Hi,
I hope people are getting the emails sent to Alex M's Mom and posted on the closed parent Facebook page as well as these blog posts.
Today is our last full day in Noshiro, and there are many things to do. This morning I met Mia and her host family at Kuro Neko delivery service. We are all sending our big pieces of luggage directly to the hostel in Tokyo rather than shlepping them through the train system from Haneda Airport to the hostel. The service is very reliable and comparatively inexpensive. Kuro Neko means "black cat" and I sometimes wonder if it's a reference to the character in the Miyazaki Hayao animated film, "Kiki's Delivery Service."
This change meeting gave me the chance to thank Mia's host mother for all her kindness and care to Mia. In return, her mother told me about how the whole family, including the grandparents, have enjoyed getting to know her. The softball team wants Mia to stay in Noshiro! And everyone has also noticed Mia's intelligence and talent in speaking in Japanese. Mia said she wants to stay, and of course, I want to, too.
This afternoon we will all go to the sayonara party, in a beautiful building that reflects Japan's architectural past. It stands near the Hachiman Shrine, a shrine that hosts a kindergarten where Harata Sensei's younger brother is a teacher. Host parents will bring food, as we did at the sayonara party in Oak Park. There will be speeches. There will be tears of sadness that we have to leave, but the tears will also be happy because we have shared wonderful experiences.
Friday, June 24, 2016
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Japan Exchange, outgoing, post #9
Hi,
I've been thinking of some of the local place names in this part of Japan and what their meanings are. I thought families might be interested, too. Let's start with the name of the prefecture, Akita. The 秋田 kanji tell us that the meaning is "autumn rice field."
The prefectures were named relatively recently -- when the country was politically reorganized in the run-up to the Meiji Isshin, the Meiji Reform/Revolution culminating with the re-establishment of the Meiji Emperor in Tokyo in 1868.
According to Harata Sensei, the old name for this part of the country is Michinoku, but I don't know why that is. This area, like others, was part of a feudal domain before that time.
The prefectures were named relatively recently -- when the country was politically reorganized in the run-up to the Meiji Isshin, the Meiji Reform/Revolution culminating with the re-establishment of the Meiji Emperor in Tokyo in 1868.
According to Harata Sensei, the old name for this part of the country is Michinoku, but I don't know why that is. This area, like others, was part of a feudal domain before that time.
Here is another name: Moritake, 森岳 meaning "forest mountain." And then there's Koikawa, 鯉川 which is "carp river." And, very famous in this area... Shirakami Sanchi, a rare wilderness forest in the mountains that supports an unusual environment for special plants, animals, and birds. The kanji mean "white gods mountain earth" 白神山土. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Monday, June 20, 2016
Japan Exchange, outgoing, post #8
Hi,
Today is Monday, but we are not at school because Shouyou H.S. is having an extra day off after the very wonderful, very effortful, very time consuming school festival on Friday and Saturday．However, I am at school with Harata Sensei because she is getting ready for tomorrow`s classes. There`s another Sensei here, too. These people are SERIOUS. But actually I am not at all surprised...OPRF teachers work very hard, too, and also on their days off.
Yesterday Harata Sensei and I took a fairly long drive to northern Akita, so today we`re taking it easy...well, easier. We went to the dollar shop (the 100 yen shop), where I saw Ryan with his host mother and sister. His mother was going to take him to the harbor to see the tour boats departing. They are big boats、and Harata Sensei and I heard the celebratory fireworks from inland as they sailed away. She and I were visiting the local shrine, Hachi-man Jinja. There is a kindergarten nearby where her younger brother works. It`s an education family。
More soon!
Today is Monday, but we are not at school because Shouyou H.S. is having an extra day off after the very wonderful, very effortful, very time consuming school festival on Friday and Saturday．However, I am at school with Harata Sensei because she is getting ready for tomorrow`s classes. There`s another Sensei here, too. These people are SERIOUS. But actually I am not at all surprised...OPRF teachers work very hard, too, and also on their days off.
Yesterday Harata Sensei and I took a fairly long drive to northern Akita, so today we`re taking it easy...well, easier. We went to the dollar shop (the 100 yen shop), where I saw Ryan with his host mother and sister. His mother was going to take him to the harbor to see the tour boats departing. They are big boats、and Harata Sensei and I heard the celebratory fireworks from inland as they sailed away. She and I were visiting the local shrine, Hachi-man Jinja. There is a kindergarten nearby where her younger brother works. It`s an education family。
More soon!
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Japan Exchange, outgoing, post #7
Hi,
It's already quite late and I can hardly keep my eyes open, but I wanted to tell you about one thing that happened today.
Friday and Saturday were the two days of the school festival, for which the preparations were extensive and very time consuming. The culminating event took place this afternoon in the big all-purpose auditorium-basketball-court. After the calligraphy performance and the dance group and the brass band and the play and the karaoke contest and the class videos, the principal, Mr. Chiba, suddenly took the stage. He had told us that he liked to play the harmonica, but I was completely unprepared for what happened next. He played the guitar while simultaneously blowing the harmonica. And then he sang "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Blowing in the Wind." In addition, he played and sang them pretty darned well.
I'm not sure that the Japanese kids knew the songs, but our Chicago-area OPRF kids certainly did. They cheered and stamped and yelled their approval. I found myself feebly reiterating, "OMG, OMG, OMG," realizing that he was sharing his enthusiasm for American music and honoring us. How surprising! How touching! How wonderful!
More details soon...
CRK
Friday, June 17, 2016
Japan Exchange, outgoing, post #6
The theme today is food, particularly (but not exclusively) breakfast...
I will start with a local delicacy that I had never eaten before: junsai. You buy it in little water-filled plastic bags, at the market. I would write the word supermarket, except that in Noshiro it's not very big. Anyway, the little bags look like they should have little goldfish swimming around among the fronds of tiny plants. However, that is not the case. One just buys the little bags and brings them home. The next time I saw them, the plastic bags were gone, but the little plants were in soup bowls with little cubes of tofu. My host, Harata Sensei, told me that junsai tends to be a little bit neba-neba, that is slimy, but that it's better with soup. So I tried it. And it's definitely neba-neba. I couldn't eat very much. I don't like nattou, either, which is very neba-neba. I gave up, shame-faced.
So when I got back to school I met the biology teacher and asked her about junsai. She told me that it is the bud form of suiren, the water lily plant. This makes me feel better, I must say. The water lily is also known as the lotus, a plant important for its beauty but also for its meaning in Buddhism. It grows out of the mud, up through the water, into the light and the air, like the soul rising out of the material world, up into the atmosphere of enlightenment. Beautiful, isn't it?
OK, so back to breakfast. In Japan, you have a wide range of choices at breakfast. Some Japanese people wolf down a roll and coffee, just as many of us do, but traditional Japanese breakfast can be a feast. Miso shiru soup, for example, with tofu in it and green onions, is standard. A grilled fish is standard. Rice, of course, is usually made fresh that morning in a suihanki rice cooker. Salad is a common item at breakfast, which I love. And often there are leftovers. This morning at Harata Sensei's home we had kinpira gobo, which is carrots with burdock root, often prepared with some kind of minced meat. And maybe fruit or yogurt.
Breakfast of Samurai.
I hope our students are enjoying their breakfasts as much as I'm enjoying mine.
I will start with a local delicacy that I had never eaten before: junsai. You buy it in little water-filled plastic bags, at the market. I would write the word supermarket, except that in Noshiro it's not very big. Anyway, the little bags look like they should have little goldfish swimming around among the fronds of tiny plants. However, that is not the case. One just buys the little bags and brings them home. The next time I saw them, the plastic bags were gone, but the little plants were in soup bowls with little cubes of tofu. My host, Harata Sensei, told me that junsai tends to be a little bit neba-neba, that is slimy, but that it's better with soup. So I tried it. And it's definitely neba-neba. I couldn't eat very much. I don't like nattou, either, which is very neba-neba. I gave up, shame-faced.
So when I got back to school I met the biology teacher and asked her about junsai. She told me that it is the bud form of suiren, the water lily plant. This makes me feel better, I must say. The water lily is also known as the lotus, a plant important for its beauty but also for its meaning in Buddhism. It grows out of the mud, up through the water, into the light and the air, like the soul rising out of the material world, up into the atmosphere of enlightenment. Beautiful, isn't it?
OK, so back to breakfast. In Japan, you have a wide range of choices at breakfast. Some Japanese people wolf down a roll and coffee, just as many of us do, but traditional Japanese breakfast can be a feast. Miso shiru soup, for example, with tofu in it and green onions, is standard. A grilled fish is standard. Rice, of course, is usually made fresh that morning in a suihanki rice cooker. Salad is a common item at breakfast, which I love. And often there are leftovers. This morning at Harata Sensei's home we had kinpira gobo, which is carrots with burdock root, often prepared with some kind of minced meat. And maybe fruit or yogurt.
Breakfast of Samurai.
I hope our students are enjoying their breakfasts as much as I'm enjoying mine.
Monday, June 13, 2016
Japan Exchange, outgoing, Post #5
June 13, 2016--Tuesday
Today is our second day at school.
I have sent photos and a few comments to Mrs. Muehleisen during the last couple of days. She has shared them with the other parents and posted them on the closed parent group Facebook page.
Yesterday, Monday, our students, Mason, Ryan, and Lee attended Harata Sensei's English class, where the Noshiro Shoyo students started by taking a vocabulary test. Students graded each other tests, and then I taught a grammar/poetry lesson at the request of Harata Sensei: a cinquaine with lines arranged as lines of nouns, then adjectives, then adverbs, and verbs.
Later on Mr. Mertz and I and Kiara sent to the Korean language class, which included a lot of culture. Kiara looked beautiful wearing the Korean national costume, the hanbok. Mr. Mertz took a colorful photo of the two of us, she in dazzling pink, and I in my own bright turquoise jacket. We also learned a few phrases appropriate for introducing ourselves in Korean. Kiara showed real talent for the pronunciation, which has some similarities and some differences from Japanese.
After school we were supposed to help clean up the Media Hall, where we are to meet every day, but the lack of cleaning materials made that impossible. According to Okura Sensei, who is in charge of the exchange, we will help with cleaning our homerooms from now on.
First of all, we all stayed in Media Hall together, learning items of Akita dialect. It differs from the standard Tokyo dialect, for example:
yes nda standard is hai
cute menkoi standard is kawaii
tired koe standard is tsukare
to rest nagamaru standard is yasumu
Noshiro Shoyo H.S. is unusual in offering Korean, Russian, and Chinese, in addition to English. This morning Jordan, Liam K., Annie, and I tried hard to learn Russian letters for writing our names and simple expressions. It must be so hard for Japanese students to pronounce Russian. The teacher, Anna Mikhaylova awed us by teaching simultaneously in Japanese, Russian, and English.
Today I noticed that lights in the stairwells and halls go on when people are using those areas, triggered by movement sensors. Then the lights go off after the areas clear, saving power. There are 10 minute intervals between classes, too, signaled by chimes ringing intervals like Big Ben in London.
Our group will visit an elementary school about a kilometer away this afternoon, walking from one school to the other. OPRF students will teach games like Red-Light-Green-Light to the 6th graders.
Today is our second day at school.
I have sent photos and a few comments to Mrs. Muehleisen during the last couple of days. She has shared them with the other parents and posted them on the closed parent group Facebook page.
Yesterday, Monday, our students, Mason, Ryan, and Lee attended Harata Sensei's English class, where the Noshiro Shoyo students started by taking a vocabulary test. Students graded each other tests, and then I taught a grammar/poetry lesson at the request of Harata Sensei: a cinquaine with lines arranged as lines of nouns, then adjectives, then adverbs, and verbs.
Later on Mr. Mertz and I and Kiara sent to the Korean language class, which included a lot of culture. Kiara looked beautiful wearing the Korean national costume, the hanbok. Mr. Mertz took a colorful photo of the two of us, she in dazzling pink, and I in my own bright turquoise jacket. We also learned a few phrases appropriate for introducing ourselves in Korean. Kiara showed real talent for the pronunciation, which has some similarities and some differences from Japanese.
After school we were supposed to help clean up the Media Hall, where we are to meet every day, but the lack of cleaning materials made that impossible. According to Okura Sensei, who is in charge of the exchange, we will help with cleaning our homerooms from now on.
First of all, we all stayed in Media Hall together, learning items of Akita dialect. It differs from the standard Tokyo dialect, for example:
yes nda standard is hai
cute menkoi standard is kawaii
tired koe standard is tsukare
to rest nagamaru standard is yasumu
Noshiro Shoyo H.S. is unusual in offering Korean, Russian, and Chinese, in addition to English. This morning Jordan, Liam K., Annie, and I tried hard to learn Russian letters for writing our names and simple expressions. It must be so hard for Japanese students to pronounce Russian. The teacher, Anna Mikhaylova awed us by teaching simultaneously in Japanese, Russian, and English.
Today I noticed that lights in the stairwells and halls go on when people are using those areas, triggered by movement sensors. Then the lights go off after the areas clear, saving power. There are 10 minute intervals between classes, too, signaled by chimes ringing intervals like Big Ben in London.
Our group will visit an elementary school about a kilometer away this afternoon, walking from one school to the other. OPRF students will teach games like Red-Light-Green-Light to the 6th graders.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Japan Exchange, outgoing, post # 4
Summer seasonal haiku
by the greatest haikuist in history,
(Matsuo) Basho
A bush warbler
Has dropped its hat from the tree:
A camellia blossom!
Tr. Oseko
A warbler
Dropped its hat -
A camellia.
Tr. Saito / Nelson
Written in 1690, the Genroku Era, 元禄3年2月6日 in Iga Ueno.
Basho stayed at the estate of Hyakusai 百歳.
Nishijima Hyakusai 西島百歳 (?1668 - 1705, 4月26日) died at the age of 38.
Hakusai lived in Iga Ueno, he was the 5th son of Fujidoo Yoshishige 藤堂良重 and was adopted by the Nishijima family.
His name was Juuroozaemon 十郎右衛門.
by the greatest haikuist in history,
(Matsuo) Basho
鴬の笠落したる椿かな
uguisu no
uguisu no
kasa otoshitaru
tsubaki kana
Uguisu in Japan are famous for their beautiful singing. Nightingales, whose glorious night singing inspired Keats and others, are famous in the same way in England. But Japanese uguisu sing during the day.
The uguisu
have dropped their hats camellias
all over the ground
Tr. Gabi Greve
Daytime nightingales
Drop their colorful sunhats
Camellia blossoms
Tr. C.R. Kimmel
An old poetic convention
has uguisu wearing little caps of
plum blossoms. Basho puts a twist on this folksy image by suggesting the birds have thrown off
camellias like broad-brimmed farmer's hats.
source : Liza Dalby
source : Liza Dalby
a bush
warbler
drops its hat:
camellia blossom
Tr. Barnhill
drops its hat:
camellia blossom
Tr. Barnhill
A bush warbler
Has dropped its hat from the tree:
A camellia blossom!
Tr. Oseko
A warbler
Dropped its hat -
A camellia.
Tr. Saito / Nelson
Written in 1690, the Genroku Era, 元禄3年2月6日 in Iga Ueno.
Basho stayed at the estate of Hyakusai 百歳.
Nishijima Hyakusai 西島百歳 (?1668 - 1705, 4月26日) died at the age of 38.
Hakusai lived in Iga Ueno, he was the 5th son of Fujidoo Yoshishige 藤堂良重 and was adopted by the Nishijima family.
His name was Juuroozaemon 十郎右衛門.
This hokku [in other words, haiku] has the cut marker KANA at the end of line 3.
Japan Exchange, outgoing, post # 3
from an email to a relative, yesterday (Friday) --
"School has been out for a week, and also I'm now one week away from departure for Japan.
"I am trying to rest up and, at the same time, get into shape!"
And the lists: socks, medications, shoes, iPad (to take, or not to take), Japanese currency, passport, notebook with pens, and on and on...
"School has been out for a week, and also I'm now one week away from departure for Japan.
"I am trying to rest up and, at the same time, get into shape!"
And the lists: socks, medications, shoes, iPad (to take, or not to take), Japanese currency, passport, notebook with pens, and on and on...
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