Measuring Student Growth (Literally)

One of the things that was stressed to JET ALTs at the various orientations was that we need to find ways to become “a part of the school.” We were encouraged to join clubs and sit in on classes. Do these things actually work?

In my experience, it worked best when I was invited to things, such as the cooking class. Whenever I tried to just volunteer to help, such as by asking if I should go out on the community clean up day, or if I could be designated a spot to clean with the students during the daily cleaning time, I was always met with “uh” or “you don’t have to do that.” I never really felt like I was an integrated part of my current school because I wasn’t involved with anything other than the one class I taught, and the old ESS neglected to tell me many things about how the club was running. This contributed to my feeling that I wasn’t being taken as a member of the school.

To my surprise I was asked to help with the students’ physicals that they had last week. This year, there’s two teachers who are pulling double duty as sub-homeroom teacher for two homerooms each, so I figured we were simply understaffed. (Later I was told that there were many teachers out on business trips that day, and that’s why I had been recruited to help.) Even so, I was genuinely happy that I had been given this responsibility that had nothing to do with my regular ALT duties.

In one day all students get basic tests such as having their weight and height measured, and taking vision and hearing tests. Exams requiring specialized knowledge or tools are handled by doctors and nurses, but the height and weight stations are manned by teams of teachers and students; the teachers taking turns measuring and relaying the information to the student in charge of writing this down on students’ results cards. I was asked to handle one of the stations for measuring sitting height (座高).  The teacher I was supposed to have been taking turns with hadn’t gotten a chance to eat lunch, so we decided that I would just go for the first hour and she would go for the second hour.

It went pretty smoothly; after all I only had to read numbers off the ruler in the vicinity of 75-100. There were some students who ended up shorter than they had been the previous year, but when I asked the boy writing down the results if this was possible or if I was messing up, he simply said “It’s alright” like it was nothing to worry about. Interestingly enough, the boys were more likely than the girls to try to cheat the test by slouching or putting their heads into their shoulders like turtles, though all were terrified of getting a high number for this measurement (e.g. they were scared of having most of their height be in their torso rather than in their legs).

As entertaining as all of that was, what I found interesting was that I felt more like a member of the school in that one hour of taking students’ height than I ever had before.

Take Out the Cannons and You’ve Got What It’s Like To Be an ALT

Tags

commercial, Cup Noodles, Nisshin, Survive!グローバリゼーション編

I was peacefully painting my nails pink and green to take the place of the already fallen sakura petals for the upcoming Entrance Ceremony while watching The Tourist on TV when I saw the most awesomest commercial ever. Yes, its level of epicness requires the use of incorrectly formed superlatives and nouns.

The full 60-second spot isn’t on YouTube so I can’t embed it, but here it is on Nisshin’s website.

While I can’t catch all of the dialogue, I did my best to do a a transcription and translation.

[Globalization]

President: From today, our company’s official language will be English!
Employees: Whaaa?
(The army sallies forth)
Cavalryman 1: What’s the President thinking?
Cavalryman 2: I got 300 on the TOEIC*…guess I have to change jobs huh.
Cavalryman 1: I’m only Eiken level 3.** I couldn’t possibly use English now…
Cavalryman 2: If it were Japanese (??????)
Cavalryman 1: Is that the new boss?
Boss: Hi!
Vanguard: (While charging) Hi!!
Boss: Nice to meet you!
(The Japanese vanguard is hit by the cannonade)
Vanguard: What great pronunciation!***
Vanguard: It’s no good!
Vanguard: (???) the dictionary, the dictionary!
Vanguard: It’s no use!
Commander: (Orders archers to fire)
Archers: Howatto iz yoa neemu?!!!! (Fire arrows)
(The volley falls short of the Western army)
Boss: Pardon?
(The second wave of the vanguard gets hit by cannon fire)
(Someone): He didn’t understand!
(Someone): His pronunciation…it’s too good!
(Someone): Good score!
Cavalryman 1: (Brandishing sword) Don’t take Eiken Level 3 lightly!!!
Cavalry: (Charging) Good morning!
Boss: (Aims gun) How are you?
Cavalry: Fine, thank you! And youuuuuu?!?!!
Caption: You can’t fight on an empty stomach.
Cavalryman 1: (Jumps from his horse, bringing his sword down on the soldiers in the midst of the Western army)
Voiceover: Survive. Cup Noodle. Nisshin.

Notes
*TOEIC = Test of English for International Communication. A composite score of 300 would indicate extremely low English competency; a good score would be 855 to the max of 990. Well, so says Wikipedia.

**Eiken = The EIKEN Test in Practical English Proficiency, also known as the STEP Test. It has 7 total levels, level 3 corresponding to the level expected of Japanese students after completing junior high school.

***While it seems strange at first to say that the native speakers have great pronunciation, it stems from the idea that Japanese are so used to hearing katakana English that they are surprised by how different natural English as spoken by native speakers sounds, sometimes to the point of not being able to understand it even if they would have understood the katakana version.

~~~

Ahahaha…so there it is. Judging by the sound effect at the end, it seems Cavalryman 1 was able to land a direct hit on one of the Western soldiers, though in the video it looked like they all cleared out of the way.

In case Nisshin takes the CM off their site after a while, here’s the 30-second edit on YouTube.

My favorite lines:

英検３級なめるな！！！

How are you?

XDDDD

I think I’m gonna have to buy a cup of Cup Noodles to thank Nisshin for entertaining me, while not thinking about Cavalryman 1 potentially having killed a native speaker of English with English as his weapon. >o<;;;

Momohiro

Tags

Momotaro

This probably amuses me more than it should.

The final assignment before finals that I gave the students was to research any world mythology and share one story or episode from it. My plan had been to put the best speeches on display, but alas, too few students seem to understand the concept of using folders/clear files to not let papers get raggedy, and that of writing neatly. So I hit upon the idea of having them turn their speeches into illustrated mini-books. Ever since an ALT used mini-books made from a single piece of paper in their presentation at one of the ALT meetings I had been looking for a project to use these in.

I made three sample mini-books using the stories we had read in class together, namely that of Orion and the Scorpion, Echo the Nymph, and a modified version of Momotarou. I called it “Momohiro.” >o<;

When giving students writing assignments, if you don’t explicitly say “Don’t use Momotarou!” you will get several Momotarous, often with no variation on the most well-known version. I actually needed an easy story to demonstrate how to divide text into paragraphs, so I choose Momotarou since then understanding the words themselves wouldn’t get in the way of understanding how paragraphs are used to create flow. But I just can’t bring myself to tell that story as it is. I’ve heard it and read it ten trillion times. When I had to write that story in the Japanese class I go to here, I made Momotarou talk like a Sengoku era warlord. This time I figured I could at least change the details.

Of the different suffixes for boys’ names (e.g. tarou, hiko, suke, etc) I like the ring of “hiro” the best. Hence, “Momohiro.” Ahahaha…

Without further ado, here are photos of the sample book. My camera’s been acting up lately so it looks like the paper is canvas what with those lines, but it’s just a regular sheet of A3 paper. Enjoy!

☆

JLPT Results

Now that the JLPT isn’t exactly pass-fail, but A Pass, B Pass, Fail, I can say that I passed. Well, not that I ever took the old-format JLPT, but I think under that system my score would’ve fallen into the failing category.

Even if it is in the B-group, I’m glad I passed N1 before my time in Japan is up. Woo!

The Beginning of the End

Happy New Year?

Ahahaha…it has now been over two months since the Arashi concert in Osaka. I think it’s fair to say at this point that I will never write a post about it. It was great, it was fun, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t have it in me right now.

To be honest, I’ve been quite miserable for the past several months. The concerts were the only thing I was looking forward to. Oh, and the Translation Course seminar. Basically, anything that would get me out of my school.

Lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve worked really hard, and mostly for nothing. Other people come here to travel for a year and “find themselves” while they incidentally happen to be employed by the Japanese government. I never had much respect for these types. But now I think that they were right all along. To a great extent, that’s all that’s expected of ALTs anyway. And those that do more don’t get much for their troubles.

That’s what I’ve been feeling for the past several months anyway.

Even though I had made up my mind not to seek reappointment while I was resting in the States, I wanted to discuss it with my supervisor and vice principal first. I was caught off guard when on my first day back in Fukuoka, still messed up from jet lag and not in the best of moods, my supervisor asked me if I was staying or not. The part of my brain that was awake and rational was saying, “Don’t answer that! Don’t answer that right now!” But my Autopilot said, “I think I should go home,” to which my supervisor replied with an “Oh” and ran off somewhere. I was confused, as I assumed my inclusion of “I think” would’ve shown I wasn’t 100% sure. Well, maybe we’ll discuss it later, I thought.

Meanwhile, classes and English Club continued as always. Well, not exactly. A student who participates in class a lot joined English Club. Our first freshman member! Things were starting to seem not so detestable. That night when I got back to my desk in the shokuinshitsu after English Club finished I found a copy of a letter from the prefecture offering an extension of my contract. It was three weeks before the February 5th deadline. Tired from the long day, I stuffed it into a drawer on my desk, not wanting to go through the options for the umpteenth time. I thought, “I’ve got time to think.”

To my surprise the next day one of the school secretaries comes with the original letter and gives it to my supervisor, who confirms where I should sign for “not recontracting.” Hmm, an interesting choice of words, I thought. Then my supervisor puts the paper in front of me, points to the line for “not recontracting,” and tells me to sign it.

I just looked at her for a bit.

There were several things going on in the back of my mind in this instant.

I was thinking, “Is this really how this is going down? Really? After I’ve stayed after school till 7, 8, 9 at night working on stuff, correcting essays for students I don’t even have class with, making bulletin boards, after I’ve given you 4 years of my life, we’re not even going to discuss this? You’re not going to ask me why?”

I remembered reading somewhere, maybe it was the CLAIR newsletter, that while contracting organizations may push their ALTs for early answers, that ALTs should remember that they have until February to decide whether to recontract or not. I was thinking, “Why are they pushing this on me in such a hurry? Was my performance not satisfactory?”

Well, I had already told my mother that I’d be going home in August. And if my school didn’t care enough to even have a discussion, then it wasn’t going to be worth giving them another year of my life. So I signed the papers saying I wasn’t staying on and saw them get filed faster than anything.
I was like @_@???? I didn’t feel good about it all. While I felt like I would have regretted either staying or going, the way that whole business with the recontracting papers was handled left a bad taste in my mouth. I cracked even more jokes in class than usual to try not to let my bad mood bring the class down. I wondered if anyone would notice that I was laughing too much.

Things were starting to get better. I got over my jet lag induced insomnia (the opposite of when I go to the States; there I become narcoleptic), the atmosphere at work seemed better…then there was today’s ALT meeting that left me cursing like a sailor.

Lately we’ve been having guest speakers at these ALT meetings, which is a great thing. But I was blown away by what today’s guest speaker, a JTE, had to say.The topic of his seminar was the New Course of Study for English Education. He told us that no matter what, English education, as taught by teachers (not as envisioned by the Ministry of Education) focused on getting students ready for the university entrance exam. No big surprise there. This is something that’s been openly acknowledged for a while now. What blew me away was the teacher’s suggestion of what ALTs’ role within the New Course of Study would be.

“What can ALTs do?” said the PowerPoint slide.

The speaker’s answer: “Pronounce words.”

Pronounce words? Pronounce…words? ………really?

So…basically you’re saying the Japanese government spends how much money on getting flesh and blood employees over to Japan so that they can…pronounce words?

The dreaded Human Tape Player emerges.

Then he added that by having ALTs in the room it creates a situation where students HAVE to speak English.

So yeah. We’re here to pronounce words and force students to do something they otherwise have zero motivation and reason to do. Man, was I angry after that! It’s so absurd all I can really do is laugh.

At moments like those, I feel like I made the right choice. I’m going to miss the English Club students, I’m going to miss seeing the senior members take leading roles in the Sports Festival, I’m going to miss their graduations. I’m going to miss the freedom to move around by bicycle and train, to go where I want when I want. I’m going to miss being a member of GACKT’s official fanclub and going to his concerts.But I can’t say that I’m going to miss being this ill-defined and ever more ambiguous thing called an ALT. I’m not going to miss people who don’t give me papers because they assume I can’t read them, or people who give me papers and say, “Oh, but you can’t read it, it’ll be good study then. Hahaha.” I’m not going to miss having 40 pairs of eyes looking blankly through me.

Well, 39 pairs of eyes. There’s usually one in each homeroom who’s listening, and I don’t know what I’d do without them.

Osaka Concert Weekend: Before the Storm

Tags

Dotonburi, Imamiya Ebisu, kamameshi, Osaka, Tsutenkaku, 今宮戎神社

Before getting to the post about ARASHI’s show…

In the early afternoon, before the show, I went to look around the city with one of my friends. It would be the last chance for me to sightsee in Osaka this weekend.

We walked to the Shinsekai District to see the tower Tsuutenkaku.

There was a one hour wait to go up into the tower, so we gave up on that.

Then we came across Imamiya Ebisu Shrine (今宮戎神社).

A view from the rear of the main hall.

We noticed that there were only women at the shrine and figured that maybe this was a shrine for wishing for good marriage or childbirth. While I still don’t know why they were there, after looking around on the shrine website I wonder if they were women who were applying to be “fukumusume” (福娘), special shrine maidens for the Tooka Ebisu Festival in January. I came across this interesting blog post by an international student at Ritsumeikan University who actually got to be a fukumusume.

After that my friend and I hurried back to the Namba area to meet up with three other friends–one who had come in from Singapore, and another from California, to see the ARASHI show. Once everyone was gathered, we went for lunch at a kamameshi restaurant. In brief, “kamameshi” is a style of cooking that involves using a metal pot called a “kama.” Now, you can go to restaurants and have your own individual-serving pot.

“Tori San Shoku Kamameshi,” or “Tri-Colored Chicken Kamameshi.”

After lunch it was pretty much time to head over to the Kyocera Dome for the show. Since there was a Dolce & Gabana store nearby, I did suggest we go there just to see if GACKT was there shopping before his show. >o<; Not having found him, we headed for the Dome.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say that these sculptures on store signs are characteristic of Osaka. Maybe it’s just the Namba/Doutonburi area?

☆

次回！Okay, for real this time. We make storm!

Osaka Concert Weekend: Camui Gakuen Osaka Branch School

Tags

Camui Gakuen, Camui Gakuen de Dashinasai, GACKT, Gakuensai, Osaka

I’m writing this from my mother’s house in Detroit. Well, I started writing this post over a month ago, but mid-November through December was crazy busy. So as I lie here at six in the morning on Christmas Eve Eve waiting for my non-jet-lagged family to wake up so I can go eat breakfast, I figured I should get Lucky Hill up to date. ^o^;

Onward to Catch-Up Post One of Five!

The weekend of Nov. 17-18, I went up to Osaka with some friends for two concerts. We flew to Osaka and before we even got there, we ran into GACKT.

I picked up ANA’s magazine, flipped it open, and happened to land on this ad. ♡

On the way to the venue, Intex Osaka.

Saturday’s show was the first day of this year’s “Gakuensai,” the school festival of the Camui Gakuen. This time it was called “Camui Gakuen de Dashinasai,” which I think we can translate as “Let it all hang out at the Camui School Festival.” Or something like that.

At these shows GACKT plays the character of Student Council President, and we must thus address him as “Kaichou” (会長). “Students” must attend the shows wearing a school uniform or something that can pass for a uniform. There are many other “school rules,” and I was a bit surprised to find them posted in Japanese, English, Korean, and Chinese.

Click to read at full size! Ahaha…I just noticed that while the Korean and Chinese translations have the ♂ (symbol for Mars/men) the English translation leaves it out.

The 購買部, or “Cooperative Store” where you can buy goods. While the high schools I’ve worked at in Fukuoka have 売店, a little store that sells stationery, I’ve never seen a student-run store like the DECA stores in many American high schools.

The show opened one hour late. It started with the usual singing of the school song and explanation of the rules by the Kyoutou-sensei. There was a Mr. and Ms. Camui Gakuen who got school blazers with huge epaulets to wear. On top of the usual picking of “chairman” and “vice chairmen” to take photographs of the students, there was also an award ceremony for the students who had gotten the highest scores in the Camui Gakuen mobile phone game. If I had known that playing said game would earn one the chance to get called up to the stage and shake GACKT’s hand I would’ve played it! Then there was the introduction of “F9,” the upperclassmen, who this year consisted of:

(Left to right) Back row: Taya, Shinnosuke, Kazuya, Hayato and Baru of Duel Jewel (I don’t know which is which), and Wong. Front row: Takumi, YOU, Seito Kaichou, and Chachamaru. I’m still not sure if we’re supposed to count Kaichou as part of F9, but seeing as this is a “Hana Yori Dango” reference I assume that he is a part of it.

After this there was a play making fun of MOON SAGA Yoshitsune Hiden. It was called “Yoshitsune Kaden” (「義経家電」) meaning “Yoshitsune Home Appliances.” It opens with Benkei running on stage with a bag from Yodobashi Camera. Otherwise it had nothing to do with electronics. Chachamaru played Tomoe, Takumi played Yoshinaka, YOU played Hiyori, Kazuya played Kage, and one of the Duel Jewel guys played Yoshitsune. After Kazuya recreated Kage’s fight scene, Yoshitsune tried his hand at fighting the whatever-monster-shadow-thing that was, but had to do it with a hair dryer. >o<

Then there was intermission. At this time you could either line up to buy goods or food and hope that you got to meet the band members, who go out briefly to serve in the Cafeteria (ショック堂 not 食堂) and the Store, or line up to be photographed by the chairpersons, whose “collected smiles” end up in a yearbook of sorts sent to fanclub members later. My friends and I lined up to get goods and food, but I think none of us got to meet any member of F9.

After the intermission, the concert part finally started. Like a school festival where student rock bands perform covers, GACKT’s band covered such singers, bands, and groups as Mika Nakashima, GLAY, L’arc~en~Ciel, Shonan no Kaze, X Japan, and…we’ll come back to this later. XD He did sing one of his own songs, namely “Graffiti.”

My third favorite part of this show was Takumi’s “saxophone solo.” I don’t remember exactly what song this happened during (maybe the Checkers’ “Namida no Request”). Before the performance Seito Kaicho tells us that Takumi has been learning to play the saxophone just for this solo. There’s two or three parts in the song for the sax solo–but Takumi never quite plays! This was a reference to how Takumi didn’t go through with bungee jumping for the Nico Nico Douga YELLOW FRIED CHICKENz show. At the very end of the song, Takumi lets out one completely out of tune and improperly blown note.

My second favorite part of this show was when the band briefly covered L’arc~en~Ciel’s 「花葬」(“Kasou” which, written as 火葬 means “cremation” but here is written with the character for flower rather than fire). This is one of my absolute favorite L’arc songs. GACKT sang only the chorus, with Shinnosuke up on a ladder throwing flower petals at him, and other members sweeping the petals about on stage with huge brooms. But more amusingly, he impersonated HYDE’s wiggly dancing. About midway through GACKT stopped the dancing; one of my friends said that it was because he was on the verge of busting out laughing and so had to stop dancing.

My favorite part of this show was without a doubt the grand finale. It was…AKB48′s “Heavy Rotation”!

XDDD

Now, I don’t particularly like AKB48 or that song. But seeing GACKT having a blast dressed like a schoolgirl with little pink pom-poms in his hair, wearing the shortest skirt on stage, totally nailing every move in that dance, and smiling a smile that seemed to just be bursting out of him…♡♡♡! We were also very lucky in that we were seated not only in the 7th row, but also to the right of the stage, meaning that we had a nice view during a particular part of that dance. XDDD

After the show we went for one more round at the Cooperative Store, took more photos with the cardboard cutouts, and talked to some fans. I ran into some Fukuoka DEARS, as well as a fan I’d seen about the GACKT fan interwebs (who has a post with the show’s setlist–I hope you don’t mind me linking to you!).

Then my friends and I headed for Doutonbori (道頓堀), the famous street in Osaka that has the Glico billboard. (And I just now realized that I didn’t take a picture of it with my camera. >o<;;;; I’ll have to ask my friends to send me the pics they took.) We had takoyaki from a stall and then went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and reminisced about the show. Then we went to our hotels and called it a night.

☆

次回！：嵐、嵐、for dream.

The Hefty Hideaway

Tags

online shopping, plus size clothes, plus size shopping, Rakuten

My English Club has been obsessed with dancing lately. It started when they said they wanted to learn a simple dance, and I suggested “The Cupid Shuffle” and “The Cha Cha Slide” because it just doesn’t get any easier than dancing to songs that give you directions. They learned these and remixed the Cupid Shuffle quite a bit. They then taught these dances to junior high school students at this year’s Open Campus.

After that came the Halloween party. When the club captain was told that throwing pies at people was out of the question, she turned to me once again for a dance. Of course I suggested the “Thriller” dance, and the club members had a blast “dancing with Michael.”

Now that that’s done, they turned to the next thing: preparing for the next culture festival. Since they want to sing and dance, they figured they’d start practicing early. This time, the inspiration is the 2007 movie Hairspray. Specifically, the song “Welcome to the 60s.”

As this scene takes place in what would now be called a “plus size” store, Mr. Pinky’s Hefty Hideaway, I found myself explaining what “hefty” and “hideaway” meant, and why the store in the movie is called that. I told them that even when I was a growing up department stores tended to put their plus size sections in the back, far from the main entrance, and that there were few shops that sold larger clothes. But even as I said that, I wondered if the club members were getting the impression that now shopping for larger sizes was easy and that being fat wasn’t frowned upon by a lot of people.

Interestingly, this all was going on around the same time I was discovering more of the “big size” specialty shops on Rakuten. The Japanese Amazon is completely useless for plus size clothes, but Rakuten’s specialty shops are well organized and often have detailed sizing AND dimension info per garment in centimeters, not made up vanity sizes that mean who the hell knows what. The only bad thing about these online shops are the models.

Is this really a “big size” specialty shop?

Fashion-wise, the above shop, Gold Japan, is my favorite. A bit pricier than the shop Queen which I had mostly been using before, but the quality of the garments is also higher, so I think it’s worth it. But these models, I think, don’t look like they would be considered “big” even by Japanese standards. Well, some of them seem taller than average, but otherwise too little for the clothes they’re selling. (That is to say, the garments often aren’t even offered in the smaller size the model must be.) It doesn’t bother me that there aren’t plus size brick & mortar shops in Japan; there isn’t a big enough market here for such stores. (No pun intended.) But it is a little disappointing that even online plus size specialty shops use only thin models. Not only because it feels like a slap in the face, but also because then it becomes harder to know if the garment will look the same way on me as it does on the model.

Great piece, but what happens when those mosquito bites turn into juicy, juicy mangoes?

(Ten points if you got that reference.)

I’ve gotten pretty good at picking the right size by measuring myself, measuring garments I already have that fit me well, and taking into account what fit the garment is supposed to have (e.g., if it’s something that’s meant to be worn big as was extremely popular here back in 2009-2010, I actually order it one size smaller than usual as wearing baggy clothes usually isn’t flattering on a bigger body). But as with the shirt above, it’s harder to tell. If the top of the black part of the shirt ends up at the bust line it can be a good look, but if it’s in the center of the breasts you end up with button nipples.

Sometimes in the shop Queen I’ll find clothing modeled by a woman who looks to be just a wee bit bigger than what’s considered fashionable in Japan–but her face is always cropped out. From what I can see of her face I think it’s the same woman in all the shots where the face is obscured.

Mystery Model

I assume this was done with the model’s permission, if not by specific request. Given the pressure to be thin, especially in Japan, I wouldn’t be surprised if bigger women would be ashamed to publicly model plus size clothes. Then again, who knows, maybe plus size Japanese women prefer to shop with thin models.

From Ashley Stewart’s site, for the sake of comparison. It’s not so hard to sell plus size clothing with plus size models, is it?

おまけ!

An article I came across and the inappropriate ad to the right. *Headkotatsu*

FAIL Mercedes Benz, FAIL

I Can’t Tell If This Is Subversive Or Clueless

Tags

teaching materials

I was cleaning my apartment and I found a copy of the first year students’ post-summer vacation English proficiency test. It included a passage that left me scratching my head:

“In Japanese television programs, we see a commentator at one side of the small screen and an assistant at the other. The commentator is usually male and middle-aged. The assistant is usually female, young and often pretty. He comments on various topics, and she assists. However, she assists so little that, to our eyes, she might as well not be there at all. She only nods at the camera when he makes various statements, and says So desu ne when he makes an important point. She never presents an idea of her own. To many Americans watching these two, the situation might seem strange indeed. We are certainly used to double commentators, but usually each commentator really comments and both are equals. In this common style of Japanese television, the pretty girl seems absolutely unnecessary. We fail to understand her role. Yet she has a very important one.
A commentator is, by definition, giving his opinion. In the West, this is quite enough. In Japan, however, giving an opinion in public makes him appear too self-centered, and this is a fault in a society where unity of opinion is an important value. The attractive, nearly silent, young assistant emphasizes this value. Her nods and expressions of agreement indicate that he is not alone in his opinion and that therefore he is not just self-centered. Rather, he is saying a truth, because at least one person agrees with what he says. At the same time she introduces harmony by indicating that we all agree – after all, she is nodding to us – and the unity of opinion has already been reached.”

By the end of the first paragraph I thought the text was going to focus on why the assistant was usually a pretty young woman, as opposed to another older man, an older woman, or a not so pretty young one. The older man-attractive young woman combo is certainly not unique to Japan; while not as blatant on modern American television, any Hispanic person who has watched the news or infotainment shows on Univision would find the pattern familiar. But instead, the second paragraph focused on how the girl was there to preserve harmony.

I can understand that, but it didn’t erase the question from my mind: why did the author of this passage emphasize so many times that the assistant was a pretty young girl and then completely ignore that point? After all, if the assistant’s role is just to preserve harmony, the assistant’s physical appearance and sex shouldn’t matter; all that’s needed is a nodding head.

Of course, if this is an excerpt from a much longer passage, it’s possible the point was addressed. This passage certainly isn’t from the Reading textbook, so I don’t know where it came from. If the point wasn’t addressed, I’d like to think that the point was at least not lost on the author, and that they were just writing what they could without making waves.

Violence

Tags

current-events, violence

I was having dinner with some friends when one says, “Did you hear about the stabbings in Hakata Station?” Apparently, some guy just suddenly got the urge to stab people Friday night/early Saturday morning. Thankfully, there were no fatalities, and only one person was seriously injured. (Here’s an article in English about it.)

Up till now, the random stabbing sprees that occurred in Japan always seemed far away. Not that they were common anyway. It’s true that Fukuoka has one of the highest crime rates in Japan, but that seems to be mostly because of all the yaks. And with things like that, as long as you’re not involved with them, you tend to be safe.

Growing up in the City of Detroit, I learned to always have my guard up. But I also knew that random crime was uncommon. Most crime, in any place, tends to go on between people who know each other. Yes, sometimes completely innocent people get caught in the cross fire. And sometimes family members get mixed up in a relative’s mess. But for the most part, looking at crime overall, I always figured I’d be more likely to get beat up by a boyfriend than to be assaulted at random by a stranger, especially since back then I obviously wasn’t carrying a single thing worth stealing.

Suffice it to say, I find completely random violence pretty disturbing. There’s no way you can guard against a stranger who suddenly decides this is gonna be the day they slash or shoot people up.

I found myself thinking, “Thank goodness people in Japan don’t have guns.” If someone open fired with an automatic or semiautomatic weapon in a place as jam-packed as Hakata Station, it’d be a blood bath.

Recently I saw on the news here the story of Yoshihiro Hattori, an exchange student who was shot and killed 20 years ago in Louisiana when he went to the wrong house for a Halloween party and the homeowner thought he was trying to break in (despite Hattori’s having rung the doorbell). I was just a kid when it happened, so I don’t remember if I knew about this incident back then. But seeing it on the news here, and reading up about it, I thought, “I wonder if this is the reason my English Course students, when doing skits that took place in the States, would ALWAYS have a part where one of them gets shot.” There was always something too personal in the sense of persecution they seemed to display. It wasn’t just the idea that everyone in the States had a gun, it was the idea that if they went to the States, they would be shot by these weapons.

Reading about Hattori, I couldn’t help thinking of Trayvon Martin. How many other unarmed youths have been shot and killed at close range without provocation?

I’ve noticed an increase in police patrols in my city. I hardly ever used to see police cars at all. I don’t think it’s that I didn’t notice them; even though I never had anything to hide from the police, I can’t say I trust them completely, so I tend to note their presence. Now I often see them rolling around with their lights flashing.

Meanwhile, Detroit was getting more bad press. I saw this article this morning. More than the article itself, the comments made me sad. Here is a city in need of TLC, and all people can say is “raze it to the ground” and “it’s the minorities’ fault.”

*Sigh*