Belated Birthday Blogging

There's us with that stalwart of Japanese animation, the giant robot, this character appearing in the film Laputa by Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps the most famous animator in Japan. Studio Ghibli, which he founded, was responsible for 2001's magnificent 千と千尋の神隠し, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (released in the West as "Spirited Away") amongst other notable releases.

We've long been admirers of his work, so for Hayley's birthday, we went to the Ghibli Art Museum, well worth the thousand yen price.

...and now we're on holiday...in fact we're going to Kyoto on monday...watch this space...

...it's been a while...

...and I have plenty of stuff to write about life in Japan...but I've just found this meme from Chicken Yoghurt, asking what you were doing on the 20th of March 2003, when the current Iraq War started.

Hayley, Chris & I had just arrived in Barcelona for a short holiday. No sooner had we dropped our bags off at the hostel, than we found a colossal group of protesters, converging in a square to march. Even after we had got off the plane, we had seen banners denouncing the war hanging from apartment windows. We joined the march for a while. I remember feeling relieved and elated that people in another country were as opposed to it as I.

Another Graduation...

The year seems to have passed in the blink of an eye, but at the same time dragged like a leaden coat and tails. The proceedings were just as emotional as last year, but we were graced with no less than three teachers wearing Hakama. Pictured is Endo Sensei, a teacher of Japanese who sits next to me, and one of the special needs teachers, whose name I haven't caught yet.


As is the way with these things, everybody filed into the ostentatiously decorated gym, applauded whilst one hundred and fifty students marched slowly to their seats (by the end of two out of four classes, I was desperate to stop clapping), possibly daydreamed whilst those same students were presented with certificates, and almost certainly fell asleep during the Koucho sensei's (Principal's) speech. Notable this year was the fact that the farewell procession of sobbing third graders went out through the sports ground. By the time that had been organised, most of them had cheered up.



I signed a lot of year books, posed for an inordinate number of pictures, had a very tasty bento, complete with sekihan (rice steamed with sweet red beans) and then...nothing...

Long term readers of this blog will be aware of my most common complaint with work. For those of you who have come here by accident (and have made it this far), regardless of my workload or the actual presence of students, I'm required to stay on school grounds until 4:30. Usually I use this as an opportunity to really hammer my Japanese studies, but today (and days like it in the past) a cloudy block descended, rendering me incapable of concentration due to the sheer absurdity of it all. Why was I there? What purpose did it serve?

I sat there for a while and actually managed to get a bit of study done, but that niggling sense of being able to do it at home kept knocking. Then teachers started leaving at the morally reprehensible time of 2:30, and I began to question my sanity.

At the end of each day, I'm supposed to get a stamp on my time sheet from the Vice Principal (Kyoto Sensei). At Elementary School, where I usually finish at 1pm, I can coax permission to leave from the Kyoto by handing them my time sheet for the stamp, which invariably ellicits the salutation "O tsukare sama deshita," which literally means "honorific tired person was" and kind of means "very good day at work, you must be tired, (I'm) go(ing) home". Faced with another couple of hours of enraged thumb twiddling, I readied my paperwork for the walk up to the Kyoto's desk, only to be stopped by one Kamihara sensei, a Social Studies teacher for whom I have tremendous respect, not least of all for his affable charisma, who suggested we go to the gym and practice Kendo. Strike me down with a bamboo sword if I didn't say yes.

Kendo, simply put, involves donning cumbersome and visibility-reducing armour, before bashing your opponent with a big stick and shouting at them. There are three strike points, the head, wrist and body (or rather, right hip). Kamihara sensei is very good.

Kendo might look simple, but precision is the key. Kamihara sensei was really walloping me - I could feel it with the blows he rained down on my head - but I emerged relatively bruise free. The armour is pretty solid, and a direct hit will do little more than ring in your ears. I however have all the precision of a rabid elephant on a motorcycle, as Kamihara sensei's right hip can no doubt testify.

That done, he suggested we have a bout of Aikido which I am genuinely interested in. Quintessentially a self defense martial art, Aikido relies upon using the energy expended by potential attackers back on themselves. Kamihara sensei is also remarkably good at that, flooring me several times during our spat. I returned to the teachers room an hour later, sweaty, bruised and in the highest of spirits...

...until the Kyoto sensei (who can't speak a lick of English) asked an English teacher what I was doing today. That ruffled me a bit because I can actually speak Japanese. Said English teacher didn't ask me, rather she said she didn't know, and we should ask a different English teacher. Bear in mind that I am within spitting distance of these people. Off goes the Kyoto to find this other teacher, whilst I ask the English teacher if there was anything I could help with. She looked me in the eye and shook her head. I held my gaze, and she eventually came clean, not that there was anything to bloody well come clean about - grrr! I hate this country sometimes.

Peculiar day, highs, lows, tears, laughter, civility, lack of and bashing people with sticks. I'm going out with Hayley for her birthday.