The new school year is starting up rather well at the various schools. New first graders are pretty much as adorable as advertised, even though I don’t get a chance to work with them too regularly. But at least they seem the most excited by my presence, which pretty much confirms my belief coming into JET that I would do better with younger kids than older ones. As for all the other grades, they’re slowly growing into their new roles at their new grades. The biggest evidence of this is for the new 6th and 9th graders, as they’re now the leaders of their elementary/middle schools. And for the new 7th graders at the middle school, now back at the bottom of the pecking order (from the top of the elementary) seems to have made the desired effect (that is, taking them just a peg down). For myself, now that English is a serious subject (tests and grading!) I’m honestly surprised to see how good some of them are at English…it could be that they’re just good at studying, which is fine. It’s a big step forward for a lot of them. There have been a few embarrassing moments when I had to explain myself to the middle school teachers why they were deficient in a few basic English areas (alphabet, colors, etc.) but other than that, I think the impact of having two extra years of English, as non-serious as they may have been, does have some impact. The early grades are promising, but let’s see as we start moving into actual sentences and grammar points.

One of the frequent thoughts I had in my mind when I was watching my junior high get ready for the graduation and especially during the actual ceremony was that I really had no memories of my junior high graduation. Basically, graduation is a big deal in Japan. In the week or so leading up to graduation, there are a lot of rehearsals for various parts of the ceremony. It’s high on ceremony and speeches so there is a strict procedure on how to do almost everything. Of course, in the Japanese tradition, there’s a lot of bowing and doing things in formation. Possibly the best examples of this are when the other students have to turn and face the procession of graduating students as they enter/exit but also do so in formation all together. There’s also a right way to bow, which needs to be done in time with everyone else (a count of 1-2 to bow, then 3-4 to get back up helps with this). And of course, there’s a good amount of singing, the school song, a song from the students to the graduating class, and from the graduating class to everyone else as they also recount their years in school.

The rehearsals did get a little intense, which helped me recognize how much more meaningful Japanese graduations are. You couldn’t always count on the students to not be at their most enthusiastic/emotional for practice so there were a few calls for to basically sing louder, better, etc.

Knowing the students that we were working with, I fully expected everyone to do their best at the actual ceremony, which did happen to be the case. But, for it being my first graduation, it definitely surpassed my expectations. There’s the slow procession of graduating students as they file in, the distribution of diplomas to everyone (again, with a strict procedure to be followed on how you get on stage, receive the diploma, and descend), speeches from the principal, the PTA president, the parents, and the aforementioned singing. I think the moment that the house was brought down for everyone was when the graduating students got on stage to sing their song, only to break into an interlude in the middle and start to recount their school experience, from coming in, to school trips, club activities, festivals, and so on. A few students started to break down during this part, which made it hard not to tear up yourself.

After the ceremony, the students went back to their homerooms to give speeches to their parents to thank them for their support (during this time, everyone else is cleaning up the gym). But, once the speeches are finished, the graduating students go through a procession from the homerooms to the school exit (for the last time). But along the way, everyone else, students and teachers, are lined up on the route there to offer encouragement and say goodbye one last time. Inevitably, the graduating students will get presents from someone, usually a representative from a club they used to be in or just another friend, which makes it one last big emotional time for everyone as they’re making their final exit. Students will linger around outside for some final pictures with their classmates, some of them who have been classmates since elementary. But eventually, everyone will start to disperse and go back home with their parents, bringing an end to graduation finally.

I think one of my biggest mistakes early on was believe kids were going out of their way to mock English, either by saying words in a obviously poor accent or mixing up common phrases (like “good morning” when it’s afternoon, “nice to meet you” when we’ve already met multiple times). I eventually realized that these kids are not trying to make a mockery of English but rather that was all they knew English wise. So now it’s my job to fix those poorly pronounced words and incorrectly used phrases.

There was definitely some measure of unmet expectations when I came into Amakusa. That’s not the students’ fault, that was something I needed to adjust to when I came in. But over time, I came to realize that there are really no bad kids here. There are kids having moments when they’re being annoying, but that’s just kids being kids. There’s no class I have that’s beyond repair (and really, they’re all a bit far from that point). Once I learned more about them and found out what they were really like, they all became somewhere between the ideal student and the worst student possible. And then when I came to meet them at that point, I found that teaching here became immensely easier.

Luckily, I work with the same kids year to year so I won’t have to go through this adjustment period again. If anything, this should hopefully help with making stronger connections with the students. Culturally, it takes awhile to build close connections in Japan, but I’ve been slowly building that up. I’m thinking it can only get better from here.

Officially, the purpose to teach English in elementary is to just get kids exposure to English at a younger age, a sort of headstart to the English you’d start to learn in English. However, there is no accountability in terms of testing or grades (at least from the schools I work at) on how well you do the lessons. So this means a student’s desire to sit through an elementary English lesson is firmly predicated on their own personal desires to study (and also a little bit from having to behave because they’re in school).

But since the main purpose is exposure and not accountability, the English being taught focuses on simple phrases and only conversation. There’s no writing or reading elements being tested. Most of the time, kids are given a few key words/phrases to learn and then activities to do that reinforce learning those words/phrases. But since you’re dealing with kids, most of the activities turn out to be games. I think some of the games do work pretty well (they all involve speaking/listening English in some respect to succeed at the game) but I also think it sends a message to the kids that English lesson time is also a sort of play time. Some classes expect a game to happen in each weekly class (and inevitably they’re usually right).

It’s a double edged sword. I think it does accomplish the goal of getting kids exposed and also getting excited about English. But when game time is afoot, you don’t always get the best behavior out of class. That’s a lesson I had to learn early on. I came in to expect a perfectly behaved class and when I didn’t get that sometimes, I would get upset with what appeared to me as disrespect/disinterest/bad behavior. But as I saw more of the kids at play, I learned that it was just kids being kids when they have a good time, a little rough, a little loud, but never mean-intentioned. On the flip side, when I saw kids in other non English classes, such as Math or Science, I was legitimately surprised to see how seriously they took those classes. Where was that behavior for my English classes?

English in Elementary is a pseudo game/lesson for most kids. You’re not going to get them on their best behavior most days, but then again, I learned you’re not dealing with a bunch of horrible kids who have absolutely no interest in what you’re doing and just want to play play play. What I had to learn was to balance my expectations and lesson plans with the class I was working with. And by god, with the English lesson plans I was handed, I would probably hate to have to sit through a traditional class of English. Games are a god send to keep the kids from falling asleep and not learning anything, I’m sure.

I’ve had to learn how to deal with kids. For some reason I expected more maturity out of them, but kids are kids. It’s been a lesson learned in order for me to keep my temper and stay patient.

I’ve had to learn how to deal with living in a remote area. Not that I’m in the worst possible place, there’s reasonably sized places of civilization in close distance, but it’s no San Francisco. That’s been getting easier too.

I’ve had to learn how to deal with not always being able to communicate 100% with people. Probably just a sign I need to study more Japanese, but even besides that, the Japanese language is so indirect, sometimes the American way just doesn’t work here.

I’ve had to learn to deal with not having people my own age to talk to. Again a product of location, it’s all families, most young people leave for the city once they can. If anything, I’ll need to see if I can make some friends in Kumamoto City, however that may happen.

It’s been a learning experience, but I’ll most likely be here for another year of learning.

A handy dandy map, for those so interested:

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Amakusa is part of Kumamoto Prefecture, about 1.5 to 2 hours west of Kumamoto City, the closest large city. That should be a sign when the closest large city is that far away. Amakusa is actually on its own separate island from the Kyushu mainland, so in order to get to Amakusa, you have to cross five bridges, which have been actually turned into a semi sightseeing spot for travelers coming into the area. However, unlike a lot of Japan, Amakusa is not accessible by train. The closest train station is about an hour away, at which point you’ll have to bus/car/ferry over into Amakusa proper.

The current Amakusa city is actually made up of a lot of independent towns and villages that combined into one city a few years ago due to dwindling population. They were formerly independent areas under the label “Amakusa District”, but a recent push in Japan nationwide has been to consolidate smaller areas into one larger entity. So the majority of the island of Amakusa banded together to form the Amakusa City, which would now be the legal name for all their territory. However, the Amakusa District name lives on in one holdout that didn’t merge with the rest of the island, although it is now legally a district with one town to its name.

I personally live in Ariake, one of the old towns in the Amakusa District, now part of the overall Amakusa City. All the old names from before live on in peoples’ address and it is common to say what part of Amakusa you are from as a way to identify yourself. The center of Amakusa, Hondo, also serves as the logistical center of Amakusa, most people live there as well as it being home to the Amakusa government offices and most shopping/restaurants.

Ariake is 15 minutes away from Hondo but most of Ariake is just housing. There are a small number of restaurants and if there’s shopping to be had, I don’t know where to find it. Ariake’s claim to fame has always been its octopus however, to that effect, there’s a large octopus monument near a rest area called Ripple Land. Ripple Land actually serves as a popular place in the summer, when people come to visit Ariake’s beaches (one of the highlights of the area) as it provides convenient parking in addition to a good restaurant/gift shop/onsen.

But Ariake is more or less just a suburb. It’s where a lot of people live and they do their eating/shopping/traveling somewhere else. However, I think it does have the best of both worlds when it comes to nature, Ariake is right along part of the Amakusa coast which lends itself to great views of the sea. On clear days, you can even see across the sea to Mount Unzen and Nagasaki prefecture. On the other side, if you drive away from the coast and just a little bit inland, you can find some pretty amazing mountains as well, with lots of greenery to go with it. There’s a lot of farmland to be had in Ariake as well, so it’s a common sight to see large swaths of fields right under large mountains.

It’s a quiet life here. If I just stay in Ariake, there’s not much for me to do besides go to school and come back home. Going to Hondo does provide some change as it is the place to go in Amakusa for pretty much anything, but the selections/options are small. For even the smallest taste of a big city, Kumamoto City is the place to go. But with it being quite the drive away, it’s not a place I can just drop by for a quick dinner. Going out to Kumamoto City almost turns into a day trip just to be worthwhile.

That being said, most of Japan is the quiet farmland you may have seen in Totoro, for example. Tokyo kind of places get all the love when you’re outside of Japan, but once you get in, you find there’s more nature to be found than wall to wall skyscrapers. There’s a time and place for big city life, but I’m enjoying myself in the small town atmosphere right now on the island of Amakusa.

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To that effect, starting around December 29 or so, you start to see a lot of places close up and take their holiday break. Most places do n’t open until January 3 or 4. In fact, during the New Year’s holiday period, the only thing I could find consistently open was fast food, convenience stores, and big malls (more on the malls later). This actually turned into a bit of a problem personally, as the ATMs in Japan also operate on schedules, so ATMs also had their only holiday break. That meant money was scarce at the end of holiday period (after spending most of it traveling). It was a point where I was thinking, “when will this holiday ever end?”

But New Year’s is big family time for Japanese. To that end, there’s not a lot of traveling as you would think, and if there is any traveling, it’s usually entire families doing the deed. One of the reasons there probably isn’t a huge travel boom for New Year’s is that some travel sights (museums and Kumamoto Castle comes to mind) are closed for the holidays as well. While my image of an American New Year’s is bars and restaurants open all night for huge parties, when I was in Kagoshima City for New Year’s Eve (a legitimate large city), only the aforementioned categories of buildings mentioned above were open…and even when it came to restaurants, actually a good number were still closed (and the one we ended up eating at closed at 11).

New Year’s isn’t the time to party all night (although I’m sure that fun can be found somewhere). In fact, while my travel group did find an New Year’s Eve event to attend (an outdoor mini gathering with some fireworks), by 12:20 most everyone had left. Not exactly Times Square.

So what do you do for the New Year’s holiday? I assume that most families just stay at home, have a good dinner and enjoy themselves. To that end, the TV networks usually show 4-6 hour long shows, knowing that the family homes will be tuning into something. However, the big thing to do for New Year’s is what the Japanese called “hatsumode”, or basically the first shrine visit of the New Year.

In Kagoshima City, I went to Terukuni Shrine, the largest there. To that end, the grounds were jampacked with people trying to make their offering for the New Year. The shrine was prepared for this, having fences to herd people in the appropriate lines, as well as extra staff on hand to deal with people buying charms for the New Year. Of course, one can make their offering to a shrine any time of year, but the first of the year has importance as basically setting your pace for the coming year. I made sure to make my own offering for success in 2012.

The other large part of New Year’s is the shopping. I lamented the loss of the Black Friday tradition during Thanksgiving, but I was heartened to see that the Japanese saved their shopping craze for New Year’s. While not everything is open, the stores that are open (plus the big shopping malls, which definitely are open) usually feature big sales to celebrate the New Year. But a special part of the New Year’s shopping craze is something the Japanese call “lucky bags”, basically grab bags where you don’t know what’s inside. I actually saw them before, when they open a new convenience store in Amakusa, that new store will usually feature lucky bags for a few days after opening, the contents being hidden, but usually an assortment of what you could buy in the store.

The “luck” factor comes in because while the contents are hidden, the idea is that some bags have contents that total up to higher than the bag’s price. Basically it is a gamble, but if it is a store that you would shop at anyway, you’re not going to be dissatisfied with what you get. Clothing lucky bags are usually the first to sell out (the stores actually claim to pack in clothes higher than the bag price, which is a hint that they’re just trying to get rid of inventory). And then some stores take the gambling aspect out of it by listing what you’ll get in the bag, basically listing the savings you’ll get, with the added bonus that you get a fancy bag to go with your purchase.

For my own part, I also indulged in a few lucky bags, grabbing one from a furniture/home item store and one from a Spencer’s Gifts kind of place (think random gifts). Excited as I was, I didn’t really get what I expected so I was a little hmmmm when I opened up. But then again, that’s the luck of the lucky bags. There’s always next year.

Kurokawa is a mountain town in eastern Kumamoto, which is mainly populated by ryokan/onsen in the area. Coming from Beppu with my friends, we were treated to mostly snow covered mountains and fields, a sign that winter had arrived. Luckily, the snow was not falling, as my car was not equipped with chains which would’ve been necessary on the mountain route up to Kurokawa.

Ryokan are probably easily defined as traditional Japanese hotels. In keeping in line with the Japanese high standard of service, ryokan are on a much higher level of such service. Upon getting into to our ryokan, the car was taken away by a valet, our bags loaded up for us, and we were lead to our room by an attendant, who explained the hotel and our room to us. Basically, we felt like honored customers, even though they did the same song and dance for everyone who came in. Nonetheless, coming from a society where service isn’t always important, it was great to treated nicely. Maybe the best sign of the service of our ryokan was an attendant who saw me and my friend outside trying to take pictures of the ryokan. He took upon himself to ask if he could take the photos for us. But beyond that, he knew the best spots for the best pictures, which he gladly took.

The other amazing part of the ryokan experience is the food. Dinners are usually a big deal at ryokan, in essence being a multi course affair. When we heard that dinner was to be a two hour experience, our excitement was heightened. So we were led to our own table in the dining hall, whereupon the attendant would come every so often with a new dish in hand, trying her best to explain to us what we were eating. I just remembered amazing ingredients (the sashimi and horse meat was fantastic) and delicious food. I’d have to rank my ryokan dinner as possibly my best in Japan. It’s hard to compare because we don’t get multi course dinners in our lives many times, but the combination of service and taste couldn’t be beat. If anything, dinner just left us excited about the promised breakfast the next day.

And any trip to ryokan is not complete without onsen. Kurokawa is famous for its onsen, every ryokan has one they boast of. At first, the December chill was definitely in the air when I got right to jump in, but once in the onsen, there’s no better feeling. I’ve learn to appreciate the feeling of warmth moreso because of this Japanese winter (electric blankets = fantastic) and I think the feeling of jumping into a hot onsen on a cold winter night is one of the best feelings out there.

A ryokan may be an expensive experience, but in the end, I think it’s well worth it.

In any case, the timing for this is natural. It’s been a few months now into my stay. However, for many JET people, the winter is a dangerous time. That’s when many have to consider if they want to stick around for another year in Japan. We warned at orientation that many JETs say no to another year in the winter because of their stage two funk, only to regret that decision come Spring. Aware of this I’m doing what I can to convince myself that I won’t fall victim to the same trap and decline to come back for another year (at least for that specific reason).

I do admit to missing the big city life however. There was always something to do, see, eat, etc. in San Francisco. And easily, there were a lot more people my own age. But here in Amakusa, it’s a rural lifestyle, where most days have me pretty much just going home after school. I do enjoy the quiet life, but of course, there are times when even I want to go out and do something different. But those options are limited in Amakusa. Life is in danger of becoming a rut, it seems.

I’ve always been self-aware of my moods and try not to let it cloud my judgments. All in all, I’ll probably end up signing up for that extra year. But similar to how I hesitated on even accepting JET even though for almost all observers, it was a done deal, I’m doing the same thing here when it comes to doing that extra JET year. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I’ll actually know what I’m doing the second time around. It’s similar to how I decided to stay in the dorms in college for two years…although at the end of that, I knew two years was enough time in the dorms. Would two years be enough for me in Japan?

One of the big things I took away from my visit at the ALT Skills Development Conference (call it what it is, a mid-year conference for the Kumamoto JETs) is that my situation is really not that bad. I was treated to a lot of horror stories by other ALTs in Kumamoto. Bad kids, bad teachers they work with, bad living situations, etc. All in all, I can’t complain. Some ALTs were brought to tears when having to recount their experiences. It’s a mean thing to say, but really, I don’t have it as bad as some others.

In that respect, it gives me a certain sense of thanks for being where I am. That makes it harder to say no to Amakusa after just one year. It may be a Stage 2 funk I’m in now, but perhaps the peak has been overcome.