Ninja Changes and Hanger Boomerangs

As I have mentioned before, no one tells me anything at work (primarily because we don't speak the same language). I knew we had our closing ceremonies today, but no one told me anything about them. I was initially a little concerned that I should have worn my suit, but I dismissed that thought when I saw all the teachers in the usual track suits. As the time draws closer to go to the closing ceremony (the 5th goodbye formality in the last 2 weeks, with one more next week), I see that some teachers aren't in the room. I figure I should saunter on down to the gym (which is unheated and was no warmer than 38 degrees).

As I am leaving the teacher room, I see one of the teachers unzip the top of his track suit to reveal a freaking suit. Seriously. I have said that I haven't seen any ninjas in Japan yet, despite what popular television taught me. I can say now that I have seen ninjas in Japan, but they hone their craft into being able to change in 45 seconds. The guy that I saw in full track suit earlier? Miraculously in white pants, shirt, tie and a blue blazer. The only thing giving them away is the fact that they all still wear sneakers with their suits. 

If you want to know what it is like to live in Japan. Picture that drinking bird. We all know it, the bird that pitches forward and then pops back up, then pitches forward again. This simple toy explains 60% of Japanese formal occasions. Bow. Wait. Bow again. Walk 3 steps. Bow. Wait. Bow again. Repeat. 

This ceremony was no different. Lots of bowing and waiting. Did I mention it was cold? I have no idea what the speeches were about, but I think the principal was mad or something at someone for something. I can't be sure. For all I know, he was telling them they were the best students ever, but the whole thing felt like a funeral. A really cold funeral, maybe for a yeti or something. 

I did catch one gem from the speeches. The science teacher (maybe? I just know he wears a white overcoat sometimes) was speaking and then he held up a hanger. A regular wire hanger. He held it up over his head while saying things in Japanese. The next thing I heard him say was boomerang. I am sure this was an object lesson of some sort, as they are similarly shaped. I don't know what he said, but I know what I would say:

The future rests on you! Like clothes rest on this hanger, you must bear the weight of the future. Also, you are kind of shaped like a boomerang. Boomerangs come back when you throw them. So. Come back...because you are the future. Thank you. 

Engrish Time GO!

Engrish. 

Engrish is what brings us together...today. Japan is well known for using English words in a non-conventional fashion (similar to how people use Asian characters for tattoos). The advent of the internet has unfortunately ruined much of the best Engrish in Japan. There are still odd things, but the real hard stuff is mostly in Korea and China. I will let you know when I get back from Korea. Anyhoo. I have collected a few Engrish things in my journeys as a teacher. There are no pictures because I was supposed to be teaching at the time I was writing them down in a notebook. 

The kids sit on a little portable pad for their chair while they are in school. This pad also doubles as their earthquake helmet when they run to safety (as mentioned in a previous post). Being highly fashionable youngsters, several of these have English words on them. Let's see if we can pick out a theme. 

One one seat cushion:
Heat

Lovery (awesome!)

Uptown Girl

Femme Fatal

Decision

Beautiful

Nice right? Good for an independent and strong modern Japanese woman? Wrong. That is the seat cover of a 14-year-old boy who is on the baseball team. Yep. It makes negative sense. Some of the words are even written with cool fonts that make the words look like they just stormed the beach under artillery fire. 

Sometimes the students have funny things that they say in their writings or speaking. We did presentations yesterday on their favorite things. About half of them were coherent thoughts. Sometimes they would launch off into words I have never heard in Japanese or English. I think these were English sounding Japanese words, or Japanglish. 

Earlier in the year, we asked the students what would you do if... One student said, "If I were invisible, I would drive a car quietly." Me too man...me too.

A Formal Affair

We had ourselves a good old fashioned graduation party here in Nagasaka. Japanese graduation is a lot different than graduation in the West. Unfortunately, they have graduation in the springtime (see: winter). As a consequence of the timing and lack of insulation, the graduation ceremony was a 2-hour All-Japanese-Freezeout! 

First off is the chairs we sit in. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this before, but these chairs are the stuff of nightmares for those of us who are actual size. I took a picture so you can get a feel for what they are. Supposedly it is metal, but I can feel the chair trying to betray me every time I sit on them. 

 Only the collective will of all my efforts makes it possible for things not to fold like a napkin. 

Here you can see the gym where we had out graduation. You can hear the super heaters going on the during the video. At the very end, you can see me looking like Dapper Dan. I was wearing cuff links with my suit and I don't think anyone really appreciated just how elegant I looked. 

I asked if we were supposed to stand and clap while they came in, they told me it was more formal than that. I wouldn't say formal as much as I would say funeralesque. Seriously. The whole thing is kind of depressing. 

Here you can see the ceremony. No clapping. No smiles. Just lots of bowing. Lots. Of. Bowing. We did at least 40 standing formal 3 second bows and over 100 less formal nod-your-head-and-look-at-the-floor kind of bows. I firmly believe that it was these small repetitive movements that made it so that no one got frostbite. It was extraordinarily cold. I had cut my head the night before which made the back of my head freezing cold. One of the disadvantages of being a bald guy. 

 The students made a hallway of people to clap their way out of the school for the last time. It was nice for the students that were leaving. 

 For lunch we had bento boxes. Everyone really raves about these, but I have had yet to be impressed by one. 

Here is the spread. Rice, Mocci, tempura and the top left quadrant. I am not totally sure what it was, but to me it was hot acidic vegetables. It was some kind of pickled everything. I couldn't finish it. The tempura was pretty good, but one of the things was fish. Normally fish is really good in Japan. This fish had bones in it that stabbed you in the throat on the way down. I see this as a red flag, but everyone else was having a grand old time. 

It was a good graduation, and we are about 2 weeks away from a weeks vacation. I am headed to Korea on the 27th for a week. I am going to Busan and then up to Seoul. I am also going to be headed up to the DMZ and the other usual sights...whatever they may be. 

What A Day!

Today I accomplished more than I usually do on a Saturday. I watched a Jazz game from a laundromat, did laundry, and had essentially the best meal I have had in the last 8 months. Surprisingly, Japan has a large Brazilian population (and there is a large Japanese population in Brazil). 

As I have mentioned before, I know several Brazilians that I go to church with. One of these folks, Brother Agren bought himself a genuine Brazilian BBQ! Any of you that have been to Rodizio or Tucano's know the pure joy of meat and grilled pineapple being delivered to your table. Now imagine that it has been about 5 months since your last good cut of beef. Today I took an adventure to visit the restaurant and stuff myself with as much as I could. I tell you that I put my stomach to the test. It was even better than the Brazilian places I have been to in the States. It probably helped that it had real-life Brazilians cooking there...

Here is the place mat for the restaurant. Here you can see the different parts of the cow that you are eating (spoiler alert, they are all delicious). 

You can see Brother Agren in this video ( he is the one in the suit) and the other folks I was there with. We had the missionaries and my friend Kwame from Jamaica and Matt from Virginia. Also we had Jon and his friend from Tokyo area. It was a lot of fun, and we ate until we could eat no more! Steak, sausage, chicken, steak, pork and steak...

Here we are getting ready to pay the check. You can see some more of the interior of the place. I am lucky that the restaurant is about an hour from my house, or I would visit it every week. 

That's How I Got One Less Tooth

So I went to the dentist this week. I was naturally paranoid about going to a place with drills when I can't tell them when to stop. Also, I have seen some teeth of my fellow workers and I was not inspired. I went in with some understandable reservations. I went in and they x-rayed my mouth to see what the tooth was all about. All the machinery seemed like the same as it was in the U.S. but it tasted funny. I can't explain it, but it seemed to taste like 1981, and I wasn't even alive then. 

4 dentist chairs were in one room with no dividers. I was originally waiting in my car for my translator to show up, but I made eye contact with one of the ladies inside and had no choice but to go in. After perusing the Japanese comic books and adorning my dentist slippers, we did the medical evaluation form. I just realized that this is kind of out of order. Oh well. The dentist conveyed in Japanese that I just needed a filling under the crown and that they could get it done in one day. 

Luckily for me, I had a root canal on that tooth, so I didn't have to chance anesthesia. They started filling in the tooth and things went well. I never thought about how difficult it is to not make eye contact with the person with a drill in your mouth. In any case, the dentist was trying to put a divider between my two molars so he could put in the filling. The teeth are pretty close together, and after 4 tries, I guess he figured that it was no longer necessary. 

Evidently he just decided that he didn't need to divide the teeth. So he just filled them in together. Yep, he bred one super tooth in my mouth. I asked him how I would floss (because dentists are all about that), and he told me that I couldn't floss that tooth. I would have to use these little flossy dealies on that one tooth for the rest of...my life. If I floss it regularly, it will just fall out...

So now my bite feels funny, and I have a supertooth. I haven't gone through all the tests, but it has the potential to be 30 to 40 times stronger than regular teeth. I am gonna be like this guy:

Look out Mr. Bond. 

Ultimately, I can't complain. The entire thing cost me less than $20. Not too bad if you don't count the $200 a month I pay for insurance. 

A Living Nightmare

Have you ever had a dream and your teeth fall out? It is a common anxiety dream for people to have. It symbolizes a loss of control. I have had this nightmare, it is an old standby. Well, this week the nightmares came true. I had felt pressure on a tooth that has a partial crown in it all week. I felt like I had a popcorn kernel stuck in between my teeth or something. Being the wise person that I am, I flossed to get that kernel out. The pressure was relieved, but I noticed that what came out was not a kernel. Yep. It was a part of my  tooth. Terrible and horrifying. 

Now I have a hole in my tooth and I have to visit the dentist soon. That is already a whole other adventure. Japanese dentistry is going to be the first great challenge of 2012 for me. I am keeping it together though, no freakouts and no more lost teeth. I guess that is what I get for flossing. 

To treat myself for...whatever, I made Muddy Buddies tonight. The Chex cereal came all the way from America (courtesy of the McNaughtans). I have been saving it. I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips from Costco, peanut butter and powdered sugar.

Looks pretty good right? It is, but it pales in comparison to the stuff the McNaughtan house makes. To be fair, they practice...a lot. I think I got my peanut butter ratio wrong or something. I live to try again! Now I am watching The Emperor's New Groove (which you should watch again because it is awesome).