A week in the life of a Tsurumine boy

                                                                 Tsurumine School Crest

Apologies for the lack of blog activity of late, I've been saving up for a blog about a week at school, with no interruptions. Last week was somewhat of a mess, with Monday and Friday public holidays (Respect for the Elderly Day and Autumnal Equinox Day respectively) and Wednesday school was cancelled after an hour (one wonders why I ever turned up) due to typhoon Roke hitting the Japanese mainland. To give you an idea of how serious typhoons are in Japan, Roke killed 6 people and caused millions of dollars worth of damage, plus cancelled trains all across the Kanto Plain, stranding thousands in Tokyo, Yokohama, Shizuoka etc.


So, to the blog. In this blog I want to give you an idea of my average week, plus a few of the things that happened this week, gave it some flair you know?

My trusty cellphone alarm goes off at 6.00 am every morning, and I spend half an hour packing my bag, checking emails, facebook etc, washing my face, and getting my uniform ready. At 6.30 I go downstairs to the kitchen/dining room to the sound of Akira, my host father, doing his calisthenics on the radio. (Ichi, ni, san, yon whilst doing various squats, arm waves etc etc) Midori, my host mother, like most Japanese mothers, has been up since I honestly don't know when, and already has bacon, eggs and vegetables grilling on the stove top, and toast in the toaster. I go to the fridge with my glass, scoop some ice into it and then fill it with mineral water (when Midori learnt that I prefer water to Japanese tea, she went and bought 24 two litre bottles of mineral water-that's 48 litres!) and sit at the table, which has already been set. At about 6.40, sauasages/ham, eggs, vegetables and a slice of toast are on my plate, and I put either NZ honey or strawberry jam on the toast, and wolf it down. At 6.50 I'm heading back upstairs, to brush my teeth, finish packing my bag, get changed, and then at about quarter past 7 I'm back downstairs where Midori hands me my bento box (packed lunch), which goes into my bag with a bottle of Italian mineral water (for school she bought 30 500ml bottles of water-15 litres)  If I'm allowed in the kitchen (sometimes I get shooed out), I'll help with the dishes, otherwise I pet the cats or loiter for 15-20 minutes, and then between 6.35-6.40, it's time to go. Heading outside with an 'itte kimasu' - I'll be back, I put my bag in the front basket of my bike, and head towards Shake station. It's a 5-7 minute ride, and I meet my friends Nonoka and Ayaka at Shake station, boarding the train to Kita-Chigasaki at 7.53 exactly. At the station after Shake, Kadosawabashi, we are met by our friends, the twins Iori and Shiori, and for about 15 minutes ride the relatively (but not by Japanese standards) cramped train, disembarking at Kita-Chigasaki. From the station it's a 10 minute walk to Tsurumine Koko, and so I arrive at around 8.30. Going to my homeroom, I say 'ohayo, saikin doyo' (Morning, what's up?) to those who arrived before me, say 'agepoyo' (I'm happy/excitied/well), and then play a game or listen to music before the bell rings.


With the bell school commences, and with it comes a variety of fun, boring, soporific, mildly entertaining and downright burdensome. My timetable is different for every day.



I particularly enjoy music, modern Japanese, current English and special Japanese, they are all classes that I actively participate in, sometimes teach, in the case of English, and in special Japanese, which is for the two gaikokujin at school (myself and a Finnish girl, Mari), the teachers bring us chocolate and lollies for the end of class.

PE, regular English and science are classes that can be good or average, varies from day to day. PE is very good if it's swimming, my years of swim training pay off, and despite me not swimming for 6 months before coming here, I am still second fastest. Plus in the heat of the Japanese summer, swimming was fantastic. I've proven my worth (if it can be called that) in volleyball, though my softball skills leave a lot to be desired.

The Japanese school system permits sleeping in class, something my classmates regularly take advantage of, and I unfortunately find myself precariously close to falling asleep in my maths and bio periods. Biology was one of my options, thinking it would be similar to biology in New Zealand colleges, but boyo was I wrong. The teacher talks at the class for 50 minutes, drawing pictures on the chalkboard (there are no whiteboards) and maths, hot damn I can't understand maths in English, so in Japanese is just gobbledygook.


Monday

Current Society (social studies)
Biology
Maths
Science
Current English
English

Tuesday

PE
Modern Japanese
English
Biology
Special Japanese
Special Japanese

Wednesday

Biology
Music
English
PE
Classical Japanese
Maths

Thursday

Classical Japanese
English
Health
Maths
Long Homeroom (often an assembly)
PE

Friday

Maths
Biology
Modern Japanese
Science
Special Japanese
Special Japanese


All classes are 50 minutes, and instead of having a 20-25 minute interval like in NZ, instead each class has a 10 minute break in between. This is used to get to class, go to the toilet, eat something, get changed for PE etc. At the end of this 10 minutes a bell rings, and the next class commences. At 12.40 lunchtime begins, but unlike at NZ schools, we don't go outside and play handball, football, whatever, we sit at our desks in our friend groups and do very little, though to its credit, lunch itself is very nice, I have rice, often tempura, katsudon, salad, sausage and a couple of cookies, plus my bottle of Italian mineral water. After lunch finishes at 1.25, it's off to periods 5 and 6, and then at 3.15 school is over for the day.

However, this does not mean that everything is finished for the day. There is usually 'soji' which is where each homeroom is assigned a classroom to clean, so out come the brooms and dustpans, and we spend about 15 minutes sweeping the room. I'm rather fortunate that the days my homeroom has soji are the days I have special Japanese, which finishes a little later than the rest of the school, so I am finishing up my study whilst my classmates upstairs are sweeping :)

Japanese society has a very strong group mentality, everyone has a very defined group where they fit in, and all have the same norms, hobbies etc. Loners are often made into pariahs, so it is definately a good idea to find a group and become a part of it. Of course being a foreigner (and famous at that ;) ) makes this easy, everyone is happy to include you, and so there is little risk of becoming a pariah at school. This group mentality manifests itself in the afterschool club activity program. All Japanese schools have clubs, and over 3/4 of students are in such a club. They range from sports clubs (tennis, baseball, basketball, kendo, judo, dance) to culture clubs (tea ceremony, band, chorus, drama, manga, English society) Most clubs go from 3.30 to 6, though it's not uncommon for them to finish half an hour either side of this. Being part of a club guarantees you will be in a society that you fit into, thus will not be a pariah, but also has its responsibilites. You have to commit to going to the practices, which sometimes happen on a Saturday, and for many of them it requires practice at home (in the case of music, drama, or the sporting clubs)


The two clubs I belong to are the English Speaking Society, which is a smallish group of people who want to improve their English speaking ability, so I help out with that, plus I learn some Japanese as a result. The other club is the chorus club, a group of pianists (which I am slowly becoming) and singers, there are a couple of performances they are doing in October and December, I'm going to be performing with them at the Christmas Recital in December. For me, club is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, with Friday being my day off.

On the days I have club, I'll walk to the station and board the train home at around 6.00, arriving home just before 6.30. After getting home, I get changed, empty my bag, practice piano for half an hour to an hour, until Midori arrives, at which point I'll do some homework, check my emails and facebook again, sometimes watch a movie, and then it's dinner time. After dinner, at around 8-8.30, I'll do kanji revision, then prepare my bag for school the next day, have a shower at around 9.30-10, and then relax with Midori and Akira if he is home yet, and then at 10.30 I head upstairs for bed.

Monday after school was spent in town with Ayaka and Iori, managed to get them 'drunk' on chocolate, they were decidedly crazy after eating 250g of Willy Wonka Creamy Caramel Chocolate each, I got a good laugh from that. Tuesday was unremarkable as a day, did very little besides piano practice, though now I've got 'Waltzing Matilda' sorted. Wednesday was English Speaking Society, for that they decided to watch an English speaking DVD, and of course they chose High School Musical over Peter Pan or Spiderman, but it was quite nice to be able to understand a movie even when not looking at the screen for once! Thursday was a slightly disjointed day, for 5th and 6th periods all 2nd graders (year 12s), of which I am a part of, went to the hall to watch a movie for the upcoming Okinawa trip. I knew the movie was about Okinawa, but I had no idea as to what it would show. Turns out it was a dramatisation of the Battle for Okinawa, the last great battle of World War II, shown from the perspective of a class of 15 year old girls. Needless to say, it was mighty awkward being the only foreigner in the room, much less being one whose country was allied with the nation that invaded Okinawa. After the movie, everyone was understandably gloomy, the movie ending with ~spoiler alert~ half of the surviving girls being gassed in a cave, and the other half killing themselves with grenades on the last beach to be taken by the Americans. So not an especially happy movie, it must be said. One of the girls in my class asked what I thought of it, so whilst trying to be tactful, I said that it represented the end of Japan's craziness, and as a result of Okinawa, there is peace in Japan. I also said that because few, if any, New Zealanders went to Okinawa during the battle, I felt alright. Unfortunately she then said 'I think Japan and New Zealand didn't fight during the war', that made it even more awkward, this image came to mind...

Admittedly an Australian, but we are more or less the same in this case. However, on a lighter note, following the awkard fest that was the movie, came chorus club, set about learning a Japanese song named 'Heiwa no kane', which translates rather aptly into Bell of Peace, the lyrics go on about relinquishing war, and everyone's heart beating in time with the chime of the Bell of Peace. If only both us and the rest of the Allies, and the Japanese Empire could have thought of this before 1941, to not only have prevented atrocities like this happening, but also to prevent me having to watch the Americans defeat the Japanese, whilst being in a room full of Japanese.


Friday was a fairly good day, after Special Japanese, Mari and I walked to Chigasaki and went to Starbucks 'bah!' and had a coffee/le grande cocoa jelly frappamochialattespresscafeaulait whatever it was, was quite surprised when the waitress came up to us and immediately started talking in Japanese, that she assumed (correctly) that we would understand was quite cool :D


And so concluded a week at Tsurumine High School, had it's ups and downs, as all weeks do, but nonetheless, a very fun week, as every week is here! Hope it has given you an idea of what I get up to in my week, how I fill my time etc, and also that '平和が一番です！’ -Peace is best!


That's all from me for now from Ebina-shi, Under the Kanagawan Sun!

Sayonara!

Toroi

Bunkasai!

All Japanese High Schools have an auspicious day marked on their calendar-the School Culture Festival. This is a time to forget about school work, and instead put on the art and craft gloves, turn a classroom into a shop of some sort, and over the course of the festival, sell food, products or a service as a class fundraiser. People from all over come to enjoy the festival, including other school's students, people on their days off, parents of students, etc. For the week before, all the clubs had been practising for hours after school, so there was always brass band music echoing through the halls, dancers going through their routines, and cheerleaders doing their pom pom stuff. A massive hubbub of activity, for me, someone who'd never before experienced a culture fest, it felt almost overwhelming at first, for with everyone practising hard out for this occassion, it meant that joing a club was rather difficult, but I was privileged to visit the English Speaking Society one day and help them out with their presentations for the festival.

Food stalls are immensly popular at School Festivals, so a lottery is drawn weeks before to determine which classes may sell food. My homeroom, 206, was one such class to be given this highly sought after opportunity, and with international cultures the theme, a store selling Nachos (Mexico) and Popcorn (American) was conceived.


Wednesday was a half day of school work, with the afternoon spent kicking off our Mexican and American inspired store, so everyone was assigned a role, be it in design, construction, or logistics, worked like a well oiled machine. I was assigned a design role with Miko and Miya, designing the store name which would eventually be placed outside the store to tempt customers inside. I will not lie, my artistic talents are yet to manifest themselves, so I was a little apprehensive when Miya said 'draw a cute Nacho and then a cute Popcorn character'. Putting pen to paper, I came up with something that eventually turned out into this

I'm rather proud of my efforts here, Nacho-san and Poppukon-san were deemed to be sufficiently cute and graced the front of our store.


Thursday and Friday were spent at school, but solely dedicated to preparing our store. A vast amount of cardboard and coloured paper was cut up, painted, glued, rolled, taped, worn, etc., and by the end of Friday, we had set up our store, tables and chairs restaurant style, complete with tablecloths, two food preparation zones for the nachos and popcorn, a cashier zone, plus an elaborate store front where we would entice customers in to part with their money. Someone had spent some time devising the flavours which we would sell, so as to appeal to a wide array of tastes. There was cheese, chilli, meat sauce and original nachos, plus curry, chilli, cinnamon, butter and salted popcorn. A large number of nacho and popcorn bags had been purchased, and teams of people went about putting them into bowls, adding the flavour, and then labelling the bowl with the name of the flavour.

 With all the preparations finished, Saturday morning came by, and I woke up at 6.30, just like any other school day, donned my special homeroom Culture Fest T-shirt, and made my way to school. I arrived at 8.25, as per normal, and the school was already a-buzz with activity. The festival wouldn't start for another 2 and a half hours, but there were plenty of people doing last minute rehearsals, food prep and construction. Going to our shop, I was slightly early, so waited a while for things to start, and then as more and more people began arriving, we made our way down to the central courtyard where the opening ceremony would occur on the outdoor stage. Every homeroom was to do a little presentation as a part of this ceremony, and for our one, we were going to do a dance to an AKB48 song. (for those of you who don't know, here's a link to another of their 'songs' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGTPZZ-QyQ4 )  For this, all of us guys swapped uniform bottoms with our female classmates, so that we had girls in pants and guys in short skirts, myself included, made for an amusing spectacle. The dance itself was a bit of a flop, but no matter, twas still fun, and I'm sure that all the Japanese girls loved the man flesh on display!

After the dances were over, the festival was declared open, and so some of us went to man the shop, others donned mobile popcorn/nacho salesperson gear and went around selling our product to the masses away from the shop, and others used their free time to go round all the other stores, eat some food, and experience other classes' interpretation of 'culture festival'. There was a 'horror house', named Loom Dawn, where we had to crawl our way through a dark labyrinth of desks covered in carboard and paper, all the while hands and things were thrown at us in the confusion, wasn't especially scary, but I did had a bit of a laugh when one of the 'scarers', who had put a ringing cellphone in my path through a little hole in the wall, recieved a little fright of her own. I passed the phone, and turned around in the tunnel, waiting for her hand to come in to retrieve the phone. Shouting 'ROAR' I grabbed her hand, then let go and continued on my way, chuckling at the very loud scream this little shock had produced. As well as that, there were various art displays, theatrical shows, games etc. One of my classmates won a J Pop CD by shooting the smallest target in a game with a rubber band gun, and I won a crap load of candy at a water balloon lifting game.

Later on in the afternoon, it was time to swap shifts, so we were on selling duty, while those who had worked the morning got time to get some food and enjoy the sunshine outside. Seeing as my Japanese wasn't up to taking orders for food, I was assigned mobile salesperson role, and in a group of three we donned trays of food and began selling it outside and in the corridors.

I'm quite proud to say that, despite my Japanese being still rather basic, I was able to sell all of my tray with the claim 'koko de wa sakai no ichiban me oishii tabemono da yo' (here is the world's most delicious food)


As well as the various stores, there was live entertainment going on in the centre courtyard, and in the gymnasium. I was told by my friends Ayaka and Yuri to watch the Cheer (leader) club's performance, and the dance club's one, so I made my way through the throng of people (not hard when most people come up to your shoulder) and watched their impressive performances. Lots of pompoms and ribbons from the cheerleaders,

and lots of hip hop and Hawaiian inspired dance from the dance group. I was also asked by Yuya to go watch his band perform, some very impressive drumming and guitar playing going on, didn't understand the lyrics though. And with that, day one concluded, with the second and final day on Sunday.


The same again happened, waking up at 6.30, donning the homeroom shirt, getting to school, manning the stall, etc. etc. There was more performing by the various groups, plenty of popcorn and nachos being sold, and good fun had by all. Lots of people were interested in who I was, me standing out somewhat as being a gaijin (alien), but also wearing a school shirt, and were very surprised when I spoke Japanese at a level that was comprehendable. As the festival began to run into the final hours, thoughts as to what we'd do afterwards began to sprout. There was a 'party' held in the gymnasium to celebrate everyone's efforts, to give out some awards for best theme, best performance, best shirt, etc. There were a few more band performances, all of whom blurted out (to me) incoherent, impossible to understant noise that barely passed for music, but the rest of the crowd enjoyed it. There were some more dances and cheerleading performances, and lots of screaming Japanese girls. Following this noise fest, Yuya and I made our way with a group of people to the AEON shopping centre for dinner and Pirikura (Japanese Camera booths), where I had delicious aburage tamanegi udon (fried tofu and onion udon noodles) with tempura amai jyagaimo (fried sweet potato), twas very yummy.

15 people crammed into the small Pirukura booth, super cramped but all good fun!


So in short, the Tsurumine High School Culture Festival was very good fun, we sold 27,600 yen worth of popcorn and nachos (approx $NZ 440.00), so a great success! I didn't exactly learn lots of new cultural stuff, but had lots of nice food, won some prizes, had a good time, and got time off school! Today was a half day dedicated to cleaning up the mess we made from the festival, and then Tuesday and Wednesday is school holiday! I think New Zealand High Schools would do well to adopt a similar thing!


That's all from me for now, hope you enjoyed reading it and seeing some of the photos I took, today I gave a speech in assembly, wowed everyone with my slang vocabulary, got several rounds of massive applause, now when I'm in the corridor, people come up to me and say 'Agepoyo!' ( I don't really know what this means, but I used it in my speech and got a lot of laughs and applause for it, so it must be good) In short, I'm now famous at Tsurumine!

Hope all's well with you wherever you happen to be, come back soon to see more of Toroi's adventures under the Kanagawan Sun!

Fast Cars, Fast Women

In my year 11 Environmental Science class at Nelson College, my teacher, Mr David Tinker, would say the same thing to us at the end of the last period for the week. That was 'No smoking, no drinking, no fast cars, no fast women.' That little saying saw me through year 11 and year 12, though now, as a NZ year 13, and in Japan, I see that being in potential jeopardy.


First, about Japanese cars. Japan makes most of our cars in NZ, that is, Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Nissan, etc., etc. And if any of you have seen Fast And Furious, Tokyo Drift, you'll see many fast cars with acid green paint schemes and flame decals, etc. Tearing through the streets of Tokyo, burnouts a plenty, racing here, there, and everywhere. Before I left to go to Japan, the friends of mine who are 'car' people, said 'Troy keep an eye out for cars like on Tokyo Drift. Well, here is what I could do to satisfy your desire for fast steel.

Glorious, aren't they? I can imagine myself turning up to an underground illegal street race in downtown Tokyo, and the Yakuza who run the races saying 'hell Troy, that is one MEAN ride you got going on there, gonna go burn some rubber in this beautiful machine?'  And of course, I would, and then the police would get involved, I'd be in a lengthy car chase, in a sleek, speedy, stylish, yet surprisingly economical and low carbon emitting machine such as this. This would culminate in a few guns being fired, a fireball or ten, and then I'd get the girl. As the credits roll, you think, 'man I want a car just like that, but in Orange. Or maybe Khaki.'


Unforutnately, this is not the reality, the only cars I've seen thus far that I would class as being 'fast' are those that were manufactured in Europe. Maybe there are some Japanese speed machines hiding somewhere, but I am yet to hear even a whisper of them.

So, in conclusion, Mr Tinker's wise words are still being followed, 'No fast cars', but this is possibly because we as AFS students are not allowed to drive whilst on exchange (plus the driving age is 20 here), but also there is a complete lack of anything worth driving at speed, in a race, with fireballs.


I come now to the second part of Mr Tinker's proverb. "No Fast Women"


Arriving at school on Thursday last week to see the classes and meet some teachers, I was shown around and came across on group of girls in the 'dance club'. Lots of screams after I said (Konnichiwa) later, several of them came up to me to ask lots of questions, a rather overwhelming experience for me, who's Japanese was rapidly deteriorating as my mind was somewhat frazzled by the information overload of school times, dates, names, places etc. Then coming into class on Friday, my first real day, and I was mobbed by girls asking where I was from, asking my name, telling me theirs (I've forgotten probably 90% of them) asking my hobbies, and, surprisingly (or not), if I have a girlfriend. Their response to that last question when I answered 'no', was one that can only be described as 'Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!' 

Several of them have asked for my cell number, and asked me the same questions through text message. (They may well be different people to the ones who asked me the questions in the flesh, I truly do not know....) I was asked by one girl, Aiaka, whom I met at the train station near my house, which she also uses to get to school with her friend Nonoka, if I thought she (Nonoka) was cute, and if I wanted to marry her. Far out, this coming from a girl I didn't know 72 hours earlier!

At lunchtime yesterday I was sitting with my guy friends in homeroom, and hordes of girls kept looking at us through the window in the door, waving, coming in, saying 'hi', going all shy and then running away. To this I said in Japanese to my guy friends, 'Japanese girls are little crazy, don't you think? Very noisy.' This produced laughter of such a volume that everyone else in the class who was eating their lunch looked at us in alarm. Japanese girls are 'totemo abunai' <---very crazy.

So a similar situation occurred today in the 10 minute break between classes, (no interval/morning tea at Tsurumine, but a 10 minute break between each class) I was making my way to biology, when Aiaka and two girls who told me their names but I cannot remember them, ~Just as I wrote that sentence, my cellphone buzzed saying I had a new message from Aiaka~ and they simultaneously asked me in fast high pitched Japlish (a combination of English and Japanese) which one I thought was the cutest, as well as saying that the other two had boyfriends, but that they did not, and wanted one. They were all refuting each other, but I deduced that one had a boyfriend, one did not, and one did, but didn't like him anymore and wanted to separate. This put me in a difficult situation, I couldn't say one was cuter than the others, plus I didn't want an angry Japanese boyfriend on my case for flirting with his girlfriend. So I played the dumb foreigner card, pretending not to understand, so when they asked me again in perfect English, I was well and truly screwed. Could I pretend to be French? No, one of them probably studied it for 10 years and could quite happily ask me the same thing in French too. So I replied 'you're all cute', which got a slightly heated response, 'YOU CANNOT LIKE MORE THAN ONE GIRL IN JAPAN" Wow. I think they meant like as in romantically, but cripes, still. Thankfully I was saved by the proverbial bell, never have I been so happy to go to biology.

So, I've been asked by many girls if I have a girlfriend, plenty have asked who I think is cute, some have asked if I think they are cute, and a few have asked if I want to marry one of them. So, Mr Tinker, I find myself breaking the last part of your proverb, but not by my own volition. The fast women are coming to me, and not a lot I can do about it, me being something of a celeb at Tsurumine High School and all.



So, guys, if you ever come to Japan and happen to be tall, have hair that's not black, and have the exotic sex appeal foreign people possess (so pretty much all of you), prepare to be bombarded by female Japanese teenagers.




Otherwise, not much is happening at the mo, Tsurumine is gearing up for its culture festival this weekend, I'll be going to school Sat and Sun, helping my class with its popcorn stall (apparently this is Mexican and American culture, can't quite work that one out but whatever), and will take plenty of pictures! All of the clubs have been practising for hours for their contribution to the festival, there'll be lots of music and dance, an enjoyable weekend I'm sure!

So that's all from me for now, hope wherever you are things are well, and also that you enjoyed reading my blog!

Tata for now from Under the Kanagawan Sun

Toroi :)