JAPANEXILE

A jidou club is apparently an after school club for elementary school kids. Although sometimes it seems to start in the morning, so perhaps its more than that. Basically its just somewhere to go play games for a few hours, then have something to eat. Whatever it is its a lot of fun.

Once again my first experience of the Jidou club (and my second for that matter) was a solo affair, although Hiromi was there at least to lend me some assistance. With nursery kids the language difficulties aren’t really a problem, but by this age the kids aren’t as easily entertained by tickling, and expect me to talk and understand them. Which is incredibly hard, as they speak fast, and always mumble. Thankfully there is one kid in particular who has been such a help to me, he doesn’t know anymore English than the others, but he seems to have taken it upon himself to guide me through my time there, he seems to actually enjoy looking stuff up in my dictionary so he can speak to me. So I’ve grown quite fond of him.

So my first day there was spent playing Lego, eating a fantastic curry, then playing musical chairs, dodgeball, football and badminton. Nice variety I thought. Second week followed a pretty similar format, only I ended up with an enormous blister after showing of my football skills, so then had to resort to slightly more sendentary activities. Its only when you play Lego with young kids that I remember how much fun it is. The stuff the kids make is great, and when we’ve finished we try to combine them into one super lego machine…so far none of them have quite as super as they have been incredibly ugly and structurally weak. But we’re getting there. I haven’t played dodgeball before, and the only knowledge I have of it is from Southpark, which isn’t really an accurate depiction as far as I could tell. Its a good laugh tho, I can’t really be bothered to explain the rules in this post, perhaps I’ll come back later and edit this post in the future, but for now, google is your friend. The only problem is that I am a little stronger than the kids playing, so mostly I have to throw the ball at the teachers. Really hope they don’t think I have something against them.

The kids had great fun trying to bandage up my blister last week, was quite touching to see them fighting over the chance to touch my feet! Next time, remember shoes! As with all my other posts, please check out the photography section for more photos (surprisingly) Click here for a link to the photo album for the day.

Tuesday 25th September

After having had such a fantastic time at the nursery in Toya I was understandably quite excited by the prospect of a new set of people to meet. Unfortunately Sakura nursery must be the place they send all the juvenile deliquents in the area.

At first they were all petrified of us. I made several attempts to break the ice, introducing myself, then started playing with the toys - in a vain attempt to fit in. But once the fear had passed (in the boys at least) things became far more annoying. All they did for the next hour, was throw things at me. Anything they could grab, heading straight for me. Next came an attack with skipping ropes, and after they tired of that they decided to do the other things all Japanese children seem to enjoy - which is poke you in the arse and crotch with anything they can find. And I was soon horrified to learn that the had a whole stockpile of plastic bananas in their possession. Give you one guess where they went?

Thankfully things started to calm down when we started making some ricecakes (or Moshi as they are called here). I personally quite like moshi, in a soggy half cooked piece of dough covered in bean paste way. Craig wasn’t too enthralled with them - tho perhaps that was due to the then unknown swelling appendix inside him. After some ‘baking’ the kids finally warmed up to us a bit, so we played with the building block things, myself making quite an impressive plane, and Craig a sword of some description. Soon it was Nap time and time for us to go home. (And Craig shortly after to Hospital, but thats a story for another day)

Week 2 was fairly uneventful, so uneventful in fact that I can’t remember a thing about it, other than that I had to tackle it alone since Craig was incapacitated. The kids improved this week, which far less violence toward me. Still - they are a far cry from the Toya Nursery!

The adult conversation class every Wednesday at 7pm is as far as I know the only work that we have complete control over, in that we choose what the lesson will be on, and are responsible for planning and running everything involved with it. The 30 or so students are split into a beginners and an advanced class. Age range is pretty massive, with the youngest being 23 and the oldest 84. I had ‘won’ the honour of teaching the beginners class until February where we would change over. There are advantages to both, the problem with the beginners is the difficulty in explaining anything, they really are beginners, and anything but the simplest sentence will not get through. But on the plus side simple topics can be done, although I think it will be hard to keep simple topics interesting and fun, since most of the language learning methods I know are designed for students under 18. Advantage of the advanced class being that more interesting topics can be discussed, newspaper articles etc, and the small class size (only 4 of them). The only disadvantage I believe being that since they know more, more planning must be done to keep them busy the whole time. In the beginners I can ask them to write down a few sentences and that can fill an hour.

So far the Adult classes haven’t actually started ‘as normal’ yet persay. The first week Craig and I were to be teaching together, which we had not found out until arrival, so neither of our teaching plans could be used. And since it was the first week they only wanted to play games. What English language games can you play with students of this range of age and ability? The first 40mins were pretty painful, then we managed to get Hangman explained which filled 20mins or so. The real winner however was Chirades. Craig and I started off, acting out a game of Tennis, if the students guessed correctly they came up and acted something out. We stayed with this until the end, changing the thing to be acted out so spice things up a bit! After that session i vowed to ensure I would be fully prepared from now on.

The next week due to Craig now being hospitalized I was teaching both classes alone. But not to worry, I had from 3pm - 7pm to plan…or so I thought. Work at the the Abuta School ran late, then I was off to visit Craig in Hospital, which I had not planned on. In the end I had 45mins to plan, which was not enough. I had arranged to have the projector and Kanamura-san’s computer set up so I could show photos of my family and hometown (which has been requested the previous week) Using this computer was a nightmare, but due to things not working well at all I managed to stretch the showing of photos until 8pm. After that I asked them to write down a few sentences about themselves, all except their name, then I would read them out and they had to guess who it was. Worked well so thankfully the lesson wasn’t a total disaster.

Learning from my mistakes the previous weeks, and with Craig with me since he had returned from Hospital that day, I was well prepared this week. Doing a lesson on colours, following on to clothing and describing what you are wearing. I once again used the favourite game of my Japanese teacher at school to introduce the new vocab, putting pictures of the clothes and colours on the board, I would then point and one and say something. If I say the correct thing everyone repeats. Worked well enough, tho I can’t help but think it might start to wear a little thin if I do it too often. I was feeling so much more confident in front of the class this time,

Since I am so far behind on my updates I’ve decided to forgo writing the past 2/3 weeks in diary form, and instead write a summary of my first few days at each place of work - of which there are several, I’ve counted 8 so far. So, first off. Toya Nursery! The nursery in Toya is without a doubt my favourite, I know I shouldn’t think like that, but I can’t help it. The kids there are so much fun, we have Taiki there (who speaks English) so I don’t feel as lost the whole time. I even know the names of the people who work there now, and even more surprisingly some of the kids! I’ve had three days there so far, and loved every one. The third day was a bit special so I’ll save that for a separate post. The first 2 days started off as any day should, playtime! And this is some serious playing, don’t think I’ve sweated so much since I ran 1/2 Marathon in the Summer! One thing I’ve observed is that Japanese kids seem to adore being chased around and/or chasing me. Often the two seem to happen at the sime time so things can get quite confusing if I forget which kids I’m trying to avoid and which ones I’m trying to catch. Its especially chaotic when confined to the main play room area. If caught thankfully I can defend myself by tickling indiscrimently, thankfully they haven’t realised I can only do this to two of them at a time yet. Other than chasing there is the always popular “Kata guru” Which means piggy back basically. I’m happy to do this normally, apart from one kid who asks ALL the time, and he really is quite heavy…hurt my back carrying him around! Eventually however the large foreigner (me) does run out of energy, so then its time for some Playdo modelling - at which I’m awful. Taiki-sensei is awesome, honestly, his T-Rex was near life like. Played some hide and seek the second week, which although goof fun, isn’t exactly challenging - the kids ALWAYS hide in the same place. I tried to be creative which my spots - but its hard to hide when all the furniture is designed for 3-6yr olds.

III II II II II II IIII III I hope its a sign of the ways things will be for the rest of year, but each time I’ve been there we’ve gone on some sort of excursion or had some sort of special event on. First week it was Montbelle-san’s birthday (real name I found out yesterday is Maisa, atleast that’s a shortened version of it anyway) so we were treated to a finger puppet performance by Taiki, even with its own incredibly catchy little song. A song which I’ve found myself humming ever since. Both weeks we’ve also been out for a walk/bug catching, the kids are completely fascinated by anything they can potentially kill - frogs, grasshoppers, lady birds, spiders, crickets - whatever they find. I won a lot of praise for my bug catching skills, finding an impressively large grasshopper and managing to get it into the magnifying glass tube thing for all to see.The last part of any day at Nursery, possibly the most important part. Lunch. Craig and I look forward to this meal above all others, great food, and it never stops being funny watching the kids eat. Not to mention any meal we have there is a meal we don’t have to cook. Which is always a good thing, as I really can’t be bothered cooking mostly. But I digress. After the meal its time to clean the floor, in traditional Japanese style on all fours running along with a cloth. This is far easier than it looks, its near impossible to get the same amount of pressure on each hand so falling flat on your face is inevitable, and painful for that matter. Soon after the kids head off for a nap, and Craig and I oft heading home to do the same… Click here for a link to the photo album for the day.

September 16th - And we’re carrying this thing, why? Was pretty much what I was thinking the entire morning. But of course that statement needs some explanation!We had been invited to join in the festivities this hot Sunday morning. So we met the rest of the team at 8.30am, were handed our rather Stylish blue jackets, and told to get in the back of the truck and taken to a mystery location…It turned out to be the same place we had been the night before, but it was a lot more interesting in the daylight. 5 teams of 10 or so kids (plus us) had assembled at the Shrine, each carrying a, um, well I don’t know quite what is was. Ours was a large basket with some flowers and bells on the side, topped off with a stuffed bird and fixed to a frame to allow it to be transported easily. (Probably best to see the picture below) So the main who I guess was in charge of the Shrine did some clapping, some chanting, we did some bowing in response. And then right at the end you just shake the hell out of the ‘thing’ getting it to make as much noise as possible as you do. I thought that was it for the day, but no, the fun had only just begun.

The next 5 hours were spent going round to what must have been every house and shop in the village, shaking our ‘thing’ outside until someone comes out and gives us some money for our trouble! So basically giving is compulsory, you’d have to be a real tight so and so to refuse in that situation. Especially with Rina-chan as our flag waver - she’s so cute!

Thankfully lunchtime soon came and once again we enjoyed a good BBQ in the sun. After that we played around with the kids for a bit, impressing everyone by jumping up onto the truck in one stride, then later on with our ability to put our faces onto the boiling hot metal truck. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

My thoughts on this aspect of festivals is a bit mixed, I did enjoy myself, once again it was a good time to meet more people, and riding in the back of the truck pretending to surf down the hill was alot of fun - but the wandering around in all honesty was pretty boring, and in Craig’s case quite painful for his hands (susceptible to blisters it seems) Click here for a link to the photo album for the day.

Saturday 15th September (evening)

Hot on the tails of our gluttonous beachside BBQ Craig and I were off to join in with what must have the been the start of the Toya Autumn Festival (actual title unknown)! Typically it was pouring down with rain but fortunately no-one else seemed to care so up to the Shrine we went with Hiromi-san armed with 1000Yen and a dictionary. The latter of which proved to just be incredibly annoying to carry, and ultimately resulted with me losing the water fight…

But first the actual festival part. Upon arrival I walked up to the main Shrine building, where I was told to ring the bell, do some clapping, take a bow, and have some ceremonial Sake. I should probably elaborate more since that was definitely the more traditional part of the evening - but in all honesty it wasn’t too exciting. Once that was over with it was straight onto the Yakitori and beer in true festival style. I honestly don’t know how I managed to eat more meat that day but its tough to turn down meat on a stick, especially when someone buys it for you. From then on neither myself nor Craig knew what we supposed to be doing, the locals all seemed to be engaged in a large game of Bingo in the rain so we bought waterpistols instead. And so the childish behaviour commenced - we were joined in our fight by Montbelle-san, one of the kids from the nursery. I unfortunately was the eventual loser, my error being buying the largest water pistol there, which unfortunately required two hands to use effectively. So with one hand busy using my umbrella to defend myself from Craig I was a sitting duck. Montbelle faired better, having the advantage of a full length raincoat and his signature Montbelle hat to protect him. At the end of the evening all the children, and many of the adults (probably under the guise of ‘helping’ their children) crouch down and have sweets and ricecakes rained down from the stage onto them. We of course joined in, waddling our way rather obviously up front. When the food shower started it was carnage, with little (and large) hands grabbing everywhere, I decided to use my height advantage and stand up to intercept the food before it hit the deck. We had quite an impressive haul by the end! Though we decided to be kind and donate much of it to the jealous looking children. The festival dissolved after all that excitement and we headed back to sleep, since we were to be up early the next day for the main part of the festival. Which unsurprisingly is coming up on my next post!