HOMESTAY PROGRAM:
Part I: BEN & BECKY'S WEDDING.
Section B: Pregame Preparation.


The groom's peeps went to the Elora Gorge for a swim on the morning of the big day. It was nice to schedule that time of relaxation in because it prepared us for the freakout of crunch-time later that afternoon as we scrambled to get setup in time for the ceremony.
Rob, holding flowers.
Shad, Becky's little brother, scolding me for being silly during rehearsal. Note the sunshine.
Rob's thought bubble: "Hhhhhhhh... he won't. go. away."
Pregame meal at the Ogasawara residence. Thanks Mom and Dad for the excellent meal and dressing room facilities! Rob: "Dude, you're parents are like guardian angels". Ben: "It was like getting ready at a five-star hotel, only that the people who work there are your best friends."

HOMESTAY PROGRAM:
Part I: BEN & BECKY'S WEDDING
Section A: BEN.

I'm Back!....back...ack...ack..... Helllooo?....helllooo?....elloo?

Once again, I start my entry with a mild apology to my faithful reader (you know who you are) who checks this blog hourly to no avail.

I've just come back to Japan after a lovely 2.5 weeks at home in BADEN, Canada. Thank you to everyone at home for being awesome and giving me reason to return to Canada someday!

Here are some photographs to chronicle my time at home:

This first bit is called BEN because it's all about BEN. He is one of my best friends and he got married to another lovely friend of mine, Becky, on the weekend I got home. My parents didn't see much of me as I spent most of the first 3 days home with Ben, his sister (and Best Woman) Emily, and Rob - roommate, friend, and groomsman extraordinaire.

Ben and Emily at The Huether: the night of Ben's bachelor party.

Awesome boots, hat, and glasses provided by Derrick M. Lichti - highschool classmate, friend, and probably the one guy that most of us would turn to in a "Life-line" situation.
Ben, Ken, Derrick, Adam. Featured on our t-shirts is Ben with lots of hair. T-shirt design by Derrick M. Lichti (pictured above).

PRESENT.

Once again, I have gone many a sunrise and sunset without posting on my poor blog. Part of the problem is a) I'm lazy and b) I have a million different web-based updater-thingers to keep track of. What the heck. There's the omnipresent Facebook, the neglected Blogspot Blog and there is the Japanese version of Facebook, Mixi (I started up Mixi at the request of my cousins in Hokkaido who wanted to keep in touch with me. However, it is a real challenge to operate a page entirely in Japanese and writing a blog in Japanese is quite a gruelling task for my feeble brain...). Also, there are the occasional email updates that I send out to various friends and famille.

It is hard work updating the same events/feelings/emotions/revelations over and over again...

Anyways, here are some pics of what I've been up to lately...



PARTAY. Leaver's Party - a party for those who are leaving the JET programme this summer. A kind of last hurrah so despite the fun, it was kind of sad, if one stopped long enough to think about it.

Marko. Dear Marko. A wise, moody, dark, funny, sensitive man. He hates it when people call him moody, though.

I totally dominated this photo. It's all me.
Hiroshima Carp game. Seventh-inning balloon-release. There were many people employed to scamper about and collect the fallen ballons after they had run their course.
Dinner party...we made sushi... salad... cheese and crackers... bacon-wrapped asparagi.... very delicious. I caught Paul (with green bandana) in an introspective moment. Same with Mark (beside Paul), come to think of it...

Testing vs. Learning.

[WARNING: Possibly dry content]

Without any further ado:
The Japanese education system is insanely 'kibishii' (strict? gruelling? much-pressure-placed-on-exam-results?). Kids graduating from jr. high into high school go through such cramming as we in Canada don't experience until we are preparing for university. Indeed, that is how you determine which high school you go to in Japan: high marks, you may be accepted to an `academic` high school....low marks, you go to a technical or trade school. And lots of schools in between. There is tons of pressure on these young kids to pass well on their exams. Since they are tested on the curriculum (i.e. textbook material), teachers are pressured into jamming as much of the textbook into their heads as possible.


Every teacher, educational administrator, person who teaches anyone anything, comes across the dilemma of testing: how to test, what to test, and accordingly, how to teach what is to be tested. I've never really appreciated this issue until now but it's a hot topic amongst teachers - especially English teachers (or any language teacher, really). This is because there are multiple facets to the learning of any language, which include: listening comprehension, reading/writing, and speaking (I'm sure you are all aware of this; I'm just laying out the premise for my mild rant, or whatever this is).

The bane of many ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) in Japan is the emphasis placed almost exclusively on reading and writing with the result being that many students, even if they can manufacture a grammatically correct sentence on paper, are completely at a loss when confronted with an English-speaking human.

Anecdotal evidence:

My students just finished mid-term exams and are currently getting their results back. Some did really well, some did poorly - that's to be expected. What surprised me (and what prompted me to write this post) came about when I was talking with a 9th grader named Kana about her test. She was really excited because she predicted her usual 50% but she outdid herself and got a 69%! I'm not making fun of her; I was genuinely happy that she did so well (relatively speaking). Glancing over her test paper, I asked her if she knew what the following sentence meant: "Lisa is liked by everyone." She had correctly written that sentence, she got it right. BUT - she had no idea what it meant! No comprehension of what she had correctly written.


I don't think testing and learning are mutually exclusive but seriously, sometimes I wonder.

Related to that, I find it interesting that at one of my schools (I haven't investigated this with my other two schools) those classes which are energetic and outgoing and actually try to communicate in English (hereinafter "the Awesomes") often perform poorly on exams while those classes which won't/can't speak a word of English (hereinafter "the Ivory Towers") are those that perform well on tests.

I guess if the English exam is just a means to an end (i.e. get into a good high school but never really have anything to do with English for the rest of your life), then that's fine. But for those who are studying English to be able to expand their world, to communicate with people all of the world in what is quickly becoming a universal language, I have to ask (rhetorically), who is more likely to successfully adapt? The Awesomes or the Ivory Towers?

After reading this, I feel I should clarify that I'm not blaming the Awesomes and Ivory Towers for their respective short-comings. What I'm blaming is the SYSTEM that pressures students and teachers alike into learning/teaching the textbook instead of reality! Who has seen the Matrix? Just kidding.

The First JERK I've Met In Japan (Or, How Brett And Ken Got Bullied Out Of Line At McDonalds By A JERK).

I say the "first" jerk because up until that fateful day, I had been interacting with nothing but kind, considerate and gracious people. At the very worst shy. But then came along this douche bag.

There is some back story required to fully appreciate the whole experience.
You should know that Brett eats at McDonalds fairly often, maybe a few times a week. But he had not gone to this McD for the past three weeks. Why, you ask? I will tell you why, without asking Brett's permission, because as a journalist he knows that it's best to write first and ask questions later.

Brett hadn't eaten at this particular McD for a while because the last time he was there, a new girl had taken his order and at the very end, asked him a question which he didn't quite hear. So he said, "sumimasen, moikkai" (sorry, once more?). But the girl assumed Brett didn't understand Japanese and just sort of froze up and no matter how Brett implored her to just REPEAT THE QUESTION, I JUST DIDN'T HEAR YOU; I HAVE TERRIBLE HEARING FROM ATTENDING OVER 360 ROCK CONCERTS!, she just wouldn't repeat it again and the manager had to help out and Brett was like "Screw THIS." and didn't feel like going back again.

I for one do not experience this kind of frustration because unlike Brett's situation, everyone assumes I am Japanese. So when I say "pardon?" they repeat it again and if I still don't understand, they look at me in a strange way. So then I say, in perfect Japanese, "I'm a Canadian, so my Japanese isn't that good yet; could you just use simple Japanese, please?" and then they fall over.

Anyways, Brett told me this is why hadn't been there for a while, so we were all, "We will go to McDonalds and we will conquer it!". This was the spirit of our lunch quest.

The place was packed but we thought, "no, we are here to conquer" so we got into line and were prepared for a long wait. After a solid 5 or 6 minutes, this guy behind us starts yakking at us in angry tones. We were a bit confused as to what his problem was...I mean, we knew he was complaining that we had butted in line, but the fact was, we didn't. And if we had, why not speak up right away? Anyways, this dude -- who is maybe mid-thirties, buzz-cut, glasses, kind of solid and strong-looking, looks like he could drink and smoke really hard -- just kept going ON and ON at us. He called out one of the waitresses and complained to her. She looked at us, we looked at her and shrugged: "We didn't butt in line." So she went back to work (the place is really busy). So then this jerk-hole called out the manager and just went off on the manager! The poor manager was just meekly taking it (the customer is always right) and apologizing. Brett and I were getting kind of pissed because we felt bad for this manager; he's a nice guy. So we said sorry to the guy and offered him to go ahead of us in line but he was all, "no, no, you go ahead, it's too late now!".

Honestly, I think if we were in America, Brett would've gone off on the guy. But we were in Japan, a bunch of my students were right beside us watching.... so we decided to just leave, for the sake of the manager. We swallowed our pride and did the diplomatic thing. We left, we biked in the rain to 7-11, bought a bag of chips for lunch, and went back to Brett's place where we spent many gleeful minutes thinking of all the great things we could've said to him if we were not self-respecting citizens.

One of the students who was at McD that day approached me at school later that week and, though I didn't actually understand what he was saying, I got the general impression that he was sympathizing with me; at the end, he patted me on the arm and gave me a bracing look as if to say, "Don't let those jerks get you down. You will conquer McDonalds someday."

I think if we meet this guy again and he starts complaining that we budded in line again, I think what we'll do is just ignore him and stay in line. Maybe tread on his toe accidentally.

I Never Realized That Though Japanese Is A Phonetic Language (Basically), It Is Still Possible To Make Spelling Mistakes: Part I of I.

I know most of my readers are fluent in Japanese (Mom and Dad...well, at least Mom) but I thought I'd write my thoughts about spelling in Japan(ese).

The Japanese written language has three alphabets: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are basically the same thing: a series of syllables (written differently, but phonetically the same). For example, the first row of Hiragana/katakana is "a" "i" "u" "e" "o". The next row follows this basic vowel pattern but puts a "k" sound at the beginning: "ka" "ki" "ku" "ke"(i.e. the first part of my name), "ko". Next is "sa" "shi" "su" "se" "so". So if you want to write　for example, my name, its very easy: O+ga+sa+wa+ra: お＋が＋さ＋わ＋ら＝おがさわら。

The KANJI alphabet is the hard part which are the insane characters that every highschooler and professional basketball player wants tattooed to their wrist. So elementary school kids (and those with beginner Japanese) would "spell out" most of our words using Hiragana or Katakana but fully matured adults can eat up to 40 kgs of bamboo shoots per day. I'm sorry - they would write the kanji instead.

Hiragana: おがさわら
Katakana: オガサワラ
Kanji: 小笠原

By now you've noticed that I've drifted far away from the original thesis of this post...

For those of you who are struggling with learning kanji (as I am. Struggling, that is. Not learning so much.) please take heart in knowing that kanji is a struggle for most Japanese people. One of the activities on the billions of variety shows on Japanese TV is to test various guests/celebrities/tv personalities on reading kanji. The problem with kanji is that there are usually two or three different ways of reading it. For example: Kuda+matsu = 下＋松。　That's the name of the town I live in.

Let's take a look at the "Kuda" part of Kudamatsu. Wow. I did not know this before I looked it up in my kanji dictionary just now, but that kanji (下）has like a million different ways of reading, depending on what other kanji it's matched up with:
下がる- reading: "SA-garu"
下関 - reading: "SHIMO-noseki"
上下 - reading: "jou-GE"
下位 - reading: "KA-i"
And the list just goes on... man.

My mind is too tired to after all this to make this post live up to such a grand title. Later.

Hokkaido: Part IV: More Random.


Natsumi and Taiki are playing the string-spider-web game thingey.

Kyoko, Natsumi, Shige.


Myu and Ken.

The view from the top of one of two giant grass pyramids at Moerenuma Park.


This is normal.

Hokkaido: Part III: Random Views.


This is Biei. One thing I noticed as soon as I stepped off the plane in Hokkaido was how similar its geography is to my part of Canada (southwestern Ontario). There are fields for miles and long stretches of NO HOUSES. This is virtually impossible to find in mainland Japan as even the most rural of areas have houses clustered eveywhere. This is also where I had the most delicious shock of (perhaps) my life: "Jaggabutta". It comes from combining the words potato ("jagaimo") and butter. Basically, it's a baked potato with butter. Big deal, you say. Let me just say that the great shock for me was that a baked potato with butter could taste this good. I asked Yasu if these were the best potatos in Hokkaido? "Yes. Wait, no. They are the best in Japan.". I concur. Honestly those potatos were unreal.



We went to Moerenuma Park, a giant work of art designed by a famous Japanese designer whose name escapes me now. It has more grass than the rest of Japan combined. There is an art gallery in this park and these two sleepy-heads decided to take a nap on a bench on the third floor.


Moerenuma Park. In the middle of the frame you can see a radio-controlled model airplane.


Moerenuma Park. Giant fountain. Fortunately were were upwind, but the poor people on the other side got soaked with spray.

Famous Hokkaido crabs.

Hokkaido: Part II: Asahiyama Zoo: The Best Zoo In Japan.

We went to visit Asahiyama Zoo which is a small-ish zoo out in the middle of nowhere. It's design is unique: instead of the usual concept of the animals being the ones on display, for certain exhibits (penguins, polar bears, seals) Asahiyama has the spectators on display for the animals.

Golden Week: HOKKAIDO!

Golden Week is a cluster of national holidays found at the beginning of May. This is a time when every Japanese person who is not serving hard time attempts to travel. I went to Hokkaido (the northernmost island of Japan) to visit my long-lost Uncle Shigehiko ("Shige") (my Mom's elder brother), Aunt Kyoko, and cousins Yasuhiko ("Yasu"), Wakana, and Natsumi. Unfortunately, Wakana couldn't make it back home for holidays as she is now working in Ibaraki-ken, but 4 out of 5 isn't bad.

Let me first say that I have not seen these people since I was in elementary school. I have vague memories of them but seeing them during Golden Week was like being "back together for the first time, again". I'm sorry. I could not resist.

To "level up" the awesomeness of the trip, my other cousin Taiki (whose mother is my Mom and Shige's youngest sister) was coming up at the same time. Taiki had also not seen these northern relatives since elementary school so it was quite a reunion.

Conveniently, Taiki and I flew into Hokkaido at the same time so we trained into Sapporo together. The first thing we thought when Shige and Yasu pulled up was: "Holy crap. Shige looks exactly like Grandpa!". This is probably exactly what our Grandpa looked like 30 years ago...it was uncanny.

Anyways, here are some pics:


The cousins: Natsumi (21), Taiki (23), Ken (24), Yasu (~27).


Delicious BBQ on the second-story balcony of the Okada's gorgeous log house. I think Shigehiko really loved Canada when he visited many years ago. Short of moving there, the next best thing is to move to Hokkaido and build a log house.


Aunt Kyoko, Natsumi, and Myu.

My Uncle Shigehiko at the underwater penguin tank at Asahiyama Zoo, the best zoo in Japan (more pictures to come).

WHITE PARTY - April 21st.

I know it's been forever since I've posted - forgiveness please. Let me now fire up some pictures very quickly before I lose my two dedicated readers.

White Party: conceived and hosted by Mr. Paul C. Cebulak, this party was awesome.

OK, it seems I didn't take any pictures during the party itself. This is the next morning where some of us stayed to help clean up and have a post-party dance. Dancing are Junko and Brett. Jealous is Mark.

Flick Boyd blowing up ballons in front of a silent black and white film whilst preparing for the White Party.


To Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher". The Paul is on the far left.

YABUSAME (Horseback archery) (So so awesome).


This festival takes place every year in Tsuwano, which is a town in Shimane district about an hour and a half from Kudamatsu. There is a great deal of ceremony and beautiful traditional clothing. But the real show is the archery. There is a long narrow stretch of grass about 300 meters long. Within that stretch there is a lane of sand that is roped off - the lane is only about five feet wide . There are three targets set up at the beginning, middle and end of the run and these horseback archers gallop down this strip and try to hit all three targets. It is absolutely incredible. Brett, Shoko, and I were watching right near the middle target, so we couldn't see the beginning very well (lots of spectators) but it was a thrill to hear the horse thundering into view and blasting past. One archer - who was a junior highschool girl! - was especially impressive as she let out a long yell as she was coming up on the target: "yyyyeeeeeeeaaaaaAAAHHHHHHHHHAAA *CRACK as she hits the target* AAAeeee.....".

If you've ever ridden a horse, or practiced kyuudo (Japanese archery) (as Brett and Shoko do) you might appreciate how insanely difficult it is to combine the the two.



Setting up the target.


Above is the top archer of this festival. His name, to my neverending joy, is Ogasawara Ryo. Ogasawara. Ogasawara. And he was the only person to hit all three targets - I was so proud. He was on a JET calender last year and Shoko cut out the picture and has it posted on her wall. "That's my man! He's sooo hot!". This is one of the archers preparing for battle. Please note the length of the bow. It is enormous...probably about as tall as the shooter.







There is Ogasawara. Perfect form. Perfect name.

SAKURA: This national obsession brought to you by spring.

Sakura (cherry blossoms), in the words of Wikipedia, have "always been a symbol of ephemeral beauty in Japan and closely associated with samurai or bushi. Life was considered brief and beautiful, much like a cherry blossom." Every populated riverbank and park in Japan ornamented with sakura trees and every spring millions and billions of Japanese people eat and drink under these trees with family and friends to celebrate spring, family and friends, and good beer and bbq. This is called "hanami" which is derived from the characters 花見. Flower + to see = 花見。

Unfortunately, sakura season only last about two weeks, if that, so the merry-making and relaxation is short-lived and we're back to the daily 12-hour grind and lunches are once again reduced to 5 minute speed-eating contests. Not me, of course.

Anyways, here are some pics of the Kirito River which runs beside my apartment.



Funny story about this guy. I was biking home one day and saw this grandpa throwing bread to the carp in the river. I thought to myself, what a great picture, too bad I don't have my camera with me. The next day I was biking home at the usual time and lo! and behold, the same grandpa wearing the same clothes, doing the same thing at the same time. And I had my camera with me so I took his picture.


Not very many people on this side, but on the other side of the bridge there were tons of people. I didn't take pictures because I was on this side of the road and who wants to cross a road just to take a picture?



At night, the trees were lit up. Personally I preferred to see them at night, especially if you walk underneath them and just look up and see the fullest bloom possible contrasted against the black sky above... it's really really beautiful.