Bed time

On our second day, or actually our second night, Aaron and I decided the futons were more comfortable than the bed. Each futon bed consists of a tri-folding foam pad, a cotton filled mat to go on top, and a comforter to cover up with. Sheets are only for Western style beds. With each futon being a little more than six feet long and three feet across, placing two togther as Aaron and I do, gives us about the same amount of space as a king-size bed. You can see in the photo that our room and the boys' room is connected by a sliding screen. This gives you a lot of flexibility in how you want the space to look.

Here, Holt is snuggled in to his bed, and Ridge is tucked away in his closet. I promise, sleeping in the closet was not my idea. It was entirely Ridge's. Really! We don't close the door, of course. He loves it in there, so we just put down a mat and he covers up with his beloved fire truck blanket. Each night we have to put Holt with his head about halfway down the futon to accomodate his nightly "migration". Usually by the time Aaron and I turn in, Holt has already wormed his way off his futon so that only his feet are resting on it. One good thing about sleeping on the floor - you can't fall off the bed!

Today's "Ridge-ism":
(while watching a bit of local programming - the Nishiokoppe kids during a field day)
Without warning, Ridge turns to me and says,
"Hey Mommy...smell my arm pit!"

I still don't know why....

Toilet and Zucchini

Well, in response to multiple requests, I have conceeded to posting a picture of our toilet. It seems that my description of the sink on top of the potty sparked some curiosity. So, here it is, in all it's glory. You can see the little sink on top of the tank. When flushed, the water comes out of the faucet and down a drain into the tank. You may also notice the green cover on the seat. It is removable, and made of terry cloth. Holt has his own potty seat there in the corner - it's bright yellow and impossible to miss. The infamous potty room shoes can be seen near the door. All Japanese houses have a separate room for thier toilet and thier bath, due to the belief that the toilet "room" is so dirty. That is why it is such a major faux pas to walk out of the toilet room still wearing the potty shoes (as we have nicknamed them).

My second picture for today is a pair of zucchini proudly displayed by Holt and Ridge. Nearly half the people in the village have a garden and these were gifts from the superintendent of the school district, Mr. Kano. His English is very limited, and I think he has the idea that I really, really, really like zucchini. Of course, we do enjoy a good zucchini, but these things are monsters! Feel free to post any recipe suggestions you may have. Mr. Kano's wife stopped by this morning to deliver our third zucchini. These two pictured here are only two of the three I have been given in the past two weeks. Our next door neighbors have generous as well, with thier homegrown crop. We have been given many vegetables since arriving - cucumber, tomato, and more zucchini. I'm feeling a little pressured to return the gifts, so I've been working hard to figure out how to bake in our microwave. We drove to Nayoro (about 45 km away) so we could buy cinammon and flour. With a little more practice, I think I will have it down. Baking cookies in this microwave/oven contraption is very time consuming though. Try to imagine baking a few dozen cookies in batches of 7 at a time. Don't worry - I only made a half recipe tonite. I'm not crazy!

On an ending note: Some "Ridge-isms" for a giggle or two.

"Mommy, will you catch on fire if you drink hot lava?"

"Fly-swopper" (instead of fly swatter)

First Week of Work

Today is Saturday and I have now officially finished my first week of work. The children here are just wonderful. They all get excited when I arrive, even if I am only there to eat lunch with them. Those of you who are familiar with my special education job will understand the extent to which this is a refreshing change for me!

Monday found me at Nishiokoppe Junior High. Here in Japan, (or at least Nishiokoppe) the Jr. High students begin at what we would consider seventh grade and continue to ninth. However, here, the students are called first, second, and third graders. This has been a small source of confusion for me, thus I have deemed them to be "first years, second years, and third years" (a la Harry Potter). Otherwise, I constantly get my notes confused. The Jr. High students are a blast. I think I will have a great time with the third years (14 to 15 yr olds.). Thier English is not too shabby and I will be able to challenge them some. We ended the class with a name game/memory game. Each student named the persons before them in the circle ("she is..."), and then something the person stated they liked. I began and ended the circle. I was able to say thier names and remember what they said they liked, but I admit I had to keep cheating and look at the board where I had written thier names. It is so difficult to learn foriegn names! Anyway, I think they got a kick out of my going last and trying to remember everyone. It actually wasn't too difficult, as there were only seven students. The second year class has five or six, and the first year class has about the same. The school on a whole only has about 24 students.

Nishiokoppe Elementary ("shogakku") School was not quite ready for me to begin lessons, so I went there on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (after my stint at the Jr. High) to join them for lunch. The students serve the food, the entire school eats together (including staff!), and it is a very plesant situation. The staff and students speak very little English, so it makes for an interesting lunch time, with students and adults trying to show me the routine and help me using minimal language. They are all so very nice, though. I feel very welcome. I will finally teach a class with the first and second graders on Monday. My class should have about 15 students. Kamiokoppe Elementary School (about five minutes away) was a similar experience. The students and staff are awesome and the students are a blast. We played a few games after I had lunch with them.

School lunches here are very nutritious and students/adults can have as much as they want. There is a person on the board of education whose sole job is that of Nutritionist. Her responsibility is planning and executing healthy school lunches for the schools. We have to bring our own chopsticks ("hashi"), by the way! My first school lunch was grilled fish, rice, miso soup, and stir fryed veggies. The kids eat pretty much all of the food that is served. Friday was spaghetti day, seved with a Japanese version of Kraft parmesean cheese. It was fun to be the one most comfortable with a fork!

One of the biggest challenges this week has actually not been languaged based, but social expectations. We are having to really come to terms with the Japanese gender roles and expectations, in addition to the nuiances of living in a very, very small town. For example, I have no doubt that what we buy at the store is a topic of conversation in several households. It has already happened that somebody, while asking how we were managing with our cooking, mentioned that we had purchased some miso and wanted to know how that had gone for us.

The social structure of Japan is really radically different from America. Men and women have very defined, tradional gender roles, not unlike those found in America prior to the 60's. On Tuesday, the villiage assembly, board of education, school principals and vice principals held a welcoming ceremony for us. Nishiokoppe very much sees this teacher exchange as a cultural exchange between themselves and Juneau. It is very important to them to maintain and nurture this relationship. Being a very ceremonial culture, then, this "party" was quite ritualized and somewhat formal. Aaron, myself, and the boys were sat up front in four chairs, speeched were made (including one by me in Japanese! I'm sure my pronunciation was terrible, but I did my best!). We then sat around several large round tables to eat. After begining the meal, I was asked to stand and greet each guest with the usual greeting, "yorushuku onegaishimas" (no real translation), and pour some beer into thier glass. Then I could resume my seat next to the village mayor and continue eating my meal. It had been made clear at the beginning of the gathering that afterwards, Aaron was to go out with the men for drinks and (quote), "Michelle- sensei will please go home". Not a bit of rudeness was intended, that is just the way it is. Intellectually, I knew this, but it still chapped my hide a bit. Oh well. We have just been becoming more and more aware of how difficult it is to maintain our own relationship and roles within said relationship - and our roles as parents - while in a culture that says Aaron may be less of a man because he cooks dinner every night (never mind that I wash the dishes - according to them, I should be doing it all). So, we are struggling to find that balance between being ourselves and being mindful of the culture in which we are currently guests. The boys have beeing having a difficult time, so it has been a challenge to parent. Just through observation, I suspect the Japanese parenting style is very different. I try to not focus on that because, as a very wise person said to me recently, I am not trying to raise a Japanese child, so we will continue to do the best we can. We really love the people of Nishiokoppe and feel very lucky to have the opportunity to be here, so I know things will only get easier!

Now, a quick word about the photos, and then I must end this novel of a post! NOTE: remember you can click on them to enlarge them. We went walking today around the village (no car needed). These are photos of a local Shinto shrine. The white gate is the entrance at the bottom of a very long set of stairs. They feel even longer when you are carrying a 35 pound kid on your hip, too! The large stone with water is for washing your hands and mouth before entering the grounds. The building with the red roof is the actual shrine, which was closed. The ropes with ziz-zags or lightening-looking symbols indicate the presence of spirits. I suspect this is the shrine for the village gods. It was fun explaining to Ridge he needed to be respectful, as we were entering the house of a god. You can only imagine the questions that that particular statement generated! The picture of the tall stone with Ridge at the bottom is most likely some sort of grave site, but we aren't sure. I'll have to ask around.

By the way: please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors that may be present. I am almost always pooped after typing and am just too lazy to go back and re-read what I wrote. I had the same problem in college :)

TV spot and more

We`ve had quite a busy time the past few days! Something I forgot to mention in an ealier post was the tv spot they had Aaron and I do. I wrote a little something down, got it somewhat translated, and we went to the local television recording room to video tape it. Basically, we were asked to introduce ourselves (I introduced Aaron), and then we introduced the children. We gave their ages and said that we were very honored to be in Nishiokoppe. It was finally aired for the first time on Thursday. How embarrasing! I'm so glad that everyone we know (in the U.S. will never see it! Oh well, all in a day's work, I suppose. It will, apparently, air three times a day, when the local station airs for about thirty mintues, for a week.

Social Gatherings

Please excuse the blurry image. As Aaron put it when Ridge asked why the photo was blurry, "they just wouldn't stop moving". This is a shot of our first village gathering. Apparently, this is a very popular folk singer. He and his band came to Nishiokoppe today for a performance at the hotel. You can't easily tell from this picture, but everyone came with sitting cushions, snacks, and some with blankets. All but a couple of dozen people sat on the floor of this large entertainment theater located in Rimu, the village hotel. You can see a few more pictures of the hotel of you click the link on the right for Nishiokoppe's website. The music was great. The band consisted of a pianist, violinist, drummer (regular style), a man playing traditional flutes (shakuhachi), another man playing a traditional stringed instrument called a shamisen, a bass guitarist who also played another traditonal style stringed instrument, and an absolutely awesome woman playing the taiko drums. Her biceps where solid muscle. This shot only shows the smaller drums. Later during the performance, they wheeled out a larger drum, with a diameter of roughly three feet! The vocalist was interesting to listen to, but he also stopped to talk alot, so the boys and I were pretty much lost. Everyone else thought he was terribly funny.

At about noon today, our doorbell rang (though it is more like it plays a song than just rings) and who should appear but Mr. Kamaya. Over the next three or four minutes, he and Aaron manged to figure out that Mr. Kamaya was here to tell us that in twenty minutes, he would be coming back to pick us up and take us to the concert. Ooops! I had thought it was in the evening, so we had to scrap our plans for making lunch and dash out the door. Of course, as we walk into the auditorium, we turn heads. The boys quickly attracted the attention of the three children from across the street. That kept them highly entertained until the show began. All in all, it was an interesting experience.

Tonite, we have been watching a little Japanese television, mainly to see how people do things. For example, we were pretty sure we were using the futons and pads correctly, but five minutes into a Japanese cartoon, we could see that in fact we have been doing everything right. I never thought I would be watching t.v. to try and learn cultural nuiances! Right now, though, there is a show on about the Carpenters. I don't know what they are saying, but it's kind of nice to hear some music in English.

Friday night was our first welcome party, thrown by the middle school teachers. They are a total hoot! One of the ladies is pregnant, so I am eager to find some time to talk with her about prenatal care in Japan. The special education teacher continues to show me that special education is beyond the boundaries of language. He kept giving me a hard time, teasing and talking too fast in Japanese (his English is pretty limited). The principal, Mr. Dohi laughed and pointed at him, saying "difficult". I had to giggle at that and explained to him (with a little help) that I felt all special education teachers had to be difficult. What a shock when the special ed. teacher asked me if I knew about Asperger's Syndrome! He said he doesn't have any students with Asperger's, but he wanted to know of I was familiar with it. Talk about a universal language. The party was loads of fun - a barbeque Japanese style. We sat around a couple of small grills, built with seating around them 360 degrees. Pre-sliced meat and veggies are placed on it, and each person helps themselves when the food is cooked, then more is added, and so on. Very casual. They brought fireworks (mainly sparkers) with which to entertain the kids. Once the boys relaxed, they had so much fun they didn't want to leave at all! Several of the male teachers were chasing them, and pretending to allow Ridge to push them around and knock them over. Holt, of course, charmed the ladies. It was a very nice evening.

I've just discovered that I have no control over the order of my photos or where they are placed, unfortunately. The picture of Holt is just for fun. It was taking in the room we are using as our (Aaron and me) bedroom. It is actually a formal sitting room, but as it is the prettiest room in the house and we have no need for a formal sitting room, we turned it into a bedroom. I am standing in the far corner, with sliding screen behind me. The screens behind me open into another large room that is serving as the boy's room. We solved the clothing storage issue by putting all our clothes into the third bedroom on the other side of the house. The boys seem to get a kick out of having a "dressing" room. As you can see, the room has no bed because we simply fold up the futon and put in into a closet in the other room during the day. So, I guess we could use it as a formal sitting room if we really wanted to.

By the way, if you click on the photos, they enlarge.

Pictures of the day

Here are Ridge and Holt with some of thier new friends. We have only managed to learn the name of one of the boys - Ruya (but pronounced "Duya"). He is the one wearing glasses. Ridge looks very serious because he is showing me his grasshopper, or "bata", as Ruya told us. Holt is enjoying some bubble blowing with his number -one fan and Ruya's little sister, who is only one year old. The photo of the street is taken from our driveway. The larger building on the right is the village administration building. All village government offices are located here, as well as my desk, to be used for all my prep work. In the second picture, Holt is playing with the two boys from across the street. Hanging out our front window has become a favorite pastime, and the local children know now to come look through the window if they want to play.

Settling In

Here is Aaron, cooking our first meal in our new Japanese home! Our second day in Japan is closing with two very tired adults and completely exhausted children. The children are exhausted because they have found new playmates, and all of the children on this street have been playing with Ridge and Holt almost non-stop! It is amazing to see how the language difference is not a barrier at all. I think children are really wonderful that way. There is a little girl of about eight who lives across the street who seems to be enamoured with Holt. Everytime he goes outside, she rushes over to playfully poke his heat-reddened cheeks (it's been warm - open windows and fans). As we suspected, both boys are complete hits. I have been told that they will not be able to begin pre-school until November, due to certain activities that the children have been participating in that will culminate in a festival in October. The boys can begin after that. Well, Ridge can, but Holt will have to give up diapers before he can go along with his brother. I suspect that will serve as the final bit of enouragement he needs.

As for myself, things have been overwhelming, exhausting, and a load of fun. We have already been given a schedule of activities. On Friday morning (tomorrow) we will be making a "video" for the local telvison station. I have been asked to give a short greeting and introduction to our family in both English and Japanese. Thank goodness there is a very helpful office assistant in the village administration building (right across our street) who can help me translate. In the afternoon there will be a welcoming party for our family, courtesy of the Nishiokoppe Middle School staff. Sunday will bring a villiage concert to which we will be escorted by the superintendent of the schools, Mr. Kano. Monday I go to the Middle School to meet the students and observe my first class. Another party will be held for us on Tuesday, during which I get to give a short speech. The excitement never ends! Today, Mr. Kano toured us around ten of the houses in our Community Neighborhood (a specific group of homes). It is Japanese tradition to introduce yourself to your neighbors when you move in, and present them with a gift. Apparently, giving towels and facial tissue is a common practice, and the school board was thoughtful enough to provide me with a bag of tissue paper wrapped towels to present my neighbors with. I met so many people today my head is spinning, but at least I am now quite good at giving my introduction in Japanese. My guide this moring, Mr. Kamaya (the assistant superintendent) seemed to be asking everyone to practice thier English by introducing themselves. I felt so much better when I could tell that they, too, were giggling and nervous to use thier English.

Everyone here has been absolutely wonderful to us. On our first day, I was taken to the bank and post office to change our address and set up a bank account. Most of the time I had no idea what we were doing, but everything worked out fine. That seems to be the case everywhere. Even though I might be sitting in a room with five people, none of whom speak much English, everyone is happy and excited. I think this is going to be a blast!

Our new home is very different, and I don't think much could have prepared me for things like the sink that is part of the top of the toilet. Basically, when the tank refills, the water comes out a faucet (presumably so you can wash your hands) and then goes down a drain into the toilet tank. Interesting, eh? We have four lovely rooms (which are currently filled with our scattered luggage). As is common in Japanese homes, there is no oven in the kitchen, but we have a bread maker, two gas burners, a rice cooker (with buttons all in Japanese - uh oh!), and a microwave. No dishwasher, of course. The floors are covered mostly with tatami mats, and we have a lovely little entryway with shelves for your outdoor shoes.

Well, this post has gotten very long, but there is so much to say! I am interested in talking with the special education teacher at the middle school. He, too, says he works with student with emotional difficulties. I'll have to keep you posted on that.

Day One of the Trip

Well, we made it the first leg of our trip. This is a photo of us in Anchorage (where we had the opportunity to change terminals with all of our luggage). Tonite finds us in Seoul, Korea, spending the night in an awesome hotel waiting for our next flight. Tomorrow we will leave Seoul around ten, fly to Sapporo, then drive about five hours to Nishiokoppe. Making this trip with two small children is really something else! Nothing builds character like being cooped up on an airplane for eight hours straight with two children under the age of five. I have to say, though, things went smoothly. Learned a few things too, like – if you are flying on an international flight from, say, Juneau, not only can they check all your luggage through (even on the other airline), but they won’t charge you extra for the overweight luggage (international flights allow seventy pounds). That was awesome. Secondly, Korean Airlines is phenomenal! Not only do they charge less for children, but they provide a kid’s inflight meal and a free toy. In fact, they fed us twice, and it was real food. I got a Korean style meal, which came with detailed instructions. I think I ate raw tuna for the first time!