wow...

Sacka-poo-poo – Japanese?

Posted: 31 Mar 2010 08:13 PM PDT

Q: Hey, I think this website it great! I love the Japanese race! I think they are beautiful. Now, a friend told me that the Japanese call nappies/diapers “sack-a-poo-poo” (pronunciation) – is this true? or was she messing around? – Alice

A:  Yes, it’s 100% true!  Nappies/diapers are called サカプープー　”sack a poo poo” in Japanese!!!

It`s been a while...

I can`t remember when I updated on the blog last... I vaguely remember having last written something about a travelling clown troupe, a man with a dog mask, and a chubby kid in a red halter top singing background during a cover of an Eric Clapton song. Oh, that`s right: it must have been around Christmas time. Ah, nothing like that special charm of the holiday`s to get you in the spirit for a Christmas blog update for family and friends.

 

Unfortunately, I`ve got to say, the writing has trailed off a bit since then because it doesn`t really feel like much is happening around here anymore. It feels, strangely, like we`re just living in Japan. The last two months have really passed as though we were living anywhere, and life has been somewhat normal and boring; which, in its own way, is a really weird experience.

 

We`ve certainly had our struggles and our ups and downs, at one point in February we were really ready to abandon ship and get on the next flight home. But these kinds of days always pass, stubbornly, and the general feeling is such that it`s getting harder and harder to find those things that make me think "wow, I have to write home about this."

 

Here`s a poignant example, from another ALT three towns away. He had a cousin staying with him for some time in January. During this time they went to experience a Japanese "purikura," or photo booth. Basically, this is one of those places where you sit in a booth and pay like 2 or 3 bucks and it takes a series of pictures of you and your friends. You can then proceed to decorate the photo in interesting ways. It`s a really popular activity in Japan and you can find these booths just about everywhere lots of people congregate. So they did this one or two times during the friend`s stay and at the end of the trip, as the friend was packing for the return flight home, they wondered what they should do with all these random photo-booth purikura pictures they had. The ALT beamed about how they would make awesome souvenir presents to give to friends back home. The friend gave him a strange look in response and said something to the effect of, "Dude, these things are really weird. Adult men don`t do things like this back home. I don`t think I`m going to show these to anyone." At which point, the ALT realized Japan had changed the way he was seeing the world...

 

Basically, it`s getting hard to recognize what should feel weird and what should feel normal. WHICH IS SO FREAKING WEIRD! Seriously, take a second to imagine grown men in business suits tearing up as they huddle closely together around a karaoke box, drunk, belting out Michale Jackson`s "We are the world." Weird, right? Now...try to imagine what would have to happen to your mind for that to seem completely mundane... And that`s what`s going on in my mind, everyday. WHAT THE HELL!?

 

I was telling some friends the other day that I came here expecting to "learn about " another culture... What I meant by that was I expected to see all of these "interesting" differences between my culture and Japanese culture, review them, and then allow them to inform how I live my life, taking the parts I liked and leaving behind those I don`t. Something like this does happen in some small way, but for the most part what I`ve learned is that culture is hardly reasonable, you can`t review it, and you surely can`t decide much having to do with it. Culture washes over you everywhere, it`s always three steps ahead of you, and you are really left to decide relatively little within the context that your culture has already prescribed for you. Truly experiencing a culture other than your own, then, changes you in ways that you could never expect to change yourself. It changes you in a way that has little to do with your own thoughts and opinions and hopes and dreams.

 

Another interesting point I want to briefly pull from this is that each of us is a culture. We are all our own unique expression of values and norms and ways of being in the world. Experiencing a foreign culture has so much strength perhaps only because of the sheer number of differences, or the number of individuals with unique sets of worldviews that vary so dramatically from our own. But if each of us is our own culture, then merely interacting with, trully experiencing (the kind of experiencing we usually reserve for "unique" or "exotic" moments, which command our full attention and plenty of patience), even the people right next to us, has the power to change us in ways that we could never expect to change ourselves.

 

And now, for a list of the stuff we`ve done in the past few weeks:

went to Oshima island to watch our friend Tiffany run a half marathon, which she ran with a sprained ankle. dang.

On, Valentines Day, we went to Oshima Island to pick mikan (mandarin oranges) on our friends` small farm. 

We threw a small pizza party with some kids and friends who take lessons with Erin, and we played Uno. I think there`s some pretty funny video online from this party. 

naked man festival in okayama and little villiage. For a definition of "Naked Man Festival", see Erin`s new Facebook profile picture... This was an experience that still definitely felt weird. I think we`re only staying a year so that we don`t go again next year and find that even this seems normal now... You have to draw a line somewhere.

ballroom dancing and hiroshima day--> Best day trip EVER. Erin went ballroom dancing with friends and I wandered aimlessly through Hiroshima AND we found a BUFFET DINNER that evening. If America has made one contribution to the betterment of mankind, it`s the proliferation of the buffet dinner.

taking chris' parents to hiroshima--> this was Erin`s duty. The day went great from what I hear, minus losing the wallet and passport at the Shinkansen station (literally the best place in the entire world to lose a wallet, got it all back within minutes of learning it was missing) and then getting on the wrong Shinkansen train and being halfway accross the wrong side of Japan before realizing it. But what`s a trip to Japan without some fate-defying mistakes?

russian food--> Awesome meal at the Russian and Wine restaurant two towns away. We had our first Russian meal in Tokuyama, Japan...

u.s. military base--> Pacifist, anti-militaristic ideals be damned. There`s buffet breakfast to be had at the Iwakuni Marine Base on Sunday mornings! My first taste of biscuits and gravy in six months had me moments away from enlisting... I didn`t because Erin assured me she would find a way to make biscuits in our apartment. But my patience is limited...

yes party--> YES is the Yanai English Society that Erin and I, and a few other ALTs, participate in. We had a party, with a buffet dinner. America scores again.

brand new kimono--> Erin now has a full collection of kimono that she knows how to put on herself. Probably one of only a handful of white people in the world who can say that... How many other`s do you know?

Tiff bought ticket to come--> April 28, Tokyo, it is ON. We`ll meet Tiff in Tokyo and then take a two day ferry ride down to Kyushu for some volcanoe viewing! Whoah!

okinawa--> fun in the sun! In one week we get to escape to the Hawaii of Japan! Look it up on Google Earth Satellite and pray that little speck of land doesn`t just slide right off the edge of the sea-cliff it seems to be perched on. That`s a scary place to be for a couple of midwesterners who are used to being securely landlocked.

Easter Party!--> Erin mentioned in a previous email that we are going to try and hold an Easter Egg hunt/buffet lunch (cha-ching) for some of the kids we know. Care packages in support of this venture are much appreciated. Hooray cultural exchange!

Whew! See what I mean? Things are getting so boring and mundane around here :-P.

 

Love to you all,

 

 

 

Isaac and Erin

--
http://loveandengrish.blogspot.com/

Easter Stuffs

Isaac and I would like to send out a plea to any of you who can send us a package by April 2nd. We are having an Easter Egg hunt and we need egg dye and plastic eggs to hide. We would also love it if anyone would send any Easter treats and decor for the party. We thought it would be funny/fun to have an Easter Party. Because let's be honest: hiding eggs, eating chocolate bunnies and celebrating a guy being raised from the dead is pretty strange, let alone to someone from Japan. They are really excited by the way.

So a big thanks to anyone who can help us out.
Thanks and Love!
Erin and Isaac

--
http://loveandengrish.blogspot.com/
http://picasaweb.google.com/EEHoug

Fe-buuurrrrr-ary

Whoa- that's right, a blog update! It's currently the day after Valentine's Day here in Yanai Japan. It's cold, wet and rainy(a little). I am currently sitting on my butt writing the blog update because it is the only way I can justify not getting up and doing something with my lazy self. If I write the blog I don't have to exercise today, get my logic?



So here we go- it's been nagging at us for a while, not writing on here, because we have actually experienced some pretty amazing stuff. As you may know my family came in on December 26th, the day after Christmas and we met them in Tokyo. It was an awesome experience seeing them here. We couldn't wait to hug and kiss, chit chat, laugh, cry......but what Isaac and were the most excited about was inducing as much culture shock as possible in hopes of simulating the last 5 months we had experienced in our time here. Ya know, share the love and the misery... :o)

Were we successful? Yes we were. You wanna know how we measured? I'll tell you:
We simply asked ourselves these questions-

How many times did their jaws drop open in shock and surprise? 93
How many times did they ask why? 101
How many times did they ask, "Erin, what is happening?"? 46
How many times did they ask what they were eating? Every time they ate- except when we went to Mac D's.
How many times did we visit McDonalds: 20 (that number is accurate)
How many times did we visit McDonalds in one day: 3
How many times did they ask if there was really fish in this_____? 53
How many times did they utter the phrase "What the F---?" 86
How many times did they vomit? Leigha took one for the team by barfing 12 times in a hole in the ground toilet.....yeah she's a champ.
How many beers did they drink? too many
How much Sake did they drink? a lot
How much Sake did my mom drink? more than anyone
How many inappropriate jokes were made? alot- especially at the end.

This is a basic measure of the culture shock they went through. They also went through the other end of culture shock- the part Isaac and I are only now starting to go through. This is when everything is idealized and seen through the lens of rose colored asian lovin glasses:

Wow it's so clean here. Wow people are so nice. Wow the service is amazing. Wow people are so efficient. Wow people dress better here. Wow this _____ is so smart. Wow they take everything and make it better! Wow they have better______. Wow the women are so beautiful in Japan (This is accurate, sorry men) Wow they are such good drivers. Wow it's so safe here. WOW! WOW! WOW!

These things are all true of course- and it was fun to have all these conversations and experiences with my fam while we traveled around the beautiful country of Japan.

We managed to hit up Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Mt Fuji's hole in the ground toilets, Shinkansen high speed trains, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Miyajima, and the great city of YANAI! We spent one week on the road and then the last week in Yanai traveling around to the various towns and islands off the coast. It was ideal. Especially the last week where my family got the chance to meet all the amazing people we have made friends with in our time here.

They left January 8th and since then Isaac and I have been feeling up- that sounds bad....I just mean we are feeling like we can make it here. After they left Isaac and I decided we were pretty sure we only want to stay for one year. Even though we have been having a difficult time adjusting to life here we had a difficult time making the decision. As you all probably know better than us right now- the economy sucks in the U.S. and Isaac and I are fairly terrified about what will await us when we return. We have pretty much accepted we will be jobless for at least a year......yikes. We get paid pretty well in Japan, life is relatively easy and at the very least it's extremely comfortable and safe.....really safe. Not to mention all the awesome friendships we have made..... So it was difficult to check the "no" box on Isaac's re contracting form.

Speaking of safe- Isaac and I read about all the shootings happening in America right now and we are honestly a little terrified to come home. People are killing each other all the time in America. It's like one troubled person to the next decides to Rambo out on everyone around them. And their weapon of choice: a freakin shotgun, AK47, grandma's pistol you name it. It's no wonder whenever we ask if people will come and visit us in America they tell us they are too scared to come, "No I am afraid I will die if I go there." That's what Americans say about the Congo or Afghanistan, and it's what the rest of the world says about us.....makes you think. I mean, a lot of people in Japan literally think everyone in the states owns a gun, and at first I laughed at this- but now, after reading the U.S. headlines and living in such a safe place I started to wonder myself: Does everyone have a gun? And I find myself wondering how I managed to stay alive all these years.

Needless to say, I think re-entry will be difficult but Isaac and I are looking forward to it. We plan on coming back in July-August, of which we explain more later. And with us we hope to bring some high school and middle school kids that I have been teaching and whose families we have become good friends with. So yay- cute Japanese kids eager to speak english who are NOT as terrified as we are about coming to America. haha. I hope some of you all can meet them when we get back.

So now we are enjoying the time we have left in Japan. January and February have been damn cold but relatively mild compared to you all buried in the snow over there in 'Merca. We have been to see a piano recital, Avatar in 3-D with some Japanese friends, the Mantani Family. We have gone to see some cool temples and shrines, we have hung out with other english teachers. And we have been having fun teaching our classes and I have been having fun hopping around from hobby club to hobby club getting in as much as I can before we leave.

Which catches us up to this past weekend. Valentine's Day was one of the best we have had. We spent Saturday reading, eating good food, watching movies, and writing. Sunday we went out for dinner to a new restaurant- always an adventure, and then headed to Oshima Island to help our friends the Kimura family pick Mikan- oranges! We spent a couple hours filling crates with oranges in the rural island of Oshima next to a hundred year old Shinto shrine- yeah, Happy Valentine's day. Then we went with the family to an awesome curry restaurant that overlooks the sea. It was wonderful.

We have some things coming up that we are looking forward too: A Naked Man Festival (yessss!) A visit from our friends Sarah Johnson and her boyfriend, more hanging out with our Japanese friends, ballroom dancing with one of my students in Hiroshima, another Tai-Chi festival, and a little vacation for Isaac and I on Shikoku island- a tour of onsens (hot springs) and rural country roads. This will be the first trip Isaac and I have taken alone since the wedding- a kind of honeymoon I guess, we are thrilled. We will be renting a car and hitting the roads of Shikoku Island to see one of Japan's hidden regions: Iya Valley. We will be sure to share more when it comes.

And in the distant future: A long visit from Tiffany Black May-June (horay!!!!). A trip to Turkey, and then finally a trip home. Time is flyin'.

We love hearing from you if you get the chance. Thanks for taking the time to read this and thanks for being patient as we get our updates out there.

February is cold here, but March comes bearing the infamous cherry blossom trees. Only 2 more weeks and we will have survived a winter with no central heating.

Love and Hugs
E & I

Pictures

Hey Everyone,

 

I know I am lame and don't write on the blog as often or....well, at all. But at least I upload pictures and let you know when they are available! yay! So, if interested, please check out the latest pics. There are a lot. My family came to Japan and we spent the holidays hopping from place to place exploring. So please, check them out. I will do my best to go through them and write out the locations and descriptions, but....don't hold your breath because I may get tired and stop half way through. Like I said, this isn't something I am very good at.

 

Hope everyone had a good holiday season and is looking forward to a New Year and bright future! (yay) 

We miss you all and look forward to seeing you when we return!

Love and Hugs

Erin 
http://picasaweb.google.com/EEHoug

 

me-ri ku-ri-su-ma-su to all

Merry Christmas from Japan.

 

Erin and I are hopping on a night bus to Tokyo 15 minutes after I get out of work, and from there we`ll be hopping around the country for a week, so it`s not looking like I`m going to be able to make Christmas phone calls like I`d hoped. So I just wanted to drop a quick note to everyone and let you know that we`re thinking about you all and miss you all somethin terrible, especially on this day.

 

As I write this Santa is making the rounds in North America finally. He was here about twelve hours ago but he didn`t leave much for anyone from what I can gather. Something about his sleigh being full of stuff for the Americans.

 

I, on the other hand, am, for the first time, ringing in a bright and cheery Christmas morning here in my office at school. In fact, I celebrated Christmas this morning by giving out the gift of As on about 25 essays I needed to finish grading before the break. I felt rather cheery about that.

 

That`s not to say that there`s been no Christmas celebration in Japan. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Japanese do Christmas like they do so many Western traditions that have taken hold throughout the country: on Speed. As early as mid-October shelves at the local Mr. Max (think Wal-Mart with udon and a cuter pet store) started filling up with what I guessed were the Christmas decorations that Chinese companies couldn`t sell to America last year (the stuff that even the people with blow up Snow Globes in their yards think of as tacky). The rule of thumb seems to be that if it doesn`t somehow max out all of the five senses, it`s not good enough for Christmas.

 

After weeks of anticipation we finally got to see all of these Christmas decorations in their full glory on Wednesday night when we attended a "choir concert" that one of Erin`s students was singing in. We forgot our camera, and that will go down as the single greatest regret in my entire life because it`s never been more true that there simply are NO words. I mean I could tell you that at one point, at this Christmas choir concert, a Jimi Hendrix cover was sandwiched between two Eric Clapton songs, played by a local band named 2theMax, while a pirate clown with green dreads danced with a cross dressing chubby kid in a red halter top, both of whom seemed to be part of clown troupe led by the night`s MC/photographer who was wearing a brown dog mask. I could tell you that, but would it really help you understand the experience of Christmas in Japan? No.

 

I will tell you, however, that I think December 23 will go down as the day in this adventure where my feelings for Japan finally started to resemble less of a confused, timid fear and moreso a deep abiding appreciation for strangeness.

 

Well, I`m off to try and make some final preparations. We`re meeting family in Tokyo in 24 hours! That, I think, will probably never be a true sentence again in my life. From there it`s on to Mt. Fuji, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, and, the highlight of every tourist`s Japanese adventure, Yanai, Yamaguchi, Japan.

 

Much love everyone! Me-ri-ku-ri-su-ma-su!

--
http://loveandengrish.blogspot.com/

jyu-ichi-gatsu

That`s Japanese for November! Though now it's already jyu-ni-gatsu...

 

I have two drafts for entries from this month that will have to wait. I just haven`t found the opportunity to fully hash either one of them out up to this point. You see, I`ve had quite a full plate for this past week, constantly bouncing back and forth between studying the slight variations in shades of matte gray that covers my desk and every once in a while standing up to walk around the teacher`s room frantically, so that everyone gets the impression that I`m equally as stressed out about this week as them. That`s what I feel the need to write about right now.

 

So it`s testing week for high schoolers here in Yamaguchi-ken. You can tell it`s testing week because the droves of kids marching from the train station to school are making the morning commutes from automatic-muscle-memory, their eyes and minds buried in the books relevant to that day`s test subjects. What this means for teachers is that regular classes are cancelled in favor of half day test-o-thons where everyone runs around looking really stressed for the first half and then for the other half of the day they bury themselves in these monstrous stacks of papers and use only small, red pens to dig themselves out. It takes hours and looks terribly tramautizing for everyone. Anyway, as usual, I`m not completely clear about what exactly is going on around me from moment to moment. But, as usual, I know that it`s important and everyone is really worked up about it.

 

What testing week means for me, though, is absolutely n-o-t-h-i-n-g.

 

I`ve been through a week like this before. In fact, during my first month here there was a testing week, but I only vaguely remember it. Obviously, during my first few weeks here there was a lot going on and paying attention to variations in my workday somehow managed to fall through the cracks.

 

This time, however, I saw testing week coming. I didn`t know what to make of it, but as I watched that big, blank, empty page on my weekly planner move closer and closer I felt something akin to the feeling you get when you jump out of an airplane and you don't notice you've left behind your parachute until you're close enough to the ground to realize that it's really going to hurt when you hit it.

 

So I had the weekend and Thanksgiving came and went (more about that later). Then, like always, I sat down at my desk on Monday, 8:10AM, casually pushed the power button on my computer and pull out my weekly planner while it loads... I open the planner... Nothing but blankness stares back at me...blankly. And I stare blankly back at the blankness, and it stares back at me. And... Hmmmmmm... The wheels started turning. Nothing to do this week. Nothing to do... Hmmmm... Maybe I`ll just get online here and check the news... (10 minutes later) Maybe I`ll just get online here and check the news again... (repeat, for eight hours, then repeat again, this time for three days). Truly, I don`t mean to oversell it when I put it this way, I don`t think my time has ever felt so entirely meaningless in all of my life. Even compared to that summer after freshman year where my job was literally sweeping the dust off of the lumberyard parking lot (which, in retrospect, actually was a good job).

 

Gradually, excruciatingly, the week passed in shades of gray: I`d awake in the gray light of the morning and put on my grayest suit, eat a gray breakfast, put on my gray shoes and sit on my gray bike seat, pedaling through gray air on my way to gray building where I`d put my gray jacket in a gray locker and go sit in my gray chair at my gray desk and tap away mindlessly at gray computer keys until gray matter dripped out of my ears and piled up on my desk in front of me, where no one noticed it because it was gray on a gray background. I became depressed.

 

If you know me, you could've seen this coming. You would know that I shamefully SUCK at having nothing to do. Unfortunately, I don't know me as well as you, so I didn't, and it SUCKED.

 

So, it's likely that you are by now wondering why I decided to make my November update about the most boring, meaningless week I've ever experienced. If you're not wondering, I'll help you: this was the month of Thanksgiving and of working on the farm at my agricultural school and of school festivals and trips to Hiroshima! Are you wondering yet? Because you need to be wondering for me to need to write the next part.

 

OK. I'm writing about this stupidly mundane experience because 1) it feels like much needed therapy to write about it because last week was seriously very tramautizing in the degree of pointlessness I experienced as time slowly ticked by and 2) it really says a lot about what I'm doing here in Japan and I think it might have been somewhat of a pivotal week for me in my time here. I'll say a couple of things about the latter and hopefully the first one will continue to take care of itself.

 

I came to Japan mostly for the job. Yes, I wanted to travel, but I could travel anywhere and (truth be told) hold no deep, abiding interest in the nation of Japan specifically beyond the fact that it is not the United States. Erin and I chose Japan, then, primarily because of the sweet career opportunity that the JET program represents. It's competitive, it pays well, and it's a huge, challenging adventure; a perfect fit for a freshly minted college graduate, right? Definitely right. Except there is no JET Program in any meaningful sense. To ask "what's it like to work for the JET program?" is in some ways similar to asking what it's like to work for a temp. placement agency. The only honest answer is "well, it really depends on a LOT of factors." That's because the JET program is only little more than the placement agency that gets you a job with a local school district or board of education. What your job is, then, depends almost entirely on what specific school or schools you end up in. Sometimes it is the "adventure in inter-cultural exchange" advertised on the JET program webpage, and sometimes it's...different than that.

 

When I got here, and for the first months I was living and working here, I definitely expected the "JET program" to be the adventure of a lifetime as, one could argue, it is advertised. I expected it to be like any job you get in that adventure: Congratulations, you're hired, here's your placement, here's what we expect, this is what your job is, you're not quite meeting our expectations, could you please do a little more of this and a little less of that, you're doing this really well, etc, etc, etc. Like any job, only with more amazing, awe-inspiring, life-changing inter-cultural learning and exchange happening. But the JET program isn't a job, it's a placement agency and what your job is is an entirely different question. My job, it turns out, is to show up for class on time, speak English when asked, and generally be foreign. The JET program does present the opportunity for adventure, of course, but this job is most definitely not the adventure...

 

To put it another way, what I finally learned in an agonizing fashion this week is that my job is basically entirely up to me. My school really doesn't expect anything of me besides being present during the work day and going to class when one is scheduled. That means that I have to truly come up with my own objectives and find ways to spend my own time if I want to take anything away from this opportunity. That was not my understanding of any of the Japanese way of doing things, Japanese schools, Japanese work-places, etc. In fact, it was so not what I expected that it really has taken me until this week to learn that what I do in this job is up to me.

 

Friday afternoon, I finally took all of this to heart and the day flew by as I started a craft project creating an English message center where I'll post weekly or monthly discussion questions and the kids can either post public responses or write personal messages to me. I'm really excited about it, and no one assigned it to me and no one ever would because no one has any idea what my job is supposed to be. It's supposed to be whatever I make it be. I`ve heard a big, strange sounding, conjunction of a word used to describe situations like this before. Supposedly, it`s valued by employers and most folks in general. I think it`s called being "self-directed." Hm.

 

Anyway, that`s what I learned this week.

 

Also, life is generally good and mundane. I`m still way up in the air about an actual career choice, and for some reason that seems to have been weighing down on me a lot lately. I can`t stop thinking about what I should be doing with my life after the JET program. Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

 

I`ve had the chance to milk a cow, tend to greenhouse tomatoes, plant flowers, feed a calf, and generally enjoy some other farm-related activities at my agricultural school. That`s definitely my favorite school. Erin and I got the chance to experience three different typs of Japanese festivals in one day on a day off this month. There will be more to say about that later.

 

And, Thanksgiving was awesome, both of them. For one we went over to another ALTs house and for the other we had this fusion-Japan-American Thanksgiving at the house of a retired Marine and his Japanese wife. Details to follow soon!

 

Keep keeping in touch! Love you guys!

--
http://loveandengrish.blogspot.com/