I heart Santa-san and Reindeer-San!

On the 11th grade final exam at my nerd school, I asked my kids what they want for Christmas. Among the iPods, PCs, and book answers were the following:

1. "I want to eat the biggest cake in the world!" Awesome! I would say more than half of my kids said they wanted cake for Christmas. Easily pleased, right??? The Japanese tradition of Christmas is to eat fried chicken (usually from KFC) and Christmas cake (strawberry shortcake, basically). Also, Christmas is a "romantic" holiday akin to Valentine's Day, so you spend it with your boyfriend or girlfriend, not your family. The best part is that they think that this is the bona fide American thing to do. Oh, so much to teach about our beloved culture!
2. "I want as much money as possible because money can buy you everything except love." A lot of kids wrote money too, but one of my wise guys (his name is "Yohei" and introduced himself by waving "Yo!" and then "Hey!"- instant cred in my book!) is apparently a Beatles fan!
3. "I want a pen so I can study." This kid's demanding, right? However, he got a really low score (a 10 out of 40, by far the lowest in the grade!) so I wrote (with like 11 smileys) "Dude, I will get you a pen!"
4. "I want a very cute girlfriend because Christmas will be a more happy day." Hilarious!
   
5. "I want to spend time with my friends because I want to enjoy the day in order to forget the sadness I haven't a girlfriend." This was actually written by #5's best friend! I wrote "good luck!" on both their papers.
6. The best one of all (written by one of the top students who's probably on his way to a top law school): "I want nothing because in Japan, many people have financial difficulties....I hope it will be better. (It's a joke. I want books for study.)" Amazingly deadpan! It would depress me if I weren't impressed by his mastery of sarcasm- ellipsis points even!
   

To end, here is an impossibly cute picture...Not only did it make my students gasp with "Meccha Kawaii's!" even the Vice-Principal couldn't help but point and become overhelmed by a cuteness-induced giggle! (One of the boys: "Is it me or is Reindeer-san too cute?")

Just Your Average Weekend in the 'Pan

Passed by some elementary school kids bullying one boy. Decided to go over and act teacherly. As I'd never done this before, I was supremely surprised that the kids immediately stopped, jumped to their feet, smiled and yelled things like "I'm ok!" "I love you!" and "We are babies!"

How did these kids get so good at English???

Let's Enjoy a Happy Halloween Time!

Happy Halloween, peepz!

This year, I'm going as this fine young woman right here:
Gokusen- the Gangster Teacher!

She teaches math AND kicks bad guys' butts!

So at the end of each exam, I ask the student a "fun" (for me) extra credit question. It helps keep me sane when I'm grading! (For the last final, I asked for the 2008 Presidential Candidates: Very few kids knew McCain (or "Makein" in Japanese) but lots of kids knew "Balack Obama" and "Hirari" (Oh, that wonderful L/R mixup!)!

So the 10th Grade Midterm Exam Question was: "What Halloween Costume would you choose and why?"

• "A pumpkin. It's very cute." (answer from several male students)
• "A zombie. It's very cute." (answer from several female students)
• "[Female J-pop singer] Ayumi Hamazaki. I respect her a lot." (answer from a male student)
• "A Ghost. It's very cheap."
• "What will you be for Halloween, Pam-sensei? Will you go to a party?" (I gave him a point for appealing to my vanity! And actually writing something....)
  
• Other popular ones: Jack Sparrow/Johnny Depp, Dorakura (a.k.a. Dracula - took me a while to figure that one out!), cat, and one kid even said he would be the Grim Reaper!! ("shinigami" in Japanese. "shinu" = death and "kami" = god)
  
• A couple students said this to me in person, "I can't dress up for Halloween! I'm Japanese!"
  

So what will you be for Halloween? Will you go to a party?

Cosby Got Nothing on My Kids!

Some random stories about my crazy kids... As some of you may know, I teach at two very different high schools. One's a high academic school which has a reputation for being "the nerdiest school in Shiga Prefecture" (prefecture = Japan's answer to a state) and the other one is a lower level school with kids who are known for being kinda punky.

At my punky school:

• One of the kids comes into class one morning and goes:"Hey, do you remember me? On the train yesterday, I saw you! " (He crouches down, waves and yells "Hey!") "That was ME!!!"

• A pair of friendly, middle aged women sell sweet and savory pastries from the back of a minivan in the school courtyard. One boy, whose usual stoic expression rivals that of my dad, says "Gee, I wish I could eat everything! It all looks so good!" with this genuine shy smile. The women were super flattered and happy and I stood there beaming at him with my hand over my heart.

At my nerdy school:

• One boy was walking to school all slowly and such. His friend comes up behind him, offers to take his heavy bag, puts it in his bike basket*, and rides away on his bike as Stevie Wonders' "That's What Friends Are For" plays in the background.

• As I'm walking out of class, a boy hands me his speech to correct. I walk downstairs to my desk and just as I sit down, the same boy asks me to give him back his paper. I wanted to be like "Um, dude, you gave it to me literally 2 minutes ago!" But then I asked his name, looked among the corrected speeches, and lo and behold...there was his red ink covered paper! As I hand it back to him, I go "Holy carp...Yamazaki...and Yamazaki... your (identical twin) brother just..." and before I could finish, he shot me one of those tired "heard it a million times before" looks! (I bet you thought I couldn't tell my students apart, huh? No way! I can recognize the faces, names and socials of all 800+ uniform-wearing kiddos!)
  

*Yes, most bikes in Japan are "mama-charis" a.k.a. "Mama Chariots" with baskets in the front and sometimes back and with 0-3 speeds. Sadly, no ribbons.

Imbibing J-style!

Drinking alcoholic beverages, much like in uh, every country, is of utmost importance here. So here are some words to get you through the good times and, if you're like the poor "salary man" (Japanese businessman) above, maybe the bad times! (Can anyone read what the key chain says?)

Nomitomodachi (no-mee-toh-moh-da-chee) = literally "drinking" (nomi) "friends" (tomodachi)- basically means drinking buddies.

e.g. At one of our school enkais (drinking parties for offices- usually kind of formal), I mentioned that two of the (older male) teachers always seem to hang together at work parties. One of the other English teaches said, "Those two are what we call Nomitomodachi!"

Mo ippai onegaishimasu (moe EE-pie oh-ne-guy-shee-mahs) = one more (drink) please; the counting system is crazy here, so the ending for "long, thin, cylindrical items" (like a beer bottle) is "hai" (ippai = one bottle, nihai = two bottles, sanbai= three, yonhai = four, etc.)

Kanzo ga yabai (kahn-zo gah ya-bye) = literally means "[someone's] liver is in danger" Basically, that you drank so much, you're like, totally gonna get cirrhosis! As you may remember, "yabai" means "risky/dangerous" - so to the kiddies, it means "that's (dangerously) cool!"

Nomisuke (noe-mee-skay) = boozer, someone who drinks a lot.

Taikobara (tie-koh-ba-ruh) = pot belly/beer belly- what you get if you drink too much! Comes from "taiko" meaning drum- taiko drumming is a popular hobby here- and "bara" which means stomach.

Futsukayoi (foo-tsoo-ka-yoy) = hangover
e.g. It's funny- at the convenient store, they sell all kinds of drinks that are supposed to help you recover (one of them has a blonde woman wearing a business suit and glasses on it! Hilar.)

Koukai suru (KOH-kye soo-roo) = to feel regret

Honto ni sumimasen/honto ni gomen nasai (hone-toe nee soo-mee-mah-sen/goh-men nuh-sye): I'm REALLY sorry! If you wanna do it properly, make sure to do a quick, deep (I'm talking 45 degree angle here) bow that you keep until you hear your apology accepted!

Now go on, kids, get yourself some salary man friends and head off to E. 7th Street!

Let's Talk about Skeevy McGees!

Since I think your (read: Lux and Stine's) maturity level is about the same as mine, I hope you'll appreciate today and tomorrow's (a surprise topic!) posts. Today we'll be talking about...

hentai (henn-tye): meaning "transformed," it's pretty much your run-of-the-mill pervert; usually said to people you know when they're acting creepy (but as a joke).

e.g. When any non-Japanese male here encounters a Japanese woman. Exaaactly.

sukebee (skay-bay): essentially, a lech.

e.g. There was a crazy guy here (who was super cool, but liked the sauce) and later into the night, he tended to flirt with everyone (regardless of gender, and the fact that he was married). He also had the habit of high fiving people and going "I'm Sukebee Jason!" Awesome.

chikan (chee-kahn): this is "the guy-on-the-subway-that-flashes-and-gropes-women," the highest echelon of the Japanese big perv.

e.g. We were getting off a crowded bus somewhere in the middle of suburban Kyushuu (the large Southerly island of Japan) and one of my friends (Jon) yells, "Chikan jenai yo!" (I'm not a pervert, really!) cos he had to touch like a jillion women on the way out. The entire bus of Japanese people cracked their shizz up.

seku hara (seh-koo-ha-rah): the shortened form of sexual harassment. People here love abbreviating English words into barely recognizable "Japanese" words (eakon = air conditioner, pasokon = Personal Computer, etc.)

e.g. It's pretty common to hear this when people who work together go out drinking. I've never heard it said as anything but a joke though! I guess it's pretty much the same as back home.

Age Is Just a Number...A Seriously Important Number

Japan has a weird relationship with age. You have no idea how many times I've met people and honestly could guess their age to be anywhere from 21 to 55. It's friggin' weird. So here are some age-related words!

Kurisumasu Keki (kris-mas kay-kee): Christmas cake

e.g. It's the delicious treat (seen below) enjoyed by Japanese people during the holidays. For some reason, they believe that Americans eat this and fried chicken (YES, I'm talking KFC here, people!) on Christmas!!

Anyway, it has another meaning...it means an unmarried woman after the age of 26. Because nobody wants Christmas Cake the day after no matter how sweet and pretty it looks! This is, what I like to call, LAME.

Himitsu (hee-mee-tsu): secret

e.g. You'd think that because of this horrible Christmas cake business, people would keep pretty quiet about their ages. Wrong (or "Chigau"!)!!! People ask me my age all the time- and people often like talking about how old they are. But also, being a foreign person here means that most things about your life are about as UNsecret as it gets. I have to admit though, it's kind of flattering to have people talk about all the random stuff I do everyday. Now I know how Britney feels!

Toshi desu kara (toe-shee dess kah-rah): Because I'm old.

e.g. I use this phrase all the time- it always gets laughs! Like I was at a barbecue the other day and some dude was like "Why aren't you drinking?" And I just said "Toshi desu kara." And he was like "Ehhhhhhh? You're younger than I am!" Maybe, but he doesn't have to worry about becoming a holiday pastry!

Extreme Slang Update!

Gomen (sorry)!!! I haven't updated in months! Sorry to all my loyal fans (or well, fan...Lux!)!

Here's some more slang to keep ya'll going. These are all "ki" words (get it? KEY WORDS? OMG.). Anyway ki or "気" means "feeling."

Kimoi (kee-moy): Gross!
e.g. I was hanging with the English Club at my school and one of the girls picks up this nasty thing off the ground (it looked like a bunch of old cigarettes stuck together) and goes- I'm not joking- "Oishiso!" (looks tasty!) Turns out it was a dessicated honeycomb...and people really do eat those! Anyway, when she put it in her bag, one of the other girls (who, by the way, is exactly like me when I was her age- totally a nerd but really energetic!! She's hilarious!!!) yelled, "KIMO!" (dropping the "i" makes it extra exclamation-y, I think!)

Kimazui (kee-ma-zoo-ee): Awkward; embarrassing
e.g. This is a word I use almost daily... which is about as often as I used the word awkward back home!

Kimochi (kee-mo-chee): emotion, feeling
e.g. So on my fave show ever (I am a total Japanese television addict now), Zettai Kareshi ("Absolute Boyfriend" or, its English title, "My Flawless Robot Boyfriend"), the main star is a robot designed to be the perfect man. As the show goes on, he develops human-like "kimochi" so his non-robot girlfriend actually begins to fall for him!!! Another phrase I learned from this show was "Konai de" (ko-nye-day) which means "Don't come near me!"
If you wanna watch it, you can go to veoh.com and download it! Below is the advert for it!
That's all for now! More to come!!!

And in other news, I get to be one of the Orientation Leaders for JET Orientation in Tokyo, so I get to- as fellow JET Katie P likes to say- freak out the squares!!! ("Squares" meaning incoming JETs!) That and I get to put that crazy enthusiasm ("genki"-ness here in Japan. OH!!! Another ki word!!!) to good use!

Yay! I hope to be better at this in the future- thank you to Lux for pushing me to start posting again!!!

Kawaii = Cute

This is a word I'm sure many of you know all too well- be it from watching 20 seconds of Japanese TV or from that Japanophile posterperson, Gwen Stefani. But just in case:

Kawaii (kah-wah-eee): cute; can be said about people, animals, cartoon animals, stuffed cartoon animals, and pictures of animals (particularly the cartoon kind)

I interrupt this word of the day message to say that Christina rocks!!! Thanks so much for the book (which I totally wishlisted on Amazon after you told me about it months ago)!!!! And I can't wait to Skype you while you can check out my "it doesn't really look like anyone is living there" apartment!!!! YAYYYYY!!! OK, I'm done now. Had to get it out.

OK, sorry back to business.

e.g.

Vinnie: (as soon as he closes the door of my bathroom) Ah! Kawaii!!!!!
Pam: Hey, what? What's kawaii?
Vinnie: Pam, uh... how many things in your bathroom could I possibly be talking about?!

Hm... I'm pretty sure he was talking about this:



p.s. That would be the same Vin from RU! He's teaching English over in Yokohama now (which is not far from Tokyo...but he was kind enough to come and hang in Kansai for a few days!).

Nazukashi = Nostalgic

So- if any of you guys remember (or knew me) back when I was studying at Bristol...you might remember how I morphed my AIM profile (remember those? hellz yeah, all the way back in 2003!) into a "British Slang Word of the Day." I usually tried to pepper it with stories of my local friends' verbal abuse and various awkward situations in which I'd managed to land myself. Things really haven't changed too much.

I enjoyed writing them every day so- how about a Japanese Word of the Day (a Nichi no Nihongo no Tango, if you will)? I figure the first one can bear reference to studying abroad the first time around so...

Nazukashi (nah-zoo-ka-SHEE) = Nostalgic

e.g. One night, I was at a bar in my tiny town called "Second Booze" (kickass name, I know!). This guy comes over and randomly starts talking to us. So he tells us that he lives in New York and he's here for the week and I’m like "Whuhhh? Where? When? Why? New York? Come talk to me!" Turns out- get this- not only did he just finish his Master's in Education at NYU, but we also met a couple times at Orientation! (As you may know, I worked at the international students office.) Crazy!

AND his dad used to work at the high school I currently work at (his parents are so cool, I heart them- they will be in many a future Word of the Day) AND my predecessor's predecessor just happened to be staying at their house that weekend so they called him up and I talked to the guy who had my job about four years ago. Weird night.

yet? WTF?” Wait for it…wait for it…>

So long story short, we become facebook friends. And he wrote on my wall telling me to do stuff around my apartment that he did when he was growing up (two blocks away). At the end, he goes “Wow, nazukashi! Nazukashi means nostalgic. It’s a useful word.”

Isn’t it?

Forgive me for the anticlimax. I swear, it’ll get better. And more succinct.

To Anyone that says the Japanese have no sense of humor...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZQmq5fjTG4o

OMG, this is hilarious!!! Believe it or not, this guy's stage name is actually "Hard Gay" (in Katakana- Japanese-ized- English). I think it would be too offensive to actually exist in the U.S. but you gotta love his style.

If you end up wanting to end every sentence with "Hooooooo!"- you are not alone!

Please tell me your thoughts! I will read them heartily when I get back from Korea!

Why I Love Japan!

So, as some of you may know, I wasn't really feeling being in Japan the past couple of weeks. I missed home WAY too much, my job situation became up in the air (more on that someday), and I just felt out of it and hermit-like. But, you may ask yourself, pray tell, then why is this post called, "Why I Love Japan"?

Cos I had the best weekend ever!!! While I think we've all tried hard to get involved with Japanese people (not in that way...ok, maybe for some people...) but we also tend to hang out with other foreigners and observe Nihon-jin like we're at the zoo. "I find it crazy how Japanese women walk like they have broken limbs!" or "What is up with these teenage boys and their magenta hair clips?" And the majority of Japanese people I come into regular contact with are between the ages of 15-18 and 35-60.

But three totally different situations allowed some interaction with some people my own age (and a little older!):

On Saturday afternoon, I took a long-arse train ride to Ibaraki, which is a town halfway between Osaka and Kyoto. I did a presentation on "Life in the U.S. of A." and "A 20 Minute version of the History and Culture of South Africa" for about 40 retirees. I was kind of dreading it, as I had been slammed at work and putting together a 90 min presentation kinda sucked. But they were AWESOME!!!! They totally reminded me of my parents and their friends- their English was fantastic (all of them were well traveled and the majority had lived several years abroad) and they were so cool. They even asked questions about politics and cultural differences and they were so up for talking about themselves and not shy. It definitely made me miss the 'rents though- and chats with my dad about whatever he heard on Larry King/read in our 1981 Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

Then after that, I went to Otsu (the biggest city in the Sheegs, our capital, not far from Kyoto) to hang with a new friend- who is a gaijin (short of "gaikoku-jin" which means "foreigner"- apparently it's a bad word- they can't say it on television! but I'm allowed to say it because it's "our word") but not a JET. Her boyfriend is the trombonist in a Japanese ska punk band called Cutie Pi! We went to a show with them and a bunch of other bands (including Ska Freaks, who I also adore!) and it was AWESOME. It was so cool to see people in their 20's getting into the music- the same people go to the shows, so these are serious fans. Both Cutie Pi and Ska Freaks are local bands, so a bunch of the members went to the high school I work at! Which was awesome. It was kind of weird being among the only foreigners, but the people there were super friendly. It was actually nice to be at a place that wasn't packed to the gills with fellow...dare I say it...gaikokujin-san! And I saw my student's best bud again! We had another awkward encounter (me: super excited him: pretending he doesn't know English) but it was memorable enough to warrant a "Hey, I heard you went to see Cutie Pie this weekend! OOOOOO!" from my student Monday morning. He also asked me if I "burned" which apparently is the Japanese word for "skanking" (if it's the American word too, this goes to show that I am lame). Tara the Brit said he probably meant I seemed like I was on drugs since I was way too genki (excited/happy).

Then the next day, I went to a break dancing show in Hikone (renowned for its "ancient" castle... hey, the one in my town is almost 20 years old, dagnabbit!) with fellow teach Katie P, which was excelente! The people there were crazy good!!!! Despite the fact that I had dressed completely wrong- I mean, where the heck did I leave my good yellow Adidas track suit and mismatchingly matched trucker hat? - it was amazing watching people our age (and younger, sigh) do these crazy acrobatic type moves. We went to see her friend from Michigan compete but when we decided to stay after he left he goes, "Hm...can't resist the eye candy, huh?" So yes, this show definitely debunked the myth that J-boys (or even J-men?) are not hot. These guys were jacked! I have a video of it, but it's too big to load, sigh.

OK, this is the end of my "I love Japan" ramble.

Yay to Lux!

For reading my posts... I have to admit, they've been kinda boring lately. I gotta get to bed, but I wanted to share this wonderful piece of Japan-yana (you know, like Jerseyana!) with you....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0HihMsEkRY&feature=related

It's amazing!!!!! Enjoy.

Can you tell I like this guy?

Another gem from our man Pico:

"Most visitors to the Unites States will tell you that service in American restaurants and hotels is generally as friendly and as unpretentious as you will find anywhere. I know that because I grew up in England, where every waiter in a rundown cafe greeted me as I were a summons to the police and every worker in an upscale place as if I were a fly that had landed on the duck à l’orange. In Japan, where I now live, service in even a convenience store is efficient, quick and impeccably polite, but you won’t get the genuine laughs or banter that you often find in even a bank in New York. Democracy finds its vindication, I often think, in the cheerful, ungrudging attention you get across what is perhaps the world’s most open nation."

Heck, I'll even cite it for ya:

New York Times, December 14, 2007, 11:43 pm "The Friendliest Country, and the Unfriendliest Skies" by Pico Iyer http://jetlagged.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/the-friendliest-country-and-the-unfriendliest-skies/

This was not written by me.

A portrait of living in rural Japan- by Indian-American-British travel writer Pico Iyer: (I edited it a little, it's from Powells.com, the bookseller)

I don't think it's the same for me, but I see from where the dude's coming.

Iyer: In Japan, I live in a little neighborhood in the middle of nowhere. I don't have a bicycle or a car or anything, so my only movement is within the boundaries of my feet. I feel there's a need for that kind of conscientious objection to the momentum of the world.

Dave: You almost achieve the Walden-like state Thoreau wrote about - that degree of simplicity - but you've clearly made a conscious effort not to assimilate yourself more thoroughly into Japanese culture.

Iyer: It's a way of filtering. Because I speak only rudimentary Japanese, I can't watch TV, I can't read the newspaper, I can't engage in chit chat. Cut away all those externals and distractions.

Procrastinating with Some More Nihon-go Slang!

So it's the night before my first day back at work after more than two weeks off! So instead of finishing up those lesson plans or uploading Taiwan pics (which I will do- my New Year's res is to be more organized and make good on promises!), I'll provide ya'll with some more of that Japanese lingo:

O-kashi (oh-ka-shee): comedian - I think you say it sarcastically, like "Oh. Wow. You are SUCH an o-kaishi."

Onchi (ohn-chee): very bad at singing - A dude said this to me when I asked him if he liked karaoke! Usually used for singing, but you can say Compyuta Onchi to mean "technologically illiterate."

Hamapanai (hahm-puh-nye): according to Ryota, a bartender at one of the coolest bars in the Sheegs, it means "super wonderful" but some students I asked told me it was kind of lame. Probably used by the old folks, you know, like in their 20's.

Yabai (yuh-bye): The students (11th grade students at a fellow JET's high school- which is a "Super English" school - this is the actual name for it! - which means her students are superb at English!) recommended this word instead for "super awesome." Apparently it can either mean when something is really bad OR really good, depending on how you say it. I think literally it means "dangerous."

OK, that's all for now- I better save some for future posts!!