CHRISTMAS COMA AND TAIPEI, TAIWAN

As I mentioned in my last post, my Christmas plans were fairly low-key.  Skyping with my family, eating delicious American foods that are hard to find in Japan, and spending time with friends.  But Japan really came through and took Christmas to a whole different, memorable level.

It began as I walked out of my apartment on Christmas morning to find that it was snowing.  Though it gets cold in Nara, it rarely snows.  I took this as a sign that this was going to be a good day.  And so I hurried off, whistling "Good King Wenceslas" (which somehow seemed appropriate, and made me think of my uncle, who loves it), to meet my friends so that we could attend Christmas mass together.  The "church" was located in a renovated two-story house and fit about 50 people uncomfortably.  The service was in Japanese, and I struggled to keep up with the various gestures and appropriate responses from the congregation.  Luckily, I think mass for most Catholics is about being on autopilot.  I was also aided by the missalette, which was in Japanese, English and Spanish.  The songs, however, were in Japanese, and played at about 3/4 their normal time, so that when we sang the gloria during "Angels We Have Heard on High," I had to come up for air. 

Attending mass in foreign countries is like going to McDonald's abroad- you assume that it will be a fairly uniform experience, but it's always interesting to spot the small differences.  There's a lot more genuflecting in Japanese mass than elsewhere. But by far the best part is that there is NO TOUCHING.  No holding hands during the Our Father, no shaking of hands during the sign of peace (instead, you press your hands together in front of you in a namaste pose and bow).  As someone who has been self-conscious about her cold hands (but a warm heart) her entire life, this was welcome.  Furthermore, the priest got us in and out in 45 minutes.  Actually, it was about 48 minutes with the prayer after the processional hymn honoring the missionaries who brought Catholicism to Japan.  The priest, however, fled after the final benediction.  I learned later that he was making an escape before the parish Christmas party started.  Apparently he frowns on "partying."

We got pulled into the parish Christmas party on our way out, and I had a hard time figuring out what temptations or evils the priest felt needed to be avoided.  The event consisted of platters of sushi rolls, Ritz crackers with tiny little cubes of cheese and ham, cream puffs and Coca-Cola products.  The members of the congregation could not have been nicer or more welcoming, and we met several interesting people, including an obachaan (grandmother) who mistook me for the mother of the group.  (I will insert here that my married friends are 29, and Paul is 32 with salt-and-pepper hair, so I felt this mistake quite keenly.)  We eventually left the party and retreated to a friend's house for feasting ("I want to be in a food coma by the end of the day," said one) and movie watching.  First, A Muppet Christmas, where our takeaway lesson was that the Dickensians had a solid idea when they invented dressing gowns and heavy curtains around the beds to trap in the heat, and that maybe we should try that here in Japan.  The next feature was "Die Hard," which is apparently technically a Christmas movie. But before Bruce Willis could save those people with the Farrah hair from the insanely young and handsome Alan Rickman and his less attractive German thugs, we had to brave the cold yet again and make our way further north for a Christmukkah potluck, singing carols and yelling "Merry Christmas!" to all the Japanese who were pointing and laughing at us (the Santa hat I was wearing might have had something to do with that).  All in all, a lovely Christmas.

My adult eikaiwa group dressed me up as a red samurai at our Christmas party.  I thought they were going to have a stroke from laughing.

LAND OF THE BUBBLE TEA

My trip to Taiwan was kind of a mixed bag, due mainly to my own expectations.  It rained pretty much every day, Westernization was everywhere, the food was mostly Japanese, the couple of day trips we'd planned were frankly boring, and I came away underwhelmed.   This is probably controversial given Taiwan's history, but I wanted it to be more like China- a little crazy, fun, and completely fascinating and foreign.  Instead, what had promised to be an adventure was in fact a fairly safe trip to someplace slightly warmer and infinitely cheaper than Japan. 

On the other hand, Taiwan was clean, cheap, green, easy to navigate, cheap, occasionally delicious, and the people were incredibly kind.  We had no fewer than 3 people stop to ask us if we were lost, and then point us in the right direction.  One woman walked us about half a kilometer out of her way to lead us to the nearest train station.  In fact, the Taiwanese seem happier than the Japanese on the whole.  (As a non-sequitur, I will also mention that while Japan has a significant population of androgynous men, Taiwan has a predominance of androgynous-looking women.) 

Taipei 101, the 2nd tallest building in the world

I was shocked by the fact that everyone seemed to speak English in Taipei, whether old or young.  Unlike the Japanese, who are extremely hesitant to speak English for fear they will make a mistake, the Taiwanese speak easily and fairly fluently. There's nothing patronizing about the exchange, as in "Oh, I know you can't speak Mandarin, so I'll have to dumb it down and speak to you in English."  Nor is there a mortal fear in their eyes as they string sentences together.  When they can't remember a word in English, they shrug it off and try to express themselves in another way. They also appreciate any effort to speak Chinese, no matter how much you botch the tones. 

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial

CKS Memorial Square

Best of all, there was a bubble tea place on almost every corner, which I thought appropriate, given that it originated in Taiwan. In 4 days, I think I drank 11 bubble teas. There was a lot of eating in general, at street markets and small neighborhood restaurants.  We actually devoted an entire day to a food tour, which took us to (among other things), the Wistaria Tea House, which is famous in Taipei.  Political dissidents used to meet here to discuss strategy and philosophy.  The shop itself is small, with wicker furniture, warm lighting, and beautiful art.  We ordered the "Tipsy" tea, which derives its sweet, fruity flavor in part from katydid saliva.  We were taught the proper way of preparing and pouring tea into Turkish coffee-sized small cups, a process that was part chemical experiment, part sensory experience, like a wine tasting.  We spent over 2 hours drinking thimblefuls of the stuff, until our bladders protested.  

Trying stinky tofu.  The reaction was more due to the spiciness than the stink.

I broke down on our last morning in Taipei and bought a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  The barista announced my order, and said in heavily accented English, "Have a nice day, and a Merry Christmas."  Well, folks, my Grinch heart grew two sizes too big right then and there.  It wasn't just the effort she made in speaking English to me, or how proud she clearly was of herself and her hard work, but the utter sincerity with which she spoke.  And with that, I made my way back to the Land of the Rising Sun, properly imbued with the Christmas spirit.

Temple at night market.  One of the few places with character I saw.

YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT, KID

I blinked, and it was Christmas.  It turns that that when you aren't assaulted with Christmas decorations and commercials on October 21st, the holidays kind of sneak up on you.  With my shopping done, and grades turned in, I can finally enjoy the holiday season.  Or at least the Japanese approximation of the holiday season.  Not that there's any need to be PC when it comes to the holidays here- Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are all unheard of- you might as well be talking about Festivus.  So for the purposes of this blog entry, we'll be talking about Christmas.

As one might imagine, Christmas in Japan is a little different than in the Western world.  There are elements of Christmas in places that involve shopping: lights, small (fake) trees, poinsettas, and at my grocery store, an inflatable Santa.  Christmas music can be heard; namely, "Happy Xmas (The War is Over)," "Last Christmas," and "Please Come Home for Christmas," which are played on repeat.  Throw in "I'll Be Home for Christmas," and you have some of the most depressing holiday songs in existence, except for "Happy Xmas," which is meant to be uplifting, but is depressing simply because it's so awful. 

Why is Christmas celebrated? Where does Santa live? Who's your favorite reindeer? (Prancer, obviously) What are the terms and conditions for getting presents?  These are questions without answers in Japan.  Instead, Christmas is a day for unmarried couples to go on special, romantic dates and exchange gifts, and for parents and grandparents to give small presents (purportedly from Santa) to very young children.  It's a day to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken and Christmas cake, both of which have to be ordered about a month in advance due to popularity.  But it's also a day like any other, where everything is open and everyone goes to work.

Please note the Col. in his Santa suit

So it is up to us as the gaijin to make our own Christmas.  This past weekend saw a cross-cultural Christmas party with eggnog, multi-flavored Kit Kats, homemade ginger snaps, bread and cheese, hot whiskeys, chocolate, and mince pies (which are very different from mincemeat pies).  This coming weekend we take Osaka by storm, visiting their Christmas market, viewing the illuminations, and consuming vast quantities of gluhwein and grilled sausages, possibly whilst wearing Santa hats.  We will watch Christmas movies and go caroling outside of the train station in Nara City (I'm fighting hard to make it a busking event so we can drink more hot whiskeys later on) and perhaps even stage a white elephant.  As for Christmas Day itself, I will spend the day with friends.  I am going to buy myself a block of cheddar cheese, go to mass with Paul, maybe get a massage, and Skype with my family.  Lofty plans, I know.  It's Christmas, when all our dreams come true. 

GREATEST HITS FROM EXAMS

Q: What is the dish you eat before your main meal?

A: Two hands washing is.

Q: What is the word for a person who works at a restaurant?

A: It's a woman.

"Mt. Fuji is made into the sightseeing spot at the mountain-climbing spot, and was well used also for the picture of the wall of a public bath a long time ago."

I'LL LEAVE YOU WITH THIS SCATALOGICAL THOUGHT

Call me crazy, but I've recently realized a key benefit of the squat toilets here.  In addition to being a great workout for your quads, it saves you from having to sit on a cold toilet seat in an unheated bathroom.  The Western toilet in my apartment is one of the worst parts of my morning, up there with the seemingly eternal 2 minutes that it takes to walk from my bedroom to the bathroom, change out of my pajamas, and get into the shower. Then there's the part where I dry off with the cold towel that is still wet from when I used it the morning before. Dante should have incorporated this experience into one of his circles of hell.  It reminds me of a scene in Roald Dahl's memoir about his childhood, when he talks about the miserable hazing he underwent at boarding school. The prefects would force the younger boys to go to the "bog" (outhouse) ahead of them and sit on the toilet seat for about half an hour, so it would be warmed for the prefect when he was ready to use it.  I can now empathize with both the prefects and their victims.  What I wouldn't give for a bog warmer.  (Hint, hint, Santa.  I promise I've been good this year.)

Next week I will be in Taiwan, which will put me out of blogging contact until after Christmas.  So let me take this opportunity to say to all of you back in the land of heterogeneity, Happy Hannukah-Christmas-Kwanzaa.   I hope it is very merry.  Much love, and miss you all.

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, FORD EVERY ONSEN

This weekend, a friend took me to climb a nearby mountain called Katsuragi.  Because December 1st marks the end of the "season" for the mountain, the hourly buses running to the base only left every other hour, forcing us to kill time for 60 minutes until the next one came.  Thankfully, the ascent went smoothly, and we climbed nearly 2-3 km at an 80 degree gradient in about an hour and a half.  The view at the top was entirely worth it.  Katsuragi acts as a natural border between Nara prefecture (where I live) and Osaka prefecture, and you can see both sides from the summit.  In the winter, the mountain gets snow, and you can toboggan down part of the way.  In the spring, large tracts of azalea bushes are in bloom, making the mountain look as though it's on fire.  The autumn leaves have been late this year, so we managed to catch the last of the fall color, which was nice.  

Nara and the Yamato Plain

Osaka

We went to catch the bus back down to the train station, only to find that we had just missed it, and the next one wasn't for another 2 hours.  So we wearily shouldered our packs and started the trek back down into town, another 2.4 km.  We felt we deserved a reward for all our efforts, so we treated ourselves to some rather posh cake and a trip to an onsen.  Onsen are public baths, some of which are fed by hot springs, while others contain chlorinated (but piping hot) water.  Onsen run the gamut in Japan, from the natural springs with tubs hewn into rock and the water brown from various minerals, to the super trendy, like Spa World in Osaka, where you can spend the day walking around in a bathrobe, visiting different themed areas.  This onsen, my first, more closely resembled a public bath where families would go to wash before they had plumbing in their own homes.  

Going to the onsen reminded me of the first time I went streaking- the worst part is getting your clothes off.  You have to strip (no swimsuits!) in order to partake of the baths, a daunting prospect for a lot of foreign people, even though men and women are segregated.  The Japanese, on the other hand, exhibit no self-consciousness.  When my friend and I walked into the changing room, we found an incredibly large Japanese woman sitting stark naked, drying off at a leisurely pace.  We, in contrast, undressed hurriedly before making a beeline for the showers as quickly as we could.  The "showers" are a series of handheld detachable wands that are attached to the wall- no shower stalls.  You grab a plastic bucket and your soap, plop yourself onto a stool, and wash wash yourself thoroughly with soap (and preferably shampoo).  The first time my friend went to an onsen, an obaachan (grandmother) came up to her with a towel and started vigorously scrubbing her back and sides.  Gotta make sure those gaijin are clean before they enter the baths.

Like the porridge tasting menu that Goldilocks enjoyed, the baths vary in temperature: hot, medium, cold.  Some have jets, some don't.  One tub had a low electric pulse to aid circulation.  I moved about, nearly passing out in the high heat tub and reviving in the cold water, before finding the "just right" space in the medium tub.  Generally, you're not supposed to soak in the onsen for too long, especially in the hot water.  If you've just eaten, you're discouraged from using the onsen, and if you're pregnant, you should tread carefully.  Overall, it was a great experience, and I'd definitely go again, particularly as a remedy against winter.  Next I want to try the natural springs, some of which are outdoors.  I've heard there's no better experience than being in a hot onsen outside as snow falls around you. 

When we were done, we dressed as quickly as we had disrobed.  As we were drying off, a young girl of 8 walked in, made eye contact with me, and immediately diverted her gaze to a really interesting spot on the ceiling.  Her mother followed, and the girl was overheard saying, "Mom!  Look, honorable gaijin are here.  They are so white!"  Mom replied, "I know.  I'm jealous."

PICK A NUMBER, ANY NUMBER

The term is over, and students are about to leave for winter break.  I am finishing up my grades, dutifully recording the marks from homework, projects, quizzes and tests.  This week a couple of my co-teachers came up to me to talk about final grades.  Here's how the conversation went:

JTE: "So, Eri-sensei, the average for these students needs to be 33.  You don't have to give them each 33 points, but around 33."

Me: "OK, but isn't the total number of points for the class this term 50 points?"

JTE: "Yes."

Me: "Well, what if there's a student who has earned top marks? Or a student who hasn't turned anything in?"

JTE: "The average for these students needs to be 33.  You don't have to give them each 33 points, but around 33 would be good."

I talked to a couple of other ALTs about it, and apparently this is all a normal part of the grading system here.  I'm still trying to figure out why, though.  I was told that when high school students apply to colleges, all the schools see on their transcripts is a grade point average.  It's hard to differentiate between students on this basis, so the universities have entrance exams that set students' abilities apart. Though why that means their individual class grades need to be within the same ballpark, I have no clue.  Can someone please 'splain me this?

Really, I think I've learned a lot in these whirlwind 4-5 months.  Here, in no particular order, are the Top 10 things I've been taught by students and teachers this term:

1. If you are on a sinking ship, forcing you to evacuate to a desert island, the one thing crucial to your survival on the island is a futon. I'm confident that the cast of LOST could have been found sooner had they known this piece of information.

2. If there were (God forbid) a fire at school, people on the second and third floors could climb down one-by-one through escape chutes that can be dropped out of the windows.  I know this because I watched several students perform a very slow demonstration of the process during a recent fire drill. Then, I checked to see if "liability" is a word in Japanese (it is). 

3. Some of the most famous people in the world include Michael Jackson and Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
4. The body temperature of Japanese people is one degree lower than everyone else's.

5. Dogs are wiser than cats, and therefore better.

6. It's OK if a student copies another person's homework, or hands in assignments late.  But you can expect a swift and forceful reprimand if the top button of your uniform shirt is undone.  (If you're the female ALT and you have two buttons of your very conservative collared shirt undone, exposing your clavicle, you can expect a) shy female students to make hushed motions warning you to button up, b) gregarious female students to shout "SEXAY, SEXAY," and c) your loveable and kind male Japanese co-teacher to whisper to you in embarrassment, "Oh, um, Eri sensei, your button..."

7. Men shave their eyebrows here, and sometimes use an eyebrow pencil to trace a couple of thin, light lines to give the impression that their eyebrows are fuller than they actually are. 

8. Facial hair is almost taboo for men.  I've only encountered one man with facial hair so far.  My supervisor sports a luxurious moustache that Tom Selick would envy. 

9. Rules matter.  The heaters at school are supposed to be activated on a certain day in December.  So if it's 40 degrees Farenheit in November, you have to tough it out.  Conversely, if it's close to 60 degrees in December, you have to deal with that, too. (A teacher who has never spoken to me walked past me in the hall on one such balmy day, and said very off-handedly, "It's an Indian summer, huh?"  I had no idea this guy spoke English.) 

10.  Gargling water loudly in the staff room before expectorating in the sink where we all wash our hands helps prevent colds.  Face masks also help. However, you should under no circumstances blow your nose in public.  Instead, you should try to snort the snot up your nose, and discreetly swallow it.  

Chestnut flavor!