicken
11. Nyuuyooku - New York
12. Pasuta - Pasta
13. haihiiru - High heel
14. Sarada - Salad
15. Aisu kurimu - Ice cream
16. Kamera - Camera
17. Kariforunia - California (As my Dad pointed out, the Japanese pronunciation is very much like that of the state's current governor).
18. Chokoreeto (chokorayto) - Chocolate
19. Terebi - T.V.
20. Supootsu - Sports
The three winners will be receiving a surprise postcard in the near future. :) (Aka Veronica hasn't bought the postcards yet, so she can't post pictures...)
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Recycling Mania!
The feeling in the States is that sometime recycling is just too gosh darned inconvenient. It's just so difficult to take some of your trash and put it in another bin.
However, upon seeing Japan's recycling/waste system, I have decided Americans need to suck it up.
The trash bins at HIF
Part of our orientation was a tutorial on how to throw stuff away. Now you may be confused as to what is burnable and what isn't. So far as I can tell, this isn't a question of should it be burned/will it release toxic chemicals if it burns. The only question is "will it burn if enough heat is applied?" So things like styrofoam get to go in there too. Not so sure if this is a good thing...
Anyway, there will be a post to come about my adventures in Sapporo, Hokkaido's capital, but for now I must ask that Tim, my brother, no longer be called Nacho. It was his birthday yesterday and this is his present.
Also, participate in the postcard contest! No one who has e-mailed me so far has gotten them all--will you be the one???
However, upon seeing Japan's recycling/waste system, I have decided Americans need to suck it up.
The trash bins at HIFThere are only five different bins for our district, but apparently the next town over has seven. That's right folks. Seven.
Anyway, there will be a post to come about my adventures in Sapporo, Hokkaido's capital, but for now I must ask that Tim, my brother, no longer be called Nacho. It was his birthday yesterday and this is his present.
Also, participate in the postcard contest! No one who has e-mailed me so far has gotten them all--will you be the one???
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Tanabata and Second Postcard Contest!
So I’m going away this weekend to Sapporo, the main city of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island. (Right now I’m in Hakodate, which is a city in southern Hokkaido). I won’t be bringing my laptop with me, so that means no blogging, so I’m going to leave you with a nice long post to read and another postcard contest! Yay!
First off, Tanabata! It’s like Halloween, only in July! :D Candy and children’s subsequent hyperactive joy abounds!
Tanabata is every July 7th here in Japan. The day is based on a legend about Orihime, a daughter of a god, and her lover, Hikoboshi. The story goes that Orihime was very serious girl. She would wake up every day and go weave cloth on her loom (the fabric of the universe? A tie for Dad?). She did this all day every day. Eventually her father decided that she should be married. So he searched the universe for an appropriate suitor.
He found Hikoboshi, a cow farmer on the far side of the Milky Way. (No, seriously.)(It actually only translates as a really bad pun. The literal Japanese name for the Milky Way is the River of the Heavens, so the cow and milk connection isn’t there). Anyway, Hikoboshi was just as serious and dedicated to his work as Orihime, so the father decided they were a good match. Hikoboshi and Orihime got married.
What dear old dad didn’t count on was them liking each other so much that they decided to hang out together all the time and never work. He got pretty cross about this (it meant he wasn’t getting anymore ties made of the fabric of the universe, and he really liked those) and decided to break up the marriage. The two weren’t allowed to see each other anymore. Naturally, Orihime cried her eyes out every day, and the subsequent guilt trip her father went through
made him willing to compromise.
The final solution was that Orihime and Hikoboshi could see each other one day a year (don’t ask me how they kept track of days and years when they weren’t on a planet). Anyway, that day is July 7th, Tanabata, and the belief is that wishes, like Orihime and Hikoboshi’s wish to be together, will be fulfilled on this day.
What the Japanese do to celebrate is put the branches of bamboo up outside the doors of shops and decorate them with paper and origami ornaments. They also write wishes on colorful pieces of paper and hang them up. I snapped a couple pictures of these on my way home today.
In the afternoon and evening, kids dress up in yukata (like what I got to try on in my kimono class) and go around the places that have the Tanabata branches, sing a song, and receive candy.
Random google image of some kids on Tanabata
I’m seriously wishing I was a kid right now. Or that I at least had a kid in my host family I could walk around with.
So that’s Tanabata for you. :)
Now onto the second post card contest!
If you won a postcard last time, you can’t win one again, but you can still participate if you like!
This time I’m going to provide a list of English words… but in their Japanese forms. There a fewer sounds in Japanese, so a lot of English words get approximated. Like my name, for example. It’s Veronica, but since there is no “v” sound, I go by Beronika here, which is close enough. Smith College is even more interesting. In Japanese, Smith is Sumisu.
So here’s the challenge—figure out the original English words for these Japanese words. You can’t use a dictionary in any form this time. You just have to try and sound it out on your own. I’ve got one tip though to make it a smidge less difficult.
Tip: There is no “L” sound in Japanese, so it is approximated with their “R” sound. (i.e. re may actually be le, or it may just be re).
Send me an e-mail with as many answers as you can get (no dictionaries, no googling, no nothing! Nothing but you and the words!) and next Thursday (Late Wednesday evening for y’all) I’ll figure out who got the most correct, and the top three will win postcards! (What kind of postcards will come in a later post). My e-mail is vfalconi@smith.edu.
I hope you’re ready, because here’s your list. (I included some pronunciation clarifications in parentheses). Some of it’s food, some of it’s places, some of it’s random other stuff. Good luck!
1.Remon (Raymon)
2.Sakkaa (Sawkaw)
3.Hoteru (hotayru)
4.Bosuton
5.Chipusu
6.Hanbaagaa
7.Bideo
8.shatsu
9.Koohii
10.Chiken
11.Nyuuyooku
12.Pasuta
13.haihiiru
14.Sarada
15.Aisu kurimu
16.Kamera
17.Kariforunia
18.Chokoreeto (chokorayto)
19.Terebi
20.Supootsu
First off, Tanabata! It’s like Halloween, only in July! :D Candy and children’s subsequent hyperactive joy abounds!
Tanabata is every July 7th here in Japan. The day is based on a legend about Orihime, a daughter of a god, and her lover, Hikoboshi. The story goes that Orihime was very serious girl. She would wake up every day and go weave cloth on her loom (the fabric of the universe? A tie for Dad?). She did this all day every day. Eventually her father decided that she should be married. So he searched the universe for an appropriate suitor.
He found Hikoboshi, a cow farmer on the far side of the Milky Way. (No, seriously.)(It actually only translates as a really bad pun. The literal Japanese name for the Milky Way is the River of the Heavens, so the cow and milk connection isn’t there). Anyway, Hikoboshi was just as serious and dedicated to his work as Orihime, so the father decided they were a good match. Hikoboshi and Orihime got married.
What dear old dad didn’t count on was them liking each other so much that they decided to hang out together all the time and never work. He got pretty cross about this (it meant he wasn’t getting anymore ties made of the fabric of the universe, and he really liked those) and decided to break up the marriage. The two weren’t allowed to see each other anymore. Naturally, Orihime cried her eyes out every day, and the subsequent guilt trip her father went through
made him willing to compromise.The final solution was that Orihime and Hikoboshi could see each other one day a year (don’t ask me how they kept track of days and years when they weren’t on a planet). Anyway, that day is July 7th, Tanabata, and the belief is that wishes, like Orihime and Hikoboshi’s wish to be together, will be fulfilled on this day.
What the Japanese do to celebrate is put the branches of bamboo up outside the doors of shops and decorate them with paper and origami ornaments. They also write wishes on colorful pieces of paper and hang them up. I snapped a couple pictures of these on my way home today.
In the afternoon and evening, kids dress up in yukata (like what I got to try on in my kimono class) and go around the places that have the Tanabata branches, sing a song, and receive candy.
Random google image of some kids on TanabataI’m seriously wishing I was a kid right now. Or that I at least had a kid in my host family I could walk around with.
So that’s Tanabata for you. :)
Now onto the second post card contest!
If you won a postcard last time, you can’t win one again, but you can still participate if you like!
This time I’m going to provide a list of English words… but in their Japanese forms. There a fewer sounds in Japanese, so a lot of English words get approximated. Like my name, for example. It’s Veronica, but since there is no “v” sound, I go by Beronika here, which is close enough. Smith College is even more interesting. In Japanese, Smith is Sumisu.
So here’s the challenge—figure out the original English words for these Japanese words. You can’t use a dictionary in any form this time. You just have to try and sound it out on your own. I’ve got one tip though to make it a smidge less difficult.
Tip: There is no “L” sound in Japanese, so it is approximated with their “R” sound. (i.e. re may actually be le, or it may just be re).
Send me an e-mail with as many answers as you can get (no dictionaries, no googling, no nothing! Nothing but you and the words!) and next Thursday (Late Wednesday evening for y’all) I’ll figure out who got the most correct, and the top three will win postcards! (What kind of postcards will come in a later post). My e-mail is vfalconi@smith.edu.
I hope you’re ready, because here’s your list. (I included some pronunciation clarifications in parentheses). Some of it’s food, some of it’s places, some of it’s random other stuff. Good luck!
1.Remon (Raymon)
2.Sakkaa (Sawkaw)
3.Hoteru (hotayru)
4.Bosuton
5.Chipusu
6.Hanbaagaa
7.Bideo
8.shatsu
9.Koohii
10.Chiken
11.Nyuuyooku
12.Pasuta
13.haihiiru
14.Sarada
15.Aisu kurimu
16.Kamera
17.Kariforunia
18.Chokoreeto (chokorayto)
19.Terebi
20.Supootsu
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Gooya no Hi
Recently in class we talked about gooya no hi, which is a shorthand way of saying May 8th. Gooya is also a homophone for a type of vegetable from Okinawa, so on the May 8th, many Japanese eat food with gooya to celebrate the day. (You can see a picture of gooya on the right. It's sometimes referred to as "bitter melon").
You can also change your birthday date into shorthand and see if it means anything. Mine, for example, shortens into toushi. There are three definitions in the dictionary for this one. The first is “death by freezing.” That’s a little morbid, so let’s skip that. The second is “fighting spirit”. So cool! Then the last was “investment”, which was pretty lame. I think I’ll stick with the second.
I then went and tried to figure out my family’s birthdays. Dad turned out to be gochomi, which doesn’t mean anything. Then Tim was nachomi, which also doesn’t mean anything. (But it does begin with nacho! If you know Tim and see him anytime soon, please call him Nacho for me). (I know. I’m such a nice, considerate sister).
Mom lucked out though. Her shorthand birthday was niko. Nikoniko means “smilingly; with a happy smile”. I thought it was pretty accurate. :)
I’m not sure how to do all dates, but if you’re interested post your birthday and I’ll see what I can do!
Monday, July 5, 2010
Asahi Elementary School
Last week we got a chance to visit Asahi Elementary School. We each had a group and had to prepare games for our visit.
When we first walked in, they showed us to tables with our name tags.
Um, adorable much? (Also, don't mind the crazy hair--it was raining that day).
Some of the kids could see us already as we were waiting by the front entrance, and started waving to us through the window. After a couple minutes of this, someone decided they should at least be productive if they were going to stand there and emphatically wave their arms at us, so they were handed towels so they could "wash the windows".
(By the time I took the picture though they were getting a bit tired. They had been quite animated though).
Finally they lined us up and welcomed us into the gym, where all the kids were assembled.
Then they abducted their first victims...
To play a mass game of jan ken pon (rock, paper, scissors)!
(If you beat someone, they line up behind you and put their hands on your shoulders. Then you go against another pair, and if you beat them, they line up behind you too). (The kids in the front were screwing around just for our benefit--they were hilarious).
We also got to play tug-o-war.
After all the mass games in the gym, we broke off into small groups to go to individual classes and play some games like duck, duck, goose. Overall, pretty fun. :)
When we first walked in, they showed us to tables with our name tags.
Um, adorable much? (Also, don't mind the crazy hair--it was raining that day).Some of the kids could see us already as we were waiting by the front entrance, and started waving to us through the window. After a couple minutes of this, someone decided they should at least be productive if they were going to stand there and emphatically wave their arms at us, so they were handed towels so they could "wash the windows".
(By the time I took the picture though they were getting a bit tired. They had been quite animated though).Finally they lined us up and welcomed us into the gym, where all the kids were assembled.
Then they abducted their first victims...
To play a mass game of jan ken pon (rock, paper, scissors)!
(If you beat someone, they line up behind you and put their hands on your shoulders. Then you go against another pair, and if you beat them, they line up behind you too). (The kids in the front were screwing around just for our benefit--they were hilarious).We also got to play tug-o-war.
After all the mass games in the gym, we broke off into small groups to go to individual classes and play some games like duck, duck, goose. Overall, pretty fun. :)
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Ohnuma Park
So I finally got around to processing the pictures I took at Ohnuma Park. (Ohnuma park was the place where I had to sing the froofy boy band song… yep, now you know what I’m talking about). It was really gorgeous, and the weather was great too. My friends and I rented bikes and rode around the lake a bit.
I took lots of pictures of the scenery too. There were islands in the lake connected by bridges so you could walk around on them.
This one goes out to the train enthusiast in my life. He knows who he is. This is a Japan Railways train headed for the JR station in Ohnuma. It's not a bullet train, but I'll be able to check those out first-hand on my trip back to Tokyo in August.
That mountain you can see in the background of some of the pictures is a now dormant volcano. Not only does it look cool, it also means that there’s hot springs! Yay! The hotel we stayed in had an onsen (public bath) fed with jacuzzi-hot water from the hot springs. I got to try those out Sunday morning. It was pretty cool because the onsen are set up with separate girls’ sides and guys’ sides. You go in, change from your clothes into your birthday suit (yup, your birthday suit, not your bathing suit), take a shower, and then are free to go enjoy the onsen. The hotel had an outdoor onsen as well, which was really nice. Inside, they had Jacuzzi-type onsen too with all the jets and bubbles and whatnot. No actual pictures of this one, but this is from Google and looks a bit like the hotel onsen.
We also got a huge dinner on Saturday night. There were so many dishes!
All the dishes
People taking pictures of all the dishes
On the left is a cooking bowl with a burner under it. This was for sukiyaki. You put all the ingredients you want in the broth, put a beaten egg on top, and then let it cook. Once you’re happy with it, you just extinguish the burner and eat it. (Well, there’s a little more time in between those two actions than that sentence implies, unless you want your taste buds lightly seared too).
There was sashimi (cuts of raw fish), tempura (lightly battered and fried fish and vegetables), cooked fish, meat with ikura (fish eggs) on top, and veggies with these sort of crab-veggie cakes. It was a lot of seafood, so my dojo compadre with a severe seafood allergy would have died (again, he knows who he is--and so does everybody else in the dojo), but it was delicious. :)
Oh, and there was rice too, of course. It’s pretty much a staple with any Japanese type meal.
I should note that not everything I eat over here is fish and rice. I get a lot of western-type food too, though often at surprising times. (I’ve had an omelet at dinner and a hot dog at breakfast.) (My just-woken-up brain had difficulty wrapping around the concept of a hot dog for breakfast that morning). It all still tastes good though. :)
I took lots of pictures of the scenery too. There were islands in the lake connected by bridges so you could walk around on them.
This one goes out to the train enthusiast in my life. He knows who he is. This is a Japan Railways train headed for the JR station in Ohnuma. It's not a bullet train, but I'll be able to check those out first-hand on my trip back to Tokyo in August.
That mountain you can see in the background of some of the pictures is a now dormant volcano. Not only does it look cool, it also means that there’s hot springs! Yay! The hotel we stayed in had an onsen (public bath) fed with jacuzzi-hot water from the hot springs. I got to try those out Sunday morning. It was pretty cool because the onsen are set up with separate girls’ sides and guys’ sides. You go in, change from your clothes into your birthday suit (yup, your birthday suit, not your bathing suit), take a shower, and then are free to go enjoy the onsen. The hotel had an outdoor onsen as well, which was really nice. Inside, they had Jacuzzi-type onsen too with all the jets and bubbles and whatnot. No actual pictures of this one, but this is from Google and looks a bit like the hotel onsen.
We also got a huge dinner on Saturday night. There were so many dishes!
All the dishes
People taking pictures of all the dishesOn the left is a cooking bowl with a burner under it. This was for sukiyaki. You put all the ingredients you want in the broth, put a beaten egg on top, and then let it cook. Once you’re happy with it, you just extinguish the burner and eat it. (Well, there’s a little more time in between those two actions than that sentence implies, unless you want your taste buds lightly seared too).
There was sashimi (cuts of raw fish), tempura (lightly battered and fried fish and vegetables), cooked fish, meat with ikura (fish eggs) on top, and veggies with these sort of crab-veggie cakes. It was a lot of seafood, so my dojo compadre with a severe seafood allergy would have died (again, he knows who he is--and so does everybody else in the dojo), but it was delicious. :)
Oh, and there was rice too, of course. It’s pretty much a staple with any Japanese type meal.
I should note that not everything I eat over here is fish and rice. I get a lot of western-type food too, though often at surprising times. (I’ve had an omelet at dinner and a hot dog at breakfast.) (My just-woken-up brain had difficulty wrapping around the concept of a hot dog for breakfast that morning). It all still tastes good though. :)
Friday, July 2, 2010
Kimono
Alright, so the blog has been lagging a bit this week, at least by my estimation. I actually have no quantitative evidence for that because I am not currently online to compare the number of posts I did this week vs. past weeks. But if I was online I would do it. (That just tells you how much of a nerd I am. Can’t just trust my feelings, you know. Got to gather data and do some statistical analysis.) I’m pretty sure this has happened because the posts I want to do are image intensive and I’ve felt a little too lazy to resize all the pictures and get them posted.
Well, today I’m sucking it up and giving you pictures. Rejoice and be glad! (No, seriously, do it. Otherwise my efforts will be wasted and then I’ll be grumpy that you didn’t appreciate the product of my sort-of-hard-but-mostly-just-tedious work).
I just finished my special, one-time kimono class here at HIF. We got to learn how to put on yukata (the most casual form of kimono). Since I’m pretty tall, Okaasan lent me hers for today, which was pretty cool.
Let me tell you, tying the obi (belt) was a fun time. And the way we did it was apparently the simplest way.
Might I also note that the guys’ yukata are much easier to put on? Totally unfair. (But probably because they couldn’t handle the process of putting on a woman’s yukata).(It’s at this point that the male viewers of my blog, finding this to be one insult too many, decided to stop reading). (Unless they’re really tough and stick with it.) (See what I did there? Now you’re not tough if you stop reading.)
Anyway, we also got to see the really fancy kimono, and I got a chance to try on the wedding jacket.
That was so heavy it was like wearing a comforter! Sign me up for a winter wedding! (Not only is there that jacket, there are also several other layers of kimono underneath. You can see that in the picture below. Apparently there is a style of kimono from the 8th century that is 12 layers and is considered the most beautiful. Women of the royal family wear that for their weddings). (See, aren’t you glad you’re not royalty now?)
After that we got to learn how to walk around and sit down. Then, of course, there was folding it up and putting it away, which was another whole process... I think I know why people so rarely wear them now!
(Just a reminder--to see a larger version of any of the pictures, just click on it.)
Well, today I’m sucking it up and giving you pictures. Rejoice and be glad! (No, seriously, do it. Otherwise my efforts will be wasted and then I’ll be grumpy that you didn’t appreciate the product of my sort-of-hard-but-mostly-just-tedious work).
I just finished my special, one-time kimono class here at HIF. We got to learn how to put on yukata (the most casual form of kimono). Since I’m pretty tall, Okaasan lent me hers for today, which was pretty cool.
Let me tell you, tying the obi (belt) was a fun time. And the way we did it was apparently the simplest way.
Might I also note that the guys’ yukata are much easier to put on? Totally unfair. (But probably because they couldn’t handle the process of putting on a woman’s yukata).(It’s at this point that the male viewers of my blog, finding this to be one insult too many, decided to stop reading). (Unless they’re really tough and stick with it.) (See what I did there? Now you’re not tough if you stop reading.)
Anyway, we also got to see the really fancy kimono, and I got a chance to try on the wedding jacket.
That was so heavy it was like wearing a comforter! Sign me up for a winter wedding! (Not only is there that jacket, there are also several other layers of kimono underneath. You can see that in the picture below. Apparently there is a style of kimono from the 8th century that is 12 layers and is considered the most beautiful. Women of the royal family wear that for their weddings). (See, aren’t you glad you’re not royalty now?)
After that we got to learn how to walk around and sit down. Then, of course, there was folding it up and putting it away, which was another whole process... I think I know why people so rarely wear them now!(Just a reminder--to see a larger version of any of the pictures, just click on it.)
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