Autumn

Welcome to my slap-dash blog on life in Japan. This entry was written a few weeks ago, my apologies. I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been lucky to meet some very interesting people, learn a lot of language and experience such wonders as typhoons, festivals and karaoke. Teaching English is a rollercoaster you can't get off. I was surprised to find myself annoyed with the sound of slippers dragging on the floor of the school. But in Japan this doesn't seem to be considered rude and shoes are always removed when entering a home or school. On the flip side, I somebody eventually kindly pointed out that I could be seen as discourteous by giving money at a cash register with the face of the depicted celebrity facing downwards. These and many other cultural differences are part of the journey and I hope I can help our two countries to see each other’s perspectives through my experience here.

My neighbours preparing the local portable shrine for the autumn festival. This is a huge wooden shed purpose-built (I think). Most neighbourhoods seem to have them and yet this shrine is one of the smaller ones. They carry it by those beams protruding from the bottom, on their shoulders, while someone sits inside it and plays the taiko drum:

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I live in a beautiful old mining town surrounded by nature, and full of history and culture. In the mountains of Western Japan, Ikuno has a population of only 2500. It was once a thriving silver mining centre, one of the largest mines in the world. The town has shrunk since the mine closed in the 1970s but it retains a great many beautiful old-style buildings, made with raw wood which has turned black with time.

This is a design carved into the wall above a doorway in an old historic building in the town, from its heyday in the mining era. There are many such buildings but this one boasts unique European features such as a Downton Abbey telephone and a European-style lounge room:

 

 

Ikuno is an old town, and its residents seem to proudly take a lot of care in maintaining its beauty where they can. This is a classic look from a Japanese garden, even where the front yard is tiny.

I live on the banks of a river and we’re surrounded by mountains, covered with pines, cypress, bamboo and maple. I’ve seen many deer, white herons and frogs, as this place is quite full of nature.
On the way to one of the waterfalls near the town:
 It also has manufacturing and logging industry, and hosts the national centre for studies of the endangered giant salamander.

Here is a shot I stole of one of the waterbirds that frequents the river beside my apartment. The river is murky due to heavy rain the night before.

I live in a very spacious apartment by Japanese standards, although I wouldn’t try to swing a cat. Yoga routines have had to be modified. From the outside it’s a dingy grey concrete box, but inside it’s all wood, paper doors and floors either wood or lined with a fine straw matting called tatami. It’s high maintenance but it’s nice on the feet and mitigates the extreme heat and cold for which Japan is notorious. Of course it's also part of the Japanese cultural experience that I have wanted for many years so I’m not complaining about.

On the flip side, I have tried sleeping on the futon provided, but I’m not cut from the same cloth as the Japanese and my Australian back took it rather hard. Fortunately I had the foresight to buy my predecessor’s furniture so I have a Western-style bed. I do however appreciate the ability to host visitors without having a huge spare bed taking up space when nobody's there!

The teachers’ apartments are right next to the school so it takes me all of five minutes to walk to school, in time for the 8:10am staff meeting every morning. The Japanese are strict about time, and all staff stand up simultaneously as the 8:10am bell rings. It’s hard for me coming from Australia and for someone who tends to be late, to be on time for everything, but I seem to have made the grade somehow. In fact, it kinda simplifies things to be sure that people will essentially be there when scheduled, except if there has been a real mishap.

The teachers are all quite interesting, and in the classroom I get to hear all the casual chat I ever could have wanted in my studies of the Japanese language. The local dialect is slowly descending upon me, with all its degrees of kids’ talk, blokes’ slang and women’s politeness. I never believed people when they said Japanese teachers work both days of every weekend, often public holidays, and 12 hours on weekdays, and commute at least an hour each way due to a mandatory reassignment system. But now I have seen it with my own eyes I don’t wonder they’re always tired. They do work hard and don’t complain but it makes me value Australian consideration for work/life balance and how we manage health and safety.

In my short time here I’ve experienced a Japanese school sports festival, which is similar to an Australian sports day but with different events, some a little dangerous and others totally endearing, like dances and a coordinated warm-up routine to music. I’ve lived through a Japanese summer now, and the heat and humidity reminded me of the Northern Territory. The staffroom has no fans and the aircon is only allowed when the temperature is above 28 degrees so I have developed my stoicism. If there is a cross-breeze through the windows it misses me so I have also acquired an appreciation for traditional hand-held fans. As I write, the third typhoon in as many months is on its way towards us. Fortunately my town has no earthquakes nor flood risk so I count myself lucky I have only landslides and typhoons to worry about.

This is the view from my house in autumn:

 

As for teaching, the students are wonderful, and I can see why teachers go the extra mile to help them. I’m at a senior high school, teaching the equivalent of years 10 to 12 (called years 1 to 3 in senior high school). We have some who really love it, even though they are still reluctant to speak it lest they put a foot wrong. There are others who during the sports festival got me up and coached me in English to do the dance moves, and I was quite touched. By the way, for the Main Roads folks reading this, Japan uses “grade separation” to maintain cleanliness inside buildings, with schools having lockers at the entrance where everyone leaves their outside shoes and changes to inside shoes from their lockers. They even have shelves in the lockers to make sure we don’t get our inside shoes dirty. Many restaurants, public bath houses and other buildings have these low entranceways also, some providing slippers for you which you take off before walking on tatami mats. In fact, it was only in the early 20^th century that restaurants started a new innovation of allowing shoes inside. It’s something to see when masculine blokes in the school staffroom clack around in slippers instead of boots.

The school's courtyard garden.

To break some of the ice, I made some Australian foods like lemon slice and pavlova. Alas many ingredients are simply not available, like baking powder, lamb and coconut, so I have to be creative. Even their pumpkins are different so pumpkin soup was ultra-thick. My efforts have definitely helped get to know people, although my neighbours don’t make it easy – for every container of sweets I can make they come back with a delectable freshly-cooked meal. Once they even used rice harvested the previous day from their field.

I was delighted to meet the family of a Japanese friend who lives in Australia. They live in Kobe, a city in the same region which is famous for Kobe Beef, sake production and for a massive earthquake that devastated the city in the 1990s. Her family there have taken me into their lovely home which seems to exemplify Kobe’s international focus, arising from its history as one of the first ports to be opened to the outside world in the late 19^th century. I’ve even had a home cooking lesson where I showed them pavlova in return for them showing me dumplings and stew. Going to a concert in Kobe with them was a real highlight, with a magnificent concert of the highest quality Russian music, complete with harp, contrabassoon and everything. But in the end it was the hospitality that was really memorable. Here they have made me a birthday cake!

English teaching in Japan is a big deal, with five thousand foreigners coming to Japan at the same time I did and 11 just in my municipality. My prefecture, Hyogo, has the second most of any part of Japan, only trumped by Tokyo. The wonderful people at the Hyogo Prefectural Government Cultural Centre in Perth who helped me get here do such a great job promoting it in Australia and I’m so glad they do. Hyogo has much more to see than meets the eye. It reminds me of the driving tours of as a child when my grandmother said "yes, there's more to Nyah West than you think."

I talk with Tom every day via internet phone, and while it’s not easy like this I will get to see him when he visits for a month at Christmas. We plan to go and see our friends in the south to experience a Japanese New Year in winter, and we are very much looking forward to it. For those who know, I’m talking about Kochi, where my sister Wama once did a similar thing to what I'm doing now. And it’s on her account among others, that I strive to find peace with Japanese noodle-slurping. Those of you out there still thinking of visiting, time is a-wasting and with the Olympics around the corner the airfares will only go up. I am in the tourism class and have the inside line to
many things not on the map. Please visit us!

Another artwork from the culture festival.


This is a way of eating noodles where you receive a lot of tiny plates with not much on them. One of the creative ways of eating Japan loves. This type has made the castle town of Izushi famous, and after eating them, you some of the water the noodles were cooked in to your leftover sauce and it becomes a tasty soup! However, they are not served hot. I find that room temperature foods are a cultural difference that's often challenging for Australians.

Inside Ikuno Silver Mine, now a museum for Japan's industrial history.

An example of bonsai from the local culture festival:



A view from the top of a mountain formerly the site of Ikuno Castle, walking distance from my house. You can see right to the next town.

This is just a nice shot I noticed while jogging in town.

A popular summer festival treat, taiyaki. Literally "grilled sea bream", it's obviously a baked treat filled with Japanese adzuki bean paste (commonly used in their sweets) made in a fish-shaped jaffle iron. This version with soft serve icecream in Himeji was a welcome refreshment on a hot summer day.

 

The first day of orientation, with many of my fellow recruits.

 

Our dear friends in Kochi, taking me to the river to put my feet in some welcome cool water.

A shot from a local buddhist festival, where a pyre covered in green cypress branches is burnt to produce smoke a thick smoke, thought to have a purifying effect.