Nanking-machi 4

With our bellies filled, we walk back towards the stage, where the Zatsugi, the Chinese acrobatics, show is about to start. Flowing, uplifting music carried by flute melodies, floats from the loudspeakers and gets more and more animated, interspersed with dramatic intervals of gongs and cymbals clanging and banging to the bottom of our ears. Then, a large dragon held by two people, with a huge red and golden head and a wild red mane dances out onto the stage, followed by a smaller one-person dragon, and the two start dancing and playing to the music. A beautiful girl with a cream-coloured muscly back wearing a yellow suit comes out and, with elegantly twisting hands and stretching arms holds out and throws an ornate ball for the two dragons which makes them shake their heads and manes and twist their bodies in happy playfulness.

A giant ball, one and a half people in diameter, is rolled onto the stage, and in an impressive final, the big two-person-dragon jumps on top of the ball and walks it around the stage.

The dragons exit. The crowds are disappointingly silent, and, unable to whistle, I scream and holler, and clap as loudly and appreciatively as I can.

Next, a juggler demonstrates his marvellous tricks to us, including a six-badminton bat juggle, in which two bats are always in the air, spinning around synchronously before they land back in his hands, and the next pair goes up, giving an impression like a flying vehicle with a complicated mechanism of wheels turning in opposite directions.

Mouth agape, we then watch, as the beautiful girl in the yellow suit we have seen before performs a whole arsenal of breath-taking contortions that make it appear like she has no bones and is made of nothing but flexible muscle and shark collagen. Looking around the crowd, I notice a large number of salivitating men, who stand staring, transfixed at the startling possibilities opening up in their minds as they watch. And while this bendy, yellow beam of sunshine stands on her hands and curves her feet into scorpion tails above her back to place them in front of her shoulders, she smiles at us!

When she finishes her impressive performance, finally, the last act enters the stage. This is another beautiful girl, slightly bigger around the waist than the first one, which makes her act even more impressive to watch (see picture): she is riding a three people tall monocycle, on which she parades round the stage. Then, the young juggler comes in and throws up a silver bowl to her. She balances it on her foot, continuing to ride the monocycle moving the pedal back and forth with the other foot. Then, she kicks up the bowl and catches it on top of her head. This continues. More bowls are thrown up, and stacked on top of her head. After the sixth bowl, finally, there is a silver jug which lands inside the bowls, and, last, to top it off, a silver spoon that is balanced on her foot, and then flies through the air to land in the middle of the jug. The crowds should be cheering and hollering, but it seems like everybody has been stunned into silence, unable to offer any audible appreciation except for some faint clapping. The acrobats assemble on stage, and the presenter thanks us nonetheless, and invites us all to have another look around the beautiful stalls and shops here in Nanking-machi, and to watch their group perform again in the future. In this spirit, Happy New Year, everyone! Happy New Year!

Nanking-machi 3

Finally, we feel like a snack, having been tempted all morning by the multitude of mouth-watering snacks sold at stalls lining the streets, including fried sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, prawns and vegetables in chewy rice paper, noodles in thick, siruppy soup, and an endless variety of sweet and savoury steamed dumplings.

Finally, we decide to give in to the temptation and get two huge trays full of different delicacies, filling our stomachs to the upper edge of our esophagi with prawn, pork, and sweet bean dumplings, chewy sticky rice balls filled with sweet bean paste, rolled in sesame seeds and deep fried crispy on the outside, a large bowl of viscous bean sprout noodle soup, spring rolls and an-nin-dofu, a dessert made of tofu and flavoured with apricot seeds. And we get all that, including hot green tea and free water refills, for ¥ 2,100 (£9 or €13) each.

Nanking-machi 2

Like children in a sweet shop, we marvel at the hundreds of different mobile phone pendants hanging from thin cardboard walls, lots of them Chinese traditional style motifs such as Yin Yang signs, lucky golden pigs, waving cats, and the animals of the Chinese horoscope; many of them less traditional: cartoon versions of Bruce Lee, Dragon Ball, and Hello Kitty figurines. There are calligraphy writing tools, Chinese shoes and dresses, nun-chakus, and the original outfits Bruce Lee wore in several different films. The latter are to be found in a whole big shop exclusively dedicated to Bruce, the Master. A life-size statue of the Hero himself with his sinewy chest and chiselled arms greets us at the entrance. In this shop, I find a comfortable black kung fu suit for a very decent price. Fancy dress exercises can have truly transforming powers. Besides, they are fun.

Nanking-machi 1

In an unusual Sunday morning effort, I force myself out of bed at 9 o’clock. I pack a rucksack that contains some books, my camera, and exercise clothes I will need for the second part of the day. Then I leave for Sone station from where I will be taking the Hankyu line to Juso. I work at Juso, but today I’m not going there to work. I’m going there to meet my manager to visit Nanking-machi, the China-town of Kobe. This has nothing to do with work. We both wanted to go and see the Chinese New Year’s Celebrations, so we decided to go together. Two stops towards Juso, I realise that my phone has switched itself off for lack of battery. This is extremely inconvenient. I have two people to meet at locations as unspecific as a train station platform! But if I go back now, I will be late. And too late to say I will be late. So I brace myself and decide to brave the day without my mobile.

I know which line to take to Kobe, but I’m not totally sure whether Manager will meet me at Juso or hop on the train later on, as she lives along that train line. I search for her on the platform at Sone but can’t find her, so I embark on the agreed train (luckily, she is organised and has told me the train will leave at 10.06) at the front and look for her there. She is not there. At the next stop, I get off and get onto the next car of the same train. This, I continute at every stop (it takes half an our and quite a few stops to Kobe), until, upon leaving the train, I see her smiley free time face light up. I have found somebody without a mobile phone!

We take a faster train to Kobe Sannomya and ask two people where Nanking-machi is. It is about 10 minutes from the station, walking next to a long road with a Starbucks and various other shops and fast food restaurants on it. We then walk left, through a short shopping arcade and enter Nanking-machi.

The small streets lined with shops selling Chinese food, tea, stationery, lucky charms for mobile phones, China dresses and kung-fu clothes, are heaving with people. Paths are cordoned off where people are not allowed to stand but have to keep moving, so nobody gets stuck. Security guards in blue uniforms are holding up signs next to the ropes saying “No entry here” and “Please keep moving”. When we enter, there is a little hut on the right, where people can buy and light incense for good luck in the coming year of the pig, and then, in front of a small pagoda, get their picture taken together with four people dressed up as Son-goku, the Monkey King, and his companions Pigsy, Sandy, and the monk Tripitaka. Next to the pagoda is a big stage, but at the moment, it is empty. The calming and exhilarating smell of incense is wafting through the streets as Manager and I embark on a small tour of the shops before the event starts that we want to see.

Saturday Night Overture

It is Saturday Night. But that does not have the same meaning here as it does in other places, where people go out and get drunk, comfortably sandwiched in between two days of freedom.

Here, in my world, Saturday night is the overture to these two days of freedom. This overture starts with a hurried finish at work. My teaching schedule is relatively busy on Saturdays, because in most people’s world, this is free time they can use to pursue their personal interests, such as studying English conversation. But I work days in advance and in between classes, getting my paper work prepared and finished, and preparing next week’s children’s classes, and Tuesday adults’ classes. My Tuesday is your Monday, if you have an average understanding of weekdays and their functions, charms, and stumbling blocks.

So if nothing else gets in the way, such as students staying on to chat long after class, or potential students coming in who need to be interviewed and level-checked, or incomplete paperwork popping up out of nowhere, suddenly screaming: it’s my deadline tonight!, I make a swift exit about 20 minutes after my last class and take the Hankyu Takarazuka train to Toyonaka, where a good, hard, friendly Shorinji-ryu karate class unfolds into a pleasant, sweaty allegro opening to my weekend.

On the seventh day, the Lord rested. He had finished his creation. My Sundays, on the other hand, are usually spent recovering from exhausting weeklong creation maintenance activities, cleaning my flat, and finally, launching my own private workshop of creation, where, short of clay and breath and talent, I use my computer and my fingertips to create, hoping for the best. Hope, it is a tree of life. So I water and nurture it to make it grow strong roots. Then, at some point, my body threatens to grow roots, too, and needs to move, so I go to Toyoshima gym, an exercise followed by food and more Sunday relaxation and creation.

This Sunday, however, another world has snuck into mine, and made different plans for me. It is the Chinese New Year, and we have a Chinatown in Kobe, no more than half an hour away from central Osaka, easily reached by the Hankyu Kobe line. Lion dances, Chinese acrobatics, little shops selling kung-fu garb, and a great variety of dim sum and other culinary delights from the country of kung fu fighting and acupuncture, fireworks and lion dances, are calling out to me.

Thanks to a new acquaintance made at Shosenji aikido dojo, a place that is proving to be a blessing from Japan’s 800 myriads of gods, I will then descend on a twirl of cloud to another training ground to get a first taste of praying mantis kung fu, something that makes my muscles twitch and stretch in joyful anticipation. This Saturday night therefore ends in mysterious plunking pentatonics that will abduct me into a strange world of ink twirls in which I will pray with mantises.

If I’m lucky, my prayers will yield an introduction to whatever god makes war and peace. We could chat over a cup of oulong tea and sit on a soft, twirly cloud, and then close our eyes and descend on our cloud towards a realm in between Heaven and Earth, where the transforming spirit of fighting lives, and fly through bamboo forests in a hypnotised, supernatural, Heavenly exchange of faith and fists.

Okonomiyaki World

Monday is my first time to join a mixed evening training session at Shosenji aikido dojo. When I arrive, only one person is sitting on the mat in hakama, doing some warm-up stretches. Another young foreigner. With bright eyes, he greets me, introduces himself and welcomes me to the dojo with a smile and a few friendly words. I go and get changed. When I get back from the changing rooms, a few more people have started warming up, and I bow and join them. Training is supposed to start at 7 o’clock. At 7.15, the dojo has filled up, and there is just about enough space for everybody to turn and slide and roll the dance of aikido. Some collisions occur, too, and someone’s head gets hurt, but recovers.

First, I train with an older gentleman whose movements are so soft, I can only feel he’s there whenever I find myself flying or gliding to the ground inexplicably. This is a simple tenkan - hand in your face - throw exercise. Next, we practise rooting ourselves. The partner grabs our wrists from the front and pulls them towards himself. We sink our feet and centre of gravity into the ground and counter the pull guiding it towards the ground, neutralising its force with the immutable force of our centre. This time, I train with an energetic young man called Hos-san, if I have read the kanji correctly. He gives me some encouraging words about my strength, but I feel I need to try harder to try less hard.

When I’m training with Tsu-sensei, a very high ranking sensei in the dojo who gives me a lot of useful advice on the throws we practise from ushiro ryotedori, Shihan appears out of nowhere as he does, and asks the sensei to excuse us for a second. He introduces me to Herrn Tho, who has just come in wearing black clothes, carrying a motorbike helmet. We smile and greet each other. Then he kindly lets me get on with my training, and we agree to talk later.

So after a very pleasant, enriching training session that seems, for some reason, to last longer and draw more sweat than the women’s class, we talk. So how long have you been here for? 15 years. Wow, that’s a long time. He is an engineer. But he studied physics. After that, he did research in America and Japan, and is now working in semiconductor research and production. He spent the first 6 years in Tokyo, and now feels quite settled in Osaka. So where are you from in Germany? He asks. “Hannover.” We speak German, obviously, and the female dojo boss asks us whether we are happy to have found somebody to speak our mother tongue with. There are some attempts of German by other dojo members. “Ich liebe dich.” and “Dankeschoen.” and “Guten, guten.”

So, we are both from Germany, we are both from Hannover. “What school did you go to?” he asks. “Bismarckschule.” “Me too.” We marvel in silence at this strange coincidence. “So,” he asks, “Did you go to that 100 year Bismarckschule anniversary party last year?” “No. I really wanted to go, but I was still studying in Bath at the time. But my mother went. She went to the same school. She was actually the first girl in Bismarckschule, and she picked that strange pink-purple colour for the auditorium.” Now, he covers his mouth with one hand and turns away in laughing disbelief. When he turns back, he says my mother’s name. It is a statement but it sounds like a question. Disbelief. My jaw drops and remains there for a while until I can speak again. “You know my mum?” “Yes. We went to school together. And I met her at the anniversary. Now I remember, she told me her daughter was going to Osaka. Now I know why your face seemed so familiar!”

Now I remember, too, that my mother told me about an old classmate of hers in Osaka, and that she had meant to give me his contact details. But obviously, that was not necessary. We just met, anyway, in Osaka, a 3.7 Million city, at Shosenji aikido temple in Toyonaka.

“Are you doing anything for dinner tonight?” he asks. As most days and nights, I have no plans outside work and training. So he invites me for my first Osaka okonomiyaki. We order one type called “mixed” containing pork, tiger prawns and squid, and one called “inaka” (countryside) containing mochi (sticky rice ball pieces) and potatoes. Both are extremely tasty, but as we can still eat more, we finish off with a load of mixed yaki-soba. I drink oulong tea and calpis from the soft drink bar, he orders a pint of beer.

So while two of the renowned Osaka okonomiyaki are sizzling away on the hot plate that forms the middle part of our table, we talk about what has brought us to Japan, and about what we do and want to do, and about my mother, and sister who paints, and his sister who paints, too, and translates in London. And savouring the tasty fried food, we celebrate the strange coincidence and the mysterious workings of the small world we live in. A world sizzling away and producing celestial flavours as everybody throws their favourite ingredients onto the hot plate. Okonomiyaki. We exchange phone numbers and e-mail addresses and say good bye, and go our separate ways again, two Germans in Japan, two Hannoverians in Osaka.

Blue Eyes and Water

My first training is a Friday morning women's class. The women are soft and gentle in both their manners and movements and can teach me a lot in that and many other respects. But our official teacher, a man full of wisdom and friendliness, is Shihan S.
Shihan S has blue Japanese eyes. During my first class, demonstrating a move with N-san, he tells us this:

In aikido we try to move like water. Water can do many things. It can seep into the ground. It can change the shape of rocks. It can enter the smallest cracks and flow from the mountains in waterfalls, and fill pools, and rivers, and the sea. The power of water is used in many budo to describe what we should aspire to. If somebody grabs me, and I say: “No, don’t grab me like this, grab me like THIS!” then that’s my mistake, not hers. It is the attitude with which we meet people that matters to us in aikido. I meet an opponent with the mindset that whatever encounter there will be, it will be harmonious. You achieve this harmony through your own movements. When water hits sand, it seeps into it, between the tiny spaces. When it meets a cup, it fills the cup. When it flows from the mountains, it fills the pools. That is what we have to do. We have to use whatever space opens up to us, without trying to resist any forces met. The forces we meet guide us to the places where we meet no resistance. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.

Aikido

As my most attentive and faithful readers will remember, I mentioned aikido training in one of my entries.
Finding a place to train aikido was one of the various objectives I had in mind when I bought a map of Toyonaka area and found a place called "Budokan Hibiki" on it, a name that suggested martial arts training to me. One sunny Monday morning I went there and found that I was right, only that they had no martial arts training when I had time. But a very friendly little man with almond shaped eyes who immediately took over my case as soon as he spotted me at reception recommended Shosenji, a nearby temple where they train aikido. He made two big photocopies of a detailed map for me and drew in the way I had to go.
He also helped me dign up for the gym across the yard in which I now train almost every morning, but that is a different story that goes with a different picture and will appear on a different day.
So one grey Sunday, I make my way to this hidden away temple. There is a large garden, hidden away behind trees, cherry trees, waiting for March and April. There is a roof with a well beneath it, and ladles to wash your hands. A dragon is guarding the well. On the right, there is a wooden house with a glass door. Little badges hang from the roof with writing on them. There is a large rope with a knot and frills for a handle. Here, you can pull to ring the gods. Behind the glass door, I can see an assembly of different shapes and sizes of statues. They are or were once human beings. Now they are standing in this shrine, wearing red clothes, and emanating an air of superiority and transcendence that humbles me. I do not know who they are and why they’re here, but they have crossed borders I couldn’t find on any map, and they know more than any human being walking the planet. I look at the rope but do not dare disturb their peace.
There are rocks, and little decorative columns, and little flights of stairs. I find my way up to the dojo on the right and some houses to the left. At that moment, a car pulls up at the bottom of the stairs leading to the houses. Out walks a man with a shaven head, soft-featured like a Buddha statue, but without the fat. And a small, attractive woman wearing jeans and purple cowboy boots. Both of them are carrying white plastic bags full of grocery shopping. Then their two little boys come out. One is about five and runs straight into the house. The other one is about two. I introduce myself and ask the man whether he is responsible for aikido classes here. He is. He walks into the house to get me some information. His wife stops and talks to me. “Your Japanese is very good.” “No, I still have to practise a lot!” I protest. “No, it’s very kirei (pretty).” I’ve heard that before, but only once, and while being told that my Japanese is good leaves me cold knowing that many people say it upon hearing you utter a simple “hello” or “thank you” in their language, being told that it is “kirei” is actually nice to hear, as I imagine it refers to the respect language I have been practising hard and try to employ when talking to people I want to speak to in a respectful and reverential manner.
While she and I talk, her tiny little son looks at me from the bottom of the stairs. One step is about as tall as he is, yet he starts climbing them one by one, as we talk. After the third one, he pauses and looks at me again. And doesn’t stop. I have to smile at his square face with its big almond eyes. He smiles back. The mother laughs. “He’s happy!” Good thing he is happy at seeing me, rather than scared. When the boy reaches the top of the stairs and holds on to his mothers’ legs, Buddha re-appears from the house and hands me a couple of photocopies. “Can you read kanji?” “Yes, I can. It might take some time, but it is no problem.” He explains to me that there are classes Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday night, and there is a women’s class on Firday mornings. I tell him that training in the evenings is impossible for me except for Mondays, so I would like to join the Monday evening and the Friday morning classes. "I will come on Friday,” I say, and thank him, and ask him for his continued benevolence in the future. I say good bye to the wife and son and walk back towards Toyonaka station.

Tenshinhan

Today we will talk about recipes. What are ingredients? In this case, the ingredients are: Peanut butter, plenty. Whole wheat bread, two slices. Avocado, 1. Sweet onion chutney, one tablespoon. Tomato, 1. Now, the rest of the recipe. Take one slice of bread and spread the peanut butter on it. Peel and slice the avocado and place the slices on top of the bread. Then, slice the tomatoes and place them on top of the avocado. Next, spread the sweet onion chutney on the other slice of bread and put the two slices together. There you go. This is my favourite sandwich. What shall I call it? Ah. I know. I will call it “Anna’s Delight”. Then it is Hi-san’s turn, and he describes a tasty sandwich in which the bread is toasted and then layered with scrambled eggs, mayonnaise, and three slices of ham.

We take some time matching recipe verbs like slice, chop, pour, and add to the corresponding pictures and finding more things you can slice, pour, and chop.

Then, we need more practice. I describe a recipe to him, and he guesses correctly that it is Spaghetti with meat sauce. I teach him both the dictionary rendering (spaghetti bolognese) for this, teacherly adding that the recipe stems from an Italian city called Bologna; and the actual British vernacular “spag bol”.

Then he launches his description. For this recipe, we need eggs, rice, green peas, crabs, which he mimes with his robot hands, not knowing the word, chicken stock, and a white powder called “katakuriko”, which I’ve never heard before and can’t translate for him. From his description, I gather that it must be some sort of gelling agent. You throw the green peas, crab meat, and eggs into a frying pan, stir the whole mixture, and fry it, but only for a very short time. Then you cook the rice and put the egg mixture on top. Finally, you mix the chicken soup with the katakuriko until it “becomes like honey” and pour it over the rice and the eggs.

I have not had this dish before and cannot guess what it is. Hi-san tells me that this is “tenshinhan”, his favourite Chinese dish. When I hear the word “tenshin” I have to think of “Tenshikan” karate which was named after Kancho, my karate master’s nick name, “tenshin” meaning sincerity. What a nice dish, I think. I have to try and make it. It is quite surprising that Hi-san can cook. F-san, to draw on another students’ cooking skills for comparison, does not know what colour melons have on the outside because he buys them peeled, cut into pieces, and packaged into snack-sized plastic, ready with tooth picks to avoid sticky hands.

The recipe Hi-san describes to me is not named after sincerity. It is named after a city in Northern China. He writes the kanji on the board for me. Both sincerity and Tensin have Heaven as their first character, however, and it sounds tasty, so I feel undeterred in my wish to try and make this.

Finally, my favourite part of the lesson arrives. Unfortunately rather late. I have brought a multitude of ingredients that do not fit together, and cannot wait to play “Ready-Steady-Cook”. I quickly explain the concept of the show to Hi-san and tell him he will now be a TV chef trying to win a cooking contest. The ingredients are as follows:

Potatoes

Carrots

Furikake, wakame flavour

Rum

Green Tea

Rolled Oats

Canned tuna

As our class time is over, this has to be homework: create at least a two course menu out of these ingredients and describe the recipes to me next time. “Impossible!” he exclaims. I promise, I will do the same, and next time we can have a competition who has come up with the tastiest impossible recipe. Hi-san stands in the elevator smiling. I smile back and wave good bye. My manager has taught me this. It is kihon dosa (behavioural basics as required at work). Walk out into the hall with your students, wait for the elevator with them, then, once they have stepped in, stand there and smile, and wave good bye until the door closes. This time, I am enjoying my kihon dosa. On my way home I buy the ingredients for tenshinhan at Sone Hankyu department store whose grocery department is open till 11 o’clock. And spend my walk back listening to pirate music and trying to combine carrots, potatoes, green tea, and rum. When the time comes, I want to be ready and steady to cook.

Calligraphy Lesson

Saturday 4 o'clock used to be a pure boys' class. Round, energetic R-kun always has several bags of different flavoured crisps with him and, ever since we learned how to describe amounts using ducks (a lot of ducks, some ducks, and a few ducks), uses every opportunity to sing a song about ducks that goes "Ahirun-run-run, ahi-run-run-run.." by which time he thinks of either the answer to what I've asked him or something else to do. He is bright, creative, and pleasant. And exceedingly lazy.
M-kun loves cars and wants to be a formula one driver. Every time I show him one of the horse cards I use to teach them "I want to brush him", "I want to pet him", "I want to feed him" etc, his eyes and torch-bright smile light up, and he says "Horsepower!"
A recent addition to the class is super-intelligent and studious N-chan, who wears a bright pink jacket and smart glasses. At first I thought the combination would bring problems, but it turns out that N-chan and the boys get on great. The boys admire her skills and sometimes focus a little bit more, while she gets some entertainment and some tasks that challenge her, which develop out of their rebellious creativity that has a constant tendency to sway from classroom contents. Such as using the study cards to build card houses. But if they are getting on well enough with our study targets, I let them sway, as long as it is productive and conducive to the learning atmosphere.
This time, I have a great lesson to teach. We are studying the words "English lesson", "piano lesson", "swimming lesson", "dance lesson" and "calligraphy lesson". R-kun does not show up. But N-chan and M-kun are there.
I act out the swimming lesson pulling a swim cap over my teacher's hairstyle, putting on goggles, and air-crawling around the classroom.
Then, my favourite, the dance lesson. I present this word by teaching them a few steps of ceilidh. And when the Dancing Strings of Scotland come streaming into the classroom from the ancient CD-player, we all hop and stomp and fly through the small space in front of the white board for a while. Blessed be the Military Two Step!
When our class is already over, I have a sudden impulse to digress again from the "English lesson" we're supposed to be finishing. I hold out two white board markers for them and scream: "Everybody to the white board! Calligraphy lesson!" Unexpectedly, the two are enthusiastic calligraphy students. Immediately, a wild kanji-writing marathon unfolds on my white board. I show them how I write "Anna" in Japanese, with anshin no an followed by Nara no na. They compete finding ways of writing my surname and agree on using seiza no za (sit) but have some trouble finding another na syllable, their best ideas being namae no na (name) and nana no na (seven). Then they show me how to write their names and several rather rude Japanese expressions such as baka, konyaro and aho. Carefully, I make notes of the complicated kanji in my head, for future reference. I erase aho, however, because it contains the first character I use for writing Anna, and I'm not happy about that.
M-kun proudly tells me that the second character in his name contains one part that means military, or fighting. N-chan consequently finds a different way of spelling his name using ki (wood). Although M-kun is impressed by N-chan's superior scholarly knowledge and watches in awe as she produces complicated kanji with her black marker pen, he now feels inspired to come up with some less flowery ways of writing HER name.
Trying to demonstrate some of his special kanji knowledge, he tells us about a character meaning Tang dynasty, or China that I happen to know very well. "Yes," I say, "this was once used for spelling karate." Not knowing the difference between tenses yet, and probably understanding rather little of what I say to them anyway, they protest that karate is spelled using "empty", not "China", but I explain to them that it wasn't always like that and that it changed around 1920. "Eeee?!" exclaims M-kun. "Nande sensei ha sonna koto shiterunya?" "Why does sensei know about something like that?" "Because I do karate." "HEEEEE?!" "Do you have a black belt?" asks N-chan. They speak Japanese, but at this stage I am looking for communication, and so are they, so I momentarily ignore my ban on giving away my Japanese skills at the school and answer in English. " Yes, I have a shodan." For a few seconds, they clamp their mouths shut and quietly marvel at this discovery. Then, N-chan giggles, and M-kun says: "Wow, that's scary!" I'm happy I'm finally enjoying some degree of respect from them and then have to make myself glance at the clock on the wall. Unfortunately I have to dismiss them as my next class is about to start, and we're already 20 mintues over our actual 50 minute class time.
But they leave with an appetite, which is always the perfect time to leave, and I thank the 8 million gods of Japan for this treat. Although N-chan probably still hates having to pronounce the word "calligraphy lesson", I now have no doubt both she and M-kun will remember it. And as for me, while I was supposed to be giving an English lesson, I actually got a calligraphy lesson. It is the most pleasant feeling of all when, being a teacher, you suddenly turn into a student, and your students into teachers. This is when I get a feeling of communication, education, fruitful exchange, and success.
So, this morning, wrapped up in my quilts on my futon, waiting for the room to get warm, I took out my kanji book and started studying for the Japanese proficiency test I am planning to take by the end of the year. So, N-Sensei and M-Sensei! Arigatou gozaimashita!

More than Words

Teaching English conversation has a lot to do with words. Words are important. They are like the pieces of a mosaic you get given, and while you are encouraged by convention and habit to put them together in certain ways, you are free to create your very own picture. With your words, you can show people your world, or hide it, mesmerise them, scare them away, capture their hearts with love or hatred, destroy them, or build them up. Words are powerful. But to become powerful, they need to be used with skill. And behind every skill, there must be motivation. There must be a purpose. Otherwise time would be too precious to be used up acquiring it.
My students already have varying personal motivations and purposes to study English-otherwise they would not spend time and money at our school-but I try to create immediate motivation for them to talk in every class. They must want to talk. That way, they will talk. And that way, they will learn.
The song whose title I have borrowed for today's heading emphasises that words are there to express content and lose their meaning if their content is lost. "Don't just tell me you love me," the singer says, "Show me!" So it is content we are looking for. In this spirit, I keep looking for my students' contents. But of course in my case, the goal is not shutting them up to find this content, it is making them speak to find it. And finding it to make them speak.
Today, H-san brought his guitar. Little did I realise when I gave him that homework that carrying a guitar around town on his way to and from work was extremely embarrassing for him because apparently salary men in business suits with guitars are not very highly thought of.
But when he and T-san tell me about this in class, it is too late. He has already taken this feat upon himself, and I am so grateful he has. Because T-san and I get to hear some very skilful, mood-lifting and heart-warming guitar play. T-san is thoroughy impressed to hear her salary man classmate play the Blues. And then, More than Words.
Together, we sing the song Skip the Sweet Potato Chip wrote for Apple, borrowing the melody from More than Words and the grammar item from textbook Sprint 7y lesson 17: Complex Questions.

"Apple do you love me? Or do you love your red skin more than me? Do you want to shove me down from the tree? Love, are you dumping me in the deep sea? Are you waiting to get rid of me? Cause I just heard a rumbling rumour in the sea. Are you using me o Apple? Do you love me? Cause I dont really know. What do you say? Will you love me if I play apple pie crust every day? Will you stay or go away?"

We enjoy the singing and playing and plan another concert for next week. H-san can store his guitar in the school until then. That way, he doesn't have to carry it around, and I can sneak into the storage room in between classes if I'm ever lucky enough to find some time, and practise a little myself.

T-san has brought us a DVD that shows her skydiving in New Zealand, but our school DVD player in the lobby is broken, and I tell her I will bring my laptop next week, so we can watch some of her contents as well. I have a feeling it might go well with her descriptions of climbing rocks, gym walls, and the roots of giant trees.

At the end of today's class, we all create our personal fantasy islands. T-san's island is called Wild Life Island. The capital in the south of the island is Lion's Rock, the second city, south of the capital is Elephant Grass. H-san's island is named Beer Island and immediately makes all of us want to go. His capital is Hops, located in the North of Beer Island, the second city, White Head, lies about 100 km southwest of Hops. So in the end, we have a lot of new words.
But we don't just have words. I have a feeling, and it is a good feeling, that we have more.
More than words.

Valentine's Day in Japan

In Japan, Valentine's Day has been claimed by the chocolate industry. Most commonly, women give men chocolate. Honmei-choco to the man they love. Giri-choco to the men they work with. Friends give each other chocolate, too. Especially women. This is called tomo-choco.
I was the lucky recipient of some tomo-choco gifts myself. Last friday when I joined my first women's aikido class at Shosenji, a temple in nearby Toyonaka, we sat on the mat together after cleaning the dojo, and munched on squares of crunchy home-made chocolate. Then, one of the women started handing out little bouquets of paper roses. She had made them with her own bare hands and filled them with little chocolate-shaped footballs. Mouth agape, I turned my bouquet round and round and admired the finely crafted petals, while she told us she used to make these in her hometown for a charity event when she was younger and this year, felt like making them again.
Saturday night, C-san, one of my women students gave me a beutiful little box of green tea chocolates. You can see one of the chocolates it contained next to the paper roses in the picture on the right. Today, finally, a very rainy Valentine's Day proper, it rained buckets of chocolate at work, as well. I got chocolate from no less than three women. My favourite: little Hina, who made me cookies with her mum and presented them to me in a Lilo and Stitch bag. This way, I was able to plan my next lesson over a cup of tea accompanied by some wonderful biscuits in heart, mouse, and ghost shapes (see picture on the left).
Finally, I had a special Valentine's class with T-san and K-san, a very nice scientists' couple. Today they spent a romantic hour together, studying English conversation with me. Revising some vocabulary in the form of gradually uncovered word-bricks, they came up with the following little story (the fat words were the bricks):

Once upon a time, there was a red frog. On this particular day, he was wearing his favourite green hat and was walking merrily beneath the cherry blossoms. Wearing his favourite green hat and walking beneath the cherry blossoms, Frog was over the moon. He soon reached a crossroads where he was supposed to meet his girlfriend. He finally succeeded in meeting up with her, and everything was great. Then, however, the winter came, and the frogs suddenly felt very cold outside. But it so happened that they met Mouse who invited them to his house. So they arrived at Mouse's house, and surprisingy, it was equipped with a TV set, so they all watched Disney films together. Very happily, they sat there whiling the winter away, watching Disney films and eating sweet popcorn. But then, suddenly, Mouse turned quite cruel. But this was only because he could hear Cat coming and wanted everyone to run away. But the frogs stood their ground and bravely faught Cat until, after a long, hard fight, they emerged victorious, and all of them lived happily ever after.

I'm very proud of my students for coming up with such a sweet little story. And as a final note on Valentine's day, in the name of T-san, K-san, and the frogs, I would like to wish everyone lots of love, adventure and happy endings in their lives!

Eikaiwa

Foreigners in Japan usually belong to one of two categories. They are either ryugakusei (foreign students) or ei-kaiwa kyoshi (English- conversation teachers). Four years ago, I was a ryugakusei in Tokyo. Flatteringly, this time around, many people still take me for a foreign student when they meet me outside working hours. But this time I have joined the army of English conversation teachers.
English conversation schools are big business in Japan and are usually the first thing you see at whatever train station you alight. First you will see an advert on the train. Then a poster at the station that guides you to the right exit. Then, from one of the high buildings surrounding the station, the big, bold letters will jump at you, screaming "NOVA", "Aeon", "ECC", or, as in my case, "GEOS", and promise they will open up the world for you if you open up your pockets for them.
People in Japan learn English at school, but it's all grammar and translation, and in order to communicate, which many are keen to do, they have to spend their hard-earned money and sparse time studying at English conversation schools. But they do learn, and the selling point that it will be an enjoyable and gratifying experience for them is not an empty promise.
After all, they have me, and my fellow English teachers. For us, this is an excellent opportunity to become legal aliens in Japan. This, in turn, opens up the world for us: the world Japan has to offer. And communicating with our students, we get to see its multitude of sparkling colours. Housewives, career women, business men, senior citizens, kids from kindergarten to highschool age, university students, mothers, fathers, couples, they're all my students, and they're all eager to talk to me. Great! Manna from Heaven to the story hunter! And of course I am highly motivated to improve their English to increase their story telling prowess.
I work at the Juso branch of GEOS with one part time Japanese teacher colleague and my manager. Our school has about 80 students, about 50 of whom I teach, divided into small classes between one and six students. The lower level students are taught by my Japanese colleague until they acquire a level from which a native English teacher will be beneficial to them.
Of course the job is not all milk and honey.
Some children are extremely difficult to handle, which turns some children's classes into a nightmare, especially because their mums expect you to teach them something nonetheless, which has to be demonstrated after each class.
The working hours are long and not altogether convenient. I am in work from ca 12.30 till 22.30 Tuesday to Saturday.
Also, if you look at today's picture, you can take a quick guess who in the photo is subject to a rather strict dress code. This includes mandatory make up, suit, shirt, high-heeled shoes, professionally tucked up hair, and tan tights every day. I have finally found a brand of the latter that fits me, but even though not having the crotch of my tights between my knees every day is a significant improvement in life quality, I still haven't found a way of extending their life span beyond two or three working days.
As a final little hitch, in addition to being English teachers, we are all part of the business, which means we have to contribute to reaching given motnhly goals measured by the cash every school brings in each month. This means, we have to approach students about contract renewals and conversions to more expensive contracts, and we are supposed to go out recruiting new students in our free time. We have to run campaigns, decorate our schools accordingly, and try to sign up people for trips and homestay programmes organised by the foreign exchange branch of the business.
In my own humble opinion, it would do everyone, including the company, a lot of good to hire marketing and PR staff to carry out those tasks so teachers could spend all their time preparing and teaching lessons, and correcting homework.
But this is how Japanese companies seem to work. Everybody has to make the whole business their own business. And if you do get your head round it and do what you are told, it does become easier and nicer for everyone involved. So, as everybody tells each other all the time: gambarou! Let's do our best!

Osaka

Welcome to my new blog. The sparkling treasures of the world await you.
My present hunting ground is Osaka, the major city in Kansai, West Japan. With a population of 2.7 million, Osaka is Japan's third largest city. When looking at it from the big, red ferris wheel that is mounted on one of the sky scrapers near Osaka/Umeda Station, its nightlights stretch beyond the horizon in all directions, an impressive man-made sea of shapes and lights that invades the insides of your stomach as they turn themselves inside out with hight-induced heebiejeebies.
Osaka and Tokyo are traditional rivals. People in Osaka think Tokyo is posh and pretentious. Just listen to the Tokyoites! They speak Japanese without an accent, and everyone who goes to Tokyo from other areas in Japan soon adopts the same streamlined Tokyo Japanese. Osaka people speak Kansai-ben, and they are proud of it. Even when they go to Tokyo, as I learned in a TV show last night, only 35% of Osaka people change their accent to fit in. The presenter could not get over it. "That many? Imagine that! 35 in a hundred people from Osaka are traitors!" he was exasperated.
Osaka people also consider themselves to be happy, humorous and friendly. They are known to speak in loud voices everywhere, and to have the best okonomiyaki (cabbage-bacon pancakes usually garnished with katsuo-bushi dried fish flakes, mayonaise, and a special okonomiyaki brown sauce) in all of Japan. I have to say, I can bear testimony to all of these
claims and am enjoying my stay here thoroughly. I just wish I had more time to relish the endless space and possibilities in this city. But today's entry will end here. This time I introduced you to Osaka. Next time, I will introduce you to my life in this city.