On my bulletin board at school I have a section called "Didyouknow?" where I post facts about American jr. high, American holidays, etc. that I figure most Japanese jr. high kids and teachers don't really know. From time to time, it occurs to me that there are random things about Japan that most Americans don't know. For example, did you know that Japanese toilet paper isn't perforated? Did you know that most public restrooms don't have hot running water? Did you know that in most prefectures all elementary and jr. high kids AND teachers eat school lunch every day?
Did you know that before lunch is served, the principal has to go to the kitchen and eat his/her lunch first to taste-test it? [I just found out about this last week!! I always wondered where my principal went every day before lunch. HA!]
Did you know that during the summer when it's really hot, the regular size milk cartons that we usually get with school lunch are sometimes replaced by extra large cartons of milk to help quench thirst? (!!?? Seriously, who wants to drink more milk on a hot day??) Did you know that Japanese people don't really drink water much? (They drink green tea.) Did you know that a lot of jr. high teachers wear sneakers for their indoor shoes at school even when they're wearing suits? (??!! On that note-- a side story--> One day at the beginning of last year I saw one of the new teachers wearing Crocs with his suit, and I thought, 'Oh, that looks nice!' And then I thought, 'Something is seriously wrong with the fashion here if wearing Crocs with a suit seems "nice"'!!) :P
Next, did you know that in jr. high, attendance is taken by teachers with clipboards and class lists checking the shoe cubbies at the school entrance to see which kids haven't changed from their outdoor shoes to their indoor shoes (indicating that they haven't arrived at school)? (You can see that #20 in class 3-4-- fourth from the top, second from the right-- wasn't at school the morning I took this picture...because his/her indoor shoes are still in the cubby.) Did you know that you can't take leftover food home from most restaurants?
Did you know that at restaurants you usually only get one menu to share between everyone at the table?
Did you know that you're expected to be quiet (as in, not talk) on trains?
This list is turning out to be longer than I planned, and I could keep going...but it's dinner time. So I'll save others for another post. Hope you learned something new!
Curry flavored soup with cabbage, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, and small slices of pork (I'm starting to realize that these small slices of pork are in almost every soup!)
Blueberry yogurt with bananas and peaches in it
Milk
I hope you guys have enjoyed seeing my Japanese school lunches this week! They are seriously one of my favorite things about my job here! ;) It's SO nice to not have to wake up early every morning to make lunch like I did when I taught in the States. AND it's really, really great to get to try so many different foods...AND it only costs me about ￥250 a day! Best of all, it usually tastes ちょうおいしい.
On Wednesdays I go to elementary school, and it seems like almost every Wednesday is seafood day at elementary school! ugh!!! Actually, after checking out the monthly lunch menu, I think 玲子 (Reiko), the dietitian at my elementary school, just has more of a taste for seafood...so it's on the menu a lot-- not just Wednesdays. Although we sometimes have seafood at my jr. high, seafood on Wednesdays is particularly bad for me because at elementary school I always eat with the kids. It's part of my scheduled day. So...if there's something I don't like, I usually have to eat it anyway, because the kids have to eat all of their food. (The first time I was served shishamo was at elementary school!!) (At jr. high I usually eat with the kids a couple times a week, but it's not part of my actual schedule, so I can just choose to eat with kids when I want to...when there's nothing on the menu that I really dislike.)
Due to the track record of "seafood Wednesdays", I'm always a little nervous to check the lunch menu when I go to elementary school. Today, I was very pleasantly surprised!! We had:
Pumpkin bread
Ground pork in a delicious sauce with carrots, mushrooms, peas, bamboo shoots, white radish, and slightly fried potatoes. SO good!
Miso soup with tofu, cabbage, onions, carrots, and (SURPRISE!) salmon. Whaat?! We have this soup often, and I really like it. I started eating it happily, but then when I took a sip of the broth, I knew instantly there was fish in it! blah! I looked...and saw chunks of salmon floating in it. Just when I thought I had escaped seafood Wednesday for once, it snuck up on me!
Fruits barbaloa-- which is chunks of bananas, pineapple, and oranges in a sweet, yet tart, pudding/yogurt-ish stuff.
And milk...which as usual, I saved to bring home to use in my coffee.
Today's lunch was a highlight of the day. Chicken with a sesame apple sauce that is SO delicious!
Potato salad-- which wasn't made with pasty mayo. I don't usually like potato salad, but I like the ones we have for school lunch. Today's included cucumbers, carrots, corn, and cheese cubes. I know it sounds strange, but it's actually really good.
Vegetable soup-- which is amazingly sweet. Maekawa San tells me it's just the natural sweetness of the vegetables that makes the broth sweet...but it's hard for me to believe her. ;) There was also sliced pork in the soup.
米粉 (Komeko) Bread-- which is bread made from rice flour, and blueberry jam. (Can you see the jam packet just barely showing behind my plate?)
And milk.
Besides lunch, another highlight of the day was getting to laugh a lot with the 7th graders this afternoon during 5th and 6th periods and also during cleaning time after that. A really sweet kid named Naoya just smiles the most adorable smile all the time...which totally makes me smile. Sometimes, like today during 6th period, Naoya smiles so much it seems like he's about to laugh, which makes me laugh. He sits right in the front of the class, where I was standing today while Ikeda Sensei was giving directions. I had to totally fight the urge to laugh out loud during class. Actually, now that I think about it...I think I may have laughed out loud. Ryo, who sits behind Naoya said, 'What are you guys laughing about?!' ;D
In Japanese elementary and jr. high schools all students and teachers eat school lunch (kyushoku) every day. I am SO fortunate to have the best school dietitian EVER at my jr. high, so I get really great lunches!! (most days. ;) i mean, i am a seafood hater living in Japan, so there are bound to be some lunches i'd prefer not to have...but most of the time i really like what Maekawa San (前川さん) and the rest of the kitchen staff make.) I get to try so many different foods that aren't served in restaurants or that I wouldn't know to order, even if they were. A lot of our lunches are "home cooking" style Japanese food, rather than just the very traditional foods that most restaurants have. Before coming to Japan and being served the wonder that is kyushoku, I wouldn't have imagined most of these foods when thinking about "Japanese food". So, I guess other Americans wouldn't think of these as "Japanese food" either. That's why I decided that I'd post a picture of school lunch every day this week. I hope you enjoy seeing the variety. In addition to Japanese food, we also have Korean, Chinese, Indian, Italian, and Western (??). I have been thinking about doing this for a couple weeks but kept forgetting, so I was really excited to check the lunch menu this morning to find out what today's lunch was! I could NOT believe what I saw...ししゃも (shishamo) and わかめご飯 (wakame gohan). Ogh...sick!!! These are the two foods I dislike more than anything else! UNbelievable! What a way to start this week of blogging school lunch. Well, you get what you get.
So, here it is...いただきます:
Shishamo [also known as "the most disgusting food in the world"]-- long, slender fish, which are eaten whole-- including the head. Although it's strange to just bite off the head of a fish, eyes and all, and eat it, that's not at all the worst part of shishamo. Other than the head and the little, crispy tail, the rest of the fish is full of tiny white eggs. Just thinking of the inside of a shishamo makes me feel sick. I wanted to take a picture of the inside of the fish so you could see it, but that would have required me biting the fish open. I was not about to do that! I gave them both away to Nakazatomi Sensei, and I thought it might be rude to ask him if I could take a picture after he'd taken a bite. So...check out this link. Really though, shishamo is even worse than the picture makes it look.
Wakame gohan-- rice with wakame seaweed and tiny, clear fish (including heads and eyes) mixed in.
Soup with tofu, spinach, celery, wakame, and carrots.
Cabbage and sprout salad with almond dressing (love this dressing!)
A mikan orange-- which I think is the same as a Clementine. ??
And milk, which we have every day.
I didn't eat much of this meal, so I'm pretty hungry now...time for dinner! Curry. yumm! Check back tomorrow for what will most definitely be a better lunch.
I meant to post this pic like a month ago! This is natto. Natto is fermented soybeans. In general, Japanese people LOVE natto. WHAAAT?! It reeks like nail polish remover poured over moldy bread. Sick! Seriously, as soon as I opened the door to the staff lunch room the day this was served for school lunch, the fumes hit me in the face. Having successfully avoided eating natto for the first year and seven months that I was in Japan, I counted myself lucky and strategic. But then, when it was served for lunch I figured this was the best time to try it if I ever was going to. And since it's such a well-liked food amongst Japanese people and such an infamously detested food amongst foreign people in Japan, I figured I should try it once. School lunch is the best time for me to try any food I'm hesitant about because I have an audience who encourages and who praises excessively if I successfully down a "very Japanese" food. Plus, it's already paid for, so I'm not losing any money if I don't finish it. Yet, I still thought: NO! I can't eat natto. It's too awful. And it's reputation was flooding my mind. BUT, BUT then my dear friend Natsumi (who is a 9th grader) comes to me right at the beginning of lunch and gives me a note. I thank her and start to put it into my pocket to read later. She says, "Read it now!" which I'm surprised about because she's never asked me to read her notes in front of her before. Hmm...okay. Really happy to have received her letter and smiling big, I unfold her cute stationary, neatly folded into the shape of a t-shirt-- only to find this dismaying message:
To Mya Good Morning.
Today's lunch has natto. Did you know that? You said "I have never eaten natto". So, I think you should try to eat natto!! I hope you'll like natto.
See you again From Natsumi
After laughing and putting up a fight, saying, "Eh...I don't think I can...." I receive a "Ganbatte" ("Do your best.") in return. So, for the sake of proving to Natsumi that I'm really her friend and that I trust her, and for the sake of being a risk-taker, I commit (maybe??) to trying the natto. With Natsumi's open letter staring up at me from the left side of my lunch tray, and with my water bottle poised for chugging with a quick grab of my right hand, I enlist "how-to-eat-natto" advice from IshiharaSensei, who is sitting next to me. どうすればいいんですか？ He explains while demonstrating: topping the beans with mustard and soy sauce, then mixing them into a warm, sticky, taffy/spider web mess. I should grab some natto and some rice and eat them together in one bite. He gives me grace, むりしないで-- Don't force yourself...it's okay if you don't eat it. But...other teachers are commenting...and I told Natsumi I'd try..and there are many pairs of eyes on me-- including OkadaSensei, who had already finished his lunch and returned to the staff room, but then reappeared in the lunch room several minutes later for the sole purpose of watching me eat natto-- and my face getting hot with embarrassment and worry, I go for it. It seems impossible to chew...impossible to swallow...like a spider web in my mouth. I chug the water and try to make my face not so contorted. I never want to eat it again, but I'm glad that from now on when people ask me if I've eaten natto, I can affirm, 食べたことある.
The past two days have been two of my favorite days at school since coming to Japan-- yesterday at sho gakko (elementary school) and today at chu gakko (jr. high). So happy to be here! Simply pleasant occurences. Laughing laughing laughing all day with many students and then later with a couple teachers when I explained (all in Japanese!! :)) that I really was planning to eat my lunch...despite it being fish and wakame gohan (rice seasoned with salty seaweed) sick!...and that the reason I broke the "Eat all your lunch" rule (Note: Rules are REALLY not supposed to be broken in Japan.) and didn't finish, truly was because I didn't have time-- because I was focusing too much on the conversation I was having with Riki and Shizuru-- not because I was being picky. I also tried to pass the blame to Riki, saying that it was because he was shaberisugiru...talking too much!! ;D LOL! It was hilarious! I think Nakazatomi Sensei is still skeptical of my story though... ;D
This past year has passed faster than any other I can recall. Still there are more stories to tell than any other year I can recall. I can't keep up with them all; they come like wave after wave of the tide washing up on the shore. There's no way I could ever recount all of them here, but I really wish I could! My good friend Sarah just moved to Japan (30 minutes from me!), and already she's posted more pictures and blogged more than I have!-- claims my dad. ;) With a few pictures she's already revealed much of her Japanese experience. I'm not a photographer like her, and actually I don't really like taking pictures. But these from the past year show some of my favorite moments, experiences, places, and people here (minus my students, whose pictures-- sadly-- I'm not allowed to post, and teachers who may not want me posting their pics). This is for you, Dad and Sarah!
trying out a shamisen during orientation with other JETs
views from my 3rd story apt
my school! :)
a couple of the many tambo (rice fields) surrounding my school
my landlords' relatives' pear storehouse; mmm...Japanese pears are SO delicious!
udon noodles hanging out to dry...one of the MANY steps in the process of making handmade noodles; I think this is so cool! I was simultaneously alarmed-- at the questionable sanitation-- and awed-- at experiencing this authentic Japanese tradition.
In the end my awe (and hunger!) won out, and I so enjoyed my meal here with my landlord, Mrs. Sekiguchi.
at Kiyomizudera when I went to Kyoto with several friends for a long weekend last fall
Maiko! (Geisha in training); Everyone says they're rare to see...but we saw several!
We happened to discover a monkey park in Kyoto.
The monkeys roam free...if you want to feed them, you have to go into a cage for protection.
my favorite place in Japan! Arashiyama bamboo forest
"Team Takasaki": Dave, Chris, Lesley, James, and me
Fushimi Inari
Kinkakuji
my smart, funny, kind, thoughtful, beautiful friend, Shiyo
homemade (yes! HOMEMADE! can you believe it?!) bread made by Fukuyama Sensei's wife and delivered to me one Saturday morning =) What a pleasant surprise!
Valentine's Day...Uno, the write-a-quote/draw-a-picture game, homemade chocolate in the great Japanese tradition, Lesley wishing random people 'Happy Valentine's Day' and giving them candy
Sakura!
hanami (flower viewing) with Tsukamoto Sensei and his family
This is the day Mischa and I were temporarily paralyzed; this picture was after we'd only been sitting through one tea ceremony in this style...you can see we're still smiling. If only someone would have had a camera handy an hour and a half later...!! you'd have seen us on our hands and knees, literally incapable of standing!
hiking day in Ota with Team Takasaki and Matt and Mischa
I got to go to watch and "help" (sorta) in Chieko Sensei's family's tambo (rice field). Her husband is driving this very useful tractor that has rotating claws that grab and drop the seedlings...making perfect rows across the field.
One of the most authentic and memorable Japanese experiences I've had! My fascination with this process had been growing as I saw the fields surrounding my school changing day by day, so I was thrilled when Chieko Sensei invited me (well, maybe I invited myself...??) to join her and her family for this Saturday morning undertaking!
koi no bori streaming down the mountain and over the river commemorate Boys' Day, May 5th.
Gunma's beautiful mountains surround.
dinner with friends on my birthday; I'm SO thankful for these friends!
Shie, Daisuke, Yoko, Sayoko, and her daughters Yuka and Aika
The staff at my fav restaurant made my birthday SO fun! Tatsu, Shimada, Manami
We had 4th of July fun despite not being in America...watermelon, polish sausage, corn on the cob, frisbee, a flag waving, sparklers, singing America the Beautiful and God Bless the U.S.A. (well, that was only me...I couldn't convince anyone else to sing along)...SUCH a great day! We even let James, our Australian friend, come along, but he was forced to wear red, white, and blue bling, as well as a pin that said, "I heart the U.S." ;)
This park is the best! We jumped and ran around on these trampoline-like domes for hours!
back to Kyoto when my friend Sarah Lichtwardt came to visit...DOWNPOURED for more than an hour! Thankfully Sarah's smart and convinced me that we should buy 300-yen (about 3 bucks) umbrellas...just 4 minutes before the rain turned torrential! whew!
Right now I'm enjoying two of my favorite things about Japan: かぼちゃ 天ぷらとこたつ (kabocha tempura and my kotatsu). :) Life is good, ne? Kabocha is Japanese pumpkin, and a kotatsu is a table w/ heating underneath (this is a necessity, due to the nationwide absence of residential central heating).
Two really great-- no-- three...no! FOUR really great things happened today! :) One: had a super fun and understandable conversation (IN ENGLISH!) with Donhyon and Kazuyuki after 3rd period today.
Two: Hiromi gave me a thumbs up and a smile when she came out of Kochyoo Sensei's office this afternoon; that means she passed her most recent h.s. entrance exam. sweet happiness.
Three: INTERJECTION-- I just thought of two more! Man, this day has been great! ...in so many simple ways. -- Okay, three: I ran into Takaki, Ryotaro, Yuuto, Ryo, and Tsuyoshi as I was going into Bunshindo (DVD rental and book store) after school today. When I pulled up on my bike, Ryo and Takaki's eyes got big with disbelief! ;) LOL! (It always cracks me up that kids are so surprised to see teachers outside of school.) Takaki shouted (as usual), "MYAAA!" and Ryo said, "aaah, Mya chan!" Aaaaw, he called me "chan". :) This means he likes me and thinks of me as a friend more than a teacher. [In America, as a teacher, I wasn't supposed to be "friends" w/ students...but here I don't have to manage classroom behavior, so I don't have to maintain those same strict boundaries. I'm allowed to be "friends" w/ students, and actually, I think my role here is closer to friend (i.e. someone students speak to (in English)) than to teacher.] To hear "Mya chan" from him was heartwarming.
Four: Yoshii Sensei asked me, "How are you?" BEFORE I asked him. This is phenomenal. For a Japanese teacher, other than those who teach English or who previously lived in America, to ask me how I'm doing without me first soliciting them for this info is unheard of. I was so happy! I'm sure my smile spread across the width of the stairwell where we were passing each other. When I asked him in return, he said, "Fine", but then paused, and I said, "Really?" ;D At dinner w/ a few of the other young teachers on Friday night, one of them asked me, "Do you think the teachers at Ohrui Chu are friendly to you?" Um, aah...what should I say?? Ehhh to..."I think they're nice...but not friendly. Tatoeba, Tamura Sensei brings me bread regularly, and Okada Sensei bought me peach tea and a kanji reader...so they're really nice to me. But on a daily basis they don't greet me. If I don't ask how they are, they'll NEVER ask me first." [I will soon post a letter I wrote to the teachers (not for them to see, just for me to express) regarding this a few months ago.] I explained that in America everyone asks, "How are you?" If you work with someone you don't even like that much, you will still ask, "How are you?" But here, people don't ask that...so I don't think they're friendly. "Or maybe Japanese people are friendly in a different way."-- Now I'm just being polite and open-minded. Yoshii Sensei said (in Japanese), 'Okay from now on I will ask you!' He also brought up and we discussed how Japanese people think the right answer to the question, "How are you?" is "I'm fine. Thank you. And you?" (more on this later!!! I'm overwhelmed at trying to tackle this subject in print, so I've left it yet untouched.) He said that when I ask him how he is he says, "Fine, thank you." but that sometimes he's NOT fine. To this I replied-- with a little bit of sadness in my heart-- "I know!" I told him that he can say other things...like "I'm tired", "I'm great", and I taught him the phrase "I'm stressed out!" Today he followed up his "fine" by saying he wasn't stressed out. よかった。
Five: I received a "Congratulations!" (on your wedding) card today. :) How charmingly pleasant. And unexpected. It was from "Shirley" (spoken in a loud, high-pitched voice...with the last syllable elongated and pronounced "ay"), the tea lady. Her real name is Nakazato San. She wears rose-colored glasses, literally. And today I noticed that the sticker w/ the prescription strength on it is still on one of the lenses. She speaks to me in fluent Japanese, and for some reason expects-- and seems to fully believe-- that I can understand. I'm amazed...I have no idea why she thinks this. I mean, she barely pauses for a breath when I repeat unknown words questioningly and open my dictionary to search for them. I only look up about every 11th word I don't know...because she is on a roll, and she is not stopping for me to understand her. I think she thinks I'm fluent or something...or, I don't know. (But I'm not.) Anyways, today she gave me the wedding congratulations card as a thank you card. I'm sure she doesn't even know what the word "Congratulations" is...she-- like everyone here-- just likes to see English in print...and she thinks the houses on the front of the card are kirei (pretty), not realizing that the one in the middle with the cross on top is a wedding chapel. I loved, LOVED receiving this card! She got one of the English teachers to help her, and she carefully penned, "Dear Mya San, Thank you very much for your Christmas card. I'm keeping it. Yukie Nakazato" And she told me that she was so happy to receive my Christmas card and that she showed it to her husband. Really, this one interaction and card could have made my month...yet it came bundled with so many other wonderful moments today.
Lastly for today-- Six: I ate shark for lunch today. It was school lunch.
Yesterday I went shopping in Tokyo. I bought Tide and a big* box of cereal. HA! ;D I know these are not what people typically think of when they hear the phrase "shopping in Tokyo", but I can't think of anything I could have bought that would have made me happier than these two essentials. I was there with my friend James...in the international grocery store we laughed about how excited we were to find such basic items as laundry detergent we can identify and cleaning products whose labels we can read. Here they really are rare luxuries found only in select places. We were in the uppity Roppongi district where the grocery store was full of people (ambassadors and such) wearing diamonds like they were going to a gala, and the parking lot was full of BMWs and Audis.
*By "big" I mean a box of cereal that would be considered "normal" size at home, but here is exorbitant compared to the "normal" size Japanese cereal** boxes that last me about 4 days.
**Note of Interest: You know how the cereal boxes at home usually have serving suggestions like, "add strawberries" or "sprinkle on top of yogurt"? Well, in Japan the serving suggestions show pictures of the cereal drizzled with salad dressing and mixed with lettuce and tomatoes.
